Things Lost

          It amazes me! It dumbfounds me! It's a conundrum and it makes me crazy!

          "Peg! What are you talking about?" you ask.

          Where do things go when you can't find them? When you live with kids, it's easy enough to blame them — even though they can deny taking whenever it is you're looking for. But with only me and Mike in the house, there's no one to blame when I can't find something, except myself.

          "What did you lose?" you ask.

          My tweezers. I've lost my most favorite pair of tweezers. I've been pretty stingy with this particular pair of tweezers through the years because I really like the design and despite having looked for another pair for a spare, can't find another just like them.

          A couple of days ago I was sitting in the Jeep waiting for Mike. I pulled the visor down and opened the mirror. I don't remember what I was looking for, an eyelash in my eye maybe, but oh how the sunlight highlights those wrinkles! A roadmap of my life written on my face! Anger, concentration, laughter, and tears are all there for an astute observer to read. 

           Then I saw something I didn't know was there. A mustache hair! Just one, growing there above my lip. It was a real honest to goodness mustache hair! My mind ran a quick foray into what I'd look like with a full mustache. Yeah. No. Has to go. I got a hold of it but couldn't manage to yank it out with just my fingers. My mind wandered to a book I'd read a hundred years ago. The American Indian didn't grow facial hair but would get the occasional whisker. In the book, the wife used two sticks as tweezers to pluck the hair. I briefly thought about giving that a try but quickly discarded the idea. It'll have to wait.

          I sat back and just looked at this big ole honkin mustache hair. Now that I saw it, I couldn't unsee it. I wonder if everyone else's seen it, I thought and felt slightly embarrassed. Then I shrugged it off. Can't do nothing 'bout it now. In my mind's eye, I saw my tweezers sitting on the counter of my craft station where I'd left them.

          And I really didn't think about it anymore. It was hours after we'd gotten home that I glanced in the mirror while washing my hands and remembered it was there. That's why I didn't know it was there! I thought. I can't see it! I turned on the light over my mirror. Nope. Still couldn't see it. I leaned in closer. Still couldn't see it. I turned my head to the left and quickly realized that was the wrong way. With that eye, I can't see up close. I turned my head the other way, where my close-up works and the far-away doesn't, leaned in closer still and spotted it! I'm going to get that sucker out right now, I thought, before I forget again, and went for my tweezers. Guess what? They were gone! I looked and looked and looked all over the counter and they're not there. Maybe I took them to the bathroom. I don't remember doing that but maybe. I searched my bathroom counter and make-up bag. They weren't there. I'm just sure they were on the counter, and I made another search of my cluttered craft counter. This time I picked everything up, looked under, looked behind, moved everything and they're not there. Knocked on the floor? I wondered and got down on my hands and knees to look under the toe kick. Nope. I even felt along the length of it in case my eyes just couldn't see it. Nope. I got back up and stood there for a second. I used them to get a splinter out of Mike's finger. We'd already gone to bed when the blanket grabbed the splinter and reminded him it was there. I love my tweezers, and Mike, so I got up, got the tweezers, and pulled the metal splinter from his finger.

          "How did he get a metal splinter?" you may wonder.

          When he's fixing things he'll get a handful of screws from the box and sometimes get a metal splinter that way. I was just sure I'd used them since then but was desperate and went and searched the headboard anyway. They weren't there and I wasn't surprised they weren't.

          Since then I've gone back to the bathroom and made a more thorough search, just to rule it out completely, and searched my craft counter at least twice more as if they might suddenly appear. I know, right! But it has happened to me.

          "Where was the last place you saw them?" I can hear Momma in my head. Often times, when I've misplaced something, she'd talk me through it or say the right thing to jog my memory and I'd find it. She was magic like that.

          "I've been using them to thread fishing line through tiny little crimp beads," I'd tell her. "And that was the last place I used them."

          I dumped my tool bucket out, not once, but twice! And my gaze falls on my scrap bucket. I do use my tools to sift through the scrap bucket when I need a little piece of glass. And I have been known to leave a tool resting on the edge of the scrap bucket. What if I used my tweezers and now it's buried in there, I thought. I don't believe I'd use my tweezers for that since there are better digging tools close at hand, but I wouldn't put it past me. I picked up a pair of pliers and stirred the top layer. They're not there. But what if they're really buried! A little niggle stirs the back of my mind. I guess the only way I'll be really sure is to get another bucket and transfer the glass — since I can't find them anywhere else!

          "Did you get your mustache hair taken care of?" I know you want to know.

          I did. I had to use Mike's nose-hair pullers. "Any boogers on 'em?" I had the audacity to ask after he was kind enough to let me use them. And let me tell you what! When I pulled that sucker, it hurt! Brought tears to my eyes!

          I was at the kitchen sink and my gaze fell on my two angels as it often does. My keepsake urns are there too. Momma, Kat, and Pop, but Pop's is empty. When my cute little redheaded brother comes up for Momma's funeral in June, he'll bring Pop along.

          Where did I put the rest of the urns? I wondered since I'm in the habit of losing things. I bought four and now I don't have a clue what I've done with the other three. I've done a cursory search and haven't found them yet. I'll have to get more serious about finding them as June draws near.

          Another thing that's fallen into the pit of never-to-be-seen-again is something I didn't have anything to do with losing.

          "What's that?" you ask.

          The cat door.

          "Peg how do you lose a cat door?" you ask.        

          I know, right! Although technically it's probably called a flap. Sometimes the cats hit the flap hard enough to knock it off. I pick it up and put it back on. It's always laying either in the doorway or close by. This last time they knocked it off, about two weeks ago now, I can't find it! Not anywhere! Not inside the cat room, not in the garage. You wouldn't think they'd carry it off or hide it, would you?

         

          Mike worked on hauling the stumps we pulled to the burn pile. He did this one on his own, then asked, "Would you help me?"

      

   

          So it was my job to secure the stumps to the bucket with logging chains. I was wrapping this one when I saw a rock with a funny pattern on it. I brushed the dirt off and realized it was a boot! "I sure hope there's not a foot in there," I told Mike. And we'll never know. It was in there good and solid and now the whole thing is on the burn pile.

          We tried the new brush puller on a root that was still in the ground and it worked well. It grabbed hold and held on until the root broke.

          That cat!

          That darn cat!

          Yeah, Smudge! He hung around while we were working but stayed out of the way. When we finished and headed home, he ran past me and right in front of the tractor.

          "MIKE!" I yell and he heard me. I pointed. "WATCH SMUDGE!" Mike stopped, Smudge stopped. Mike opened the door. "Give him to me so I don't run him over."

          You can see Mike, Smudge, my reflection, and the barn behind me.

         

          Mike and I made a trip to Tunkhannock to the John Deere dealership. He'd ordered a new oil filter online and even though it says it'll fit his tractor, it didn't. It got sent back. Hence, the trip to Tunkhannock. I took my camera with me like I always do but when I tried to take a picture...

          "Uh-oh. My camera doesn't work," I told Mike.

          "No new camera for you!"

          "Oh, huh! I'll get a new camera if I want a new camera! Wait, maybe it's turned off." It wasn't. "Maybe the batteries dead." I knew it should've been. My battery's got a really long life. Even with all the pictures I take, I only have to charge it once every couple of three weeks and I'd just charged it. Then I remembered there were a couple of times I caught my screen staying on and had to poke the button to shut it off. It shouldn't do that but who knows why electronics screw up sometimes. I turned it off and waited a few minutes. When I turned it back on the battery icon flashed. "Yep! Battery's dead." And I set it aside. You know how you get to feeling anxious when you forget your phone? That's how I felt without my camera!

          But we were out other days and I took pictures for you.

          It looks like these guys took the boss to work with them!

          We'd gone to Sam's Club. Mike and I tag team our grocery cart when we need to use the restrooms. I wait for him, then he minds the cart and my purse while I go. I was standing there, waiting for him, when this lady pushes her cart up to mine then walks back to take her blood pressure — leaving her purse unattended! That's a good way to get your purse picked or snatched. This guy comes out of the men's room and does a double take on her purse then sees me. He went a few steps away and gets on his phone. I'm not saying he had any bad intentions but it looked funnyspecious to me!

          Mike came out and it was my turn. "Watch that lady's purse too," I told him and nodded to the unattended cart.

          When I came out the lady and her cart were gone.

          "I told her, 'I'm supposed to watch this purse. Are you the right person who's supposed to take it?'" Mike laughed and shook his head. "She didn't like that at all!"

          They knocked down all the trees under this power line and just left them lay.

          This doesn't look like a cop car at all! But he has lights, as we saw when he pulled this driver over, and was in uniform.

          A mural at Clark's Summit. 

            Someday the rest of this barn will be gone.

          A view of the Susquehanna.

          We get onto our road and who do we see? The Kipps out for a walk.

          At home, the groceries were unloaded. Cold stuff gets put away right away, the bags tossed on the floor until everything is put away. Then I pick 'em up, fold 'em up, and stuff 'em all into one and put 'em back in the Jeep for the next time. 

          I noticed one of my cooler bags was moving around on its own. Spitfire saw it too and we investigated.

          It was Smudge! That cat!

          Look what came in the mail!

          "Oh, no, Peg! Not another clock!" you say.

          I know, right!

          Mike likes clocks. And this is a subway clock. It has a face on both sides. It's new, not an antique, and when we put batteries in, it doesn't work. Mike doesn't want a clock that doesn't work when it's supposed to. So it's going back!

          On my glass table this week I've been working on a new hummingbird. I got through the washing process just fine but while putting on the patina, I broke it. I knocked the hummer from his moorings.

           I fixed it. I got through the washing process just fine, I even got through the patina stage, then while polishing it, I broke the large leaf. I fixed it. I got through the next washing process just fine, I even got through the patina stage. I even made it through the polishing stage! Whoo-hoo! Home free! I made it! But I celebrated too soon. While adding the beads, I broke the leaf loose again!

          I fixed it — again.

          I'm afraid to polish the little spot I fixed.

          I'm afraid to add any more beads.

          What do you think?

          Good enough?

  

          We had turkeys in the yard. By the time I got my camera and got there, they were almost gone. They'd been picking at the corn bits the deer couldn't get. Now that spring is here, feeding the deer and the backyard birds will cease.

  

  

          A trip to Towanda doesn't yield any new pictures but let me show you my favorite train bridge — for the umpteenth time.

          It had been raining for most of this trip. I stopped at my favorite second-hand store. They were having a twenty-five cent sale. I picked up a new Sunday go-to-meeting dress. If I wear it once and throw it away, I've gotten my quarter out of it! I didn't need any more tops but I'm forever spilling stuff down my front and getting them stained so I thought it was a good time to pick up a few to keep on hand for reserve.

          "What's going on up there?" Mike asked as we headed for home.

          "An accident maybe?"

          As we got closer, we could see it was an accident. A fresh one too as the people were just climbing out of the three vehicles involved. 

          We followed the car ahead of us around the debris in the road. The guy in the dark blue truck was on the phone, standing beside the road. He looked at me as we passed. "Sorry, man," I told him and I truly did feel sorry. It didn't look like anyone was hurt but it's a crappy interruption to your day.

          "What do you think happened?" you ask.

          I think, since most of the damage was to fronts and rears of the vehicles, that it was a chain reaction rear-ender.  We all follow too close.

  

          Look what I got in the mail! A title plate for my Mama Wrench. I love it! It's like a gift from Momma. When she and Patti were discussing making this for me, Momma felt it needed a title plate. Patti hadn't found one that suited until now. It's just the perfect finishing touch, don't you think?

          Speaking of finishing touches, our sideways growing tree, the one I hang my bird feeders from, kept coming off the prop meant to keep it from breaking. Mike made a yoke for it. Smudge and Spitfire are checking it out.

          I walked out to get my picture. "Did Daddy do it right?" I asked and the boys looked at me.

          And here are the finishing touches to the day. A sunset reflecting off our pond. I never thought to take a picture like this before and the idea isn't mine. I was talking to a couple from church and he, Mike is his name, was telling me how beautiful the sunset is reflecting off his pond. Last night, when I went out to take a sunset photo, I remembered I had a pond too! And guess what? Last night I heard the peepers peeping for the first time this year! Just three or four of them but that means that spring is truly on its way!

          Let's call this one done!