Warning: Ranger May Bite

Here are some pictures of the birthday fun here in Natchez. The first photo is of the exciting birthday cake Mary made for me in her microwave. You can see Angie's reaction of surprise as she listens to Mary explain the process of making a cake using a rice cooker. Speaking of Mary, she's the one in the center of the picture with the fun birthday flowers that the Barretts sent to me. On the left side of the picture, you'll see Melissa--one of my new favorite people--who took me to lunch at Mammy's the other day. The next picture was taken yesterday of Angie and me as we prepared to eat the tasty lemon cake that Mom had delivered on Friday. It is an awesome cake! People say that Angie and I are kind of like twins--especially when we're both wearing the same clothes (which is every day).

Yesterday some funny kids came into the visitor center--they were probably all about six years old or less, and they were incessantly asking questions. I was in the back room of the visitor center eating my lunch, and I could hear them up there asking Angie if we store dead people in the cleaning closet and other things like that. One of them then asked what was in the back room. She said, "That's where we keep all of the bad rangers who get in trouble and have to go to time out." The wide-eyed little kid then peeked around the corner and saw me chomping on my Cajun po'boy sandwich. He then quickly turned back to Angie and asked, "Does it bite?" At this point we both broke out laughing, and Angie said, "Yes, of course it bites." The kid then turned to his sister and, very seriously, said, "It bites." Then we told them we were just kidding, but did we ever have a good laugh.

This morning Angie had to take Matt to the airport in Jackson at 5:00 a.m., she decided that instead of heading back to V-burg and then driving down here, she would just come straight to Natchez. I told her that she could come have breakfast over at my place, so she showed up at about 7:30 and we ate cereal out on the veranda. Catherine and Everett have been at the lake, and Miss Betty is out of town, so I thought that as long as I have the whole place to myself, I might as well make use of the outside patio. It's really nice in the morning--there's a ceiling fan out there, and usually there's a bit of a breeze out there. Since my July work schedule has changed, I now have Wednesday/Thursday off, so I needed to work today. It's been a pretty busy day there at the park so far. We'll see how the afternoon goes.

"Mormons are 'In'"

The most random of all random Natchez newspaper stories showed up in the paper this morning--it's entitled "Mormons Get Used to Spotlight." Angie spotted it while she was perusing the paper today. It talks about how Mormonism is becoming a more well-known religion, and that while the LDS Church has been cast in a bad light by some productions (i.e. "Big Love" and the upcoming piece of trash movie "September Dawn"), the publicity is giving the Church a chance to tell people what Mormonism is really about. It was a surprisingly positive article, and the writer made the statement that with Mitt Romney running for President, Brandon Flowers (from the really popular rock band "The Killers"), and Napoleon Dynamite himself gaining the spotlight as well-known Mormons, "Mormons are 'in.'" I guess that means we're cool? Also, across the page from this article is a "Religion Brief" that says "Mormon church claims 13 million-member mark." Sweet! So, anyway that was some interesting reading this morning.

It's just Angie and me holding down the fort here at Melrose today. Everyone else is out of town. Last night was my last time to stay over at the Wesselman's. I brought my stuff back to my house this morning, and Brother and Sister Wesselman will be arriving home this afternoon. The McClures will stay with the kids during the day, and then I'll go back over after work to return the house key and make sure Abby is doing okay. My new job is to take care of Scully and Regis (Nathan and Kate's dog and cat) for the weekend while they're at a Blues festival in Holly Springs.

Birthday Beignets

I'm finally getting to my journal posting this evening--now that Abby and Bailey are in bed :-) It's been a busy but very fun day today. Thank you everyone for your kind phone calls, e-mails, cards, and presents! I felt much better when I woke up this morning than when I woke up yesterday morning. For breakfast, I decided to treat myself to some birthday beignets (French doughnuts which they serve in New Orleans) and a mango fruit smoothie at the Marketplace Cafe in Natchez. It was a deeeeelicious breakfast! Then when I got to work, I found that Mary had made a birthday cake for me using a rice cooker in her microwave--I didn't even know that could be done. She told us that the cake had some issues and that the sprinkles, which were supposed to be on top, were hidden somewhere in the middle of the cake. We found them when we cut into it. It was a surprisingly dense cake, and no one was hungry for the rest of the day after eating a piece of it! Even though I was still kind of full from the cake, I couldn't resist a trip to Mammy's for chicken pot pie and blueberry lemonade. Angie and I were the only rangers giving tours today, so she wasn't able to break away and come to lunch, but Melissa and I went off to Mammy's and had the best chicken pot pie ever! I've decided that Mammy's chicken pot pie is worth coming to Mississippi for, so if any of you are looking for a reason to take a vacation and head to the South, Mammy's chicken pot pie is it. I can't even describe in words how tasty it is. Some flowers from Lindy and the girls were delivered there at Melrose, which everyone thought was soooo fun, and then Mom had a lemon cake delivered to my house! I think we'll break that out at work tomorrow.

Then this evening I came out here to the Wesselman's, and we had planned on eating dinner and going to see "Ratatouille," but Abby hasn't been feeling well, so we had a change of plans. She and I stayed here and hung out this evening, while Sister McClure had Justin come pick Bailey up and take him to the movie. Bailey had a great time, and I think that Abby was feeling at least a little better later this evening. I forgot to write about my funny evening yesterday too--we had planned on making spaghetti here and then going bowling with the rangers, but the kids and I decided to go to La Fiesta. When we got there, the McClures and Tim and Liz Blaylock (also from the ward) were there to surprise us! We had a fun dinner, and the La Fiesta people made me wear a giant yellow sombrero while they sang "Happy Birthday" to me. Bailey loved the guys singing with their guitars, and they even sang a special song for him, which he absolutely loved. Because Tim Blaylock does all of the legal work for La Fiesta (which I guess there is quite a bit of--that makes me feel a little unsure about eating there!!), the La Fiesta boss gave us our meal for free! What could be better than free food and a yellow sombrero? Surely nothing. When we went to go bowling, the bowling alley was closed because the people who run it are on vacation! Only in Natchez could you get away with completely shutting down an entire business while you went out of town. People here do it all the time though.

Since we ate out last night, Abby, Bailey and I were going to have spaghetti here tonight, but we couldn't find the spaghetti noodles. So, I made quite the exciting Italian pasta hamburger dish using some noodle packages that I found out in the storage room. My creation, complete with tomato basil sauce was a big hit with the kids!

Well, I'm off to bed. Tomorrow it's just Angie and me giving tours again. Angie said that since she couldn't go to lunch today, we'll order lunch from some place and have it delivered to the park. Thank you again for all of the kind birthday wishes and presents!

A Day in the Life of a Mother

I am certainly gaining a greater appreciation for mothers! It's pretty tough to be busy and working all day, then have to take care of kids, plants, and animals in the evening. I've gotten too used to my quiet evenings here by myself after work! Things are going well with taking care of Bailey and Abby, but yesterday was just a really long day, and I woke up with a bit of a headache this morning. First of all, work was crazy yesterday--nine tours (eight is usually our maximum) went out!! We had a group who was scheduled for 3:00 p.m. show up at 3:20. So, Sharon had already started the regular 3:00 tour, and because we can only have 20 people in the house at a time, we had to wait a few minutes before I could take the big group in. Their advisor was kind of a grumpy man, and he was mad that it was taking so long to get started, but I was feeling grumpy too, and was mad that they were late. So between the two of us, it wasn't the happiest tour in the world, but everyone survived. Then I went over to the Wesselman's house (it's about 15 miles outside of Natchez), and Bailey, Abby, and I went to dinner. Then we took Abby to Young Women's and had to pick her up later, then we had to have bubble baths, read, do laundry, water the garden, and . . . clean up after the dogs. When I took care of the Wesselman's animals, their big dog Gracie was staying with someone else, so I just had their little dog Cocoa plus the cats, fish, and turtles. But now Gracie is there at the house, so there's quite a crowd. It was seeming like it was going to be a pretty quiet evening, but then I went into the kitchen and there was this pile of foamy stuff on the floor. Cocoa was standing by looking very guilty. I thought, "Oh great--this is not what we needed tonight!" It appears that Cocoa must have eaten something when he was outside that caused him to throw up. It was totally disgusting, but I got it off the floor and sprayed everything really well with Clorox cleaner. Then, at about 4:00 this morning, I was awakened by Milo, one of the cats, who started licking my face. He started out the night in Bailey's room with a closed door, but somehow made it down to the room where I was sleeping--where the door was also closed. Milo seems to have the ability to open doors. He slept by me for the rest of the night. Well, I'm heading back to the Johnson house for the afternoon, and then it's spaghetti and bowling tonight with the kids. The fun never ends!

Mammy's Makeover

The headline in the newspaper this morning was: "Keeping that Girlish Figure." It was talking about some revamping work (including giving her a painted belt) they're doing on the exterior of Mammy's Cupboard--one of the most famous Natchez landmarks. Mammy's has delicious food--I'm an especially big fan of the chicken pot pie which is served on Fridays, but I haven't been there yet this summer. I'll need to do that one of these days. Hmmm, birthday lunch on Friday? :-) We've decided that Mammy's skin keeps getting progressively lighter. Ranger Sharon suggested that maybe we should start calling the place Mamacita's, as she's starting to look a little more Hispanic than African-American.

Today I'm heading over to the Wesselman's after work to take care of Bailey and Abby for the next few days. Brother and Sister Wesselman are out of town, so I'll be staying with the kids in the evenings and someone else will be with them during the day. Tonight our plan is to go to McDonald's, so that should be very fun. Well, I'm off to make a PBJ for lunch. Oh, I almost forgot--there was another funny thing in the newspaper today! This guy got shot in the leg the other day, and his original story was that he got out of his car, heard a gunshot, and then, TWENTY MINUTES LATER noticed that he had been shot in the leg. Yeah, right; like that sounds legitimate! So, he finally came clean and admitted that he shot himself in the leg. Either way you look at it, this is obviously not the brightest person in the world.