Right Up Front

           I want you to know right up front that this letter blog almost didn’t happen.

          Almost.

          “What’s going on, Peg?” you ask.

          In my life, not much.

          And what little is happening could be summed up in a page or two. I was thinking that my time could be better spent doing something else rather than sitting here, in front of my computer, trying to put together a little something-something that wouldn’t embarrass me and at the same time let you know how precious you are to me.

          “What would you be doing otherwise?” you wanna know.

          Probably painting. I’ve got some commission work that needs to be done before Easter — which I thought was a week from today.

          My beautiful friend Joanie has asked for a double-sided porch sign. Easter on one side, summer on the other. I’ve got Easter done, thanks to the help of my cute little redheaded artist-sister, Diane. She gave me some tips to improve it. Some I took, some I didn’t. But I’m happier with it now than I had been.

          The other side is an amalgamation of the summer actives in the Grover household. Swimming with the grandkids, barbequing, and s’mores over a campfire. I expect to need at least two days to paint it, possibly three. And with Easter only five working days away, and me with another commission that has to be done by Easter, I didn’t think I’d have it done in time.

          “Do you want your sign now so you have time to enjoy it before Easter?” I asked Joanie. “You can give it back after Easter and I’ll finish it.”

          “What if you keep it until it’s done?” Joanie asked.

          The other commission is going to be a gift to family members who live out of the area. Robin, another beautiful lady from my church, is planning to make the four-hour drive down to Lancaster, a half-way point where the gathering’ll take place, and she needs to have the sign by Friday before Easter.

          “What’s it gonna be?” you wanna know.

          Oh, my gosh! I have it designed already and it’s going to be so stinkin’ cute! It’s going up in an ice cream store and it’ll have a quote, “Ice cream soothes the soul,” an ice cream cone, and the cutest little pig you ever saw. I’m thinking I’ll need at least three days to paint it but want to give myself extra time in case I need it. That just isn’t going to give me enough time to finish Joanie’s sign.

          Luckily, I pulled up the calendar and discover I’ve got two weeks before Easter!

          Whew!

          I can finish Joanie’s sign and get it to her and still have time to get Robin’s done.

          Now, porch signs aren’t the only commitment I’ve made for Easter gifts. Miss Rosie ordered three stained glass bunny butts last year to give as gifts this year. So, that means I’ll have to squeak out a day to make them.

          All y’all know that my cats are good hunters.

          “Cats that are hungry hunt better than cats that are well fed,” someone recently told me.

          I have to disagree. In theory that sounds resonable but my cats have access to food any time they want it. They’re not hungry. At least not for the fare at my house. I’m guessing fresh game just plain tastes better.

          This week I looked out the kitchen window and saw Blackie batting something around. I watched as he batted it into the weeds. When he came back out without it, I thought maybe the mouse got away from him. I went out to investigate. It wasn’t hard to spot the white belly of the dead mouse laying there.

          “You’re such a good kitty,” I told Blackie, stroked his head, and walked away.

          On a morning love call to my neighbor Sally, she said, “Tell Blackie not to leave his feathers on my porch. I guess he got a bird. It was a black one so that’s okay.”

          What can I say to that?

          “I’m not crazy about them getting the birds either. They get ‘em over here and I know that down at the Kipps’ their cat gets birds, too.”

          Here’s Blackie hiding behind a tipped patio chair waiting to ambush some unlucky guy.

          Keeping the bird population in check is what the cats do.

          Mike has discovered we have a whistle pig making his home on the bank of the barn. Mike is unhappy about that so we’ve set a live trap to try and catch him. I’ve been checking the trap twice a day but because there’s nothing to camouflage it with, we haven’t caught him yet.

          I’ve been taking Raini with me. After we check the trap, we walk over and check out the pond.

          Raini is so funny.

          She waded right in. It’s got to be cold. Her muzzle dips under the water once, twice, and the third time she came up with a mouthful of greenery. 

          I laughed at her.

“You silly girl!”

          She turned and looked at me, weeds dripping from her mouth.

          Her fishing expedition continued as we walked the banks of the pond. 

          On the way home we found a skull. I think it’s probably a possum. It still had a piece of skin hanging on it. Raini picked it up.

          “Drop it,” I told her and she did.

          I picked it up. One of these days I’m going to get around to painting it.

          We start for home and I see Raini proudly trotting along beside me, the piece of possum hide hanging from both sides of her mouth.

          “Drop it!” I commanded. She did. As soon as I start to walk away, she grabs it again. “Drop it!” I told her again and she did. “Leave it!” I told her but as soon as I turned to go, she picked it up again. It was just much too much of a temptation for her. Rather than continue to fight, I picked it up and draped it in the fork of a tree.

          Some battles aren’t worth waging.

          Speaking of Raini...

          She got into with Bondi this week. It’s been a while since we’ve had any squabbles of this magnitude.

          I was at my desk and I’d just given them both a treat. A few crumbs fell to the floor but I didn’t think anything of it. In the end, I think that might’ve been what they were squabbling over. I turned back to my computer and next thing I know the growling and snapping started. Raini was on top, of course, because she’s bigger. I let it go for a few seconds because I expected Bondi to submit.

          She didn’t.

          The snapping and snarling continued as Bondi tried to get away but Raini stayed right with her, glued to her neck. It didn’t look like Bondi was going to submit so I grabbed Raini’s collar and pulled her off Bondi.

          “Bad girl!” I admonished, but she really isn’t. She’s a dog, being a dog, doing dog things. Her growls continued low in her throat. “Get in your kennel!” And I gave her a rump swat and a timeout.

          Bondi’s neck was soakin’ wet with slobber but there wasn’t any blood.

          These fights upset Mike. He’s afraid Bondi’s going to get killed. I don’t think Raini’ll kill her and a lot of times Bondi’s the one who starts things — and Raini is just big enough to finish them.

          >>>*<<<

          Thursday, in the early evening, I went to check the live trap. I was going to take Raini with me but she was out in the yard and didn’t come when I called.

          We caught one unhappy possum. He hissed at me. “Okay! Okay! I’ll let you out!” I opened the door but he just sat there. I picked the cage up and dumped him out. Once free, he turned and ran. I’m sure glad I didn’t have Raini with me! Do you think she’d try to kill a possum? Or just chase him until he went to ground — or climbed a tree — or whatever possums do?

          We did run to Towanda for lunch one day. They have a place there called The Flying Taco. Michael got two brisket tacos and I got an appetizer of nachos. I wanted fajitas but they don’t have them. Most Mexican restaurants give you complimentary chips and salsa while you wait. This one did not.

When our food came, I was surprised. My serving of nachos was... it was — so small!

          I didn’t think to take pictures but I found this one online. These little steel trays are what our food was served on. You get an idea of the size.

          “But how was it‽” you ask.

          It was okay but not worth the price. Two tacos and a small tray of nachos with cheese set us back twenty-five dollars before a tip.

          We won’t be darkening their door ever again. 

          I did take some road pictures — and missed a few, too.

          “Like what?” you ask. “What did you miss?”

          Like driving through Wyalusing, on our way to lunch, some guy in a motorized chair was driving right down the road, on our side, heading right for us. There was traffic coming from the other direction so I knew Mike couldn’t go around him without hitting a truck head-on and he wasn’t slowing down. I was afraid he was going to hit the guy in the chair and I started to panic.

          “There’s a guy in the road!” I exclaimed.

          “I see him,” Mike calmly said, and finally started to slow down.

           The guy in the truck saw him too and moved to the shoulder to give Mike room to pass. Only in Pennsylvania have I seen drivers make this particular courtesy move — but in all fairness, I haven’t been everywhere.

          As we drive along, my eyes are usually trained to the trees as I look for raptors. I saw this guy just as he took flight.

          And I don’t know what this guy is except he was big.

          In the tree where I saw a hawk last time, I see a hawk again.

          “Must be his favorite hunting spot,” Mike said. 

          Back in Wyalusing, going past the gas company, I see this!

          “How could I have lived here for so long and not seen that before‽” I asked Mike.

          “Seen what?” he asks.

          “It looks like a big gas can-man holding a little gas can,” I said.

          Mike made a second pass-by so I could get the shot. He’s a good husband.

          “I never saw it before either.” But he’s the driver so he has an excuse. 

          >>>*<<<

          Okay! Okay! I know I said I was going to try and put something together that wouldn’t embarrass me and this is embarrassing, but since it’s never stopped me before, it won’t stop me this time either. I know some of you have been wondering about my two health issues of late and wonder how they’ve resolved. I’ve been hesitant in updating you because it’s not only embarrassing, it’s yucky, too. Besides, the knowledge may be a benefit to someone someday.

          So! A couple of years ago, I developed a cough. After a chest x-ray to rule out lung cancer, my PA (physician’s assistant) thought maybe it might be GERD. Gastroesophageal reflux disease can cause a cough and I do get heartburn after I go to bed at night. She prescribed esomeprazole, a generic for Nexium.

          My cough seemed to get a little better but it never went away. She prescribed a second three-month round of meds.

          In the meantime, and this is the yucky part, I discovered soon after I started taking esomeprazole, that it messed with my bowels. I have a sluggish bowel to begin with so going a few extra times a week didn’t bother me all that much. However, what did bother me was that passing gas often resulted in an underwear change and washout, and sometimes even a shower! If you think that’s hard to read about, you should try living it! Needless to say, I was so happy when I was done taking esomeprazole and no longer blowing chunks when I passed a little gas!

          Fast forward a couple of months and I start having lower abdominal cramps. After a CAT scan, my PA believes the cause is a backed-up sewer system.

          My bowels became dependent on the esomeprazole and wouldn’t work right without it. I had to re-train them to go on their own again.

          Fast forward another month or so and my cough is getting worse and worse. Even Mike is noticing that I’m coughing a LOT! And not just in the mornings like it used to be, but all day long.

          Something else I noticed is that my nose runs a lot. Although I’m not aware of it running down the back of my throat, it must, because post-nasal drip is the most common cause of persistent cough. I take an antihistamine now and just like magic — my cough goes away.

          All that trouble, not to mention expense, caused by allergies!         

          Let’s call this one done!

 

 

Unexpected

           Unexpected things happen when you least expect them to.

          We went out several times this week so you can expect to see some road pictures. When I wasn’t out, I was in. And that means you can expect to see some around the house pictures, too.

          We were supposed to have two big storms this week. Supposed to have. Both storms were a disappointment for this blizzard-loving girl. Of course, the only reason I love a blizzard is because I can admire the beauty from my nice snuggly-warm house.

          The first storm came in overnight. I went out early and took a picture. Because there isn’t very much light, my camera sees it as blue.

          Schools were delayed or just plain closed for the day. Raini had an appointment to get her nails clipped.

          “Should I cancel it?” I asked my handsome mountain man.

          “Why? I’m not afraid to drive in snow,” Mike said.

          Raini’s appointment was in the afternoon and even though the snow was supposed to continue to fall and accumulate through the day, I assumed the roads would be clear by the time we had to leave.

          Like I said, the storm was a disappointment. It only flurried and didn’t amount to any more snow.

          Around noon my phone rang. It was Bobbie Jo, the lady that cuts Raini’s nails.

          “You can come now if you want,” she said.

          “Okay. I’ll change and we’ll be on our way.” I don’t mind wearing my grunges around the house but I don’t like to be out in public in them, and we had to stop for milk.

          The roads were just wet.

          “Look at the birds!” I exclaimed. I think they’re probably starlings but that’s just a guess. I can’t see them well enough to be sure.

          Raini is eleven months old now. She was carsick the last time we had her in the car so we kenneled her for this trip, too. I didn’t feed her anything that day just in case she did get sick. I didn’t hear her get sick but when I got her out at Bobbie Jo’s I could see that she was. And guess what? She puked up feathers. I’m guessing one of the cats ate a bird on the patio and Raini ate the wings.

          The top of the hill right before you go down into New Albany was the only place where the wind had blown the snow over the road.

           Going through New Albany I noticed an interesting wind spinner.

          “Mike, can you go around the block for me?”

          Mike is a good husband and went around the block.

          It looks like it’s made from aluminum cans and they had two of them. I made a similar kind of spinner from two soda cans but it doesn’t spin. The wind just blows it around.

          All y’all know that I like to make my own bird suet cakes. I save all the grease from everything that I cook. When I have a jarful, I take it out of the freezer, set it in my big metal mixing bowl and pop it into a warm oven until it melts. Carefully dump the hot grease out into the bowl and mix it with peanut butter, nuts, cereal, cooked rice, and sunflower seeds. The birds like it so much that they’ll eat a block every other day.

          I’m out of grease.

          “I like to put a hunk of suet into mine when I can get it,” neighbor Sally told me one day. “It takes them a lot longer to eat that.”

          I buy tri-tips and it comes with a thick pad of fat on it. I used to trim if off and throw it out into the weeds for the critters but this last time I froze it. I got it out of the freezer and put it in my suet feeders. The birds really seem to like it. I usually get a lot of the smaller woodpeckers, the Downy and Wooly. This time I got a bigger one. This is, and I bet you know what he is, this is a Red-bellied Woodpecker.

          As I watched, he’d turn himself upside down, peck from the bottom, 

...and right himself. 

         Then he’d turn over, get another bite, and come back up. Over and over that’s how he ate.

          The blowing snow makes hazy dots in the background.

          The girls sat in the chair and watched the birds.

          “Is that blowing snow in the background?” you ask.

          Nope. Those are just good old fashioned puppy nose prints.

          I spent one snowy afternoon working on a commissioned WELCOME sign. All this lady wanted was WELCOME on a distressed white board.

          I put the board on the table in front of me and thought, how cool would it be if it looked like it had been painted other colors before it was painted white?

          I added a little red and blue and green and topped it with white — and I hated it. I was afraid it would be a disappointment to the gal who’d ordered white. I flipped the board over and distressed it with just white.

          After I finished WELCOME, I decided to paint something on the other side. This lady has been a good customer and brought me other business.

          Now that it’s done, I can hardly see the blues, reds, and greens.

          And if she never wants to show that side, she doesn’t have to.

          Raini laying in the chair peeking overtop the table as I painted.

          When we get a warm day, I’ll be out washing the nose prints off my kitchen door.

Speaking of Raini...

          She’s playing fetch with us. Up until this week she hasn’t shown much interest in it. I found a ball in the bottom of the toy box that has knobs sticking out of it. It’s supposed to make it unpredictable in which direction it’s going to bounce. Raini loves this ball. When she comes trotting back with it, she’ll drop it when she’s still a couple of feet away and the ball rolls right up to my feet. Sometimes she misjudges and it goes astray. I don’t chase it. I’m not even going to start doing that. If she doesn’t get it to me, I can’t throw it, and she doesn’t get to chase it. But Raini’s smart and it didn’t take her long to learn.

          She came back with the ball and dropped it too soon. It didn’t roll the whole way to me. She stood there looking at me, like, “You can get that!”

          “Nope. I can’t get it,” I tell her. “Where’s your ball?”

          Sometimes she’ll nose it closer to me, sometimes she’ll pick it up and toss it to me. Once in a while she’ll pick it up and drop it at my feet.

          And Bondi...

          Bondi has a different toy that she likes to fetch but she plays by different rules. She loves to chase the ball but when she brings it back, she plays keep-away. Mike patiently waits until Bondi gets close enough that he can get the toy from her.

          Raini sometimes fetches Bondi’s toy but Bondi isn’t interested in playing with Raini’s nubby ball.

          And something weird was going on with my desk chair. Bondi refused to sit in it with me — and that’s unusual. She always sits with me. The last time this happened was because there was cat puke on the seat — and I’d sat in it. But I checked and couldn’t find anything on the chair or blankets.       “Blankets?” you query.

Yes, blankets, as in two or more. Bondi has one she tunnels under and I have one I use to keep a draft off my knees.

Bondi can’t get into my chair directly from the floor. She has to get up onto one of the chairs at the table, go across the tabletop, and jump down into my desk chair.

I knew something was wrong because she jumped right out of the chair as soon as she’d gotten in. A few minutes later, she sat on the floor and whined at me. I picked her up and put her behind me and she jumped right out again. After several more attempts she gave up and spent the afternoon in the recliner with Mike.

The next day was the same thing. She wouldn’t sit with me and I missed it.

          After two days of missing my chair buddy, I stripped the blankets and tossed ‘em in the washer. I’m guessing there was some kind of smell on it that she didn’t like.

I got a clean blanket and we’re back to being chair buddies again.

          It’s the simple pleasures in life that mean the most.

          On Wednesday, the Kipps, neighbor Sally, and I went to the Dietrich Theater in Tunkhannock for the afternoon showing of Jesus Revolution.

           I saw three hawks on the trip but only managed to get one.

          One of the hawks I saw was banking away from the box portion of a truck. Maybe he’d been diving for something that was near or on the road or maybe it was on the other side of the road. That’s how a lot of them are killed.

          “How is Miss Rosie?” you wanna know.

          Her little nose looks fabulous! I took this picture as we waited for the movie to start. You can hardly see it at all and her doctor is very pleased with the results.

          Another barn picture I took on that trip.

          “How was the movie?” you ask.

          The movie Jesus Revolution is a docudrama based on the life of author, pastor, and evangelist Greg Laurie, and since I’ve been listening to his podcasts for years, I was already familiar with his story.

          Neighbor Sally didn’t have any idea of what to expect.

“I was bored and it wasn’t until about halfway through that I started to get interested in it,” Sally said. “And there’s so much good footage out there about this time in history and they didn’t use any of it!”

          The Kipps hadn’t heard anything about this movie either.

“All in all, I liked it but I thought it was a little too perfect the way things worked out,” Miss Rosie said. “I would’ve been in my mid-twenties and in college and I didn’t know any of that stuff was going on.” She was talking about the Jesus movement that took hold in California and spread to other parts of the country.

          Lamar also liked the movie. He summed it up by saying, “I laughed, I cried, I stood and cheered, despite there being no big hurrah at the end.” He went on to say, “The hippie movement never touched us in this part of the country, but one thing I’m thankful for is it wasn’t offensive. They didn’t show the seamier side of the hippies.”

          “What about you, Peg? What did you think?” you say.

          I’m somewhere in between. There weren’t any surprises in it for me and I thought it was just okay.

>>>*<<<

          My best Missouri gal loves the corner bookmarkers I made.

          “If you have one or two left over, I wouldn’t mind having them,” Linda said.

          It tickled me. And I can do better than shipping her off my leftovers. I dove into my vast library of digital papers and printed several different designs— all of them with the color orange in them. And won’t my orange-loving friend be surprised when she dumps out the envelope and finds seventeen! She may not need seventeen but that’ll give her a few to share if she wants to.

          >>>*<<<

           Ever since we started making our own pancakes here at home, we haven’t been going out for breakfast.

          One thing I don’t make (but I probably could) is sausage gravy and biscuits. I was hankerin’ for ‘em but the only time the little restaurant we go to makes it is on the weekends, Saturday and Sunday.

          “Let’s go out for biscuits and gravy on Saturday,” I suggested. “Then, since we’re halfway to Tunkhannock, we can do our shopping.”

          Mike thought that was a good idea, but he’d pass on the B&G, preferring to have an omelet instead.

          Then my friend Jody shot holes in the plan. “The Women of Faith meeting is Saturday morning,” she told me. I’d forgotten and I’d signed up for it.

          Mike and I changed our plans. We hadn’t wanted to make two trips out because of the price of gasoline, but two trips it was!

          Friday we did the shopping.

          The train yard.

          I watched the distant mountains every time they came into view.

          “Look at the fog,” Mike said. He’d been watching them, too.

          They reminded me of a book I just finished. Magic Hour by Kristin Hannah. I got it on the recommendation of Miss Rosie and devoured! It’s about a little girl who comes out of the woods carrying a little wolf pup. Now that was one exciting movie!

          “Peg, I thought you said it was a book,” you say.

          Yes, yes, it was. But I saw it in my head as if it was a movie and I couldn’t put it down. I stayed up until one a.m. on the second night and finished it in two days!

           We did our shopping and stopped at Meshoppen Pizza for lunch on our way home.

          “There’s a lot of cars here,” I said. “Maybe we don’t want to wait? We could go home and get lunch.”

          Mike already had his mouth set for a half-pound bacon cheeseburger so we decided if there was a table, we’d just be patient and wait our turn. All of our cold things were in insulated bags and we weren’t in a hurry.

          Walking past the front windows, I spy with my little eye, two empty tables.

          “Two-top up front or the booth in the back?” I asked Mike as we walked to the door.

          “Booth,” he replied.

          Then what does my little eye spy next?

          Can you guess what day it was?

          If you said St. Patrick’s Day, you’d be right.

          “Look at you!” I exclaimed. “Can I take your picture?”

          He’d just been served his food but he set his fork down and grinned at me.

          “What’s your name?” I asked.

          “Miles,” he said.

          I thanked him for the picture as we walked on past.

          “Do you want a picture of me, too‽” this guy asked.

          Now it was my turn to grin. “Sure! I love taking pictures of handsome guys!”

          Our booth was right behind them and we had the best conversation with these two brothers and their beautiful mother.

          “What’s your name?” I asked.

          “June. And these are my sons Don and Charlie.”

          “Do you have other kids or just these two?” I wanted to know.

          “I have another son and two daughters.” Mama June told me where everyone lived.

          “Guess how old I am?” Mama June said.

          “I’ll guess a little high,” I premised. “Eighty-two.” It was the first number that popped into my head.

          Mama June laughed. I missed it by ten years. She’s ninety-two.

          “My husband died when he was ninety-four,” Mama said.

          “How long were you married?” I asked.

          “Seventy-three years.”

          “Oh my! Did you ever think about getting a divorce?” I wanted to know.

          Mama June never hesitated. “No!”

          “These two are divorced,” she said.

          “You didn’t share with them the secret to a happy marriage‽” I asked.

          Charlie and Don laughed. “It was our wives that didn’t get the message! They divorced us!”

          “What is the secret to a happy marriage?” I asked.

          She had to think about it for half a heartbeat. “Good cooking!”

          I touched Don’s shoulder; he was sitting right behind me. “Is she a good cook?”

          “Oh yeah!”

          “What’s the best thing that she makes?”

          “I love her white cake with brown sugar frosting,” Don said.

          “I love her mac and cheese,” Charlie said.

          “I was a school cook for many years.”

          I don’t remember all the particulars, but she said she was cooking for the school kids when she was in her 70’s and 80’s.

          “She sold pies at a little store,” Don told me. I don’t remember if the store changed hands or closed.

          And the most surprising thing about this beautiful lady is she just got back from visiting her daughter in Washington state.

          Our food came and I excused myself to eat.

          And that was an unexpected and good visit with these folks.

          Miles passed our table on his way to the restroom.

          “And this is my last name,” he said and pointed to his shirt.

          “Dewey?” I asked. I was guessing.

          “Dooley,” he corrected.

          I love when you can have conversations with complete strangers. My only regret is that I didn’t turn on my recorder so I could better relate the conversation to you.

          I took more road pictures on the way home. We took a side trip to see where the church in Laceyville is going to build their new church.

I missed a couple of hawk pictures and I even saw an eagle but didn’t get a good picture of him.

“There’s an eagle!” Mike said.

I was excited and got my camera ready. “Where‽”

“Back there in that yard.”

He didn’t slow down so I knew something funny was going on.

Coming out to the main road, across the intersection, I see a critter laying dead in the road. “Is that a cat?” I asked.

          Traffic clears, Mike crosses to his lane, and I see it is a cat.

          “Someone’s gonna be so sad,” I said. I was thinking of the people in the nearby houses but then I gave voice to a realization. “I’m sad! And it’s not even my cat!”

          I know it made Mike a little sad, too because he looked just like his beloved Smudge who’d gotten run over last year.

          Saturday morning, we went for breakfast.

          Crossing the Susquehanna.

         Birds on a wire.

          Mark’s Valley View was crowded, and they had two servers on duty. One is our favorite and the other is a sour lady who hardly ever smiles. She must get a vibe from us because she walked past us several times, never saying a word, and served two couples and a single man who came in after us.

           “That’s okay,” Mike said. “I didn’t want her to wait on us anyway.”

          Breakfast was good and I made it to my women’s meeting on time.

          But now I’m out of time and out of room and I must say that’s all folks!

          Done!