My nephew decided what he wanted to spend his graduation money on this week. He and his father are avid jet ski fans. His sister and mother are into jet skis as well—it's a family affair to be sure—but perhaps not with as much enthusiasm as he and his father have. Kyle decided to buy a small, single-person jet ski on which he planned to be able to do more tricks. He and his father have been looking around for used jet skis and yesterday he found just what he was looking for.
He showed me pictures of it today, but not so much to look the jet ski in question, instead, it was to see all the things behind the jet ski itself. There were multiple pictures from different angles and in each picture, there were jet skis in rows backed up to the trees. The seller turned out to be someone who had purchased one of their jet skis just a few weeks before. This seller/buyer was into jet skis on a whole other level. My nephew asked if I wanted to go with them to pick up his new jet ski in a bit. Curiosity piqued, I said absolutely.
My nephew, his girlfriend Madison (my son's ex-girlfriend from years back), and Uncle Eric all piled into the car and rode a half-hour offshore to the home of the seller. When we got there I felt like I was back in time in my mind, remembering trips to, "the country" to visit my father's family for family reunions.
There were indeed jet skis everywhere. I walked around and counted forty-four, although Madison said she got a number closer to sixty. There were ATV's and trailers, plus a small bus and several small food truck-type vehicles. Besides that, there was a lot of yard art everywhere, of the type someone makes themself with materials on hand. There was a large fire pit with a platform stage including many plastic chairs for gatherings.
The house was modest but in the back was a small fish pond including waterfall and other decorative elements. Everywhere you looked there were little signs hammered onto trees, saying where not to park or that the premises were under surveillance. There was something interesting everywhere you looked. In the middle of things was a large workshop from which the seller came out, shirtless and tanned, to greet us. I couldn't help myself, telling him my father would have loved to be here to see everything.
My father isn't into jet skis or ATVs, but he loves a good workshop with tools and anything you might need to make any project you might take a notion to work on. My nephew looked the jet ski over and after negotiating with the owner, loaded it up on their trailer. They talked technical specs on many of the jet skis around us and then we went into his workshop to finish the paperwork.
I had been hoping to go into this man's workshop but didn't want to be presumptuous and walk in while they were talking. My father, as well as my husband, would have loved it. He had tools everywhere. It was large enough to house a few ATV's and had fans all over the ceiling keeping the air flowing so the hot day would be more comfortable inside.
It was a dream of a workshop with not only tools all over the place, but drawers and drawers containing various things, all neatly labeled with masking tape. Again, I told him my father would have loved seeing everything he had here. He said everything he needed to be happy was right here. He had a monitor hanging down from the ceiling with a rotating display of security screens, making sure that even though he was in a quiet neighborhood, no one would consider shopping for free when he wasn't around.
I grew up in a city on a half-acre lot in a modest house, but when I was a child we would go to the rural part of our state to visit close relatives of my father. He had uncles and aunts who lived on farms with land to spare. The ground was similar in that flat, sandy way. I remember being at one house specifically for family reunions that reminded me so much of this man's land and layout. We would go every year or two to full family gatherings. I would know very few people, although my mother and father would tell me about all the people I had met or that knew me. As a young child, I didn't remember most of them. It didn't matter though because as children, we made fast friends and spent the day running around the property making up games and having fun.
I don't know how many of my father's relatives still live in the country area of our state—it's been decades since we went there for a gathering—but today it all flooded back, memories as though they happened only a year or two ago. I spent the ride home remembering and thinking about the good times we had visiting "the country" when I was a child.
The Big Boy Update: My son loves pretzels. When we arrived my son found a large bucket of pretzels in the pantry and commandeered it to the seat he eats at at the bar. He was going through them so quickly I wasn't surprised when a second bucket arrived from someone's shopping trip to the store. My son proudly showed me that his initial was written in sharpie on the lid, indicating the bucket was all his. I found out later he had been noticed eating pretzels, licking his fingers and then putting his hand back in the container so it was decided he needed to have his own container. My son doesn't know the underlying reason, he's just glad he has so many pretzels. There is a chance he might eat the entire bucket before we head home later this week.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter, after a week or two of not wanting new audiobooks and taking a bit of a break, decided to get a new book yesterday. She was disappointed there weren't any more books similar to Percy Jackson that she was very interested in. I suggested she try something new and now she's onto a series about a girl who has telepathic powers. She was very busy yesterday and it wasn't until this morning when she asked to buy the second book in the series that I realized she listened to a full twelve-hour audiobook yesterday in between all the things we did out. I suspect she fell asleep and it played for some time last night, but regardless, she's on to book two today and has been happily lazy listening to the book all day. It's vacation, sometimes you just need to have a few days of doing nothing. She is very happy and is in a much better mood now.
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