969 Pumpkin Seeds

Jack and I had a fantastic date night last night. He waited patiently for me to arrive home from work, calling my cell once on the way to check "if I had any ideas about where I wanted to go on the date? Maybe Popovers?...". He suggested that maybe we could think about our options once we get in the car. He insisted that we drive "Dad's car" and that we bring the GPS to see where we were going. Once we were ready to decide, he particularly delighted in considering all of the options:
Popovers? "That's a good one"
Dairy Queen? "Wow, we can go there?!"
Apple Bees? "Whoa, what would we do there? That would be really neat, we could just get dessert?" He was really beaming on that one
Golden Rod in York? - closed

In the end Jack selected....Dairy Queen. We charted our course (4 miles down Rt236), including a detour to the ATM (some fine restaurants only take cash) and Jack made all the selections on the ATM "Dad, do you want a receipt?" (maybe he has observed his mother a few times?). At DQ, Jack verified for the 5th time that we could really get Blizzards, and that we could each get our own. Focusing like a race track junkie at the Breeder's Cup, Jack stepped up to the window and ordered a Mint Oreo Blizzard. I selected a Cookie Dough Blizzard "Good one, Dad" and we were off. We decided that we would drive over to Portsmouth to look at things while we ate and then "stretch our legs because that's important to do after you eat" according to Jack.
We found a good place to park the car in Portsmouth and finish our Blizzards. Jack made sure we turned off the car to save energy (he did allow the CD player to stay on and selected a Johhny Cash CD - a 2nd generation to be brainwashed by that genre) and made sure we were in compliance with the parking meter hours of operation. Seated in the car, Jack had the opportunity to offer discourse on several topics:

-Jack thinks Saturday and Sunday should be split up, Saturday should be a weekend and Sunday should be a weekstart
-he likes that time of night (7:00 p.m.) because it's a good time to wind down and relax
-He is never going to smoke (thank you ugly girl for throwing a butt out of her car window) "It is really stinky"
-It's getting dark really early this time of year
-amusement parks are closed this time of year: water country, Canobie lake park
-a girl at school wrote him a letter "Jack, I like having you in my class", and he wrote one back...

We concluded our evening by walking around Portsmouth. We check out the water fountain in downtown Portsmouth, looked for the "big, red ant statue" and played with a "farting toy" in the prank toy store. I never thought Jack would stop laughing when he tricked me into making the noise and drawing the attention of some customers. As we walked back to the car, we paused to notice a large pumpkin in the window of one of the retail stores, with a sign offering $250 to guess how many seeds were in the pumpkin. Jack immediately shouted "969 seeds" just as the owner was hoping out of her car with a few boxes for her store. She told Jack that his guess was very good because they had been running the contest for 15 years and his number would be very close. She urged us to return when the store was open and submit that number "969" and flashed a smile to Jack that warmed his heart.

Thank you Jack, I had a great date night, Love Dad