Angry Jeep

               Last weekend I had my blog done early and that gave me like a mini vacation.

          "Mike, you wanna have a game night with the Robinsons?" I asked. "We can update our phones," we'd been getting update notices on our phone for over a week now, "and I can get my Nook books." Barnes and Noble gives us a fee book on Friday. Sometimes I take it, most times I don't. But I had four or five books waiting in limbo for me to download them.

          "I don't care," Mike replied.

          We don't have internet like most people do, with a router that sends the signal all over the house and you can connect to it with your phones and tablets for downloads and updates. That's what the Robinsons have, with an unlimited data package, and usually they don't mind us using it. We have an 'air card', a device we put in the USB port of our computer and it calls out for the internet much like a phone call. It only works for the device it's plugged into and we can take it with us when we travel, that's the benefit of it.

          I texted Stephanie, "Wanna have a game night? I'll bring cookies. Mike and I need to update our phones."

          "How about Sunday? I'll make a pot of chili," she texted back.

          "Great! You want a loaf of homemade bread?"

          "Jon says yes."

          I don't care what anyone says, chili and homemade bread go together like mac and cheese, fish and chips, ham and eggs!

          Sunday afternoon I made a cookie recipe that popped up on my Facebook page. Peanut Butter and Jelly Oat Crumble Bars. There's another thing that just plain goes together. Peanut butter and jelly! The picture made them look good and it didn't look like it made too many since it was made in a bread pan. It would be just perfect for all of us to have a taste, I thought. I read the recipe and the ingredients were basic; I already had everything I would need. But when I got to the pan size I was surprised. It didn't call for a bread pan at all; it called for an 8x8 square pan! I just shook my head.

          I made the cookies so they would be cool, and timed the bread so it would come out of the oven just about the time we would need to leave for our dinner date with the Robinsons and would still be warm when we sat down to eat.

          "You want to take the golf cart?" Mike asked.

          "Heck no! It's too cold. Let's just take the Jeep."

          "That'll be cold when we get in it too," Mike said.

          "That's true," I conceded. "It won't get warm until just about the time we get home.... hey wait! You can start it before we leave and it'll be warm," I said remembering our remote start.

          "Oh yeah." Mike had forgotten about the remote start for a second too.

          Dinner and game night with the Robinson's was just what this girl needed. Steph makes a really good chili, I went back for seconds, and it'd been a really long time since we'd gotten together for game night.

          "How was that cookie you made?" you ask.

          I didn't like it.

          "Why not?" Steph asked. "I think it's good."

          I don't know, I love peanut butter, but I just don't like the taste of it cooked.

       I turned my camera on Mike. Although it looks like he was participating in No-Shave November, he wasn't, and our friend Margaret in Missouri doesn't remember having ever seen Mike with a full beard.

          Monday we needed to make a trip to Laceyville, a small town about six miles from us. Our trash company lives just outside of town and I didn't have any stickers for my trash bags and I could drop off my recycling at the same time.

          "You have to put stickers on your trash?" you wonder.

          We don't have to, we choose to. Monthly trash service, four bags a week, is thirty dollars. I recycle so much that we normally only have one black garbage bag every two weeks. I did the math and it makes more sense for us to use the sticker system, which is three fifty a sticker. One sticker equals one bag.

          I got some train graffiti pictures for you.

          I don't have a clue what the first one says, but the second ones says LEAST in big letters and JUST LIKE HOME in smaller black letter beside it. I wonder what message the artist is trying to convey.

          Between Wyalusing and Laceyville we saw three dead deer along the roadside.

          "The deer are really running. Is it still hunting season?" I asked Mike but he didn't know. The deer had really been splattered and smeared along the road and one had several birds perched on top, having breakfast, but I'll show you the least gruesome of the three.

          Poor babies. I always feel sorry for them.

          "Peggy!" I hear Momma in her exasperated voice. "What have I told you?"

          I know, I know. When something gets killed on the road, other critters get to eat.

          Nothing like having a conversation in your own head.

          Here's another one that often replays in my head. "It makes me sad when I see all those cattle trucks hauling cows to the slaughter house," I told my older and much loved sister Patti. She was quiet, so I went on. "I think that if you're going to eat it you should have to raise it and kill it yourself." I bet there'd be more vegetarians, I thought.

          My sister, smart and beautiful that she is, didn't miss a beat. "I just pay someone to do that for me."

          And she's right. That's pretty much the way it's always been in our world.

          Tuesday it was cold.

          It was cold Tuesday.

          We were supposed to have storms move in and get a couple inches of snow. I decided to take Ginger out for a walk and picture-taking tour of the property before that happened. I didn't get any landscape pictures worth anything but I caught Spitfire and Rascal nose to nose. They're brothers.

          The path would take us down to the pond. "You wanna go to the pond?" I asked Ginger. I could tell she knew what I said. "Come here then," I commanded. She obeyed and I took a chance and let her off the leash. "Let's go to the pond!" Ginger was off like a shot but I had her in my sights as she approached the ice on the pond. Would she try the ice, I wondered but she didn't, she stopped at the edge.

          The cats were on the pond. Somewhere along the line, Feisty had joined us and Spitfire greeted his sister.

         I was taking pictures of their nose kisses and the next thing I know, I look up, and there's Ginger out on the pond! I wondered if she'd be too heavy for it and I'd have to rescue her but she wasn't. She stayed on the right side of the ice.

          I was worried about making it to my Tuesday night exercise class, but the snow held off. And it was even colder Tuesday night.

          After my exercise class with my Moxie Ladies, before breaking up for the evening, the last thing we do is stand in a circle, join hands, and offer our thanks and praises, as well as our petitions, to the Lord. It's before our prayer that I start the Jeep so it's warm when we climb into it. Sometimes I can hear the Jeep signal that it's going to start, but more often than not, there's too much chatter and I can't hear it. Tuesday night I didn't hear it. I went to the window to see if the running lights were on. If they were, that meant that it had started. They weren't on. I pointed the remote at the Jeep and poked the button twice to start it. Nothing. I did it again. Still nothing. I tried a third time and still nothing. I opened the door — yeah, it was cold alright! — poked the button twice and the Jeep responded with its two beeps, the engine started, and the running lights came on. I shut the door and joined the ladies who were already waiting for me.

          After our prayer and parting chit-chat, we head out to the parking lot where we say our goodbyes, get in our cars, and go home — at least that's where I go, and Rosie Kipp too since I pick her up and drop her off.

          So Tuesday night, we're all outside saying goodbye and I poke the unlock button on the remote. It won't unlock. I did it again, and again, and again.

          "Rosie, I don't know what's wrong," I was starting to panic. "It won't unlock."

          "Can you use the key to unlock it?" she asked.

          Yeah, it actually took Rosie to point that out to me. I felt like an idiot. "Oh. Yeah."

          I put the key in the passenger side door, was grateful when I turned it and heard the door unlock, but my gratefulness was short lived. As soon as I opened the door the alarm went off.

          BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, said my angry Jeep as he flashed all of his lights.

          I tried to quiet him by pressing the panic button on the key fob, but oh. Guess what? The key fob wasn't working. I pressed the unlock button on the inside of Rosie's door to unlock all of the doors and ran around to the driver's side.

          BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, said my angry Jeep as he flashed all of his lights.

          The driver's door was still locked! "RO...." was all I got out before the angry beeps cut me off. I tried again, timing it better. "ROSIE! UNLOC...."

          BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, said my angry Jeep as he flashed all of his lights.

          This just was not working. I ran back around to the passenger side.

          "I pushed the unlock button on door," Miss Rosie said.

          Maybe she pushed it to lock instead of unlock, I thought and got down to where I could see the symbols on the button in the low light. Which for me, with my Cadillac eyes, means about three inches away. I do better when there's more light. I pushed it between beeps but didn't hear the doors unlock. "The buttons not working!"

          BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, said my angry Jeep as he flashed all of his lights.

          Rosie pointed. I looked down at the key I held in my hand. "Use the key," Rosie said. Did Rosie actually say that or was it just an echo in my head, I don't know, but now I really felt like an idiot. I ran back around the Jeep for the third time, inserted the key into the lock, turned it and tried the handle. It was still locked. I turned the key the other way and heard the lock disengage. I opened the door, climbed in, put the key in the ignition and held my breath as I turned it.

          It worked! Appeased, the angry Jeep quieted.

          "Oh my gosh Rosie," I said and turned to where Rosie should've be sitting. But there wasn't any Rosie there. She was still standing outside. She couldn't get in until I got the step stool out of the back for her. "Rosie!" I scrambled back out of the Jeep.

          "No, stay there. I think I might be able to get in on my own," Rosie said.

          "No, no, no!" I say as I rush around the Jeep. "Let me get the step for you!" I open the back door, get the step stool out, and place it for Rosie to climb in. Once inside, I shut the door, pick up the step stool, and stow it in the back. We've only ever forgotten it one time and that's when my mother was with us. We'd gone to a restaurant for dinner, got her in the Jeep, left the stool sit and drove away. It was a couple of days later when we missed it, and when we went back for it, it was still there, parked up against the side of the restaurant where someone put it.

          Rosie was in and buckled up, I was in and buckled up, and the Jeep wasn't making his angry noise anymore. I tried again. "Oh my gosh Rosie," I said. "I'm so flustered!"

          "Well, just calm down," Rosie consoled. "It's okay."

          "I know but I was worried about bothering Pastor Mike and his family." Although the pastor's house is a ways away from the church, I was worried about interrupting their evening.

          "I'm not sure they could even hear it. No one came to see what was going on."

          "Well that's not all. The last time this happened to me we had to do something funky like turn the key back and forth in the ignition ten times, or in the lock, or something! I don't remember anymore and I was worried it wouldn't quit beeping!" I explained.

          Rosie reached over and patted my hand. "It's okay now. Just calm down."

          Now that the crisis was over, I could think about could've, would've, should'ves.

          "I could've reached across your seat and put the key in the ignition," I told Rosie. "If I'd have known that would stop it."

          "I'm not sure you could reach it from this side."

          "Yeah, I think I could've." Have I done it before? I tried to remember.

          After I got home and told Mike the story, I asked, "So if I'd have unlocked the Jeep from the driver's door, the alarm wouldn't have gone off?"

          "I don't know," was Mike's answer.

          Mike thinks it was somehow an error on my part because we've not had any more trouble with the key fob since then. "Maybe you pushed the lock and unlock buttons at the same time," he suggested.

          Wednesday was our first real snow of the season. I took an early morning walk and took bunches of pictures for you intending to use it in this week's blog. However, when I saw the file now contained over a hundred pictures I decided to issue an extra story this week. Thus you had Snow Day in your inbox on Friday — or you read it from the link on Facebook, like my best Missouri girl did.

          "Remember that you said extra," Linda commented. "I will still look forward to the Sunday one. But it's always so nice to get a bonus one. Great pictures as always."

          Wednesday we also made a trip to Sayre to pick up groceries. Even though it's a trip we've made many times, and last time I only took one picture for you, I took more this trip.

          Our creek.    

          A barn.      

Towanda from the bridge that crosses the Susquehanna River.

          I love the sign in the middle of this photo. Money Can Buy A Dog But Only Love Can Make Him Wag His Tail.

          I've been trying for a while now to get a decent shot of these three row boats stacked on top of each other.

          "Keep trying, Peg," you say.

          I know, right!

          Critters.

          Cows and heavy equipment on the hill beyond.

          I just liked the knots in the ropes. I wonder if he's ever lost any.

          I know, I'm weird.

          Thursday found me in front of my computer, sorting pictures for Snow Day when, long about mid-morning, Mike asks, "You wanna go to Dallas and find that clock shop?" We've been seeing advertisements on TV for Ye Old Clock and Gift Shop in Dallas, a city about forty miles from us, and Mike has at least one clock he wants to have fixed now.

          "Sure!" I seldom turn down a photo op, especially with snow on the ground and especially especially on roads we don't travel very often.

          I almost missed this shot of turkeys in the field.

          "Peg, I'd say you did miss it!" you say.

          Smart aleck.

          Cows an hay an trailers, oh my!

          These Jeeps have been sitting here beside this road forever!

          Look at the snow blow from the roof of the barn!

          Pennsyltucky... LOL. I don't think he's in business anymore.

          Our first stop on this little adventure was at the McDonalds in Tunkhannock. They have a lot of antiques at this McDonalds. Both inside and out, but I only took pictures outside.

          More road pictures.

          It looks like an old beaver dam to me.

        Lots of farm equipment under that snow.

   

  

     The clock shop was awesome! They had so many beautiful clocks. Mike was talking with a repair tech who was looking at his clock and I wandered around looking at all the things in there. Clocks weren't the only thing they carried. I heard enough of the conversation to know that Mike wasn't leaving the clock.

          "What happened?" I asked when we were back in the Jeep.

          "It started working," Mike told me. "As soon as he put the batteries in, it chimed. If it quits working we can take it back then and he'll replace the works."

          And it worked the whole way home.

          That's enough for this week. I have more pictures to show you but I'll save them for next time.

          Let's call this one done.