74. Trips, Old Times and an Itty Bitty Book Lite

It is a blustery day in Tepusquet Canyon, it isn't cold just windy.  The kind of day that usually blows the cover off of the hot tub and sends leaves scattering.  Bob is working on the fence for Maggie again, anxious to finish the job.  It is going to be so sweet with the little quail and their top knots running across the top.  I can hear the e-z up thumping against the house...just as I thought...Bob hurried in to ask for assistance in taking it down before it ended up in OZ. We definitely need to think about a patio cover of some inexpensive kind.  I don't want the plants that are used to protection and the bent willow furniture to experience the elements any more than necessary.

 Our excursion to Monterey was just great.  It is always a trip down memory lane for Bob as they lived there during the war.  His daddy, Cotton, was a cook in the Army and spent the whole time cooking on the base there, so  Bob and his mom could live nearby.  They lived for a while in the Sea Breeze Motel in Pacific Grove where the Monarch butterflies migrate.  It was a wonderful time for them in spite of the circumstances.  The Asilomar over looks Half Moon Bay where they would play with balsa airplanes.  The planes came with a big rubber band and a stick for launching  them into the wind and out to sea where the plane would catch an air current that would then return the it to their feet like a wind powered boomerang!  We passed where the little corner grocery store used to be where they bought their Christmas tree that made the cottage smell like sardines.  We marked the spot where Bob up-chucked a pear because of the flu.  He has never willingly eaten another pear. 

We ate our fill of clam chowder at Kokomo's on the pier and grinned later with warm pleasure as we walked arm in arm in the rain.  We drove by the house on Pearl St. with an ocean view that we almost bought for $18,000 and each gave a heavy sigh.  Memory Lane behind us we decided that we needed some mindless entertainment and the Asilomar doesn't even have radios in the rooms so we headed for the movie theater in Pacific Grove.  We saw RED the new Bruce Willis film.

http://www.moviefone.com/movie/red/10020540/main
If you love Bruce Willis like we do, you will really enjoy it.  Helen Mirren is just fabulous!  Check you brain at the door and sit back and love it!

Years ago my car was a turquoise and black 1955 Plymouth Belvedere. Probably my favorite car ever.  We were in Los Angeles and Bob said "Check it out, Sharon, someone likes your car."  I looked and Bruce Willis and Demi Moore were looking and giving us two thumbs up from the car next to us.  I sang all the way home.  What a treat.  I received many compliments on that car but none I remember as well as that one.

When we got home at 2:30 on Monday, we promptly lost power and it stayed lost for twelve hours.  Now we had already talked for two days without television so we had quite a time finding more to talk about.  We drove around till we found the PG&E repair trucks and solved the mystery of the lost power, went to town to get Maggie and an ice cream  and then hit the sack early to read by an Itty Bitty Book Lite and be very glad the bed was soft and the book was good.

 

73. Silver and Gold

In our opinion, the weather this time of year is near perfection.  The angle of the sun, the temperature, the crispness of the air makes it just marvelous.  An industrious gopher is having a blast cultivating the lower meadow.  

We have had some slight rain and the ground is very easy to turn now.  Bob is happy to feel better and is industrious, as well.  He is putting the quail fencing that used to surround the front porch that is now our laundry room and dining room out the back door for an enclosure for Maggie.  She usually goes everywhere with us, but on a rare occasion she needs a safe place to hang out.  She is quite the jumper, so it needed to be a foot taller than before to make sure she stays put.  We also don't want uninvited guests to get in.  It will be lovely when he is finished. 

The bent willow furniture needs a new home too, so I think we will put gravel and flagstone down where he is making the fence.  We can work around budget constraints with that rather than a concrete pad, plus I think it makes for a little more pizazz.  Right now we are using our ez-up for a cover just to keep the rain off.  A couple of boring beetles made holes in three of the legs on the furniture, so as soon as the leaves fall off the willow down by the creek we will repair them. 

Our wonderful friends, Polly and Phil, came to spend the night on Wednesday and brought us a fine cast iron Franklin stove for the patio.  One of their neighbors had cast it aside and they rescued it.  After contemplation Polly decided it didn't suit her lovely garden's plan and thought of us.  We are delighted to be the recipient of such a fine item.  They hauled it down to us when they came along with a beautiful floral arrangement for my natal day.  We talked and ate and drank and talked and ate and drank the night away.  We have been friends for so long and are getting so old and forgetful that we can tell the same stories and laugh like we have never heard it before.  It is marvelous to have friends like that.  The safety of old friends is a wonderful gift, friends you can tell your deepest, darkest secrets to and know they will be in safe keeping, even if because of declining memory.  In Brownies the girls were taught to "Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver the other gold." We are truly blessed.

72. Back Under the Covers.

When the dentist talks about a "dry socket" the next time I have a tooth pulled, you can be sure I will have a healthier respect for his instructions.  I chose to have a tooth extracted (highly unlike me, I want to go to my "Celestial Fandango" with as many of my own teeth as possible) because it was very slanted and was causing problems with my tongue.  Paul told me to keep the gauze pack in place for two hours with pressure.  I am so very literal that I followed the instructions to the minute.  The gauze looked like I thought it should when I finally tossed it and my lunch was half of a Costco frozen yogurt.  All things seemed well until about seven that evening when the rest of the local wore off.  Good Grief!!! That was eight days ago and it is still unbelievably painful!  I have taken so much pain medication that now it feels like someone has punched me in the gut.  My darling sweet dentist says it will last like this until the gum grows back over the gaping hole.  Bob says it doesn't look gaping...but what does he know?!  At any rate, I'm not worth a darn.  Ice packs, heating pads...you would think that I just had major surgery.

I feel like such a baby!  I've gone outside and tried yard work and fresh air; shopping doesn't even sound appealing.  I have two ten dollar coupons for Kohl's and I don't even feel like going there.  This is serious, really serious.  Free stuff doesn't even sound like fun.  At least last night it didn't wake me up at three a.m., so that must mean progress.  I've run out of soft foods to fix and Bob's not fond of soup.  He never complains, but always welcomes a grilled cheese, corn bread or biscuits as an accompaniment.

I knew I should have just put up with the weird enlarged gland in my tongue.  Nerve damage deterred me from having it removed instead of the tooth.  Only time will tell if I made the right decision.  Children in China are starving and I'm whining about a dry socket.  I guess it is all perspective isn't it.  At least this will eventually get better.  So, now I've put it in perspective and I feel better already, or is it just that the pain meds have kicked in.  I think I'll go back to bed with Maggie and pull the covers over my head, that always makes me feel better.

71. All We Need is the Tutu!

Tonight is Maggie's debut at the Kennel Club meeting.  She  is all scrubbed and smelling sweetly.  She is so funny, when she sees water running in the kitchen sink she stays  about ten feet away.  If I move toward her she moves an equal distance back.  It's just a little game we play.  I always win, but still she tries to evade the inevitable.  Yet when we get into the shower she sticks her head in like "Gee, that looks like fun."  She has no mental image of her in the shower, just us...the kitchen sink?  That's a different story.

A vet on television the other day said when bathing a dog to keep them from shaking to put your hand gently around their muzzle.  Apparently the shake starts from the nose.  Well, it's not entirely foolproof.  She still shook, just not as hard.  Maybe I wasn't quite quick enough.  The vet also said that seventy percent of dog owners sleep with their dog.  I'll bet the other thirty percent have Great Danes or Wolf Hounds and the like.  Bathing the animal once a week really helps reduce dog dander, the cause of most pet allergies.  Given the opportunity, Maggie would definitely sleep with us, but we sleep in a double bed and she's not getting my third.  What Bob does with his two-thirds is up to him and he's not good at sharing much of anything.

At the Kennel Club meeting next month the members present vote and then we can start taking Maggie to senior centers, etc for training.  We are looking forward to participating in a couple of visits a month.  There are about nine opportunities a month for involvement so I'm sure we can find a couple that suit us.  Sansum Clinic in Santa Barbara has a children's wing that might like some entertainment, but first I want to make her a pink tutu.  She has a tiara.  I know it's a little bit crazy but life is short and getting shorter all the time and it's time for a little pay back and nothing says fun like a twirling Cocker in a pink tutu and tiara.

70. Who Needs Electricity!

We awoke this morning to a sweet, cool breeze and no electricity.  This happens periodically and I suppose with more frequency than it does in town.  When it happens here, however, that means we don't even have water because of the electric pump on the well.  We can't even have our one cup of morning coffee.  

Oh, that's not entirely true, we could pretend we were camping and go to the motor home and fix it.  That's why we keep it, really, we don't camp much since we have stopped doing art shows.  It was a financial life saver then though.  If we are ever evacuated again it would come in handy, as long as we remember to keep the battery charged.  The only time we have been told to leave the canyon we only had thirty minutes and of course, the battery was dead.  Lesson learned!

Certainly it is a wonderful earthquake emergency kit to the tenth power.  Trisha used to use it for her little cabin when she visited from Switzerland until she found out that we have mice occasionally.  Hello...we live in the country.  Guess it never occurred to her.  She would really stop visiting altogether if she found out that Maggie cornered a tarantula in the spare bedroom a couple of months ago.  

We've only seen...maybe three of the hairy little things, but one would be in the bedroom.  They are harmless but just a little alarming I have to admit.  Bob captured it with a kitchen towel as it pretended to be invisible and put it gently in the flower bed.  Maggie is always so proud when she corners something.  She is like Lassie when Timmy fell in the well, not happy until you come and see what she has discovered.  I feel very comfortable that she would wake us if anything untoward were to happen in the night.  Things out of the ordinary get her attention and she lets you know.  She doesn't normally bark so we always seek her out.

The electricity issue wasn't expected to be resolved until about nine-thirty so we decided a breakfast run was in order.  It's something we rarely do because of the seventeen mile drive but what with no electricity and all it just seemed the thing to do.  We tried a newer place and boy was it good.  Tri-tip and eggs for $5.95!  We will definitely go back there.  Isn't it fun to do something out of the ordinary, get a little crazy and just jump in the car, no make-up just a comb through the hair and a smile.  It was rejuvenating and just felt plain good.  Now I'm going to enlist Bob's help and go out and plant the new gardenia in the corner between the water heater closet and the hot tub.  Keep your fingers crossed, it will need all the help it can get! 

69. Slip Sliding Away...

This morning it is gray and drizzly out my living room window.  It was so hot for a while that it is rather pleasant to have things rinsed off and cool.  I'm trying to teach myself to enjoy the day no matter what the weather, to try to be glad when it is hot because the plants will grow and I can squirt to my heart's content early in the morning or after dinner when there is a little breeze.  Then be glad when it's cool and drippy so I can stay inside and tackle a chore like a closet or cabinet, while a big pot of chili simmers on the stove. 

You might guess that I have just returned from a visit with my dad.  I guess when I visit him I think a lot about trying to enjoy each day and not miss something because I'm cranky for no good reason.  As he slowly goes slip sliding away, the reasons to pay attention to each and every day become more apparent.  He doesn't even sit outside to count the cars that go in and out of the medical building parking lot across the street anymore.  It's sad when you sink to that level of entertainment, sad to me at any rate.  Six months ago he was still an avid Soduko fan and really loved 1000 piece jig-saw puzzles.  He struggles to do 300 pieces now and I'm too much like an ostrich to ask about the Soduko.  He did manage to play Bingo on Tuesday and that made my sister, Becky, and I happy. 

Life has zigs and zags and ups and downs and we have to accept our fate.  It's the in between's of all those zig, zag, up and down times we have to remember to simply enjoy.  A little gay abandon should be thrown in amongst it all and what would be wrong with some crazy squealing?  You know the kind that they show girls doing in the movies when something really exciting happens to one of them.  Let's not be shy with our excitement and pleasure in the little things in life.  My daddy always told me not to act so silly and be lady-like...I'm choosing to believe he was very, very wrong.

Taken two or three years ago.