Friday party, picnic, etc.

So Friday night at Ray's Téodor wasn't around, but that didn't matter because Beef was being fairly normal and we even had a few decent conversations, although not about his little incident last week. And since Ray and funny old Mr. Bear (he calls me Miss Molly and tips his nice hat) went off to play pool, Beef didn't feel inclined to keep up with Ray's drinking antics and wind up face down on the patio (he just doesn't carry as much weight on his frame as Ray). He just loosened up and before long he surprised me by doing some pretty good dives into the pool.
 
Soon all sorts of people were cheering for him each time, and little Philippe would even hand him towels as he came out of the pool (Philippe was beaming at him like he was Greg Louganis!). He's really good, he says that he used to practice all summer over at the lake. He can do flips, backflips, a flip with a twist, a double-flip, a really nice jackknife, and even a really good cannonball. I was impressed.
 
Saturday he was acting kind of edgy in the morning but then he opened up later that afternoon and we had a little bit of a breakthrough. I can't tell you how relieved I was. Then he took me on a lovely dinner picnic down by the creek, and he pretended that the grocery bag was a banjo and sang,
 
Molly
Oh Miss Molly
You make a dude jolly
Jolly for all of life's folly
 
You have to understand, that's pretty upbeat coming from him. Maybe for Christmas I'll get him a banjo and he can write me more love ballads.