Springtime is the land awakening. The
March winds are the morning yawn —
Lewis Grizzard.
>>>*<<<
Exciting things have been happening in the Luby household this week! For me, the most exciting thing happened when I got an early morning phone call from that beautiful neighbor of mine. I smiled when I saw her name on the caller ID then chided myself. Calling so early in the morning was likely not good news.
“Good morning, Steph!” I
singsong anyway. I’m an eternal optimist.
“Good morning. What are
you doing?” she wanted to know.
“Just dealing out the
cards for a game of Skip-Bo.” When my phone rang, I had to stop counting on a
number I could remember and that number was twelve. I’d dealt twelve cards, a
nice even dozen. I could remember that.
“I sent you a picture —
is that an eagle…” then I heard her gasp. “It is an eagle!”
“Where‽” I wanted to know.
“On the road between
your house and mine. It’s eating a dead possum.”
“I’m
goin’!”
“Alright. Hurry up and
get your butt down there lady!”
She
didn’t have to tell me twice! I hung up, grabbed my camera, and swapped out the
regular lens for the larger one. I didn’t think the eagle would let me get too
close. Grabbed my sweater and went out the door in my house shoes. I wasn’t going
to waste one more second than I had to.
There, sitting in the
sunshine, was an eagle, the symbol of our United States.
I don’t know if he saw
me or heard the bus, but a bus came down the road, the eagle flew into a nearby
tree, and the bus stops. Dagnabbit! I was quite a ways away (thank goodness I’d
put the longer lens on!) and kept walking. I can only assume the driver was giving
the kids time to soak up the sight of this majestic bird, but I sure was wishing
she’d drive away! It seemed like an eternity before she finally did.
I took his picture as he sat in the tree watching me.
I thought about retreating, back the way I’d come, but then I’d be shooting into the sun and knew my pictures wouldn’t come out very good. I decided to take a chance and walk down past the possum. Maybe if I don’t look at him, he’ll ignore me, I thought. It didn’t work. He took flight. I’d hoped he’d just land in a different tree and come back when I was far enough away but it didn’t work. He circled over head and off he went.
I glimpsed the moon,
still in the sky, as I watched the eagle out of sight, and took a picture for
you.
I went back later in the afternoon, but
it was just a futile hope that the eagle would be there. He wasn’t.
“Thank you for giving me a heads-up!” I told
Steph later. It was only because of her that I got to see the eagle at all.
And I thought that was pretty dang
exciting!
Now, if you were to ask
my handsome mountain man what was the most exciting thing to happen this week,
he’d probably say something different. He’d probably say the most exciting
thing to happen was getting a new car, and to him, it probably was.
Our
Jeep lease was coming due in a few months but the car dealers were having sales
that would end March first. Mike has been fervently watching the car deals as
the commercials came on the television. He thought he wanted a Ford Explorer but
was open to looking at other brands. “Kia has zero down and two ninety-nine a
month. Let’s go check them out,” Mike says.
Monday
morning, the last day of the sale, we headed for Planet Kia in Dickson City.
Aujus the train car graffiti says and I think of prime rib.
Mouth-watering, melt-in-your-mouth tender,
perfectly seasoned prime rib, swimming in aujus, with a side of delicious
horseradish sauce.
Oh wait! I can probably
thank my beautiful daughter-in-law for that image since she sent me this tease!
Kandyce and Kevin had gone
to a local restaurant for Kevin’s birthday dinner — and I’m a little bit jelly!
The prime rib at Bentley’s is the best!
But
who paints AUJUS in graffiti anyway‽
The trip to Planet Kia is the same
trip we make to do our Sam’s Club shopping, and it was raining, so there aren’t
many pictures.
Do you think they use their garage?
“Coming out of the vehicle
you’re coming out of, I knew you wouldn’t be happy with that one,” the dealer
said.
We spent a polite amount
of time discussing other models. He thought we’d like the Sorento but didn’t
have one in stock to show us, so we left.
For shits and grins we
stopped at the Hyundai dealer. We looked at one of their Santa Fe’s, which compares
to a Sorento, and it was an improvement but still not ‘the one’. While chatting
with this dealer Mike found out that Kia is a sister-company to Hyundai and
that bit of knowledge seemed to excite him.
So
now we were back to looking at Ford Explorers. At the dealership we had a
choice between two models. They were both the same except the higher end one
had twenty-inch wheels, moon roof, and a GPS.
Man! That was a hard
decision to make. Mike really liked the bigger wheels; the moon roof was a wash
because it’s one of those things we’ve had before and didn’t use a lot. The
GPS?
“Why don’t they have GPS’s
in ‘em anymore?” I asked.
“Most people use their phones
and don’t need one. You just plug it in and it’ll come up on the screen.”
That won’t work for us
because we use Consumer Cellular and have the smallest data package. We do,
however, own a GPS we can plug in, suction cup to the windshield, and use. We
went to McDonald’s for one of their new Crispy Chicken Sandwiches and talked it
over.
“I like the one with the GPS,” was my vote and as it turns out, was Mike’s vote too. Our biggest must-have was comfortable seats. The Jeeps, and maybe other vehicles as well, have ‘wings’ on the seat — the sides come up. That puts pressure on Mike’s leg, which bothers him more on the right side than the left, and makes it painful for him to drive for any distance. The Explorer XLT has comfortable seats and many other things we’ve not had before. We’ve not had auto-dim headlights, lane assist, adaptive cruise control, or a rotary gear shift dial to name a few.
We
went back to the dealership with our decision. “I don’t want to sit here while
you do all the paperwork,” I told Mike. “Will you take me home? We can clean
the Jeep out.”
Derek, our dealer was sitting
right there in front of us. “You can do that if you want. I’ll get started on
the paperwork and do the credit checks and get it cleaned up and gassed up for
you.”
At home, we stuffed
everything into bags or set stuff on the garage floor. It’s amazing what you
can accumulate if you’re not vigilant. Take these napkins for instance. When I cleaned
out the center console, I had all of these napkins from fast food drivethrus. They
almost always give you plenty and I hate throwing good stuff away. So, I guess
we’ll use them at the kitchen table.
It
was getting late when the paperwork was complete and we went back for our new
ride. Derek went over how everything in the car works but it was too much. I’ll
never remember it all. We got to test out the auto-dimming function on the way
home and it works surprisingly well.
The next couple of days
we made excuses to go someplace. One of those places was back over to the
dealership in Tunkhannock to ask a few more questions.
“Peg! You could’ve taken
care of that with a phone call!” you say.
I know, right! But as
long as we were going to Tunkhannock, we could stop at McDonald’s and get another
of those Crispy Chicken Sandwiches (wink, wink).
We were sitting at a stoplight when inspiration struck to photograph the inside for you. Mike wasn’t paying any attention to what I was doing but could hear the click-click-click of the camera.
“What are you taking pictures of?” he asked.
“My
handsome husband,” I said. “Show them your handsome smile.” And this is what I
got for my effort and my compliments.
I laughed at his
silliness. I hope he does too when he sees I used the picture.
I turned and looked at the store that we were stopped in front of. “Hey!” I exclaimed. “Those are paint brushes! I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone decorate with dried up paint brushes before.”
>>>*<<<
I often times combine my
trips outside. I’ll take the kitchen scraps, set the pan on top of the burnables,
carry them out, dump the scraps, burn the paper, then I’ll go right on down the
path and check the mail. I’m a woman. I’m efficient and I multi-task.
We had a warm day where
everything melted, and a cold night were it all froze up again. I didn’t have any
problem as I came around the end of the fence, but I’m watching my step, and I
see a cigarette butt. Then I see another and another and another. Of course, my
mind takes off to every spy/thriller/killer movie I’ve ever seen and I see the
stalker/thief/murderer standing behind this fence, smoking his cigarettes, and
watching the house.
My
mind can figure that all out in a flash. What I couldn’t figure out was why anyone
would bother with us. No stalkers, no money or valuables, and no one that would
want to have us eliminated, at least I don’t think so anyway.
I bent down to get a
better look at the cigarette butts — only they weren’t. Remember those
bio-degradable peanuts we scattered in the yard? Yeah. There’s still a few of
those hanging around.
I
have fun entertaining myself sometimes.
I dumped the scraps, set
the burnables to burning, and headed for the mailbox. This whole next section was
nothing but a sheet of ice. Do I dare? I wondered.
“Peg, you’re an idiot!”
you say.
I know, right! I took a
picture to show you and saw the sun reflecting off the surface. I’ll take a
picture when I come back the other way, I thought and decided I’d better
not try going across it. Young people bounce when they fall, old people break.
I stepped up on the snow beside the path and discovered the snow was frozen
solid too! It wasn’t slippery though.
I got the mail and coming back up to the house, took pictures of this treacherous section of the path. It wasn’t until I looked at it on the ‘puter that I saw a handsome black and white cat poking his head up through the scrap wood pile.
Smudge.
>>>*<<
Our new car shopping took up a couple of my days this week but I did manage to work on suncatchers. I have to tell you; I was not looking forward to making anymore of the rainbow hearts. In fact, I dreaded it. The way the heart sat under the green bow was a nightmare. I’d made two before I decided a design change was needed. I detached the heart and now I don’t hate making them anymore! I made two and have two more to go, maybe three.
>>>*<<<
St. Patrick’s Day is
coming. March seventeenth. I thought I’d make a couple of face masks to mark the
occasion but I’d stopped at the sewing section in Walmart and they didn’t have anything.
Maybe the second-hand store will have a shirt or something I can cut up,
I think.
“I need to go to the
post office,” I had a couple of packages to send out, “and I haven’t been to
the Rainbow in a long time. Would you take me? It’s buy-one-get-one-free day.”
When Mike was slow to respond, I threw in the coup de grâce. “We can get
a chicken sandwich from McDonald’s.” Three in one week isn’t too many, do you
think?
Mike
thought about it. “Okay, but I think I’ll get two fish sandwiches instead. I really
like their fish sandwiches and they’re on sale.”
McDonalds always puts
fish sandwiches on sale during lent.
“Let’s leave a little early
and we’ll take the long way around, down through Dushore and back up 220.”
That really is the long way but I don’t care. Can you say road pictures?
“Yes, he did,” and I
snapped a picture.
“Why
are you taking a picture?”
“Just for something
different,” I say.
“Then they can see what you
see.”
Let it be known, no
matter where I am, no matter what I’m doing, you’re never far from my thoughts.
The house is gone.
Whether roof collapse
or fire, I don’t know, but the lawn ornaments are still standing sentry in the
yard.
At the Rainbow second-hand store, I looked and looked but couldn’t find any St. Patrick’s themed material. I did find a bin of fabric scraps and picked a few from there.
Butterflies
and the color orange make me think of my beautiful Missouri gal, Linda. I
picked them up with the intent to make her a mask or two. And owls always make
me think of Kat. They were her favorite. I’ll be working on masks again next
week. Even though the vaccines are increasing day by day, they say we still
need to wear masks for a while.
Speaking of wearing
masks…
My beautiful older
sister got her masks in the mail and sent me a picture.
Mike and I enjoy our daily game or three of Skip-Bo but one morning Mike said, “I don’t want to play this morning.”
I don’t know if he was
kidding or not but he was sitting in his usual card-playing spot.
“Let’s play Rumikub!” I exclaim.
“No,”
he says, but I’d already reached for the game and had it dumped out on the
table by then.
“You don’t like this game
because I beat you more than I do at Skip-Bo,” I said.
So, he gave in and
played — and I won!
Tiger!
Tiger, Tiger, Tiger.
He’s my boy. I’ve not
seen him on the stove since he had that run-in with a hot pan, but he never
wants to be far from me. So, there I was, going back and forth between the counter,
where I was rolling out tortillas, and the stove, where I was cooking them, and
notice my shadow had jumped up onto my craft counter and was just laying there
watching.
I know that having a cat
like this isn’t everyone’s cup o’sunshine. And there are boundary lines, which
they always seem to challenge, but there’s something special about having an
animal love you this much.
Speaking of boundary
lines…
I was listening to a
Christian podcast and Janet Mefferd said, “…that’s a Rubicon we passed a long
time ago.”
Wait! What! We passed a
Jeep? The only way I’ve ever heard that word used before was in reference to a
Jeep but it obviously has another meaning that I’m not aware of. I Googled it.
According to Merriam-Webster:
In 49 B.C., Julius Caesar led his army to the banks of the Rubicon, a
small river that marked the boundary between Italy and Gaul. Caesar knew Roman
law forbade a general from leading his army out of the province to which he was
assigned. By crossing the Rubicon, he would violate that law. "The die is
cast," he said, wading in. That act of defiance sparked a three-year civil
war that ultimately left Julius Caesar the undisputed ruler of the Roman world.
It also inspired English speakers to adopt two popular sayings -crossing the
Rubicon and the die is cast-centuries later. Rubicon has
been used in English as the name of a significant figurative boundary since at
least the early 1600s.
Rubicon means boundary line
and is always capitalized when it’s used this way because it’s a proper noun.
I found another meaning and this time
rubicon has a small r. In piquet (pea kay), an early 16th-century
card game, you can score a rubicon. It’s winning a game against an opponent whose
total score is less than 100. The game is still played today and the rules of
play are on the Wikipedia website — if you’re interested.
But, back to my cooking…
I’d left the very last corn tortilla on
the hot pan with the fire off to finish cooking. Well, I forgot about it and
when I went back for it, it was crispy — and deeelish! Homemade corn chips! I’m
going to make those again!
Mike leaned back against the kitchen counter,
eating a warm corn tortilla, and surveyed the counter opposite him. The one
strewn with all my creative ideas. “Not everyone would like having that in
the kitchen,” he said nodding at it when I looked at him and I got the idea he
wasn’t entirely pleased with it himself. To me, having my kitchen on one side
and my craft stuff on the other is the best of both worlds. And I didn’t remind
him that sitting in the living room at that very moment were two sawhorses with
a twelve-foot two-by-six laying across the top.
Since everything was out, and the stove
was pre-floured, I tried my hand at Naan (nan), an Indian bread. Traditionally
it’s made with white flour and yeast but I was looking for alternatives for my
Miss Rosie, who can’t have gluten. I found a recipe that used coconut flour and made that for her.
My naan didn’t get as
puffy as the recipe led me to believe it would get and I could taste the
coconut. Mike and I both preferred the corn tortillas to the naan.
I took some of each to
this beautiful, feisty redheaded neighbor of mine and checked in with her the next
day. “I like the naan more than the corn tortillas,” Miss Rosie told me, and
she didn’t taste the coconut flour. Maybe I was tasting too hard?
Even though I hadn’t said
anything about Mike's project set up in the living room, he must’ve been thinking
about it. He took the board and sawhorses out to the garage and asked me to
help rearrange our living room. Under the end table that was next to his
recliner was an enclosed pet bed. We bought it for Itsy a couple of years ago
and I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of the critters use it. I tossed it up
onto the deck of the treadmill (which is seldom used either) just to get it out
of the way. That night Tiger sniffed around it, then crawled inside. Since
I was in his line of sight, he was happy and slept for a couple of hours.
Another day Tiger
brought me a mint to throw for him. I tossed it until he stopped bringing it
back.
“Meow!” Smudge said.
I’d been working at my
desk and turned to see what he wanted. There, sunk to the bottom of the water
bowl, was the mint. Smudge didn’t want mint flavored water.
And Spitfire! He’s been getting up in
Smudge’s place in the window. In the hierarchy of our clowder, Spitfire is above
Smudge. Smudge always waits for Spitfire to finish eating before he eats. So I
guess if Spitfire wants the window seat, Spitfire gets the widow seat.
“How’s Mr. Mister doing?”
I know you wanna know.
After being confined to
the warmth and security of the cat room for almost two weeks, Mr. wanted out.
There’s an old quilt in front of the door blocking the draft that finds it way
underneath, and he’s been pulling it away. His leg never festered to the point
of erupting and he wasn’t favoring it as much so I unblocked the cat door and
let him come and go at will.
That first night he came
in for his evening treat, then he was gone for a couple of days.
“Maybe something got him,”
Mike worried.
“It’s possible,” I agree.
“But he’s probably just out tom-catting. He’s probably over at the Walker’s looking
for females to breed.”
“Maybe we let him out
too soon and he couldn’t fight back with his injured leg and that other cat killed
him.”
I shook my head. “I don’t
think that. The adrenaline would make him fight like his leg wasn’t even hurt. And
tomcats don’t usually fight to the death. One or the other gives up and runs
away. But I don’t know how much chance he’d stand against a hungry fox or
coyote.”
“It’s one less cat we
have to feed,” Mike concludes. But I know it’s just his way of dealing with the
loss. He’s really taken a shine to Mr. Mister.
For those two days we
made a hundred or more forays through the wilds of the garage out into the cat
room to see if he’d come home yet, and we worried.
Then he came home. Mr.
Mister was back and hungry and no worse for the wear.
“Let’s keep him in until
this cold snap is over,” Mike said.
And I let him have his
way. With the cat door open, or unblocked, a lot of cold air comes in and the
floor can get cold enough to make ice in the water bowl. Up on the shelves it
stays about forty degrees. With the door blocked off, and the extra heater my
soft-hearted husband put out there, it’s staying in the mid-fifties.
Don’t say anything. You might think it silly, and I might think it’s silly, but it’s just how Mike is. He takes super-duper good care of things he loves.
>>>*<<<
The eagle! I think, set
the papers and scrap pan down, and run back in the house for my camera.
By the time I get back
out there, the crows are gone, the big bird is flying in lazy circles and halfway down the
road. I followed in hopes he’d sit in a tree, and that’s when I saw there were
two of them. I bet they’re hawks, I think and keep taking pictures even
though they’re so high up and so far away. And now, looking at it on my ‘puter,
enlarging it, I see it is a hawk. I never could get them both in the same shot.
I picked up the junk
mail from the mailbox and by the time I got back to my scrap dumping and paper
burning, the March winds had scattered papers and used tissues all over the yard!
Maybe I should’ve dumped ‘em in the burn barrel before I took off, I
think. Nothing like shutting the barn door after the horses are out.
Remember, you’re all in my heart.
And with that, let’s
call this one done.
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