Valentine's

          I spent all of my free time working on a special Valentine's Day gift for my Miss Rosie. I know she loves the little Chickadees so I thought to make her one in a circular copper frame. Got that? Circular. I went looking for Chickadee patterns. I found two I liked and couldn't decide which one to use. I'll use them both! I thought and that meant I'd have to make my circle substantially bigger. After making the Chickadees and placing them in the circle, I decided to give them a branch to sit on. I got out the freezer paper. I use that for making patterns. Traced around my circle of copper, then the Chickadees, and free-handed a branch and leaves. I even colored it to see what it might look like when it was done. I stood back and thought about the places that were going to give me problems and decided to try a different design. I reset the Chickadees and tried a different pattern, going to all the trouble of coloring it too.

          I wasted my time. I liked the first pattern better.

          I cut the pattern, cut the glass, and placed everything inside my frame for fit. I taped all the pieces together and drew around the empty spots. I intended it to be filled in with a type of glass called Glue Chip, very pretty glass. Everything was going along fabulously and I was so pleased! I liked it! I was so excited!

          Yeah. Pride goeth before a fall and don't put all your eggs in one basket.

          All of the pieces were burnished and foiled. Putting them back in the frame to solder I came to a stark realization. They didn't fit anymore. I squeezed, pushed, bent, pinched, crammed, wedged, and tried to force the pieces into submission. Nothing worked. I conceded defeat, saved what I could save and started again.

           "Should I fill these spaces with glass?" I held it up for Mike's inspection.

          "No. I think it'll make it too busy."

          I intended from the very start of this project to make it copper in color. A copper patina since I'd never made Miss Rosie anything copper before. I got it this far and hated it. I mean nothing was going the way I planned and I hate that! The copper seemed to highlight all of the imperfections and little boo-boos and looked so brassy!

           I took it to my FaceBook family. "Should I scrap it and start over?" I asked.

          Since the picture didn't pick up the flaws and they hadn't seen the original plan that lived in my head, they thought it was beautiful.

          I forged onward, making lemonade from lemons.

          I fixed the foil in a few places where my scrubbing to put on the patina had pulled it off then spent an hour polishing it.

          When I was done, I was much happier. It's not round and still hangs a little wonky but it was the best I could do. Plus it was Valentine's Day and there was no time to make anything else.

          "You could promise her one," you say.

          I thought of that. Miss Rosie and I are good friends and vowed always to be honest with each other. If she doesn't like it, she'll find a kind way to tell me so.

          "It might sting a little but I'll get over it and I appreciate honesty more!" I told her.

          Always be honest, unless you can be a unicorn, then always be a unicorn.

          "Peg isn't that saying always be yourself...?" you ask.

          Yeah. I fudged it a little.

          I set about cleaning up my workspace, putting tools back in the bucket they live in, scrapping the leftover bits of wire, picking up the two patterns I'd made. Fat lot of good they did me, I thought with disgust, crumbled them both into a ball, and tossed 'em into the burn bin.

          I'd made a cheesecake the day before to take to the Kipp's house for Valentine's and at the appointed time, gathered it and the Chickadees and off to the Kipps we went.

          "Happy Valentine's Day!" I said and gave Rosie the cheesecake. 

           Then the moment of truth was at hand. I gave her the Chickadees. She liked them! And don't they look pretty in her hand. Although I have to tell you, I think the cheesecake got a bigger smile.

          "Where am I going to put them?" Miss Rosie mused.

          "I never even gave that a thought." And that was a lie. Maybe a half-lie. Is there such a thing? I did actually wonder where she might put it, and the window at the bottom of the stairs came to mind, then I didn't think about it again.

          "It's not your job to do that. You just make them and I'll find a place to put them," she said with good humor and a little laugh. I don't think it's a problem she minds having.

          My Miss Rosie took a few steps and stops at the living room door. She surveyed the living room, turned and came back to the kitchen intending to set it aside when her eyes settled on the kitchen window. "How about there?" she asked Lamar.

          "Alright," he said and reached for a star that occupied the hook.

          Lamar sliced the cheesecake and I helped to serve.

          "Miss Rosie, how come you never cut the cheesecake or anything else I ever bring?" I asked.

          "I was traumatized when I was a kid," she replied.

          "How so?"

          "Because it was always wrong according to my mother. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get it right. So I avoid cutting anything if I can."

          "But it seems like you'd get over that by now."

          "Well, if I can get someone else to cut for me, why shouldn't I?"

          I laughed. "So basically Lamar's been doing all the cutting for 45 years?"

          "48," she said simply.

          Sitting at the table, eating cheesecake and chatting, this was my view of Lamar. Someone who loves Rosie got her a beautiful bouquet of flowers for Valentine's Day. And that someone was Lamar.

          The next day I had an occasion to talk with Miss Rosie on the phone. A lot of times I'll call just to see if the mail has gone through yet or not. They can see it from their house whereas I have to make a trip down to the mailbox to find out — not that an extra trip or two to the mailbox would kill me.

          "I love how the morning sun comes in and highlights the Chickadees," she told me. "And then in the afternoon, it's the holly and berries that light up."

          All of my misgivings, fret, and worry was for nothing.

          Speaking of Chickadees, I have to tell you. I was coming back with the mail one day and walking past the bird feeders I see a feather stuck on the cage of the suet feeder. I almost walked on then turned around to investigate. I reached up, turned the cage and sure enough, it was just a little feather stuck on there. Before I could do anything else or even thought about walking away, a little Chickadee lands right in front of me. I could almost reach out and touch him. He let me get a few shots before he flew away.

          And Oh! My! Gosh!

          Guess what I saw!

          I was standing at my kitchen window when a bird landed on the stump just outside my window.

          Blue Jay, was my first thought. He's not blue, was second, and lastly, a Gray Jay? I got my camera to take a picture of my Gray Jay and realized it wasn't a Jay at all but a hawk of some sort. I feel so incredibly lucky to have been standing in the right place at the right time. Isn't he just beautiful!

          "I've never seen a hawk like this before," I told Rosie. "He looks like a big Blue Jay."

          "It looks like a Cooper's Hawk," she said when I showed her the picture.

          I checked and the Cooper's Hawk has a speckled breast. "This one was a peachy color like a Robin's," I told her because that was the impression I'd gotten. When I downloaded the pictures, I realized I had no shots that showed his breast. He very well could've had a speckled breast.

          Since then I've been trying to figure out what kind of hawk he is. He's either the Cooper's Hawk, as Miss Rosie said or he's a Sharp-shinned Hawk. The two are very, very similar.

          "What're the differences?" you ask.

          Coops are larger than Sharpies. A Sharpie is 10 to 14 inches long. A Coop is 15 to 20 inches. I supposed someone smarter than me could figure out how big my hawk is by comparing it to the elements around him.

          The tail tips are different. Sharpies have a square tip with a narrow white stripe and Coops are rounded with clear white tips, although it can wear off over time.

          The heads are different too with the Coops having a large head compared to its body and the Sharpies head looks small. 

          Coops have thick bodies with thicker, shorter looking legs. Sharpies are broad-chested, narrow-hipped with thin, pencil-like legs.

          See what I mean? The differences are slight and both are common in our area.

         

          The garage.

          Last week, last time I wrote, we'd gotten the ceiling of the garage up as far as the smoke detector. Then we ran into a problem and the weekend.

          A problem because all of our smoke detectors are daisy-chained together. When one goes off, they all go off. When Mike hooked it back up, because it had been hooked up and working, when he hooked it back up it was the only one to beep. None of the others went off. And since it was near quitting time and the weekend, I wouldn't be available to help him figure it out until Monday. I letter blog on the weekends, don't 'cha know.

          Monday we set to work trying to figure it out. Sometimes Mike listens to me, most times he doesn't. Sometimes I'm right, more often than not, he's right. I'll give him my opinion and let him decide what to do with it.

          "You must have missed hooking up a wire or something," I say, "because they all worked before."

          "No. I hooked 'em all back up. I know the one in the garage is hooked up right, maybe a wire came off the one in the living room," Mike said of the next smoke detector in the chain.

          He brought a ladder in and pulled the smoke detector from its mounting bracket, setting it on the top step of the ladder. All of the wires were above the ceiling and only the harness wires came through a hole. In other words, you can't tell from here.

          "I still think you missed a wire or something," I say, "because they all worked before."

          "No. They're all right."

          "You're going to have to prove it to me."

          We went back out to the garage, placed a different ladder under the smoke detector, Mike climbed the ladder and was showing me which wire came from where and goes to where when he found he had missed the connecting wire between the garage and the house. He hooked it up. Then we had to go back in the house and hook up that smoke detector before we could test anything. As Mike climbed the ladder, the smoke detector clattered to the floor. He'd knocked it down. I handed it to him and when he pressed the test button, it still worked. He hooked it up.

          "Go out in the garage and see if it works now."

          I went through the door and stood there while he pressed the button. The one in the garage didn't beep and I told him so.

          "Check the one in the bedroom."

          I stood under the one in the bedroom so I could be sure of which alarm I was hearing when that loud obnoxious beeping started. It didn't beep either.

          "You go try the one in the garage and let's see if it makes this one beep."

          "Peg, if it's not working one way, why would it work the other?" you ask.

          I know, right! But I didn't ask Mike that. I just went out into the garage, climbed the ladder, and pressed the test button until it beeped three or four times.

          "Maybe something broke inside it after all," Mike guesses. "Let me get a new one."

          So he got a new one out, one slated for the apartment which was going to be added to our daisy-chain of smoke detectors before we were done, and tried that one with no better success. Actually, that's not quite true. We had a great amount of success freaking our puppy dogs out. I came in from the garage and found Ginger on the table. Never, have I ever, seen her get on the table before. And I have no idea why being on the table is where she wants to be when the alarms are sounding.

          "What are you doing?" I asked and she hung her head. I picked her off the table and set her on the floor.

          "Maybe I pulled a wire off after all," Mike mused. "I can cut a hole in the ceiling to check the wires."

          In my mind, I see the mess that was going to make.

          "But I'm afraid I'll hit a wire."

          "I can climb up and check it out from the top," I volunteered.

          "Are you sure?"

          "Yeah. I know what an unhooked wire looks like and can hook it back up. I've seen you do it a million times." And that's what we did. We set up a ladder so I could climb through the access panel in the closet. Mike stood on the top of the ladder, his head and shoulders through the access, giving me direction and encouragement. There wasn't a lot of room up there and I had to not step on the ceiling.

          "...or you'll crash through."

          I made my way to where the smoke detector was wired. "It's in a junction box!" I called back.

          "Wait there. I'll unscrew it from down here."

          Once the junction box was free, I checked the wires and they were all great. "You couldn't really have pulled one loose," I told Mike but it still eased his mind to know they were all connected.

          "Well, what in the world is going on?"

          And we quit for the day. We couldn't really put any more ceiling panels up until we figured out this smoke detector thing and he knew I was working on a piece for Miss Rosie and would be glad for the time off.

          The next day Mike decided to call his old friend from Missouri. Gary knows a lot about electriciany things. It was as he was talking to him that the answer came to him. He'd grounded his carry wire. He released the ground and all of the smoke detectors went off as they should. Scared those poor puppy dogs all to pieces again and Ginger was back on the table. That's the weirdest thing she's ever done. Itsy we found in the very back corner of the closet, as far from the noise as she could get.

          We hooked up the smoke detector in the apartment but before we tested it, we put the dogs in the back yard thinking they'd fare better there. We still have one more to put up, one in the way back, then, no matter where a fire starts, we'll know immediately.

          We finished the ceiling and starting aluminum taping the joints. We did a little more than half on Wednesday.

          Thursday morning, in my morning emails to my loves, I mentioned that it was my job to hold the tape while Mike applied it.

          "You were my tape holder when we wrapped Christmas presents," my girlfriend Trish reminded me. I didn't enjoy gift wrapping as much as Trish did and as Rosie says, if you can get someone else to do it for you... "And you did a dandy job. I hope Mike appreciates your professionalism!"

          Yeah. I'm an experienced tape holder.

          "How are Mike's feet?" you may wonder.

          Great! Good as new! He finished the course of antibiotics and the sores have healed. But we're going to get a test done for diabetes anyway. It's been suggested that that can cause sores like the ones he had.

          You know what I hate?

          I hate when I misspeak.

          "Peg, isn't that called a lie?" you ask.

          I don't think so. But just like a lie, I'm called to make it right. Last week I told you I bought potatoes to make beef stew. That isn't true — and it wasn't a lie because I didn't do it intentionally. Beef stew was just what came to my mind when I was writing the story and I never gave it a second thought. The next day, after my mind had rested, I re-read my letter blog and all the mistakes came jumping out at me. Beef stew was one of them. I didn't make beef stew, Trish did. We were just talking about it a few days before. What I'd made was a pot roast with potatoes, carrots, and celery. Almost the same thing just put together differently.

          That's not the only misspeak I've made recently and had to make right. After collecting the Paw Points from my Fresh Step cat litter for the past four years or so, I finally got online and registered for an account. Then sat there and entered each one of the codes number by number by number. I had a whole handful of codes so it was job but I did it for the rewards. A pop-up pops up and tells me they'll give me 50 more points if I take a survey. I took the survey. One of the questions was what other cat litters do I buy. I told them I only bought Fresh Step. Well, that was true for the most part of the last four years. When I considered the question, I was only thinking about the house. For the feral cat room and even in places in the house where the boxes are out of the way and I don't have to smell them, I use the scoopable cat litter from Tractor Supply. And since I stock up when I buy it, I don't buy it all that often, so it wasn't forefront in my mind. Otherwise, Fresh Step is my litter of choice since it's much better at odor control. I don't even know how much time had passed until I realized I'd told them wrong but one night when I was scooping boxes, it hit me. Fresh Step isn't the only cat litter I buy.

          I need to make it right, I thought.

          "Peg, who cares!" you say.

          I know, right. Nobody cares. It was just a stupid mistake and in the grand scheme of things, it probably doesn't even matter. Except it matters to me. It 'bothered' me. And it kept bothering me.

           I need to make it right, I thought the next few times when the thought of what I'd done came into my head. And guess when the only time was that I thought about it. Yep. When I was scooping the boxes.

          I'll make it right tomorrow, became my new mantra. But then it would be gone from my head and I wouldn't think about it again until the next time I was scooping boxes. I don't know how long this went on for. Quite a while. It got to the point where I could go days and not have the thought when I scooping the boxes. I was afraid it would stop bothering me. 

          Oh, Lord, I prayed. Don't let it stop bothering me. Keep right on pestering me until I make it right. I don't want a hard heart.

          That's where bad things, wrong things, sinful things, don't bother you anymore.

          A few days ago, I finally did it. I sent an email to Fresh Step confessing my mistake. And they answered me!

          "We value all of our customers."

          That's it. That's all they said. That and thanking me for being a customer. I don't know what I expected but that wasn't it. It was a bit of a letdown actually. I guess it didn't really matter to them either. But I console myself with having done what I felt was the right thing to do — silly as that may sound.

          We had snow this past week. I don't really know how much we got, three or four inches maybe. It could have been two feet and it wouldn't have bothered us any. We were stocked up and tucked in.

          The snow turned to sleet to freezing rain to rain and packed the snow down. Our sun was a little less than perky when it came up the next morning.

          Mr. Mister's been hanging around quite a lot. I can't get over how big his head is!

          I found a tick on his shoulder. I wasn't sure how he'd react when I pulled it cause I always manage to pull some of the hair but he surprised me. He liked it. He purred and rubbed against me and flopped down on his side. Is that a sign of submission in a cat? I scratched his ear again and left him there.

          Thursday we headed out for our Thursday morning breakfast.

          "The only tracks in the snow are from the deer," Mike observes.

          I took a couple of pictures for you.

  

          Mike and I took our regular seats at Mark's Valley View. Across the way was an older couple with a four or five-year-old boy. "Are they the same ones that were here last week?" Mike asked.

          I leaned over, looked around the women to where the youngin was quietly coloring, and said, "I think so." He had on the same dinosaur hat with spikes on top as last week. We think it may be their grandson.

          Our breakfast came and I was buttering our pancakes when, from across the five-foot wall separating the dining room in two, came an ear-piercing scream followed by loud crying and more screams interspersed with great wracking sobs. Mostly screaming though. I looked at Mike thinking he'd get upset but I was wrong. I got upset first. I'll be the first one to grant a grace period to either get things under control or gather things up and go outside but this screaming went on and on and on! I looked around and couldn't believe that no one was doing or saying anything. Mike knew I was getting mad.

          "Just calm down, Peg," Mike shushed me.

          After an especially loud scream, I slapped my silverware down. "That's it!" I stood up and looked over the wall. There sat a dad (I assume) elbows on the table, hands stapled under his chin, a stupid grin on his face, and he was just watching her — letting her scream! Like he thought we were all enjoying it as much as he was!

          "SERIOUSLY!" I yelled.

          "Sit down, Peg!" Mike hissed.

          I sat down. The little girl screamed again and I was back up on my feet. I don't know what I would've done but was saved from having to do anything because he'd pulled her into his lap and she was quieting down.

          I don't understand why no one else said anything. Not saying anything is the same thing as saying it's okay, and it's not okay. Maybe this young father just doesn't know proper etiquette when it comes to a screaming kid in a restaurant.

          The rest of our meal was quiet.

          A man came in and sat at the table beside Mike and me.

          The screaming crying started again just as we were getting ready to leave. I already had my coat on and turned in my seat to get up when the father comes walking from the other side, holding the hand of a screaming little one as she toddled beside him. Rather than pick her up and carry her, he again subjected all of us to her screaming for as long as possible, including while he paid his check at the register.

          Our tables are kinda close. Rather than accidentally brush against my neighbor as I skirted past him, I put my hand on his shoulder. "What do you think of crying babies in restaurants?"

          "Not too much," he replied.

          "If it had been my kids they would have had taken my grandson out to the car as soon as he started."

          "That's what we did with our kids," the man told me. "Even if my wife had to have my meal boxed up."

          "They soon learn, don't they?"

          "Yes, they do," he agreed.

          Coming home from breakfast I see cat hair all over the garage. I assumed, because if it's color, that Mr. Mister and Rascal had gotten into it. Upon closer inspection, I saw the hair was white and gray, not yellow. Sugar. Did he tear Sugar up? I checked Sugar out and she was fine. Then it hit me. Jerry, the other tom that spends a lot of time at my house. I haven't seen him in a while. If he's not here, he's at the Robinson's.

          I called Steph. "Is Jerry up to your house?"

          "Yes. He is. He was sitting on the porch when I got home."

          "Is he tore up?"

          "Yep. There's patches missing on his back and his hair is sticking up in tufts," she told me.

          "I'm guessing it's breeding season and Mr. Mister is running off the rivals. Gestation for a cat is like 62-65 days (I didn't check, it's just what came to my mind) and that would be about right for spring kittens. But there ain't no one around here gonna go in heat!"

          Steph laughed. "Not around here either!"

          Later Mike asked me a question. "Will he run off our cats?"

          "I don't think so. Our boys are fixed."

          "How's he gonna know that?"

          Good question and my guess is, "I think they give off different scents. He can smell that our boys are not toms — they're gibs."

          Besides finishing the Chickadees for Miss Rosie, I made this keepsake for my beautiful sister Phyllis. It holds a lock of our mother's hair.

          Let's call this one done!