Kicking Back.

I am at Photo-Mommy's.

I feel the stress melting away.

It may be the ice cream.

It might be the Sloppy Jose's.

No. Not "Sloppy Joes". They're Mexican. Hey, hey, Jose.

Or it might be the fact that their kids seem to worship Skip, who is lapping it up like nobody's business.

How are they worshipping him? Well, the eldest daughter kept tiptoeing over to Skip, and whispering things in his ear during supper. And how was Skip receiving this worship? With a smile that was a lot softer around the edges than one might think. One might almost think that he was sweet on her.

And what of the boys? The two rough-and-tumble boys that appear to think that the sun rises and sets on Skip...

Why, they showed their adoration by showing Skip just how amazing their rock-throwing arms were.

Skip now has two large welts on the back of his head.

I told him that it would be better if they'd broken the skin. Then he could've had a bloody scar to bring back to California.

But Mr. Photo-Mommy? The pastor? He had other ideas. He seemed a little upset that Skip was the target, and proceeded to give the home-town boys a lecture that brought scripture into things. A snippet: "In the Bible, they stoned people, you know? And why did they do that? Because they WANTED TO KILL THEM. Do you want to KILL our guest????"

Yeah. I was trying not to laugh, too. And Skip seems pretty proud of his war wounds. He's keeping tabs on the goose eggs on the back of his head, hoping that they'll still be noticeable when he gets back to school on Thursday.



But now the kids are in bed. We'll see if they stay there. And Photo-Mommy and I will go find our make-up cases, and get all prettified, so we can take photos before The Very Last Minute.

Oh, and eat ice cream.