My dinosaurs (and Neanderthal Men) really enjoyed the stories Mr. Pig posted to the project of Miss Francoise
@francoise during December. He described the most interesting goings on of his family. He and his wife, Crystal, have three little squealers who are at that age where they are a real handful. The dinosaurs have talked wistfully of wishing they lived closer to the Pig family, so they could get to know them -- particularly the squealers. The Triceratops Twins were particularly taken with one of the little squealers by the name of Leonardo. He seems to be a kindred soul to the Triceratops Twins (which is to say, a REAL handful -- a handful and a half, as a matter of fact!) All the squealers are inquisitive and fun loving, and I myself thought it would be nice to let the dinos get to know them. So when Francoise and I were paired up for Get Pushed this week, we talked it over and decided we could make it a joint challenge.
She and I arranged a time to meet via Zoom. Since I had proposed the meeting, I agreed to initiate it. I ended up making things more complicated than they needed to be. But in my defense I had only ever been on the receiving end of participating in Zoom meetings before, and I'm a bit dense. So there you have it. As the agreed-on time approached, I found myself frantically trying to figure out how to join my own meeting on the iPad. I had a link to it on the calendar on the iPhone, but hadn't synced that calendar to the one on the iPad recently. Aaargh! Francoise came to the rescue and placed a Zoom call to me. Bingo! We were connected. And not a minute too soon. The dinosaurs and Neanderthal Men had been very patient, but it was wearing thin. With the help of my brother via FaceTime, they had gotten themselves into precise position in such a way that the Pig family should be able to see all of them. And I had warned them all that if they moved around, they might NOT be seen by the squealers or Mr. Pig or Crystal. That horrible possibility had kept them in place while I dithered, and copied and pasted a link to the meeting from the calendar into the mail app. Thank you, again, Francoise, for saving the day!
The dinos and pigs had a fun time getting to know each other. Mr. Pig is just as nice and entertaining as his 365 stories suggest. They traded stories of their various experiences and adventures and compared likes, dislikes, hobbies etc. I had cautioned the dinos that they should watch their language and what they suggest, as the squealers are impressionable little ones, younger than they are (I got a resounding "Duh!" at that). For the most part they kept that in mind, but I was a bit nervous when the Triceratops Twin brother bragged about their adventure at Freedom Festival out at SweetWood several years ago. He made it sound as though getting stuck at the bottom of the front pocket of the suitcase, missing the last several days of the Festival, and sending me into an absolute panic at their disappearance, was something they had planned and was the most fun EVER.
After the dino/pig meetup began to wind down, a number of dinosaurs wandered off and the squealers started to run around. So, while Mr. Pig went off to round up his family, Francoise and I had a nice chat of our own. I can't tell you how very nice it was to meet her face to face. I hope to have other chances to get together with her and/or with other 365 friends I've so far met only on this site.
Francoise has posted a fabulous picture of the meeting from her end -- such a great clear picture of the Pig family (including Crystal's sister, who joined them) Here's where you can see her post:
http://365project.org/francoise/365-2019/2020-01-22
