Mingo Star

For the first time in 15 months Pam and I were about to leave our house for an overnight trip. It was a scary time, not because we were leaving the house in the middle of a pandemic, but because we were going on a vacation with the extended family.

For some reason, Shelby had decided that the best way to celebrate Portia’s second birthday was with a four day-stay at a resort-like house in the middle of Palm Springs. I worried about the house being too crowded with all of us. There was going to be a lot of us, including Shelby, Bryan, Portia and Nana (Portia-speak for Bryan’s mom, Karen), Glam (Portia-speak for Pam), Mi-Mi (Portia-speak for Kimberly) and Glump (Portia-speak for me). In addition, Shelby had invited one of Bryan’s stepmoms, Sue, and her husband, Chet, who had flown into LA from Louisville the day before.

So on Saturday morning Kim came over, and she and Pam proceeded to load the car while I procrastinated as long as possible. Eventually, I was out of excuses, and Pam decided it was time for me to take the dog out for a last visit to the tree before he was escorted into the back seat of Pam’s car. Yes, the family vacation included pets. Jake, our Golden Retriever, and Stassi, Shelby’s Golden Doodle, whose combined weight was about 150 pounds, were both attending the big event. Thankfully, Jake was the only pet driving with us, and Shelby assured me that the house she had rented was more than large enough to handle all of us including the pets. I was a tad skeptical.

Generally, I do not really like to procrastinate, but I had a good reason this time, and that reason had nothing to do with my normal curmudgeon-like tendencies. Shelby and her family were driving with Stassi in the van they rented for the occasion, and Chet and Sue were driving separately. We would not be able to get into the property until Shelby met with the property manager. So I was timing our departure to ensure that we arrived in Palm Springs no earlier than one minute after Shelby arrived there. As we entered the house about five minutes after they did, I think I did a perfect amount of procrastination. Of course, they would have arrived about ten minutes earlier, but Portia had a bout of car sickness on the way, the cleanup of which delayed them. I told Pam and Kim that I had factored the probability of that event into my procrastination model. They wisely opted to ignore me as I gloated about the perfection of my procrastination.

It turned out Shelby was right. The house was spectacular and there was room for all of as, as well as the dogs.

But enough about the house and the family. We were all there for Portia, and Portia was there for Mingo. For the past couple of months Portia had been talking about this thing called Mingo, Portia-speak for the blow up flamingo that would be in the pool. Pam had ordered Mingo as well as a bunch of mini-Mingos, so Portia was happy to see all of them in the pool

On Sunday afternoon, Shelby had organized a party for Portia. It was quite an event. We were all there, as was Portia’s friend and neighbor, Alexander, who coincidently was born on same day as Portia, and his family. The party had a Moana theme, as Portia has seen the film countless times. The party was a great success, and we all had a good time.

The rest of the trip was great, too. It was fun to catch up with Sue and Chet, as we do not see them very often. Shockingly, the dogs behaved really well, and, frankly, my grumpy self had nothing to grump about. Oh well, there is always next year.