How does your garden grow?

I don't know what most people think about when they're doing yard work. Whether it's just a chore to get through or whether it's a time to celebrate the wonder of nature and revel in the idea that if you put this thing there it will turn into something wonderful later.

Maybe. 

Sometimes you don't do it right or you don't stick with it and your lovely green shoot shrivels up like a 12 day-old piece of lettuce and lays there mocking your delusion of gardening grandeur. Sometimes the squirrels eat your little shoot for lunch. Sometimes the grubs and weevils sneak in under cover of the soil to do your little plant in.

But when it works, it's glorious.

I was thinking about this the other day when I swung into the drive to notice the yellow flowers on the ground cover whose name escaped me shortly after I put it in. The purple and pink flox flowers my friends planted in honor of Alison and which I have supplemented have faded; the little white bells on the hostas that came with the house are gone; and the irises I transplanted from my mother's yard chose to sleep through this year's season . So it's  the yellow flowers' turn to shine.

My lilac bushes are struggling but hinting at good things to come. Just starting to pop out are the pink daisy-like flowers, the purple tiny flowers on the lamb's ears and the in-your-face orange day lilies. On deck are the black-eyed susans. Those flowers are a mix of transplants from back home and things I've picked up over the years.

They'll see us through summer and then the mums should make their presence known.

Fifteen years or so ago when Jeff and I moved into this house, there was a sweet gum tree in the front yard spilling nasty sticky balls all over the yard and hoarding the sun. What grass there was was laced with sticky balls and bare patches and weeds with more family members than the Kardashians.  The front walk was a series of flat cement squares mostly dug into the ground as if they knew they were too heavy to fly away and tunneling to China seemed like a good second choice.

Scraggly evergreen bushes and trees added a splash of green. The  oak and magnolia trees showed promise, but this was January and they were shivering, naked in the spotty snow. In a nutshell, it was not a jungle out there.

But after a few years of digging in the ground, releasing the sweet gum tree to a far better life as firewood and dramatically improving the drive and front walk, we now have a veritable rainbow of color from spring to fall. 

And for that I'm grateful. Yes, it was a lot of work. Some stuff withered along way either by my mishandling it or the vagaries of nature. My neighbors will assure you that there's still some work to do. But lots of stuff has worked. In part because I show it some attention from time to time. But mostly because given time, most things can find a way to survive, and sometimes thrive...

It's not unlike other living, growing things in my life. I battle depression and job-related stress just as I battle weeds, squirrels and grubs. Sometimes that keeps me from properly caring for the human people in my garden. Working in the yard helps me get back to center; to put things into better perspective.

The ephiphany I had in the driveway the other day was that my yard has come a long way over the years but it's doing OK. And if I can just remember how my flower garden grows, I can remember that my profession and my family will grow the same way.

I came within a hair's breadth of understanding something my father had down cold: patience and faith. I actually don't know if he really had it down, but he sure acted like he did. He handled the stresses of life -- and believe you me, he had much more trouble to worry about than I do -- with this calm kind of outlook and belief that if you plant good stuff and tend to it a bit, more good stuff will grow than will bad stuff.  You have to take a bit of loss, a set back here and there. You have to give it time.

But somehow, someway, you'll make it through and you'll have something beautiful to look at when you come home at the end of a rotten day. 

I'm not a Master Gardener (a title that actually exists) in any of my various fields. But I have some really pretty crops. And I'm going to focus on celebrating them instead of focusing on the weeds.

Hope your Fathers Day was as good as ours. Among Jeff's gifts were comic books and a subscription to MLB.com, which will enable him to watch the Red Sox and any other game that's being played on a variety of devices.

We won't see him until October. 

Ali and I tried our hand at tiramisu again ( with better tools) and she is finishing up dinner prep now. 

Happy Fathers' Day!

 

The art of summer

Before I hand it over to a guest blogger (who doesn't yet know she's guest blogging) I just want to thank The Golden Ace and Santorini's Greek Kitchen for serving my sweaty self fresh from the gym and my semi-sweaty friend, Jodie, who'd helped on a Habitat for Humanity build earlier in the day. Also, Jeff and Troy, who both were still in work clothes and looked like they belonged out on the town, who still agreed to sit down with us.

We followed up the dinner out (Ali was at Jenna's for a sleep-over) with a trip to Talbott Street Art Fair -- always fun. Today, I fear I'll have to work out twice to make up for the other.

As we entered the art fair, I told Ali that her father was there to appreciate the art but he was mostly concerned about the food he'd find.

"Mom," she said. "Food IS art."

She is her father's daughter... And now, the guest post, gently edited, from Amy Tokash:

She was hosting a dual sleepover -- Drew and Jenna each had their best friends over. I know I've mentioned that Jenna and Ali claim to have become friends while still in utero. Andrew Tokash (Drew to the world) and Andrew Fralich had to wait until Day Nursery to meet, but they're just as commite to each other as the girls.

The foursome does play together a bit, but the boys are, well, boys and the girls are girls. So there's a lot of sibling jeering back and forth. They tend to separate when forced together. The boys apparently had biked off to chase neighborhood girls (not the icky, sister-y kind) and the girls had gone to the neighborhood pool. 

Some parents would have lived it up, watched non-animated movies or had a tryst as they enjoyed the solitude. Knowing Amy, she probably trysted with her washer and dryer. 

In any event, the girls had an 8:30 curfew. The boys (two years older) got an extra hour.

 

In between the time they had to come home and stay home, the girls were total water sprites. They boys interrupted their girl-chasing to stop by home to eat a whole bag of Doritoes.  Then they went to the pool and probably annoyed Ali and Jen for a bit.  Then it was back home for tacos.  Then video games downstairs (with the girls who'd only reluctantly dragged their butts home, lured no doubt by the taco aroma drifting down the street). The boys went back outside on their bikes.

 

As they left, the girls hot-footed it upstairs to track down the lady of the house.

J:  "The boys don't have to be home until 9:30!!  It's not fair!"

Amy:  "They are two years older and boys.  Big difference.  And it's not midnight; it's one hour later."

J:  "Whine, whine, whine."

A:  "Whine, whine, whine."

Amy:  "Come here and let me hug you both and wholeheartedly apologize for loving you both so much that I don't want anything to happen to either of you."  Big hugs.  Yes, they still both let me and even hugged me back.

J:  "But we have a NICE neighborhood, Mom!"

A:  "Yeah, because one of my friends, she lives in a neighborhood that if you go trick-or-treating, you get abducted and stuff stolen from you!"

Amy:  "Unfortunately, girls, good neighborhoods or bad neighborhoods, there are bad people everywhere, even here.  They may just be driving through looking for a really cute redhead and a brunette to pick up.  Besides, Cat, what in the world would your mom and dad say to me if I had to call them and tell them that you and Jen never made it back from the pool?"

A:  "I know what my dad would say--he'd say 'What the BLEEEP!   And my mom would probably just make another baby."

Amy:  After dying laughing inside said, "I may not know your mom through and through, but there's one thing I know for certain, and that's that we're BOTH done making babies!  I can bet my house on that!"

A:  "Ewwwwww!  Can we stop talking about THAT?!?"

Amy:  "You brought it up, Cat!"

 

Two gigantic eyerolls and a trip back up to the safe haven (away from those two-year older dudes, who just happened to walk in the house at 8:55) of Jen's room, and that was that. 

 

Of tools and schools and summertime

We're not quite done with Alison's room but she's moved back into it as we work on the final touches to her new,

more grown up decor. Three garbage bags of stuffed animals await new homes, as does a four-foot-tall stack of 

once mesmerizing boks.

Yesterday we did our usual errands. Alison made cookies as she did her chores and at one point got a little snotty.

Not in a horrible way, but just enough past cute to be annoying.

I remarked that I was a bit unhappy with her attitude. We chatted a bit and she went about her business.  She 

was quieter than usual for far too long and I asked if she was OK. "Just trying not to be snotty," she said.

Oh well then.

We chatted some more.

She's not even an eye-roller yet, so I'm not really complaining. She ended her school year Friday with really

great indications of another good year. We celebrated a little bit with a stroll down to Mama Corrolla's. She is

just about ready to admit Mama has a bit of an edge over her favorite, Fazoli's.

And she's not too greedy, either. I was all set to treat her to a zebra print rug to go with her new bedding but 

"That's just too much, Mom."

Not as in, "Oh you've done so much for me already," but as in overkill with the zebra theme. She picked out a 

turquoise shag and one small pillow to help that color punch. We haven't decided what to do with the curtain yet.

While we were in the store, she was eyeing some new books and I reminded her that she could use her 

allowance.

She reminded me that she's still paying off her new retainer after having her original fall out of her pocket at 

Lowe's on a paint run. By the time she remembered where it was and she and Jeff went back, it had been

run over by a shopping cart. She's forfeiting her allowance to pay half the replacement cost.

Don't tell her, but if her report card comes back as good as we expect, the captain is going to forgive her debt.

Totall his idea and a reward for her working hard at her core job: school.

As she's out for the summer, I suspect she'll be trying to expand her culinary skills, and the Captain is all about it.

He came home the other day with a new  kitchen toy: a small blow torch. Because you can't make creme brulee 

without a blow torch..

I'm not sure which of them was more excited when Jeff came home with it. It's second only to his absinthe mister.

He had to have that after his new favorite bartenders showed him how they make this new drink he's in love 

with -- a sazerac. 

It requires you to put absinthe in an iced glass then toss it out. In a shaker, you mix simple syrup, rye, 

Peychaud's bitters and ice. You strain that into the iced, absinthe-coated glass, twist a lemon peel over the

glass, then rim the glass with the lemon.

Jeff didn't want to waste the absinthe by following the recipe as he found it. The guys at the Libertine make the 

drink with a special mister, which I'm sure was designed for something else. But of course we have one of those

things now.

As for me, I'm enjoying my back porch and my yard with the same set of tools I had last year: a newspaper, a

pencil for the crossword puzzle, and my iPad. I guess I did kill the old lawn mower last year and so I have a new

one of those. But the shovel and the spade are older than Ali. So I'm still mostly old school.

Shots today include a bouquet my neighbor surprised me with as a thank you for a little work I did in her yard. 

She's a single mom, and I'm a little lopsided in my debt to Karma, so it's a win-win.

Go here for a look at her old room, complete with dum dum wrapper wall paper: 

http://teamreedblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/spa.html

Room with a view

Back when I was pregnant and convince i was going to give birth to a boy, I suggested to Jeff that we paint the nursery with a baseball theme.

We called the baby "Fenway" and I was so sick and disgusting-looking that I was 100 percent certain only a boy could cause me such grief. My good friend Jim Hester had the opposite viewpoint. Under duress -- it wasn't that hard to get it out of him -- he told me his theory.

I'll never forget it. We were walking down a tunnel from the Statehouse to lunch in the mall. Jim was a linebacker back in the day and still had the imposing physique to prove it. My pre-natal majesty dwarfed him. I was huge. Not in a good way. And unfortunately, I'd not grown taller. Just wider.  

Anyway, I was pestering him to tell me why he was convinced that I was having a girl. I pushed my stringy hair out of my sweaty eyes and puffed out the words: "But why, Jimmie. Why a girl?"

"Well," he said, his eyes a little wide and edging away from me.  "When a woman is having a boy, she glows. Her hair is beautiful. She just has this beautiful look about her."

He skittered to the far wall. "You," he said. "Are having a girl."

I remember laughing out loud. 

A few months later, we had to rename Fenway.

We hadn't painted the nursery to replicate the Red Sox' ball field. Jeff wasn't as convinced about the gender as Jim was, but his rationale was that he didn't know what this kid might like. So we shouldn't force a princesses or sports theme on it. Instead, we had each of the formerly paneled walled painted a different color and coordinated the bedding (hand made by Aunt Donna) and such to flow. 

When Ali was 5 or so, we put up a flowery kind of border and switched out the curtains, rugs and quilt. She'd had Nemo stickers before. Later on she decided she needed a new look but was in a "green" phase. So she recycled her dum dum lollipop wrappers and had filled up most of the southern wall with them. Adhered with Scotch tape, they didn't look bad.

But in essence, for 12 years, the basics of the room haven't changed. We're spending a good portion of this weekend changing that. The room is now coated in white primer. We spent most of the day Friday sraping off that pretty little border. About 57 hours into it, I remembered the instructions as if I was Sheldon Cooper with his eiditic memory. I swear I saw the words on the paper: removes easily with water.

It went faster after that.  I let Jeff take over with the power sander yesterday. I tried to convince Ali that wallpaper will work just fine, but she's enamoured with the idea of painting.  

It's been a fun project, with more than a few walks down memory lane -- bringing her home; listening to her cry at night and Jeff insisting that it would be better NOT to bring her into our bed (yes he was right but that was hard); rocking her and reading her little books to her; Grammie settling into those spots and snuggling; setting up the crib; the toddler bed; the real bed; the bunk bed; measuring her height (we may have to re-create that timeline that's just hit 5' 1"; the first time she shut the door and asked if she could just have some alone time. 

A lot has happened in that little space.

Today we might get a couple of the walls with color. She's sticking to the different colored walls, but adding chalkboard paint to one so she can write notes to herself. She's got zebra sheets and a blanket and I might have to get that rug from Target when we're done.

We were all working away late yesterday with the first coat of primer when she said, "You know, this is kind of cool."

"What's cool, honey?'

"Us. Doing this together," she said.

And another little spot on memory lane was born.

What a mother

There are moments in any parent's life when you wonder if you're doing anything right at all.

-- When you find -- again -- the room a mess.
-- When you've asked 25 times for something to be put away, yet there it sits.
-- When you are bone tired, hate everyone at work and you just want to watch the Housewives and you've actually gotten a TV to yourself only to have the little one come in, switch the channel to Good Luck Charlie to see an episode she's seen 247 times. And present you with her feet to be rubbed.

Hopefully if you are a parent, you're like me and those "Calgon, Take me Away!" moments come few and far between. I have them more than I'd like, but if I were to be honest, I rarely care that the channel got switched. I may not be the best or longest working masseuse, but I do like those moments when we're just hanging out, not necessarily focused on each other but in the same room and sharing the occasional snuggle.

Alison is one short year away now from her teen years. We're getting deeper into adolescent issues that aren't as easily solved as her problems in the past.

She's been having some issues for several months with a friend at school who's not been behaving much like a friend. She's fretted over whether to distance herself and how and what might happen if she did.

As she was sorting the thing out a while ago, she mused out loud that she'd been best friends with Jenna Tokash since they were born "and Jenna never treats me like this." You could just see the wheels turning as she said out loud something she'd been working toward for a while about this friend, but didn't want to admit, "I don't think she's really my friend."

We've talked for a while now about how what being friend requires -- stuff like being supportive, recognizing there are challenges that might make a person not fully understand he/she is being hurtful, and trying hard to help where you can whether that's with homework or basic human kindness.

The issue came to a big head at her school birthday gathering when the girl in question didn't appreciate Alison's "well at least now you can move on" comment when the girl's would-be love interest declined her bid.

This girl claims to be Alison's best friend (among the school friends that is: no one puts Jenna in a corner.) They've shared a lot. They've had a lot of great times, sleep overs and they're always together at lunch and Aftercare. 

In response to what Ali thought was good advice, this friend slapped Alison across the face. At her birthday gathering.

Alison didn't hit her back. She didn't run upstairs to tell us what had happened. She decided peace at her party was more important and just stayed away from the girl for the rest of the sleepover. She didn't tell me about it until Monday after school when the girl asked Ali if she (Ali) was mad at her (the girl.) Then proceded to deny that it had ever happened before reminding Ali that she'd apologized.

"Why did you apologize if you didn't do it?" retorted my little cross examiner in training.

I try hard to let Alison handle her social life. But this has been a long time coming so we talked to the parents. Alison has distanced herself from the girl at school and we're letting her decide if that distance will remain.

She's been slow to take this step, in part, because she didn't want Jeff and my relationship with the girl's parents to suffer. She knows we like them a lot, know they've had their hands full for a while and that they're doing a far better job of parenting their child than this saga might imply. There are challenges involved that they're not responsible for, and I admire the hell out of them for giving so much of themselves.

I hope the girl can learn from this and be more respectful of others. I truly do. But I'm not going to put Alison in a position to continue to be mistreated.

I'm grateful that Alison -- so far -- is healthy in mind, soul and body and I don't take that for granted for a second.

But I can't decide if I am all that happy about how she handled the slapping incident. No, it wasn't a gentle tap. Yes, they horseplay a lot. That's not what this was.

-- A Bravo Housewife would have screamed to high heaven, thrown the girl out of the house and filed a lawsuit.
-- A Southern belle would likely have found a discreet way to poison the kid and then express great sorrow when she had to go home early.
-- I might have hit her back. And then pushed her down. And then stepped on her.
-- Other pre-teen girls might have burst into tears and turned the night into high-pitched drama.

But Alison wanted to continue having a fun party. The other two guests hadn't slept over here before and her friendships with them seems to be growing nicely. She wanted to protect our parental friendship. And I'm certain she was stunned. She's never been slapped in the face before. If I have anything to say about it, she never will again.

So we're talking to her -- a lot -- about standing up for herself, but we're also talking about how she can do that in a way that's short of arrest-worthy but still effective. Her father's suggestions have carried a little more liability than mine have, which is funny when you think about his profession and my history.

I'm certain Alison will forgive her friend soon. I have purposely failed to teach her one of my best skills: how to form and hold a grudge. Whether she likes her Religion class or not, she's got a good grasp on the concept of forgiveness. We've got our fingers crossed that the friend will change her ways.

So we may have over-reacted a little. Maybe Alison handled it in exactly the right way and we need to just relax and let it be what it will be.

Clearly we are on Ali's side in this. We're biased, but we think Alison is pretty special.

And we're not alone. in fact, on Thursday we were among a dozen or so other parents who got to have lunch at school with their kids who were selected "Students of the Month."

I asked Ali what she'd done to earn this distinction when we got the letter. She shrugged and disavowed all knowledge. We didn't find out until the lunch when the school principal read the nomination letter from her home room teacher. One kid from each grade earns this award, which is given 9 times a year. The classes are small at CKS, but they're not that small: this isn't an "everyone-wins" kind of participation award.

Now, remember that Ali goes to a Catholic school. We're not Catholic, and she chose not to become Catholic even though 95 percent of her class are cradle-to-gravers. She has long decried Religion class as super boring "because it's all about a bunch of dead people." Her home room teacher is also her Religion teacher. He's about to marry a woman who teaches Religion in a Catholic high school. He's pretty serious about Religion.

While his letter didn't mention piety, He did credit our little Student of the Month for being curious, having a strong work ethic and great concern for her academic performance. She's a good communicator, is adjusting well through the rigors of middle school and is consistently well prepared for class. She's respectful, a good listener and participates.

It's a full, 8.5x11 sheet of high praise. Plus a catered fried chicken dinner and seconds on cookies.

Not a bad way to end a week that's had its low points.

Might be the best Mother's Day present I ever get.

12

And so now, she is officially 12.One year short of a teenager officially, but definitely there if you believe the marketers and the YMCA, both of which have lumped 12 out of "tween" and into "teen."

Alison is thrilled.

As her mother, I have to say I"m inordinately proud of her. She's funny. She's smart. She's brave. She stands up for her friends. She eats her vegetables. She still hugs her parents. She says thank you without being prompted. And even though she's an only child, she shares without hesitation.

We've done a few things right.

Sigh.

I've had a little wine so I might be a little sentimental.

We ended the weekend with a dinner with just Mom and Dad -- her favorite meal prepared by her father: grilled steak. Creme brule will be her dessert when she's ready.

The wine, by the way, is somewhat medicinal. I needed it to thaw aout after watching Jenna's soccer game in the frigid, if not frozen tundra of some place way the hell west of Broad Ripple.

We had to follow Amer because the place where Jenna plays is so far dep into bumf$#@k Egypt that directions are unable to be translated. Once there, a fine drizzle, two degrees short of sleet began. And the wind. Oh the wind.

We were like penguins on the outer circle of Antarctica during the nesting season. And after we spent about six hours there, Jenna's team lost. The loss was due in large part to some beast named Gabby who hipchecked her way across the field and prompted Alison to ask repeatedly if she could beat her up after. Amer was no help in curbing Alison's antipathy and has now been banished as a role model.

Excerpts from the Jenna and Alison show:

Going into dinner last night at GT South's, a barbeque place, I told Jenna the place was full of pigs.

"Ooh! Are they real?" she squealed.

"Uh. No," I said, pointing to the stuffed, drawn and inked renditions.

"Ah," she said.

On the way home, I muttered out loud my thoughts on the night ahead when I knew they'd dump me to rule supreme on their own in the family room, "I'm going to take a bath."

Signs of disgust from the back seat. "TMI," said Alison. "Why would you say something like that out loud?"

"I have to poop," said Jenna.

"Now THAT's TMI," said the captain.

"I thought we were sharing!" said Jenna.

On the way home from the local produce stand where Alis and Jenna love to get "old timey" soda, Jenna took a swig and had foam go up her nose. This prompted Alison to shake her bottle up so it foamed onto the Monon Trail.

"Look! Science!" she chortled.

On my roller blades, I glided back to remind them that I'd just laid down the cash for the soda.

Listening to their giggles, I decided the investment was worth the yield and skated on.

We'd spent the morning on the kitchen floor -- a long time playground for toddlers Jenna and Ali. Together we must have painted at least a few towns in years past. They've been long past the finger or brush painting now for years. So I was thrilled to open Jenna's gift of tie-dying and to get the artwork out.

Our handiwork is in the dryer now. It turned out pretty well. We'll send Jenna's home in the mornign with the captain to give to Amer. Ali will return a leftover cell phone to a school friend.

All in all, an awesome birthday weekend according to the birthday girl.

Oh damn. I have to remind her to take off her nail polish. Finger nail polish earns you a detention at her school. We talked about whether to risk her getting nailed for the infraction. I was ready to ignore an infraction -- that's a note home to the parents. Two strikes, though, and you get a detention.

"I don't know, Mom. A detention?" she said. "I think I'll just take it off. I took pictures."

Ugh. Rules.

Good thing one of us is growing up.

The Package

Back in the last century, a young and childless Jeff Reed reported for duty in state goverment where he practiced utility law, defending ratepayers against unfair rate hikes and other actions taken by electric, natural gas, water, sewer and telecom companies.

After his first hearing, a couple of wayward court reporters with a bird's eye view of the underside of the tables where the lawyers sat as they tried their cases sat, dubbed him "The Package."

But that's not the story I'm going to tell you today.

Today I'm ratting out the Captain who allowed his young daughter to open her birthday present -- a massive package that arrived Thursday afternoon -- a full day before the clock ticked over to declare her 12 years old.

This is signficant only because he's railed at me for years about being too permissive with the child, for being too eager to give her gifts as soon as possible, for spoiling her. (Thank you Aunt Lois for your words of wisdom in Ali's birthday card: "it's not spoiling if you deserve it."

The truth of the matter is, he picked out the gift and was as anxious to see her open it as she was to discover what was in the box, which stood about five feet tall and looked able to house a slim refrigerator or a folded up pony.

"This is her hat rack," he admitted, reminding me of another sin he'd committed with this present.

A few years ago, I bought him a hat rack to organize all his random baseball caps I kept tripping over. It might have been Father's Day. It might have been his birthday. It might have been just a "I love you honey, you're so fabulous I bought you a gift" gift. I don't remember the occasion. All I remember is he did not appreciate it. At all. He actually returned it and bought something stupid. I don't remember what he bought and I don't care.

All I know is he bought Ali a gift for her birthday that he really wanted AND he let her open it early.

I'm in such a great position right now.

Oh. The gift. It's a Yogibo (www.yogibo.com). What's a Yogibo?

It's a glorified bean bag. Oh, sorry. It's a new age version with super cool microbeads and memory and stretchable fabric. They found a Yogibo store at The Maine Mall back at Christmas and Alison had really hoped to find one under the tree. They spent half an afternoon at the store. A bromance blossomed between Jeff and the salesman, who I met when they dragged me down there to check them out.

And yes, Alison loved the thing. Much more than he loved his hat rack. But yeah. It's a bean bag that has them both more giddy than a school girl crowned queen at her first dance. They were both squealing and jumping around this morning as they tore through the wrapping and then pounced on the thing.

It was actually a lot of fun to watch. It's been a great birthday so far, and I'm not really unhappy about the Yogibo. It's going to mean I can finally get rid of the papasan chair that Jeff's had since before he first earned his nickname.

We actually started the weekend on Friday when I picked Ali and some friends from school up shortly after the bell rang to end the school week. They had mani-pedis and then Huddles yogurt before they took over the family room and stayed up until midnight talking about boys and school and silliness.

Today it's the Ali and Jenna show and they're currently sweating up a storm at the local Sky Zone, trampoline center. We'll go home later and try our hand at tie-dying, something I've never done. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't end up with another cupcake experiment. They'll be sleeping on the Yogibo, I'm certain.

That's if Jeff doesn't beat them to it. Although, thinking back to those early days, and the fact that it was a damn good nickname, he might have another assignment to fulfill.