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!