Toppers

One year ago today, Amber’s Grandpa Bob passed away. Amber loved her Grandpa and still misses him a lot. He used to take her to Toppers restaurant in Longview from time to time, where he would get his cup of coffee and she would get her hot chocolate with whipped cream. They would talk about life, and they did this from an early age. Bob would do his best to instill wisdom into the young Amber by playing jokes on her or sharing his life experiences. One of Amber’s favorite stories is of when Grandpa Bob had her convinced that he wasn’t paying for her food and that, since Amber was only a 6-year-old (ish) with no money, she was going to have to wash the dishes. He played it well and had her so convinced that she had to go call someone to bring money.

Another time they went to Toppers, Amber’s Grandpa told her that he knew where every single one of his pens were. He was a meticulous man. This impacted Amber and she too desired to be that meticulous, although I personally have not seen the fruits of that desire yet. In fact, after we visited Grandpa Bob’s gravesite today with the Evald family, Amber proceeded to leave her keys and cell phone in the grass next to the head stone. Luckily, Amber’s aunt visited the gravesite shortly after and retrieved the misplaced items. Clearly Amber has no idea where all of her pens are.

Anyway, to commemorate the passing of Grandpa Bob, Amber and I had lunch at Toppers today. As we walked in, this is what the sign said:

Now, I understand that it was because Father’s Day was just a few days ago, but it still was special to Amber (and her mom, to whom I sent the picture immediately). Aside from the sentiment of the restaurant, I had mixed feelings about the place. We stood at the front counter for a couple minutes as one of the employees counted change into the register, waiting for her to acknowledge us. She did not, so we decided to seat ourselves. Unimpressed. Upon doing so, I ordered a cup of coffee and got Amber her hot chocolate. A screaming kid was running around (and I mean SCREAMING) until one of the old ladies working there yelled at him to quit running. This I actually DID find impressive. I was glad that she did it, but also sad that the child’s mother didn’t feel the need to parent. I guess the old saying is correct: when you don’t want to discipline your child for being an idiot, let the waitress do it. You’ve heard that saying before, right?

The rest of our time at Toppers was uninteresting. The coffee was bad, the food was okay, and the company was great. It’s your typical family-owned, local restaurant that serves diner food, has older folks working the place, has older folks dining there, plays Taylor Swift, Kings of Leon and Coldplay over the speakers, and parents the lazy people’s children. It was a nice time.

Fursts

A lot has happened since my last blog, so let’s take a minute to get up to speed. Last night, something weird happened to me. While at Fred Meyer, I think some teenage girls thought I was a creeper. I was walking along the back of the store and needed to get to the opposite end when 2 girls came out of an aisle ahead of me, took a glance at me, and started walking in front of me. One kept glancing back at me, presumably to see if I was still “following” them, and then would whisper to her friend. Finally, after about 5 aisles of this, the other girl stopped entirely and let me pass, leaving her friend to keep glancing back at me. She stopped soon after, and I kept on going. I’m sure they were relieved that a creepy guy like me was no longer behind them. It made me feel kinda strange. I came home and told Amber, and she said they probably found me attractive and wanted to see if the back of me was as good as the front. Probably not the case, but I happen to prefer Amber’s interpretation of the event to mine.

This last weekend, Amber and I were able to get away to Cannon Beach for some much needed time together. Harvard was there too. We brought him. We think that he really loves vacation at the beach, because he was a very happy puppy. He got to sleep on the bed with us (he doesn’t get to at home), play in the ocean, run in the sand, sleep a lot, and get lots of attention from strangers. If you recall from my blog many months ago, he got lots of attention from strangers at Cannon Beach last time we were there, and everyone asked if he was a Weimaraner. I don’t think people actually believed us when we told them he was a Great Dane because they had never seen a blue one. Well, this time to the beach, only a few people asked if he was a Weimaraner. More people knew he was a Dane… maybe because he is getting taller.

October 2010:

June 2011:

We have some funny stories from our beach trip, but maybe the funniest was Harvard’s potty time. He did not want to go in the designated pet areas that the hotel had. He preferred the beach… nature’s gigantic litter box. He seriously didn’t go unless he was on the beach. The first time he went was hilarious. We were playing in the shallow waves when he decided to squat. Mid BM, a sneaker wave came up on him and startled him, cutting his time off before he was ready. It was sort of like the first time you ever encountered an automatic flush toilet and it flushed before you were ready for it too. It’s a bit startling.

The rest of the weekend was filled with relaxing, coffee, Pig’n’Pancake, walks on the beach, HGTV, Pizza a feta, talking to strangers about Great Danes, antiques (of course I got an orange lamp), etc. Very fun, and very sad to be back to reality. I'm sure Harvard is sad to be back too, because he can't sleep in our bed like this...

Part of our new reality that I have failed to mention up to this point is that Amber got a new job a little over a month ago. She has a full time job in the testing center at LCC, and she loves it so far. It sounds like the people love having her there too, so it seems to be a good fit. We like to joke that she has a big girl job now (or grown up job).

Lastly, I’ll share with you a few “firsts.”

Harvard stole his first morsel of food off our table while we weren’t looking, and he ate his first bit of chocolate in the same event. Our family friend, Wendy, gave us some homemade peanut butter (the clear draw for Harv’s nose) bars topped with chocolate, and Harvard thought he needed one too. It was no big deal.

Harvard also jumped out of my car while I was driving recently. I had to take out the front seat of my Acura so that he would fit, and like any other dog, he likes his window down. We had been out and about and were just turning onto our street when he saw our house and bolted. Luckily, I wasn’t going very fast and he landed in stride and ran straight to the garage. It was no big deal.

Amber mowed the lawn for the first time ever! Actually, it very well could have been the first time she’s ever even touched a lawn mower. There were a few funny moments when she would ask a silly question about the mower, get extremely flustered when she would run over a rock, and it was especially funny when she couldn’t get the darn thing started for a while, only to realize that she wasn’t holding the handle that allows the mower to run. It was cute. She didn’t think so.

By the way, while she was mowing, I was working too. I wasn’t just watching her. :) Here she is surveying her work...