Friday, November 29th, 2019, Breakfast

When Baxter walked into the kitchen, Elizabeth was already there, as well as the twins.

“Morning,” he said.” Elizabeth, are you having Fruit Loops for breakfast this morning, as usual?”

“Nope. Since we’re going to be doing things all day and getting a lot of exercise, I decided to eat something with protein. I was wondering, could you watch me make some scrambled eggs and bacon, so I don’t mess it up?”

“Sure. You can make some for me and the twins, too, assuming that’s what they want.

Jason and Jordan agreed that bacon and eggs would be perfect.

What do you want to go with it, toast or a bagel or a dinner roll from yesterday?”

“One of those dinner rolls, please, Elizabeth replied.”

“A bagle for me, please,” Jason said, and Jordan made the same choice.

“First, let’s pull out the ingredients,”

“Okay!” she said eagerly.  “First, the bacon because that takes longer to cook. Then the eggs, butter to cook the eggs and to put on the bagles and heated dinner rolls, a pan to cook the eggs, whatever we want to put in with the scrambled eggs, like some cheddar cheese we can shred, the shredder, salsa — lots of salsa to put on after we each get our eggs. Is there anything else?”

“Salt and pepper, plates, orange juice, and milk or whatever we want to drink. I’ll make some coffee for Dad and Pop.”

“Sounds good. Maybe they’ll come down before we start cooking….”

Rob walked into the kitchen and interrupted her. “Your timing is good. I’m here, and Vincent will be here in about five minutes. So, who’s doing the cooking this morning?”

“Me, with Baxter guiding me so I don’t mess up,” Elizabeth replied.

In about twenty minutes, their breakfasts were on the table, and they were eating.

“This is excellent, Elizabeth,” Rob said as he finished eating. “Time for me to head to the office. I’ll see you guys tonight. Have fun today with your cousins.”

Baxter said, “We will have fun.”

Then both kids said, “Bye, Dad,” and the twins said, “Bye, Uncle Rob.”

Vincent said, “See you later, Rob.” They hugged, and Rob left for work.

He turned to the kids. “Since you two fixed breakfast, I’ll clean up,” he said.

“We’ll help clean up, too,” the twins offered.

“Thanks, Pop! And thanks Jason and Jordan,” Elizabeth said. Then she told Baxter, “When I got up, I was going to go out and turn on the pool heater. But I saw Pop in the family room, and he thought it would be a good idea if I checked the hourly weather forecast. So, I did, and it turns out it’s going to be a lot warmer this afternoon, so he said that if we went somewhere else first, like walking on the Iron Horse Trail and going downtown, we should set the timer on the pool heater to turn on a couple hours before we expect to get back.”

Baxter agreed. “That makes sense. And we can grab something to eat while we’re downtown, so when we get home, our lunch will have digested, and the temperature of the pool water will be perfect. So, how do we set the timer on the pool heater?”

“Come with me, and I’ll show you,” she replied. They walked outside to the pool house, then went into the pool equipment room. The twins followed them because they were curious how their pool heater worked compared to the one they had at home.

First, Elizabeth pointed to the timer.

“I never noticed the timer on the heater control panel,” Baxter said. “I ignored everything other than the On and Off buttons. That’s my typical approach to things. I should have RTFM instead.”

“What’s RTFM?” she asked.

“Excuse my language, but it means ‘Read the Fucking Manual.’”

That made the twins burst out laughing. “That’s a saying that we’re going to have to remember! That’s very funny!” Jordan said. Then Jason continued, “And it fits dad perfectly!”

Baxter shook his head. “For me, that’s something I should do more often. I read somewhere that it’s a guy thing to avoid reading the instructions before doing something, like we should already know how to do whatever.”

“That’s funny. However, I suggest you avoid saying RTFM around Dad and Pop to prevent getting a mild lecture about not using vulgar language,” Elizabeth said. Then, looking at the twins, she added, “And your dad probably wouldn’t appreciate it, either.”

“Thanks for that advice. So, what time should we set it to turn on the pool heater?” Baxter asked.

She looked at her watch. “How about noon? It’s 7:37 a.m. now, so set it to turn on in four hours. It’ll turn on at 11:37 a.m. That’s close enough.”

“Okay. Can I give it a try?” Baxter asked.

“Sure.”

It was like setting the timer on the microwave, except it was in quarter-hour increments instead of minutes.

“The current setting reads 0.0, which I assume means it’s not set. So, how do I set it?”

Elizabeth gave him the directions. “Push the ‘Set’ button, then turn the dial until the display reads 4.00. If you overshoot the time, you can turn the dial counterclockwise to move it back.”

He pressed ‘Set’ and the display still showed 0.0, but it was blinking. He turned the dial clockwise.

“Okay, it shows 4.00 on the display. It’s still blinking. Let me play with it for a few seconds.”

He turned the dial until the display showed 5.30, five and a half hours. Then he turned it counterclockwise, so it showed 4.00 again.

“Now what?” he asked.

“Press the ‘Set’ button again.”

 The display still showed 4.00, but it wasn’t blinking, and a red light next to the display was on. “The time will count down just like the microwave oven,” Elizabeth said. “When it gets to 0.0 again, then it will automatically turn on the pool heater.”

“Cool. Can I reset it? Like, if I’d set it to six hours, but got home early, can I reset it to two hours?”

“Sure. You can also set it to zero hours. When you change the setting to zero hours, it won’t turn on the pool heater automatically. You’d do that manually. Also, you can’t go backward. No negative numbers.” Elizabeth giggled, “Time travel is not supported.”

Baxter and the twins laughed at her remark. “How many hours ahead can we set it?” Baxter asked.

“Twenty-four hours.”

“What do I do if I want to turn the timer off?”

“Press the ‘Set’ button and turn the dial until it reads 0.0 and press ‘Set’ again.”

“What if the power goes out?”

“You’re very detail-oriented, Baxter. I like that! There’s a battery backup inside the timer. It’s two of those rectangular nine-volt batteries. Thing is, the pool heater doesn’t have battery backup, so if the power fails, the display will show when the pool heater should turn on, but it actually won’t turn on.”

“If the power comes back on before the timer has run out, will the pool heater turn on?”

“Yes, when the amount of time you set is reached.”

“That’s okay, then.”

“That could be a problem. If you set it to turn on in 5 hours, went to school at 8 a.m., then the power here at home went out for six hours. When you returned home expecting the water in the pool to be warm, it wouldn’t be.”

“Oh, I see. When the time runs out, the timer will try to turn on the pool heater, but if the power is still out, it won’t turn on. In your example it would be six hours late. And there’s no way around it, is there.”

“Nope. Fortunately, we’ve only had two power outages since we moved here, and they were short, so it’s not a big deal.”

“Let’s go inside and wait for the rest of the cousins to get here,” Baxter suggested.

“Sounds like a plan,” Elizabeth responded.

Friday, November 29th, 2019, What to do Today

When Baxter and Elizabeth returned to the kitchen, Vincent was sitting at the breakfast table having a cup of coffee.

“What were you two doing?” he asked.

Elizabeth replied, “Setting up the pool so we can go swimming this afternoon. We set the heater to go on at about noon. If we plan to be back by two o’clock, it’ll be a lot warmer outside then than it is now, and the water will be nice and comfy.”

“Let’s sit in the family room and wait for the rest of the cousins,” Baxter said. “Then we can talk about what we’d like to do today.”

Just as they got seated, Aunt Cindi and Uncle Landon arrived with Chuck, Grant, and Timmy. They joined the others in the family room.

“We’re going to go downtown with Vincent,” Cindi said. “If you need a ride, we can take you to that wildlife place. We’d like to see it, and I think Timmy would like it, too.”

“Yeah, it’s really cool,” Baxter said. “We had a class trip there when I was in the seventh grade. I agree that Timmy will like it.

“By the way, ‘wildlife museum’ isn’t its name. It’s The Lindsay Wildlife Experience. I guess that’s because they have lots of live wild animals there that you can experience. When I went with my class, there was an eagle that had been injured. One of its wings had been broken so it couldn’t fly anymore. As I stood looking at it, it followed me and glared at me and never stopped staring until I walked away. When I looked back, it had turned its head so it could continue watching me. Maybe it was the color of my hair or my freckles. Or maybe it thought I looked like lunch.” Everyone laughed at his comment.

“They have a hospital to help small wild animals. Some small squirrels had been injured and brought in by someone who found them. After taking care of them, they said they were going to release them.”

He looked at his cousins. “What do you all think, you want to get a ride to the Lindsay Wildlife Experience? From there we can walk downtown. We can look around, have lunch, and come back here and go swimming this afternoon.”

“I like that idea,” Chuck said. Grant nodded and said, “Me, too.” Jason and Jordan agreed.

Baxter heard the doorbell. It was, as he expected, Mike with his Aunt Julia and Uncle Greg and Luke and Laura. After introductions, Mike told them about the Lindsay Wildlife Experience, walking downtown and having lunch, then swimming in the afternoon.

All the teens agreed that sounded like a fun way to spend the day. Elizabeth told them that she’d invited Maria to come over to go swimming, too.

Laura thought that was an excellent idea. “Why don’t you ask if she’d like to go to the Lindsay wildlife place, too?”

Elizabeth left the room, and a few minutes later, she returned. “Maria is excited about coming with us. She’ll be here in about five minutes.”

“Is it close enough so we can walk from there to downtown Walnut Creek?” Mike asked.

“I looked it up on Google Maps,” Baxter replied. “It’s 2.1 miles from the Lindsay Wildlife Experience to downtown Walnut Creek. That’s about a forty-five-minute walk.”

Elizabeth asked, “What about cars to get there? There are going to be fifteen of us. I don’t think we’ll all fit in one car.”

Vincent answered her question. “We have two SUVs and we’ll take both of them.”

“How about we take my SUV and Greg’s SUV?” Landon asked. “They’re both parked out front so that’ll be easy. Also, I have Timmy’s car seat in my SUV, so we’ll be all set.”

They heard the doorbell. “That’s probably Maria. I’ll let her in,” Elizabeth said.

Elizabeth returned and Maria was introduced to everyone. “There are so many of you, I think each of you should have a nametag,” Maria said. “That way, I’ll know who you are without having to memorize your names. Especially for Jason and Jordan. Then nobody will be confused because I’ll look at the name tag and I won’t use a wrong name.”

Vincent stepped away and returned with name tag labels and some marking pens. “Rob brought home these stick-on name tags that say, ‘My Name Is’ and you can write your first name on them,” Luckily, none of us have the same first names.”

Each cousin wrote their first name on a label. “Don’t stick them on your shirt or whatever you’re wearing until we get to the Lindsay Wildlife Experience. That way, they won’t accidentally peel off.

“Uncle Landon, why don’t you make one for Timmy, too. That way, he’ll feel like he’s part of our group,” Baxter suggested. “I think the aunts and uncles who are going with us should fill out a label with their first and last names, too.”

And so, on the Friday after Thanksgiving, the first day of the cousins two-day get-together got underway.

Friday, November 29th, 2019, Late Morning

Everyone enjoyed the Lindsay Wildlife Experience, especially Timmy. He liked watching the different animals, some of which he could pet with his parents’ and the Wildlife Experience staff’s approvals.

They spent over an hour looking at the animals. Because there were so many in their group, they got an exclusive tour, which was both exciting and educational.

When they left the Wildlife Experience, they walked around Larkey Park and the Swim Center and visited the Walnut Creek Model Railroad Society. They saw a lot of model trains, all operating. The uncles were interested in that exhibit because when they were young kids, they all had model trains. Timmy was even more interested in watching the model trains run around on the tracks.

When they were ready to leave, Greg asked, “Do you guys want us to drive you downtown, or, except Timmy, do you still want to walk there?”

The cousins all wanted to walk.

“Baxter said it’s only forty-five minutes from here,” Laura said.

“No big deal, that’s what it takes us if we walk home from school,” Luke added.

“I printed a map showing how we get downtown. It’s mostly on one street, Buena Vista,” Baxter said. He passed out copies for each cousin and Maria so they could all see the route they’d take to get downtown.

Friday, November 29th, 2019, Noon

The first stop they made was the Walnut Creek Library in Civic Park.

“See this?” Baxter asked. “What’s it look like?”

“We’re standing at the bottom of a sculpture of a tall bookcase filled with books,” Grant said

“Now, let’s go upstairs to the balcony and look down at it.”

When they got there, he asked, “Now what’s it look like?”

Grant replied, “The same, but we’re closer to the top. That way, we can see more detail.”

“Now, take out your phones, turn on the camera, point it straight at the sculpture, then take a look at your screen and tell me what you see.” Baxter grinned.

“Whoa!” Grant said. “Now there’s a silhouette of a woman in front of the bookcase, and she has her index finger over her mouth like she’s saying ‘Shhh!’” He took a picture then pulled his phone to the side and looked at the bookcase, then looked at the screen showing the picture he’d taken, then moved his phone aside again. He did that several times. Everyone else was doing the same.

“That’s amazing!” Jason said. “How’d they do that?” Jordan added.

“It’s an optical illusion,” Luke said. “It shows the difference between what our eyes can see and what a camera sees.”

“Is there a way to take a picture of it without showing the woman?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” Baxter replied. “There’s information about it and the artist who made it on the wall behind us.” Baxter read the part about the artist: “‘Christian Moeller is a sculpture and installation artist, professor and Chair of the Department of Design Media Arts at UCLA, the University of California in Los Angeles.’”

“Luke, the information over here says you need a special lens or camera to take a picture without the woman showing, ” Baxter continued.

“Is there a way to take a picture of the whole thing?” Jason asked.

Mike answered, “only if you lie on the floor and point your camera up toward the top of the stack of books. You need to get an okay from one of the librarians to lie on the floor. Also, your phone’s camera has to have a wide-angle lens in order to get the whole thing. It’s two stories tall.”

The library wasn’t busy, so they got permission from a librarian. They all had to try it. Those with a camera on their phone with a wide-angle zoom lens got the whole bookcase and the ‘Shhh!’ woman. The sides weren’t parallel, so the sculpture looked a lot narrower at the top than at the bottom. The best pictures of the woman were those made from the second floor, but from that vantage point, there was no way to take a picture that showed the entire bookcase.

Luke wanted to wander around the library and look at the architecture and some modern sculptures he’d seen when he’d been on the balcony. Baxter went with him — after telling Mike to text him when everyone else was ready to leave, and Luke and Baxter would catch up with them.

Baxter watched Luke as they walked across the first floor. His focus was on things others wouldn’t notice: the space between the stacks so people wouldn’t get in each other’s way; the number and position of chairs and tables to sit and read a book; the colors that they’d selected for the teens’ and kids’ sections; the availability and location of computers for library visitors; the kids’ section, with seating in various sizes for little kids on up and places for parents to sit, too. There were modern sculptures designed so they wouldn’t block the light from large windows at one end of the library, including one made using plastic water bottles of various kinds and colors. Luke was excited about what he was seeing.

When they paused at the exit on the north side, Baxter asked, “Do you want to take some notes? I saw some note pads and pencils in the kids’ section. I can get one for you.”

Luke turned and smiled. “Yes, thank you. This is such a great library. I love how everything is designed so there’s room to walk around. I’ll wait here.”

Baxter returned with a pad and pencil.

Luke grinned. “Thanks.” He spent a few minutes writing notes, then put the pad and pencil in his pocket.

“I can see you are serious about architecture. I think that’s cool.” He put his hand on Luke’s shoulder. “Stick with it.”

“What I should have done was take some pictures. I was so distracted by what I saw I completely forgot.”

“Start taking them now.”

“Won’t everyone want to get going?”

“So what? Take pictures. When they want to leave, I’ll talk to Mike and have him take them to Lettuce for lunch, and we’ll join them later.”

“Lettuce? What’s that?”

“It’s a really good soup, sandwich, and salad restaurant. You get in line, look at the large menu on the wall, tell them what you want, watch them make what you ordered, and when it’s ready — they’re speedy — you follow the line to the cashier, and when you get there, you pay and take your tray to a table.

“The others might want to wander through the shops downtown and in Broadway Plaza. We can join them later. Maybe we can all eat together.”

“Baxter, you don’t need to stay with me.”

“I want to. I was thinking you could tell me about what you’re looking at and what you think about it. I like learning new things, and I don’t know squat about architecture. It’s time I learned.”

“Hey, thanks. If you get bored, just let me know.”

Baxter walked with Luke, who would describe what they saw, and why it was interesting from an architectural viewpoint. Baxter found it fascinating. He’d ask questions, and Luke would answer with explanations.

Baxter received a call from Mike. “Hey, Baxter, are you two ready for lunch?”

“Let me find out.”

“Luke, Mike wants to know if we’re ready for lunch.”

“I am. I’m hungry.”

“I heard both of you. How about going to Lettuce?”

“That’s what I was thinking, too. How far are you from there?”

“Maybe ten minutes. We walked through Civic Park to the Iron Horse Trail. All we have to do is turn around and walk back to Civic Drive and then to Lettuce.”

“Okay, we’ll meet you there.”

“See you in ten minutes.”