Baboon Pirates

Scribbles and Scrawls from an unrepentant swashbuckling primate.

My Photo
Name:
Location: Texas, United States

Sunday, July 15, 2012

More Island Hopping

Fun In The Sun, But Lots Of Rain, Too!

Round Two of the 2012 summer family reunion is now complete...

This time it was Dad's side of the family. They're a bit more, um, restrained than Mom's clan. Where last month's gathering had us parked out on the covered porch until the wee hours, then not stirring until 9 or 10 am, Dad's crew is up with the dawn, and safely tucked in bed by 10 pm or so.

Still, even for a bunch of Puritans, we had a pretty good time. The kiddos hit the beach, the grownups hit the Strand for shopping, and El Capitan hit the lounge chair with a tall drink and a good book.

We had the expected snit-fit from Uncle #3. After requesting a separate beach house for his sub-clan, the block & a half distance from the beach suddenly became an impossible distance, and a early morning storm left a deep puddle between the front steps and the street, which was its own catastrophe. So, he sulked most of Saturday while the rest of us ignored him.

We missed a few folks this year. Cousin Scott's family is in London, England where they've been on business for the last year. My cousin Cindy's family is up in Minneapolis, and we only see them every 4 years or so. Yet another cousin's family was AWOL, but they've got kids in competitive sports, so we rarely see them. Those rugrats better turn into Olympic-grade athletes for all the time they spend being sporty.

I got to spend a good chunk of Saturday evening with the Layabout Sailor. We held down the front porch for a while and reduced the world's population of Shiner Bock bottles & El Cubano cigars. Jim's a good guy to sit & jaw with. There's very little he doesn't know about anything that runs on bullets.

Finally, the weekend was capped off with... trouble with the truck!! Yay!!! I thought it was a bad tank of gas, but it may be another one of those damned coil-on-plug gizmos. I sputtered back into town, maxing out at 53 mph, and the engine finally started throwing codes about 8 miles from the house. So, there's another wad of cash I'll be spending.

At any rate, overall the weekend was a plus. It's good to get out of town and hang with the clan!