Our Little Simba is All Grown Up!

We took Keaton and Autumn to dinner at a sushi restaurant and then to see the Broadway version of The Lion King on Saturday night.  The animated version was the first movie Keaton saw at a theater when he was three.  He LOVED it and danced in the aisle after the movie while the credits were rolling.  He loved it so much that he wanted a Lion King-themed birthday and he had to be a lion for Halloween that year.  Then he watched it a gazillion times when it came out on video.  (Yes, video back in 1995.)  Both Keaton and Autumn loved the stage version of it...although Keaton didn't dance in the aisle afterwards.  I guess our Little Simba is all grown up!

Another Pinball Machine and How I Gained Five Pounds From It!!!!!

Life with Matt is always full of laughs and adventures! Our most recent adventure involves a pinball machine and a funky smell.

So, last Friday morning, Matt calls me to ask what I had planned for the day.  He tells me he is going to pick up another pinball machine over in the Flint area.  So, I rush and get ready to go out in public without scaring anyone and we head over to Flint.  While we're waiting for the pinball seller to get home from work and call Matt, we visit his dad and my mom.  A couple of hours and a couple of phone calls later, we still don't hear anything from the pinball guy so we drive by his house so we know at least where we have to go.  We wait in a nearby parking lot for a bit longer and then head over to my sister's house to wait for the pinball guy's call.  We were hoping to pick up the machine and get back on the road for home by 4 p.m. so Matt could still go to his fantasy baseball draft that night.  Well, now it's after 4 p.m. and Matt is still optimistic that the pinball guy is going to call.  We wait a few more hours, my mom makes a run for coneys (yum!), Matt keeps calling, and they guy finally answers and gives Matt a story about his wife being in a car accident (she's okay) and they have to get a rental car, blah, blah, blah.  Matt asks if he can come get the machine in the morning, but the guy has to work.  The pinball guy is going to call Matt on Saturday to schedule a pick-up time for  the machine on Sunday.  Blah, blah, blah.  So, Matt finishes his draft via his phone and we finally get back home around midnight.

Matt doesn't hear from the guy on Saturday at all.  But, he's optimistic that he's going to get his pinball machine on Sunday, so we head over to Flint...again.  Matt texts the guy when we're heading out and calls when we're on the road.  Matt leaves a message for the guy when we arrive, telling him we're in Flint to pick up the machine and he's just waiting to hear from him.  We have a nice early Easter dinner with my people and Matt keeps trying to call the pinball guy.  Even Matt's patience is wearing thin (and that's a monumental feat in itself!).  Matt finally says he's just going to drive over to the pinball guy's house.  I tell Matt that NO way am I just going to show up and that this guy is totally NOT selling his machine...he won't return phone calls, he won't reply to his texts, he won't reply to voicemail, he wasn't home when he said he would be home, and have I said that he still won't return phone calls, reply to his text, or return voicemail? Matt says he's still going to get the machine and my brother-in-law goes with him.  (I think Matt may have secret stalker tendencies...or he's just super-determined to never give up on a great deal.)  They're gone for over an hour and I'm very relieved when they get back to my mom's house...intact.  I ask how it went and they said they have the pinball machine in the back of our Durango.  They're smirking and I know there's more to the story...and there was.  This stuff only ever happens to Matt.  They went to the house and there were a couple of cars in the driveway.  They knocked on both doors of the house; they knocked on the shed; and they knocked on the garage.  Matt called the guy again...and lo and behold...the guy answered and asked if they were the ones doing all the knocking.  They totally surprised the pinball guy and he came out of his garage and explained he had some cleaning up to do.  He was flustered and said he forgot Matt was coming over for the machine.  He lets them in the garage...and it's filled with pot plants.  He's growing marijuana.  Legally.  The guy swore he had a license to grow medical marijuana...and Matt said judging by the guy's health, he probably was.  (I think that by the guy's flightiness, he was using quite a bit of it too.)  He apologized profusely for not having the garage cleaned up and explained that his mother was in a car accident.  Blah, blah, blah.  Friday it was his wife.  Sunday it was his mother.  Blah, blah, blah.  (Again, I think he's using imbibing a little too much in his supply.)    Needless to say, the pinball machine was surrounded by dozens of pot plants for who knows how long and REEKS like pot.  So they cleaned it off and loaded it in my Durango.  They took it to my brother-in-law's house and cleaned it up some more but it still REEKS like pot.  So, that means we had a 2+ hour drive home with a pinball machine that REEKS like pot.  We drove home with the windows open and had the cruise set to exactly 70 mph. because we now probably smell like pot.

So, long story short, Matt has another pinball machine to add to his collection.  This makes #18 for those of you keeping count.  The good news is that it has since aired out and doesn't reek like pot anymore.  The bad news is I have probably gained 5 pounds because I had a serious case of the munchies for a few days.  ;-)