Our Lucky Day

I posted this story almost two years ago when only my closest friends and family knew that I had started a blog. Today I’d like to re-post it to share it with more of my followers. Not much for photos, this time. Mainly writing. Friends and family – please be patient and bear with me.

This is a true story of when my mother-in-law and I got into a scrape while shopping out of town.

***

Our Lucky Day

“I’m burnt out from shopping,” I said to my mother-in-law. “Do you feel like having a cup of tea and a little snack? It’ll be at least two more hours till we get home.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Myrtle said. “Where could we go?”

I paid for my new lawn sprinkler and asked the hardware store clerk, “Is there any place nearby that’s not fast food?”

“Ricky’s. It’s not too far at all.” She pointed vaguely towards the hardware store door. “Right over there.”

“What street is it on? Can you give me directions?”

“Are you parked in our lot?”

I nodded.

“Well, it’s your lucky day. You don’t have to drive anywhere. Here, I’ll show you.” She motioned for us to follow her to the door. “Just leave your car here and walk.” She pointed again from the doorway. “It’s right there. Our parking lots almost join.” I was surprised to see the restaurant. Hadn’t even realized it was there.

“Wonderful. You’re sure it’s okay to stay parked here?”

“You bought a sprinkler, didn’t you? You’re a customer. You can park here.”

“That’s great. Thanks,” I said. “Come on, Myrtle. As the lady said, ‘It’s our lucky day.’”

An hour later we strolled out of Ricky’s feeling refreshed and ready to face the long ride home.

We walked across the restaurant parking lot to the hardware store lot, empty except for my Toyota truck. “Everyone’s gone home. I didn’t realize it was so late. After 5:30 already,” I said.

In the truck, we headed for the entrance of the lot—only to find it barred by a bright yellow iron gate. I jumped out to open the gate. Oh no! I looked back at Myrtle and threw my arms in the air. “It’s LOCKED!”

I had visions of us sleeping in the parking lot till morning. I drove around the inside perimeter of the parking lot. The only space without a high concrete barrier had huge boulders placed strategically to prevent access. At one side of the lot, close to the main street, the sidewalk curb kept us in, but even that was too high for my small two-wheel-drive truck to manage.

I looked at Myrtle. Her face was pale as she chewed her lip and twisted her fingers. Oh great! I thought. She’s really upset. Hope she doesn’t have a heart attack over all this stress.

“Don’t worry, Myrtle. I’ll get us out of here.” I just wished I had a clue how to do that. I drove around to the back of the hardware store. Piles of lumber. A little light came on in my head. “It’s our lucky day,” I said.

I got out, chose two wide boards, and put them in the back of the truck.

“Won’t we get in trouble?” Myrtle asked. “We can’t just take those boards.”

“I’d say that, stuck in here, we’re already in trouble. But they locked us in, so they can help us get out.”

I drove to the side of the lot nearest the street, parked, and took out the boards and laid them over the curb to make twin ramps. I inched the truck toward them, getting out one more time to adjust their placement.

“Fasten your seatbelt, Myrt.”

The front tires went up the ramps and the back tires followed.  I heard a horrible cracking sound behind us, and sucked in my breath through my teeth. Oh, no! Please don’t let me get stuck now. I gunned the engine and zoomed up onto the boulevard. Weaving between two young ornamental plum trees, I crossed the sidewalk and clunked down from the curb on the street side. We were free.

But what about my back tires? Were they flat, maybe with huge splinters of wood sticking through them? I slapped on the hazard lights and pulled over to do a tire inspection.

Back in the car again, I smiled at Myrtle. “We’re okay.”

She patted my thigh joyfully, in a “you did good” motion and said, “It’s our lucky day.”

Licked

I am about to let the world in on a little secret. Big breath…. Okay … here goes. Sometimes … just sometimes … we let our dog lick the plates. ONLY because I have a dishwasher that will sterilize the plates … pretty much….

Ruby has long ears—most spaniels do—so I hate to put down plates that have messy things left on them. Left over spaghetti, for example, is out of the question. But she looks at us with those pleading, brown spaniel eyes that seem to say, “But you let me lick the plate last time. Why not this time?”

Notice the long hair on the long ears.

Finally, I can’t stand it anymore and I let her lick the plate. To avoid a big mess, I stand over her and hold up her ears so they won’t drag in the gravy.

“Hurry up, Ruby!” I tell her. “I don’t want to stand here all day while you lick the last morsel off the plate.” If only she could hold up her own ears. That got the wheels turning. If she can’t hold them up herself, I’d have to invent a way to hold them up. A big plastic clothespeg would do the trick perfectly for two reasons: her ears would stay clean and out of the food, and the clothespeg would no longer be holding closed the bag of potato chips and I could reach in for the occasional treat.

The orange clothespeg does the trick.

You may think it’s bad form to let the family dog lick the people’s plates. Dog saliva is a bit slimy, I admit. But if I were the only one who ever let my dog lick the dinner plates, the following story would not have had the intended results.

Sam and Susan Smith always had a substantial hot lunch at 12 o’clock, and then they would eat a light supper much later. Joe and Jean Johnson had only recently met the Smiths and happened to drop in on them at lunchtime. The meal was so good that it didn’t take long for the Johnsons to make a habit of showing up for unannounced visits, usually just before 12 o’clock.

The Smiths were getting a bit tired of feeding the Johnsons nearly every day but didn’t want to be rude, so Sam and Susan discussed their problem one evening and came up with a plan.

The next time Joe and Jean dropped in just in time for lunch, Susan fed them as usual, and everyone enjoyed a good meal. When Sam finished he set his plate on the floor where Woofy, their lab, licked up the leftovers.

Jean nudged Joe, who shrugged his shoulders. They said nothing, but their mouths fell open when Sam stood up and picked up his plate from the floor.

“Look at this, Susan,” Sam said. “Woofy sure does a good job, doesn’t he? He’s getting better, and it sure has been saving you a lot of work cleaning up.” And he opened the cupboard door and put the plate on top of the stack of clean dishes inside.

The Johnson never returned at lunchtime, or any other time.

Everyone Knows It’s Windy – in Montana

We’re camped with our 19-foot trailer, in a clean, new RV Park,  and everything is just wonderful. Gary decided to do a reconnaissance trip while I settled in to catch up with my email.

“Perfect,” I thought, “I’m going to enjoy my little bit of alone time.” But wouldn’t you know it, about twenty minutes after Gary left, disaster struck. It was another one of those situations where, if he had listened to his wise old wife, he could have spared her a lot of grief.

When we first arrived, Gary put up the awning of the trailer. I made the mistake of suggesting that this was not a good idea because Montana is known for its wind, especially in the northeastern part which is prairie-like and the wind whistles across the land with nothing to stop it. Of course, as soon as I suggested not to put up the awning, it had to go up. Why don’t I learn?!

“If it’s too windy, I’ll take it down,” he’d said.

I was just settling in,  enjoying my laptop and connecting with friends by email when the whole trailer began to shake. A big gust of wind buffeted it and I had visions of  the trailer with me inside, tumbling across the prairie like a  giant vinyl tumbleweed. I pulled the curtains aside and looked out the window. The canvas was billowing high, and the aluminum support on one side had collapsed so the awning hung onto the trailer at an odd twisted angle.

Breezy days

After a few more gusts, I knew that I had to do something or we really might roll over, but when I went outside to assess the situation, I realized that if I did the wrong thing, a big wind gust  could rip the awning or the aluminum supports out of my hands and smash them into the trailer. I decided to try to lower the warped support one notch at a time by opening the lever and un-telescoping the support on the side that was now higher than the other. You would think that was the sensible and easy thing to do, except that the pin that holds the telescoped part in place is no longer responding to the lever action when I try to release it. The pin is either broken off or hanging by a thread. I muscled the thing to push it up and used needle nosed pliers to poke the metal pin back through the slots that held the support in place, but all it did was slide into the next slot down and the struggle began all over again.

My old whiplashed neck began to scream in pain at the effort and I had to give up for a while. More gusts of wind. I tried again. More neck pain. I gave up and resigned myself to becoming a tumbleweed.

Houston, we have lift-off.

Needless to say, I didn’t get much emailing done, or enjoy my “alone time.” I fretted until Gary came back.

What I had struggled with for two hours took him less than five minutes to fix.

“Huh!”he said, “I didn’t think it was going to be that windy.”

I was dying to say “I told you so,” but what would have been the point?

The Baja Getaway – Part One

As fall approaches, I have thoughts of warm winter holidays. It’s not too early to think about a trip as these things have to be planned  ahead. Some years ago, Gary and I prepared well in advance for a trip to Baja California for a stay of about three months. We had an old but fairly reliable Ford truck then, a Boler trailer, trail bike, and aluminum skiff. For those of you who don’t know what a Boler trailer is, think small. Think very small.

Our plan was to set up an outdoor camp at our destination, 27 miles south of Mulegé, and use the Boler mainly for sleeping. We brought water jugs to fill in Mulegé, and loaded our truck and Boler with everything we might possibly need (not want, but need) to live comfortably in our camping spot.

Being single axle and lightweight, the Boler was quite bouncy,  and Mex 1 was famous for its potholes. Bad combination. The interior trailer contents liked to practice flying as we traveled. No matter how carefully I battened down anything that might move, at every pit stop I knew I would have to pick up whatever box of supplies had been knocked over since the last stop. Sewing kit, paper towels, boots, and bowls—a surprise every time.

At last I had everything secured. But when I opened the trailer door at one stop, I looked into a completely white interior. White powder covered every possible surface. I dipped a wetted finger in it. Flour! I had stored the flour under the bench seat of the eating area. My plastic tub that once held about five pounds of flour, was now only half full, even though it hadn’t tipped over. Under the tub, flour covered the floor. With every bounce, the white powder had poofed out through two new cracks in the bottom of the container.

We were in the middle of Baja. No electricity, so no vacuum. Have you ever tried wiping up flour with a damp cloth? That was out of the question too. Sweeping with a tiny broom using a dust pan for inside the storage bin, I finally got most of the flour out of the trailer. Rest stop over. No chance to rest yet? Better luck next time.

I longed for our destination. In my mind, the only white stuff lying around all over would be the sand. White sand, blue, blue sea. Where are you?

At Ensenada, we pulled to the side of the road by the harbour park. I opened the Boler door and grabbed for the shampoo bottle that rolled towards the door. Much later, when Gary wanted to shave, he couldn’t find his chargeable electric shaver. Some lucky person at the waterfront in Ensenada must have been overjoyed to find that in the ditch after it had rolled, unnoticed, out the door.

A few days later, I was very happy to arrive at our destination and be able to unpack all the rolling things. But before we got there, we had more adventures. Stay tuned for the next installment of “The Baja Getaway – the One that Got Away” on us.

Beetlephobia

Bring on the beetles

When my sweet, perfectly behaved springer spaniel, Ruby, was only a few months old, she was the puppy from hell. Everything in her brand new life had to be investigated, pawed at, shaken, carried around, and tasted. Her favourite word, translated from dog language, was “Waaaa-hoooo!”

In July, the hot weather brought on a hatch of the horrible, hissing ten-lined beetles. While I lived in terror of these huge flying insects, Ruby was in her glory, chasing them around the yard, snapping them out of the air and pawing at them once they fell. She rolled on them, picked them up, packed them around, and—waaaa-hoooo—brought her trophies over to me for show and tell.

No Charge

I love to hear that there’s no charge. Yay! Something for free! But when “no charge” means your battery is dead, that’s not so good.

My little truck for hauling bark mulch and topsoil sat idle for a couple of weeks during our only hot weather of the summer so far. When I tried to move the truck the other day, I turned the key in the ignition and nothing happened.

I’m afraid of messing with electricity.

As a child I got a shock when I reached into the wringer washer to lift out the clothes to put them through the rollers. It’s not good to be standing on a wet floor. Nothing life threatening. Just an ugly buzz through me.

As a teenager, too lazy to use the wooden spoon, I stirred the contents of an electric frying pan with a butter knife. In our old house the kitchen counters had metal moulding. Of course that’s what I touched to complete the circuit. Nothing life threatening. Just an ugly buzz through me.

As an adult I “helped” a friend who had a dead battery. I nosed my car up to the dead car. With my car running, I attached the jumper cables from my car’s battery to the dead car’s battery. Ta dah! Simple! And then things started to smoke and boil. I ripped the cables off and ran for cover.

With history like that, you can see why having a dead battery is more than a little disconcerting for me.

Possible solutions:

1. Charge the battery?

Truck is parked too far from the house. Can’t plug the battery charger in. Connecting it to the battery would have taken major investigation and tutoring for me to accomplish.

2.   Jumper cables and a friend’s truck?

No room for another vehicle to get close enough to mine. Besides, the friend is busy working and I don’t like to bother him on his time off.

3.   Get help from a neighbour?

Yes. He scrapes and cleans the battery terminals. We try to start the truck. Dead.

He takes the battery out and tries his spare battery. Dead too.

A light comes on in my peabrain. I don’t have to drive the truck to the house to connect the battery to the charger. I can bring the battery to the house. Into the wheelbarrow it goes, and off to the house. The neighbour shows me how to connect the charger’s cable thingies to the battery. Just then I remember that once I had a dead battery in the hot summertime and the battery had no water.  We check the water level. It’s out of sight. He says get distilled water and pour it to the top of the solid stuff you see when you look in the holes of the battery. I’m very grateful to the neighbour.

Okay. One day I’ll go to town and get distilled water. While I’m on the phone the next day, the working friend drops off a big jug of distilled water and sends me an email: “It’s by your battery.” What a sweetheart. I’m thrilled that I don’t have to make a major trip to town to buy a cup of water.

I pour water in the battery, attach the second cable the neighbour had set up for me, and plug in the charger. Then I stand well back while I wait for things to heat up and explode. Nothing happens. I take that to be a good thing. The battery charger is old and the indicator needle stopped working years ago, but I leave it on all day and all night and part of the next day just to be sure. Not that it makes me sure at all.

Now what? Unplugged, the battery sits there while I wonder what to do. I find busy work to do for three days. Then I remember that I watched the neighbour take the battery out.  He unscrewed the bolts on the bar that held the battery in place, unhooked the cables and lifted the battery out. All I have to do is reverse that procedure.  But which way does the battery go? Which cable connects to which terminal? What if it smokes and blows up? And can I even lift the battery up into the truck?

I wheelbarrow the battery to the truck, find some reserve strength to lift the thing. Feels like it’s made of lead. Probably is. And I plop it into place. I think. By some miracle, the cables only fit one way. The big clamp on the big post, the smaller clamp on the smaller post. I don’t have the fancy tools, but I have a crescent wrench to tighten the clamps. Then I fit the bar over the whole battery and bolt it to the truck frame.

The moment of truth. I get into the truck and turn the key. I keep the door open in case I see smoke and have to make a run for it. First click turns the engine over and my grin is huge. I sit there chuckling and tittering and clapping my hands together silently. I am SO proud of myself.

And the repair bill? No charge.

Sticky Buns

Saturdays from about nine until noon, the Farmer’s Market is a big attraction at the local fairgrounds. One reason to get there early is to be sure of finding a place to park so you don’t have to walk a mile. The other is to try to beat the line up in front of the baked goods booth where the best sticky buns in town are sold.

These huge homemade buns are like cinnamon rolls with a topping of baked on maple flavoured syrup and pecans. To die for! It’s like an addiction. My friend and I rush from our car to get in line even though the sticky bun baker hasn’t opened her stall yet. We get in line behind about ten people who are already waiting and in no time twenty more fall in line behind us. These sticky buns are famous.

We check our watches every two minutes, waiting for the magic 9:00 a.m. opening time, commenting on the passersby and calling out to friends going by.

A dog fight catches our attention. I’m glad we’re safely out of the way of the ruckus. “Wish people would keep their dogs on a leash. Did you see that schnauzer almost trip that woman?”

“Yeah, she spilled her coffee.” My friend shakes her head. “They shouldn’t even allow dogs in here where there’s food served.”

The baker uncovers the sticky buns and announces that she’s open for business.

Several people and one shaggy dog crowd closer to the table. The line splits into two, as the baker’s helper serves people as well.

“Good thing we got here when we did,” says my friend. “Sure hope they don’t run out of buns before we get to the front of the line.”

“No, I don’t think we need to worry. I see a whole bunch more on cookie sheets under the table.”

A shaft of sunlight comes streaming through the stall at an early morning angle, lighting up the sticky buns on the table as well as those underneath. The shaggy dog shakes himself. The beam of sunshine highlights dog hair everywhere as it floats through the air. I feel as if I’m watching the whole thing in slow motion. I’m horrified to see the dog hairs landing one by one, two by two, too many to count, right on the trays of sticky buns under the table. It’s not as if you can brush the hair off them either.

We get the last of the sticky buns from on top of the table and as they bring the trays up from underneath I know it’s the end of an era for me. I make a promise to myself.

“This will be my last sticky bun. My addiction is cured.”

Who Dunnit? – Part Two

I think I have to give Detective Owl his pink slip. I hate to do it, but he hasn’t made any progress in solving the Who Dunnit. To make matters worse, while he’s been dithering, the culprit has reoffended. A seasoned detective like Owl should have known that a perpetrator will always return to the scene of the crime.

Ruby, my trusty guard-spaniel, has been totally unnerved by the midnight bandits. Last night about 1:00 a.m., she shook herself, her signal to me that she wants to go out. From upstairs, I heard her, but tried to ignore her, but then I heard her toenails tap-tapping on the stairs. She was halfway up when she saw me.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re awake,” she said as she wagged her tail, turned, and ran for the downstairs door.

No way I was letting her out the family room door where the garbage can stood. I didn’t need her running out in the middle of the dark night to find a bear to bring home to me. I put a long leash on her and stepped outside the back door with her. Wouldn’t you know it though, after dragging me out of bed, now she didn’t want to go out.

“Too bad! You woke me up, so go outside.” I stepped outside with her. She hung back. “Go pee,” I told her. “Go pee.” She just stood there and didn’t want to go out from under the covered area. Finally, I bullied her into having a pee and she hurried back inside.

Tick tock, double lock. I was glad to have that dealt with and hurried back upstairs to bed. Five minutes later, I heard a thump like a garbage can tipping over. I bolted upright in bed. Sounded like it came from the neighbours’ place. I strained my ears, listening. Nothing more.

Big sigh! “Go to sleep,” I told myself, and flopped back down.

Moments later, Ruby’s toenails tapped on the stairs again. At the landing she stopped and let out a little whimper. While I put on my housecoat, she barked a short woof.

Back downstairs, I flipped on the outside light by the family room door. My garbage can lay on its side, the big garbage bag was out and so was a smaller bag that once contained the skin of a piece of sockeye salmon.

Handiwork of a repeat offender

“Oh no! Not again!” I opened the blinds and waited in the dark. I had brought my flashlight downstairs to catch the thief if he should come back. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Finally I pulled a comforter over myself on the couch and Ruby curled up on her doggie bed next to me, happy to have me there to protect her.

“See?” she said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

Do you see anything?

Maybe over in those trees?

Call me when it’s over.

I didn’t sleep much after that, getting up every few minutes to check for the bandit’s return. Nothing to be seen except Detective Owl silently gliding around as if he didn’t give a hoot.

This morning after I put Ruby out in the backyard, I kept an eye on her from the window. When she barked, she had my full attention. She was staring at something I couldn’t see near the driveway, barking, and advancing on it. But it was her body language that worried me. Just like the time we had the bear visit a couple of years ago, she barked and hesitantly crept towards the object, but her tail was tucked down between her legs. Very un-Ruby-like, considering she’s an Alpha female.

Barefoot, I rushed out to a little walk-through gate and didn’t even have to call her. She squeezed through to my side as soon as I opened it, but by the time I had the latch done up again, Ruby was nowhere to be seen.

“Oh, no!” I thought. “That was stupid of me. Now she’s probably gone to attack whatever it was, on the other side of the fence. I called and called. No answer from Ruby.

I turned to go back to the house to get my shoes on and go looking for her. And there she was, pasted against the front door, saying, “Let me in quick before it gets me.”

Once I got my shoes on, I went out with Ruby to investigate. Sure enough, I found the big black scary visitor—the wheelbarrow that I had left under a tree yesterday after hauling mulch around.

Could have been a bear….

I feel lucky it’s not a real bear this time, but just in case, I’m going to keep my garbage can inside the garage from now on.

Who Dunnit? – Part One

When I considered writing a “Who Dunnit” I was thinking more of a detective novel where my hero follows the clues that eventually lead him to the culprit. I thought, however, that it would be on a grander scale than a blog posting about “What Creature got into my Garbage Can Last Night?”

At the moment I’m home alone except for my trusty springer spaniel guard dog, Ruby. She’s very good at barking at anything that scares her. A lot of things scare her, so I’m always telling her to stop barking (and she does). She’s an intellectual. You may remember the posting entitled Bark Mulch where she did as the material suggested. “It’s bark mulch, so we must bark.” Later when I planted a hedge putting in a bit of bone meal for each plant, she understood that too. “Oh goodie, a bone meal for me!” And she dug up several of my cedars for her “bone meal.”

Fierce Guard Dog

But I digress. Since Ruby barks at anything that moves, I wasn’t alarmed when she barked around midnight two nights ago. She doesn’t go on barking like a fool so I didn’t bother to check it out. I knew she’d stop. And anyway, why would I want to go outside in the dark to see who or what is out there? I’m not looking for trouble, or to be the victim of my own Who Dunnit.

The next morning, I saw that our garbage can had been tipped over and the whole big black garbage bag was gone.

Gone With the Wind?

Who dunnit?! My mind went through the list of possibilities.

1. A stray dog. No, our property is completely fenced.
2. A stray cat. No, the garbage bag was gone. Too heavy for a cat to drag away.
3. A raccoon. Possibly … if it was a big one.
4. A bear. Very possible, but at least a part of the fence would have been pulled down and it looked intact.
5. A cougar. Also very possible, and no signs of fence damage necessary.

First, I had to find the garbage. It had been dragged about twenty feet, onto the grass and some of the garbage was pulled out.

Interrupted Picnic

Right away I thought – not a bear. In previous years, I’d seen the damage a bear could do.

Cougar? Also unlikely.Claw marks or bigger tears would have been left in the plastic bag. I was happy to discount the big cats. We’d had a cougar in the area last year and they make me very nervous.

That left me with raccoons. Right away, they fit the M.O. and … well, why else would they have to wear a mask?

I stopped worrying about the whole thing, but then my neighbour phoned me. “Ah … er … I thought I should tell you that something got into my garbage last night and just in case it’s a bear … thought you should know.”

“Well, guess what?” And so we compared notes. We were pretty sure it was probably a raccoon but I got a little nervous when she said the culprit had eaten all of the big piece of lemon pie she had thrown out.

Do raccoons like lemon pie?

Then I remembered that two years ago when the bear visited our yard, it was on June 12. I had written it in my journal. And the recent night of the Who Dunnit? was, again, June 12.

But bears don’t have calendars, do they?

I put tape across the garbage can lid last night and promised myself I’d turn on the light and look out from the window if Ruby barked again. But nothing at all happened. I did find a place in the fence where the wire squares had been pulled apart just enough to let a fat raccoon through, but there was no loss of fur and without DNA I wouldn’t be able to prove anything.

So the mystery remains as yet unsolved. If I come up with any clues, I’ll be sure to let you know. But I really wonder… Who Dunnit?

Hot Potato

Well! Julie Goyder of jmgoyder.com thinks I’m a pretty hot potato. It’s her “thank you” to me for nominating her for the Versatile Blogger Award which comes with a lot of work attached. The Hot Potato award, on the other hand, is easy to deal with. You get it; you accept it; or you don’t accept it. Simple. Wish it was edible. It looks delicious.

I accept it graciously from Julie and invite everyone to visit her blog. She writes heartfelt stories and posts pictures of the delightful birds on her farm in Australia. Emus, turkeys, peacocks, ducks and geese – Julie’s got them.

People pass on awards to bloggers that they feel put up interesting posts. That’s great. But anyone can give someone an award. The idea behind it is to make others aware of these bloggers. The awards work almost like a chain letter, and I find that a bit troublesome, but the positive side of it is that bloggers find each other and communicate more.

I like the way bloggers can share ideas on a level that is less personal than email, yet much richer than Facebook or Twitter. It’s very gratifying to know that someone out there is sharing an idea that I wrote about. Even more satisfying is the row of gravatars that grows as people click the Like button. Comments are much appreciated! They make me feel that it’s worth bothering to write a blog because someone out there cares enough to say something about it. It’s like a conversation. I write something – you write something back. Two way communication can be a wonderful thing.

Now I’ve introduced you to another blogger. Why not visit Julie’s blog at jmgoyder.com ?

And don’t forget to come back and visit me next time I have a brainwave and post an exciting story.