Evening Walk

Teddy: As if the weather knew the holiday weekend was over, we went from summer hot weather to autumn weather in two days! Spaulding: But it also comes with rain! Yuck! Teddy: But it also kinda woke Mommy up a little bit. Spaulding: Mommy hates exercising but likes to take long walks. Teddy: But she also hates sweating, so gives up long walks for the summer! Spaulding: It stopped raining for a couple of hours last night and Mommy ventured out of the air-conditioned room to discover that it wasn’t hot out there! Teddy: She got spunky and decided to go for a walk after Jeopardy! Spaulding: Jeopardy! That tough to play, need our thinking caps on and magical backpack to win, game is having championship championship weeks. Teddy: That’s when they bring back all the biggest champions of the past and have them play against each other for $1,000,000!!!! Spaulding: If we’re not eating while it’s on, Mommy keeps score. Teddy: If we are eating, I keep score! Spaulding: When Mommy keeps score we win between $6,000=$132,000! (Mommy explaining stuff the bears don’t think is important! Mommy, Daddy, Teddy and Spaulding all play on the same team, so it doesn’t matter who gets the right question nor when they get it—no buzzers to ring in—and, when there is a Jeopardy! or Double Jeopardy! question to answer, we always make the same bet—we bet gutsy or the lowest amount we can, apart from nothing, and chose how much we lose or win by the best number….yeah, we cheat, but in an organized way! LOL) Teddy: And if I keep score, we win $6,000,000,000-$8,000,000,000! Spaulding: Teddy keeps score better, but we love Mommy so let her keep score anyway! Teddy: The other rule we keep is that we have to win at least one of the first round games to get into the semifinals and one of the semifinals to get to the finals! Spaulding: Then we just have to win the finals! Teddy: Un huh! But we had lost the night before last night, so Mommy (not me! I KNOW we’re GOOD!) got worried that we’d lose every night. We were in second place out of the four playing, so had to bet it all or bet nothing and hope no one else got it right either and bet enough to make us win! Spaulding: And, like always, we did both!!!! Teddy: The final category was “Pulitzer Prize Winning Authors.” Mommy laughed and said, “Gee, I know one! John Kennedy wrote Profiles of Courage. That’s it! That’s all I know, and I don’t even know anything about the book, just that his father helped get him that prize because he knew many of the members of the committee!” Spaulding: And guess what the final answer was about? Teddy: Actually, the only one who read it was Daddy, and he remembered the reference that Alex Trebec gave being in it, so he just burst out laughing and we all knew that “What is Profiles in Courage?" was the final question! Spaulding: AND, the woman in first place had the right answer…. Teddy: Everyone had the right answer… Spaulding: BUT she didn’t bet anything so we won!!!! Teddy: Made us sing Spaulding’s favorite song—We are the Champions by Queen! Spaulding: Cool, huh? Teddy: But doubly cool is Mommy inviting us to go with her on her walk! Spaulding: She hides us in her backpack so no one knows we are alive and nearby, but it still has that…. Teddy (in a loud whisper): Shhhhhhhhhhhhh! WE DON’T WANT MOMMY TO KNOW ABOUT IT! Spaulding (also in a loud whisper): BUT IT STILL HAS THAT TRAP DOOR IN THE BOTTOM, SO WE CAN GET OUT AND DO WHAT WE WANT TO DO WHENEVER WE WANT TO!!! Teddy: Mommy lets us peek out the top when no one is around, but living in a big city, even after dark, someone is usually around. Spaulding: She telepathed her secret to us as she took us downstairs and put us in the backpack. Teddy: She didn’t want Daddy to know. It was a surprise! Spaulding: She wanted to go by Pop’s Italian Water Ice…. Teddy: Italian Water Ice is fruit juice, real fruit juice with no added water, frozen then ground up…. Spaulding: Looks like a snow cone but it’s made from 100% juice… Teddy: Because she and Daddy try to go there a couple of times during the summer, but both were sick so often they only went once, and they love it with pretzels and Daddy was craving a pretzel, but pretzels make him sick, but Mommy thought maybe just one pretzel along with some Pop’s Italian Water Ice would be OK because they both love it… Spaulding: So she wanted to surprise him by getting a couple of mango water ices! Teddy: I asked the important question—no, she’d use her own money. Spaulding: We like money a lot, but don’t like to spend it! We got our money from being allowed to steal it from Mommy or Daddy… Teddy: We ask permission to steal what is left over after they order dinner to be delivered… Spaulding: Or by winning it playing poker! Teddy: We’re both good at poker, especially since we hate spending our money! Spaulding: So we went south, despite Pop’s being northeast of us. Teddy: But Mommy said she was mostly going for the exercise, so we knew how she was going to get there. Spaulding: And on the way there, we got to watch a few boys… Teddy: Really, really tall boys… Spaulding: playing basketball. Teddy, it was dark out, except for the light from a beary bright street light, so we asked Mommy if we could play. Spaulding: We figured they would think we were other boys in that light. Teddy: She said it was OK, so we jumped out of the backpack as she put it on the ground, grabbed the ball from one of the boys, passed it back and forth… Spaulding: until we were close to the net, and then I passed it to Teddy, who… Teddy: SLAM DUNKED it… Spaulding: Swoooooooooosh!!!! Teddy: Into the net! Spaulding: White men can’t jump, but short bears can jump beary, beary well!!!!! Teddy: The score was 15-4… Spaulding: We were winning… Teddy: Before one of the boys accidentally touched Spaulding’s shoulder! Spaulding: Their faces changed, when they realized that boys don’t have furry shoulders! Teddy: Before they could figure out what happened, we were back in Mommy’s backpack and she was casually walking down the sidewalk like nothing happened! Spaulding: It was a close one, but fun! Both: kehehehehehehehe Teddy: Anyway, Pop’s was right up the street from that court, and Mommy was pretty disappointed to find out that it was closed! Spaulding: We volunteered to sneak in and did it before Mommy could stop us… Teddy: But it must be closed for the season already because there was no water ice in there! Spaulding: Wow! I just thought of something! For us summer is all but over, but for Mawson, our DownUnder friend, winter is all but over! Teddy: Cool! Spaulding: Anyway, back into the backpack we jumped and Mommy stopped off at the local drug store for some junk food. Teddy: We did convince her to buy one pretzel rod for her and one for Daddy. Spaulding: He liked it, but his body didn’t. Teddy: Hope it stopped his craving for a while! Spaulding: We were back home in 45 minutes and it was a wonderful walk! Teddy: It wasn’t cold enough to need the blanket Mommy wrapped us in! Spaulding: Particularly after playing Bball!! Teddy: Un huh! Spaulding: Welp time to get ready for dinner and Jeopardy! So, until next time….