behold, I come as a thief

Yesterday after Grant and Ike got done with basketball and Emmett was done with piano we went to a water park in Salt Lake to hang out with our friends the McAllisters.  We had a lot of fun, but I don't want to talk about that right now.  I want to complain about how poorly run it is instead.  So, there is one drinking fountain in the entire park, and it was out of order.  You could stand in line to get cups and water from one of the coolers they had filled with warm water, but most of those were empty, so there wasn't much point.  So have fun being dehydrated, which is probably a good thing anyway, because of the eight or ten toilets in the only women's restroom, four were out of order, so at all times of the day there was a minimum ten-minute wait in the line to use the bathroom.  I mean, people pee in the pool even in optimal bathroom situations, what are they going to do when there's only one bathroom and it has a ten-minute wait?  Also it has been so long since the floor was mopped that there are layers of sedimentary filth deposits around the drains in the bathroom floor--grass, mud, ancient toilet paper, and unnameable mystery substances.  Then toward the end of the day someone stole our triple tube, which is angering since they cost so much money.  John went to the tube rental place to seek redress, both of us assuming there would not be any, but we enjoy participating in social experiments. 

John:  "Hi, my wife rented tubes, and somebody came and stole our triple tube, so we were wondering if you could give us a replacement." 
Tube Rental Person:  "No, sorry.  It's against company policy." 
John:  "It's against company policy to give somebody a replacement tube when theirs gets stolen?" 
TRP:  "Yeah, we can't do anything." 
John:  "But she already paid a lot of money for it, and now we can't use it because somebody took it, and you can't get us a new one?  There's like a half hour left before you close, and you can't just let us use a new tube?" 
TRP:  "No, it's company policy." 
John:  "But I just barely got here, and I want to go on the slides with my kids.  Can't you bend company policy at all?"
TRP:  "No, sorry." 
John:  "So we just don't get to go on the slides, because somebody came and took our tube.  That we already paid for." 
TRP:  "There's just nothing we can do." 
John:  "So what you're saying is that I'd be an idiot to rent tubes, because if we do, someone will just take them and you won't do anything to make it right, so we won't get to use them anyway.  So if we do want tubes we should just take somebody else's, because that way I get a tube for sure, and it doesn't cost me any money.  Then if somebody comes and steals that one, I just steal another one, because that's what everybody does, and there are no consequences if we do.  That's what you're saying.  That no one should rent tubes, we should steal them.  You realize that's the behavior you're encouraging." 
TRP:  "I don't know, we just can't do anything to help you." 
John:  "Okay, I guess we'll go steal a tube then." 
TRP:  shrugs

So we walked over to the lazy river and saw a triple tube leaning against a fence and Willa said, "Hey, we could use that tube!"  So, since it was all by itself with no stuff around it marking it at all (unlike ours, which had had towels draped over it and was sitting directly on our stuff) it seemed likely that it was one of the many that people leave lying around when they leave the park.  John grabbed it and even though we figured they'd let him ride with Willa on a triple instead of a double, we wanted to continue the experiment.  So he went back to the tube rental place and said, "Hi.  I have a triple tube that I want to exchange for a double and a single."  The guy he'd talked to was talking to some other employees, and when he turned around and saw John he started to laugh, turned his back and elbowed his friends, then started whispering and pointing at John.  I think he enjoyed John's moxie.  They exchanged our poached tube and John and Willa had a delightful time riding slides for the next twenty minutes until the park closed.  So it was a very fun day, but I do wish the park were managed and maintained better. 

I promise you babe I won't do you no harm

Big, big news:  Willa can ride a bike now.  We borrowed a balance bike from Matthew and Emily and all it took was a couple of days of riding around in the driveway and the church parking lot.  Balance bikes are a legitimate process improvement.  The person who invented training wheels probably meant well, but he's looking like a pretty big idiot next to the balance bike guy.  Boy, do you like how I just assumed that both inventors were men?  Gosh, is the Patriarchy ever going to cut us a break?  Actually, I wasn't assuming they were both men, I was just using default gendered speech, which is a whole different kind of casual sexism, ha ha!  Anyway, Willa is riding up and down and hither and yon, and once we get some new tires on Ike's old bike she is going to tear it up out there. 

Ike rode his bike barefoot to a birthday party because that's what we do when we have a bandaged puncture wound we're supposed to keep clean, right? 

Emmett exploded the tube inside one of his tires on his brand new bike, which has set his riding back a bit.  He says he was just pumping it up to the recommended psi, but I have my doubts.  We ordered some of those wonderful tubes with the green slime in them, because puncture weeds are about as thick as grass around here. 

The only news on Grant this week is that he says he's almost 5'8", but I think he's fudging. 

We went to a family reunion at Grandma Maxine's yesterday.  John couldn't come because he is on a business trip in Israel building relationships of trust or something.  Too bad for him, because the Wilkers are a highly entertaining group of people, and it's always nice to spend time at the I Lazy H. 

Justine had her baby this morning, hooray!  No name for the little one yet, so I guess we can just call her Baby.  It's got a nice ring to it. 

treacle from a treacle well

We bought Emmett a fancypants bike, because the one he had is basically a potato with wheels, and he rides it anyway.  He goes for long bicycle rides, powering through the heavy frame and clunky gears.  Let's all pause to wipe a tear about his bravery.  Anyway, we figured we spend money hand over fist on Grant, a.k.a. The Devourer, for all his basketball and soccer stuff and assorted begging, and Emmett never asks for anything, so it seemed right.  When he got on the new one (new to us--we bought it used and counted our blessings, because my word are bikes spendy) he got this cute little smile on his face and he just zoomed up and down the street. 

Ike stepped on a crowbar the other day and punctured his foot between his toes, so we rushed him over to Daniel and got stitches.  Ike was a giant worrywart about it, and I just think, for someone who doesn't like shots or pain he sure does a lot of risky/stupid things.  I knew from the time he was very small that he was going to be the child that we spent our time in the emergency room with, because he just is like that.  He is very exuberant and impetuous. 

Willa got a new rake in her mouth a while ago to have another try at not sucking her fingers, but of course it's not working, and she just jams her fingers in there anyway.  Then I made splints with popsicle sticks, and she still sucked on them.  So then I made a mitten and put it on with a zip tie so she couldn't get it off, and then Ike tightened the zip tie too tight because he loves to help, and before I could cut the zip tie Willa had grabbed some scissors and cut the mitten off.  So I got to make a new mitten, and I was quite angry about this, because I am really really sick and tired of Willa sucking her fingers and I have said all along we need to cast her arm, but nobody will listen to me because blah blah muscular atrophy blah blah.  I yelled at Willa very loudly when she cut off the mitten.  You've heard it said, probably about Professor Snape or something, that "his words dripped poison"?   That's where I was.  But all is well now, and her mitten is on good and tight, but not too tight, and she can wear it until school starts, and maybe, just maybe, we can break this awful habit so Willa doesn't grow up to have donkey teeth. 

Grant has been kind of a dynamo this summer.  Helping around the house, exercising, practicing his trumpet every day . . . it's been really nice. 

Claire and Nate are home from Australia, and yesterday we all went to the temple together, without John unfortunately, because John is in Israel right now for work, and we couldn't wait until he gets back because Justine is going to have her baby any day now.  We'll just have to do another big family group later.  Troy went through a month ago since she's going on a mission in September, and we didn't get to go since we were in Cedar City, and Claire was still in Australia, so it was really wonderful to be with my parents and all my sisters in such a beautiful place.  And then we went to Golden Spike for dinner and I got a gyro, so it was a pretty amazing day.