Humphrey, Max, and the prom

Since I mentioned Humphrey in my last post, I guess I better explain. His story starts with the fact that we have a very old sprinkler system. It has copper pipes. I mean…it’s old. We live on a hill that is made up of about 18 inches of soil and then a bunch of rocks. Another 18 inches of soil (maybe) and then a bunch of rocks…ad infinitum. So the hill shifts, the dirt settles, and the sprinkler system doesn’t cover the whole yard anymore. It leaves brown patches. I’m sure this could be fixed somehow, but as you may recall, Mr. Mayhem isn’t the handy sort. He keeps it running for the most part, and then he tells Mayhem #2 to go water the brown patches by hand. It’s hot however. And she doesn’t really like to do something when she’s told to do it. (If I said, "Put on you swim suit and run around in the sprinklers." She’s there in a heart beat.) Anyway…the brown patches weren’t getting enough water so I decided to get a little sprinkler to set out. I just wanted a little donut looking sprinkler like the neighbor has so I could move it from brown patch to brown patch. Off to Wal-Mart we went. We looked in the gardening center and found one that was sort of like the neighbors’, but still a little fancier than I wanted. Suddenly Mayhem #2 spots a little resin figure that’s a sprinkler. It’s a hippo sitting up with a hose connector on the side of his bottom and a sprinkling device in the middle of his snout. I just wanted a little simple donut sprinkler!!!! His name was Humphrey before we got to the check out.

While all of this was going on, Mr. Mayhem and Mayhem #1 were in MO visiting Grandma and Grandpa. They finally got back and said, "We brought you something. His name is Max." They handed me the little Playmate cooler, which is half-full of dirt. After that shock, and on closer inspection, I discovered that Max was a turtle about 3 inches in diameter. Mr. Mayhem found him crossing the road one morning. He was going to name him Yertle after Dr. Seuss’s "Yertle the Turtle", but since he was so small he named him Max after the little turtle in the story who was on the bottom of the stack of turtles and didn’t like it so he made the whole stack fall down. (Now you need to go find the book and learn the rest of the story.) We decided he was too small to put in the pen with Harry and Euripides, not because they’d hurt him, but because we wouldn’t be able to find him. The grass hasn’t been mowed in the turtle pen. The St. Augustine in there has gone to seed. It’s the best grass in the whole yard. Anyway….Max now resides in our old recycle bin. It’s about 24 by 16 inches and he has a little flower pot bottom for his pond, a rock to climb on or under, an old saucer for his food dish, and all that dirt out of the cooler. The funny thing…I think he’s a girl like the other two.

I took Mr. Mayhem to the prom last Friday night. It was our graduation dance for our "Dancing for the Rhythmically Challenged" class. The dance was held at a dance studio. It’s not the tap and ballet like my girls took when they were little. They teach social dancing. We no sooner sat down at our table when our dance instructor took me out on the floor to dance a waltz. Ahem…That was not one of the dances we learned in class! Once we got going it wasn’t so bad. When I got back to the table, Mr. Mayhem was gone. HE BOLTED ALREADY?! Then one of the lady instructors brought him back. We had both learned to waltz. Woo hoo! We’ve been dancin’! We were the first ones there from our class but the others started trickling in. We had to do a waterfall dance. It’s a mixer thing. The guys make a line and the girls make a line and whoever you wind up facing you dance with down the floor. The first guy I danced with was another instructor. We had been watching him across the floor and he had some moves. We had to do a waltz, and wouldn’t you know, I just learned how to do that! I found out right quick that no two guys waltz the same way. Our merengue is our best dance and we did that several times. We were cheered by the class for our smooth moves in our swing dance. Our instructor took me out and taught me the West coast swing, and Mr. Mayhem was taught the rumba. The fox-trot is our downfall. Those dances where you have to go around the whole floor are tough. We two-stepped once and did pretty good, and another time I thought he had cut my toe off. Tonight we are having our free private lesson to see if we can fix that fox-trot so that it’s not such an aardvark stomp. The studio has these dances every Friday night and I’d like to try to go again before high school football season starts. We may even try to take some more lessons. Hey, it’s a built in date. And don’t let Mr. Mayhem try to tell you otherwise…He’s been having fun!