Getting Ready!

Hi, everyone!

After my adventure at Barefoot Park, Thomas said I needed a tubby!  He was right!  My fur was very dirty, especially on my paws and bottom.  Since it’s not the time of year to take a snow bath, Grandma gave me a spa treatment!  First, she used carpet shampoo and gave me a scrub to lift out the dirt.  Then she let me take a sunbath to dry out.  After that, she gave me a toss in baking soda and brushed out my fur.  I feel like a new lion!

I’m glad I’m nice and clean, because I got invited to a private art show!  Sharon-san is my buddy who helped Grandma and Grandpa decide how to redecorate their house.  She says the best picture anybody has ever taken of her is one I’m in, too!  Sharon-san started a big painting before I met her, but then some very hard things happened in her life.  She wasn’t sure she could ever finish the painting, but now she has!  She invited some friends to celebrate and see the new painting, and Grandma said I could go, too!  First Sharon-san showed everybody the drawings she did that remind her of a special friend.  Then we all went downstairs to her studio for the unveiling of her painting.  It shows the last play in the last baseball game in Silver Stadium before it closed.  She said it was hard to find the baseball in the picture, but I found it right away!

Grandma and Grandpa and I have been working on the garage firewall project, too!  I helped Grandpa put in some of the small pieces of wallboard above the big sheets, but I was too little to help with the very final piece!  Then Grandma and I started finishing the wallboard seams.  First we put special tape on them, then we covered the tape with wallboard compound.  Grandma says using wallboard compound is just like icing a cake:  you have to know when to quit or you mess up what you’ve already done!  We made a shelf in the rafters to be able to reach the very highest seams!

Last Sunday, we took a break from the firewall job and went out to the bay.  Grandpa mowed the lawn and Grandma fed the azaleas and did some weeding.  The lake level is going down some more, but not fast enough for us to put out docks!  I did see some of my summer flower friends.  The penstemon and lily were given to us by guests in memory of Uncle Bill.  This year the lily is going to have lots of flowers!  My wildflower friends are pretty, too!

This year, the Fourth of July fireworks we always watch at Sodus have been postponed until Labor Day because of the high water.  We came back into Fairport and celebrated the holiday by working on the firewall!  First, Grandma and I had to sand the joint compound down until it was level and smooth.  That makes so much dust that we had to wear masks and goggles!  Then Grandma and I put two coats of paint all over the wall!  There was one section we had to leave for later.  Grandpa couldn’t get the water turned off so he could fix the faucet until Wednesday!

Guess what!  We saw a mommy deer with her two fawns in our back yard, right after a storm!  That reminded me to get ready for Aunt Kara and James and Thomas to come!  I checked to make sure that James’ new booster seat was ready.  Then I reminded Grandma to pack the party mix for the trip to the airport.  We needed to have a snack along because they weren’t flying into Rochester, they were coming to Toronto, instead.  That airport is in Canada and three hours away by car, but Aunt Kara and the boys could get an inexpensive direct flight there from Brussels.  They could cross a national border to get to Brussels without any government checks, but we had to stop for immigration inspection to go pick them up.  On the way back, the immigration agent had trouble matching everybody in the car to their passports.  Thomas’ passport photo was taken when he was a tiny baby, and he doesn’t look the same at all now!  Of course, as soon as we got home we got out the Legos!

Today, Aunt Kara and James and Thomas went to visit one of Aunt Kara’s friends from grade school.  Grandma and I finished painting the last part of the firewall, where the faucet needed to be fixed.  The wall is all done! We still need to paint the new fire door, but playing with James and Thomas is more important!

Love,

Lion-san