MichaelandChrissy.com

I don’t like getting wet, let alone being rained on. Normally, I won’t even leave the house if it looks like it’s going to rain outside. But the weather has been very strange lately. I seem to have gained the uncanny ability to induce precipitation on a beautiful day simply by getting into my car. Furthermore, the brutality of the rain is inversely proportional to the length of my drive. I can control the weather! Don’t believe me? I’ll explain.

On Saturday, Aiden and I drove to Meijers to get some groceries. It’s not very far to go, and it was only a little cloudy when we got there. As we were about to check out, rain started to come down in sheets, and driving wind was pushing the torrent horizontally. I didn’t want to go out in that. Then someone got on the intercom and announced a Tornado Warning. A tornado had been spotted only a mile away! About a hundred customers were herded into the “Tornado Safety Area”, which was basically the stock room. It was a huge concrete bunker with steel roofing joists, so we were pretty safe there. They let us out about fifteen minutes later, and the rain had completely stopped by then.

I thought this was just a fluke, but we got a near repeat on Sunday. I had just put together a sandbox for Aiden, so Chrissy sent me to Lowes for play sand. Again, it was cloudy when I got there, but no rain yet. When I tried to check out, the downpour started. It was coming down so fast that water was pouring over the sides of building. After waiting inside for fifteen minutes for the deluge to stop, I decided to make a run for the car. I was soaked to the bone before I even got my keys out. And once again, the rain had stopped when I got home. The drive to Lowes was a little longer than the drive to Meijer, so logically there was no tornado this time.

Yesterday, I produced a moderate amount of rain on my way home from work. It had been a nice day, and I had even gone for a walk across campus that morning. The first drops of rain fell as soon as I got into the car to go home. People tend to forget how to drive when the road gets a little wet, so traffic snarled up a bit. That made my commute a little longer, about a hour, so the rain wasn’t that bad (remember, the shorter the trip, the worse it gets). So it would seem that my suspicions are justified. I would hate to see what would happen if I drove across the street. The heavens might open up and unleash an F5-level twister on us!

After our trip to Providence and Plymouth, could we find it in our hearts to do some more driving? Sure, why not. Chrissy and I loaded up the boy into the CR-V for a road trip to Fort Wayne, Indiana, to see Julia and her family. It was the first time that I’d every been out there to see them, as they usually come to this side of Indiana to see me. Chrissy decided to take I-80 west, which skirts the Michigan border, instead of Route 30, which takes you directly to Fort Wayne, thinking that tollway driving is faster than highway driving. It isn’t.

Julia was very happy to see us — she is very fond of Aiden, and he really likes her too. We had some lunch and then went to the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo. Julia’s sister April had some friends meet her there, so we didn’t see much of her. That left me, Chrissy, Aiden, Julia and Mary Lou to tour the zoo on our own. It’s a small zoo, but it caters to small children. Julia has been to the zoo many times, since the summer camp that she attends is right next door.

Julia is very talkative, and she told us all about the summer camp and the things that she’s been up to lately. We stopped for some Dairy Queen in the zoo and talked some more there. Then we hung out by the wading pool (complete with squirting frog statues) until the zoo closed. Aiden loves the water, and Julia was playing with him for a while. Those of us with shoes and socks hung back and watched. We got lots of pictures of Julia and Aiden playing in the water.

After the zoo, we went back to Julia’s house for some dinner. Mark was home by then, so he made up some hamburgers on the grill. It was very nice, and we got a good idea of what Julia’s home life is like. I think that I would have liked to have grown up in such a way. Mark and Mary Lou are fantastic parents. I hope that Chrissy and I can be as good to Aiden, and we’re assured that we’ll do just fine.

I drove on the way home and took us down Route 30, not wanting a repeat of our three-hour drive there. I only got us almost pulled over once (luckily, the county cop passed me and got the guy in front of me — better you than me, buddy!). It seems that the cops near Plymouth are especially watchful of speeders, and yet I always wonder why I get pulled over near there…

The whale watching trip was still very fun, despite being dejected by Nile and calf. We were thinking about doing it again some time, maybe during an Alaska cruise or something. Once back on dry land, Chrissy had a whole lobster for dinner, which was gross because the digestive tract was still intact. We were pretty tired once we started back towards Providence, and it was starting to get dark. Unfortunately, the roads are confusing out that way and they’re not very well marked. I got us very lost.

Luckily, our good friend Chip was able to figure out how to get us back on track. I called him on the cell and told him where we were. He broke out the laptop and followed us on Google maps. I thought that I was going in the right direction, but it turned out that I should have headed west much sooner than I had. So Chip gave me the right directions to get back to Providence, but it took us much longer to get back than we had anticipated.

Chrissy and I packed Aiden into the car today for the long drive to Chip and Karen’s house. It was about time to introduce Aiden to the Seraphine twins. The drive wasn’t that bad, just over an hour, which is much better than the last time we went out there. At any rate, it was nice to get out of the house with the boy. Aiden slept the whole way there, and didn’t fuss too much while we were there either.

The promise of grilled meat was too much to turn down. Chip offered to make his world-famous (at least in his little world) “Ugly Pico de Gallo” and green chili burgers. It’s been too cold outside to grill for a while, but Chip just hooked a gas line up to his new deck and wasn’t about to take “cold” for an answer. Unfortunately, the burgers flopped — “crumbled” would be a better description. This is why I don’t grill burgers; I grill steaks. They don’t fall apart and tumble into the flames when you cook them outside. But the pico was awesome.

The twins are getting much bigger. Ryan is up to 17 pounds now. My new “daddy arms” aren’t quite up to the strain of holding a 17-pounder for long. I’m struggling to hold Aiden up for long at ten pounds. Elena Max smiles a lot, and it really brings out her big, blue eyes. She also has a mean scowl, which does nothing for her eyes, but luckily we didn’t see it very much. Once again, everybody loves Aiden, and he got to know everybody. He even slept all the way home.

Chrissy and I drove down to Lexington, Kentucky for Botcon 2006. I signed Chrissy up for the Primus package, so we needed to get to the Lexington Convention Center by 8 PM to pick up our exclusive figures. We both got the box set and the two exclusive sets: Megatron/Waspinator and Laserbeak/Buzzsaw. As a freebie for attending, they gave us a choice of a 2006 Tigatron or a 2005 Flame War figure. Since I had Chrissy with me, I got one of each. And I got a t-shirt.