Catching Up

Sunday, July 5, 2015

Hi everyone,

I hope this letter finds you happy and healthy.

This week has been crazy busy and I haven’t had a chance to start the next story for my Great RV Adventure saga. On top of that, life keeps happening around me. I have so many stories and photos to share with you!

For one thing…we’ve moved.

But don’t worry, my address didn’t change. We didn’t go far. We rented our little upstairs studio apartment and moved into our newly built garage. Well, technically we moved into the RV but it’s in the garage, which by the way, seems almost cave-like. If it wasn’t for the two little windows Mike had put into the overhead doors, it would be almost totally dark inside.

“Those windows don’t look like they would be much good,” you say.

Well, you would be surprised at how much light they do let in!

Mike says he is going to install lights to come on and go off, simulating day and night. But our ultimate goal is to be able to travel and not spend all of our time here.

<<<<<>>>>>

Andrew, our grandson, has been to visit us a few times since we’ve moved, and I hate to keep bragging on him, but he continues to do things that amaze and surprise me.

On one visit we were staying in an RV park and Andrew was restless-- not wanting to sit and play with toys.

“Andrew, do you want to go take pictures?” I thought this would be a good way to channel his energy. I could see the yes all over his attitude and he immediately starts to look for something on the floor by the door. I was confused because he had his sandals on but it all became clear as he bent down, picked up a dog leash and held it high in triumph.

“No, let’s not take the dogs right now,” and I held out his camera to him. Andrew dropped the dog leash and took the camera. He flipped it around in his hands until he was holding it right and almost pushed the on/off button when he remembered he had forgotten something. He stopped and fumbled with the strap until he got it around his neck (a two handed job for him) then he reached for his camera (which was now down around his knees) and once again flipped it around until he was holding it right. Then he turned it on.

I’ve never had to tell Andrew to put the strap around his neck, not after that first day of taking pictures together. He always just did it. It had been a while since his last visit and he hadn't forgotten. It tickled me to see his ‘oh shit’ moment.

We said goodbye to Pop-pop and headed out.

Andrew is happily snapping away at pictures; mud puddles, the shadow he casts on the grass, his foot, the sky and trees and even one of me. We hadn’t gone far when I see the neighbors are watching this cute little guy with a camera. As we get a little closer their dog barks at us.

Andrew stops and looks at the dog for a moment then he turns to go.

“Andrew,” I call as he heads in the wrong direction, “let’s go this way.”

That little stinker looked at me over his shoulder, shook his head ‘no’ and kept on walking!

Now don’t go thinking I’m a doting grandmother and give him his way all the time, I don’t. I just choose to do battle only if it’s important, like his safety or my sanity, A.K.A. nap-time. Otherwise I use diversion a lot. This didn’t fall into either category so I shrugged to the neighbors and we went the way Andrew wanted to go.

We get back to the RV, I open the door, Andrew climbs the steps and once inside he picks up the dog leashes and thrusts them at me.

Okay. Now I understood what his defiance was about. He went back for the dogs. I really didn’t want to take the dogs out because it’s just too hard to wrangle the three of them. “No. We’re in now, we’re staying in,” I told him and he seemed to accept that.

Andrew has a couple of spots where he likes to play while he is with us. We’ve made a playpen of the upper bunk. We’ve put a blanket, a small pillow and two tubs of toys up on the deck and he’ll sit up there and play.

Lately though, Andrew has been climbing up onto our ample dash and playing in the front widow.

I have a desk that folds out of the dash. It’s deep enough to hold my computer during travel and seems to be a catchall when we are not traveling. One of the things it catches is a cat. Namely Baby Blue.

Andrew loves Baby Blue. He loves to pick her up and carry her around. Baby Blue is so good to tolerate him without using her claws or teeth. She was laying on the dash when Andrew climbed up and spotted her. He kept trying to hold her but she kept wiggling away from him. She wouldn’t go far and Andrew would get a hold of her again. This little cat and mouse game continued until Baby Blue ended up in the desk-well. Guess what else was in there?

My headphones.

Guess what Andrew decides to do with Baby Blue and the headphones?

“No way!” you say.

Yes way! He puts the headphones on the cat and she lets him do it too!

I know, right! I told you she tolerates him really well. You know she could get away from him anytime she wants to but she doesn’t.

“I have to get a picture of this,” I said and got my camera as Andrew sat back and patiently waited. He really is good about letting me photograph him.

I guess taking a picture of Baby Blue in headphones seemed like a good idea to Andrew too because he asked in Andrew-ese for his camera. By the time I got it for him and he got the strap around his neck and got the camera turned on, Baby Blue’s headphones had slipped a little and this is Andrew’s shot.

Andrew was still in the window when Daddy got off work and came to pick him up. Andrew saw him coming and took a picture as Kevin waved from the truck. (Andrew’s picture.)

Kevin parked and as he came around the truck he pulled out his picture-taking cell phone.

Andrew was absolutely delighted! He laughed and laughed!

Once his giggles subsided he was able to get a picture of Daddy taking a picture of him. (Andrew’s photo -- wiper blade and all.)

　

<<<<<>>>>>

Here in Missouri we have been having some awful storms with big winds and lots of rain. Lake of the Ozarks was created with the construction of Bagnell Dam. At the other end of our lake is Truman Dam which creates Truman Reservoir which is operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. When it rains a lot and Truman has to let water out of the reservoir, our dam has to open it’s gates and let water out too. This is the second time (in the seventeen years that we have lived here) that all twelve of the flood gates have been open.

Needless to say, this event is causing quite a ruckus. Aside from the flooding issues both on the lake and the river below the dam, it has brought a lot of people to our area. Mike and I were among the hordes flocking to the dam to take photos. I wandered around looking for just the right angle and when I had all the photos I wanted, I turned to go back to where Mike was waiting for me and I see he is chatting with one of his old cronies.

Over his shoulder I spot all the pigeons lined up on the rail and decide I’d see what kind of a picture they would make.

That was when I spotted a heron sitting on the rail. Did you see him further on down there? So I took a few photos of him.

While photos with all twelve of the flood gates open are impressive because of its rarity, once I saw this shot of the heron on my computer, I loved it. And that is a really long way around to saying, this is my current desktop photo.

“Did you see the kayaker?” Mike asked when I joined him but I hadn’t.

“Where?” I asked trying to spot him.

“He’s gone now but he was right out there,” Mike said indicating the turbulent waters of the Osage River.

We left the observation area below the dam and went on down to the public boat ramp. The parking lot was partially flooded but cars were making their way through a flooded section of road to a dry parking area beyond so we did too and that’s where I got this shot.

While we were there, our kayaker came in and Mike spoke with the wife as she waited for her husband. They had come down from Columbia (80 miles north) just to kayak in the flooded river. In this shot he is in the parking lot and you can see a boat ramp warning sign up to it’s neck in water behind him.

The next day, after even more rain and high winds -- the tornado sirens had gone off here in town -- Kevin calls me on his way into work.

“Did you see the barge broke loose last night?” he asked.

“No.”

“A lot of people didn’t see it because they are busy looking at the dam.”

Needless to say I made a special trip down to the dam, where this barge is moored and took a few shots of it.

I posted this picture to Facebook and my beautiful niece Bambi asked how the plastic chairs didn’t get blown away. I didn’t have an answer for that and I still don’t. I could make a couple of guesses but I won’t. Instead, let me just say that I knew there was something about this photo that bothered me (for lack of a better word) and didn’t know what it was until Bambi pointed it out.

<<<<<>>>>>

It hasn’t been quite as hot outside the last couple of weeks and I was able to walk the girls a little more often, and I’ve seen tons of wildlife, both insect and critter.

“I’ve got a picture of a cute little spider,” I told Momma on the phone one night and the only reason I even mentioned it was because I was flipping through photos while we chatted.

“There is no such thing as a cute little spider,” Momma replied.

I think this little guy is called a crab spider and these kind of spiders look like they have glasses on their face, at least to me. What do you think?

　
You’re siding with Momma?

Well, no matter what you think, you have to admit that spiders play an invaluable role in the ecosystem.

Look at this deer would ya? Are those ticks on the back of her ears?

I missed the wild garlic. Either that or it didn’t come back in the same place it was last year. But something that is coming on right now are the brambleberries.

 Itsy won’t have anything to do with the berries but I’ll eat some and so will Ginger. I always stop and pick us a few before we move on. We get down the road a little ways and on the opposite side of the road I see another patch but the berries are less mature. I wasn’t going to stop when I spot a ripe berry. I’ll get it for Ginger, I think. Then I get a little closer. Hey! That’s not a berry!

I snapped a few photos of what I think is a black snake in the berry bushes then I go looking for the head, carefully mind you. So there I am, walking around the bush, up on tiptoe, crouching down, peaking around and among the leaves and about the time I spot his tongue tasting the air and think about taking his picture, he detects me, drops out of the bushes and is gone in a flash!

“Isn’t it amazing how something with no arms or legs can move so fast?” Momma asked when I told her about it.

I saw a whistle pig lounging around outside his home. That’s what my grandfather called woodchucks. He looks almost like a seal, I thought.

It should have occurred to me that he was watching something but it never did. Not until I saw this guy across the field. Then I knew.

And here’s something I don’t see very often. A hummingbird moth.

Lots more to show you but I’ve kept you long enough.

Let’s call this one done.

Lots and lots of love,

Peg and Mike

The Great RV Adventure -- Part 2

With the help of a glass of wine and the distraction of my Nook, my flight to Phoenix wasn’t half bad. We landed, I claimed my luggage and waited outside, in front of the terminal for my sister Patti to arrive. I had dressed for the coolness of a Missouri morning and was way too warm for the heat of Arizona in my long sleeve shirt. Luckily, God sent a breeze to kiss the sweat from my skin and although I was uncomfortable, it was not unbearable.

What to do, what to do? I wondered as I sat down. Get my Nook out? I know! I’ll practice my selfies! 

What do you think? Is this a good picture of me? Am I improving?

“Improving? Peg, I don’t have anything to compare it to,” you say.

Well, let me fix that for you. Here is a shot from one of my first selfie sessions using the bathroom mirror.

Who knew taking pictures of oneself - hence selfies- takes practice?

I quickly became bored with that and I really hate pictures of myself anyway so I turned to people watching instead.

People were crossing the road and congregating on a little island.


Taxi stop? I wondered. I used my camera to zoom in on the sign, a trick my dad used to do. SMOKING AREA it says. Wow. Look how far from the entrance they make the smokers go to smoke -- and I used to be one of those!

I turned to my left and watched this gal foraging among the landscaping. What is she doing? I wondered. Her head comes up and I see she has a cigarette in her mouth. There, by the trashcan, at the entrance to the airport, is a sign declaring: NO SMOKING. I guess some people just think they are special.

I didn’t wait very long before Patti pulled her Buick to the curb in front of the bench where I sat. I stood and grinned from ear to ear. It has been much too long since we’ve gotten together. She climbed out and came around the car, her arms open wide in greeting. She was as happy to see me as I was to see her and we giggled like school girls as we hugged each other. She popped the trunk - all these newfangled cars have buttons you can push to release the latch on the trunk- and we loaded my luggage. Climbing in, buckling up and pulling from the curb, we chatted, catching up on each other’s news, never stopping as we made the one hour drive to her house.

I just love Patti and Lee’s home. I love everything about it from the open, airy layout to the décor to the landscaping. But my two most favorite things are the patio with its old-timey collection adorning the walls…

…and her California Pump with it’s soothing sounds as the water tickles and plays on a sandstone rock that her husband Lee had found for her. Although dry when he found it, it has a basin that appears to have been created by hundreds or maybe even thousands of years of water dripping onto it.

It’s just perfect.

“Peg, what’s a California Pump?” you ask.

I know, right! I asked Patti the very same question and you know what? She laughed at me - not in a mean way though, in an amused way. “That’s not what I said,” she told me. “I called it my California inspired pump with a cowboy twist,” and she laughed again. Isn’t it funny how we don’t always hear what’s being said?

And that is why this pump will always and forever be her California Pump in my mind.

The next couple of days were spent visiting and preparing for the trip. On one of our expeditions into town to buy supplies, Patti gave me a lesson on using and understanding her GPS, affectionately named Betsy.

Patti, bless her heart, had our trip completely planned out. I can’t imagine the hours she must have spent researching and plotting the best routes, making reservations for all our nightly stops and programming everything into Betsy. She’s truly an amazing woman.

On the morning of our departure I met Lori. To be honest with you, I had met Lori once before. She came with Patti to our last family reunion five years ago, but with so many people there, I barely remember her. In essence this was the first time I was meeting her and now we would be spending three weeks together traveling in an RV.

Lori told me later that she was a little worried about traveling for such a long time in such a confined area with someone she didn’t know, but I wasn’t worried about that at all.

“You are what anyone needs you to be,” Mary Ellen, my old boss at Curves told me once. At the time we were having a discussion on a client complaint. “I know you weren’t rude to her, I never worry about that at all. Sometimes it’s just a personality thing.”

My only worry about the trip was driving the RV. I reassured myself with lots of self-talk though. Women drive RV’s all the time. If they can do it, so can I! Women even drive semis too and they’re way bigger than an RV.

As a matter of fact I drove Mike’s truck, Big Red, a Ford F-550 from Missouri to Pennsylvania once. So, okay, I was following Mike as he led in our RV and having him as a marker gave me a lot of confidence - still, I did it!

Mike was very supportive in this whole endeavor. From holding down the fort, here in Missouri while I was gone, to driving the RV. “You can do it Peg, just remember not to get too close to the gas pumps when you pull in and watch your tail swing when you pull out, you don’t want to sideswipe a pump. And you have to slow way down for turns. And don’t worry about trying to go fast because of traffic, they’ll wait for you or they’ll go around,” was his advice.

Upon meeting Lori we talked about driving the RV. “How was it to drive?” I asked. She had driven it from the rental place to Patti’s.

“Not bad. I already drive a truck and I’ve pulled trailers before, how about you?”

“I don’t drive all that much but I can do it,” I stated confidently. Then, in my mind’s eye and in the blink of an eye, I relived driving Mike’s Big Red. “But when it comes to things like construction zones, I just close my eyes and go!” I said it as a joke but I guess I didn’t inspire a lot of confidence there because Lori said, “It’s okay, I’ll drive.”

Fine by me. I didn’t want to drive anyway, but just to be clear, I didn’t really close my eyes. Not literally. I figured out where my driver’s side tire needed to be so I was inside the lines and when it came to the construction zones that’s all I focused on. I didn’t dare glance at the construction barriers.

Lori is a take-charge kind of girl and I was happy to let her take charge. My job was to be navigator. I told Lori right up front though that I’m not a very good navigator. It’s beginning to look like I’m not going to much use on this trip, doesn’t it?

It really didn’t take long for our personalities to mesh. It probably took Lori longer to get used to me than it took for me to get used to her. I’m used to being a helpmate but she wasn’t used to having a helper, she was used to doing things for herself. I kept at it though and eventually wore her down. Before the trip was over, she didn’t think anything of asking me to make a bite of lunch while she drove, or fill her coffee cup for her. But having said that I have to tell you that Lori was a good boss and traveling companion. She hardly ever got mad at me, even when I screwed up. “It’s okay,” she said more than once. “This thing can go around the block.”

“Really, Peg?” you say. “Even with a GPS?”

Well, I warned you, didn’t I? I would call out the turns and merges to Lori. “Turn right in 500 feet,” but when there are two roads close together, it’s hard to know which is the right one.

“Why didn’t Lori just listen to the GPS?” you ask.

Lori finds the GPS voice to be very annoying and distracting so I watched the GPS and gave Lori as much notice as I could as to what was going to happen. “We won’t have anything for 345 miles,” I’d say and we would relax a little and chat. Or just be quiet. The silence between us was never uncomfortable and we never turned any music on. In fact the only time we had the radio on at all was to listen to the weather band.

Oh. My. Gosh! The rain! I think the whole first week of our trip was spent driving in the rain, and we were a little worried about tornados too. And if that wasn’t enough for Lori to deal with we had miles and miles of bad roads and oodles of construction zones. Any one of those things on their own would be enough for a novice RV driver to deal with but just imagine what it was like when all three were combined!

Yeah.

And just for fun, let’s throw egocentric people into the mix. You know the kind I’m talking about. Everyone else has merged into the proper lane and are all creeping along and you get this one person who thinks he’s special and deserves to be at the head of the line so he passes everyone up and expects someone up ahead to let him in. You know the guy I mean? We’ve all seen him and if you are honest about it you will admit it even kind of pisses you off a little too.

We are all waiting our turn, he should wait his turn too!

Well, it happened to us on this trip. Lori saw him coming. The Texas semi driver ahead of us saw him coming too and he wasn’t having any of it. He steered his rig into the other lane to block the advancement of this ignoramus and when it became apparent that Dumb-butt was going to pass him on the shoulder, Texas pulled onto the shoulder too!

“YEAH! YOU GO!” Lori cheered for the brash semi driver. “You tell him that you don’t mess with Texas!”

I don’t know how our median driver didn’t lose control in the rain soaked grass but I totally expected him too.

Lori doesn’t like to ‘fly blind’, so to speak. She needed to have a general idea of where we were going so after dinner at night or in the morning over coffee she would check our itinerary and compare it to Rand McNally.

Betsy is way cool though, she tells us things that a map just can’t tell us. She will tell us the speed limit, how fast we are driving and how many lanes there are at our turn or merge and which lanes are okay to be in.

“Betsy says there are going to be five lanes at our turn and we can be in any of the three right lanes,” I’d tell Lori and she would start to change lanes and I would wonder why she didn’t just stay where she was.

“You have to be over there,” I’d say as we got closer to our turn.

“Peg, you have to say right or left. I don’t know what ‘over there’ means.” Lori was so patient with me. “And you said ‘right three lanes’.”

“Sorry. I meant left…the other right!” Crap! I admonished myself. I always confuse right and left if I don’t think about it. I’d have to watch that from now on and I did. I consciously made myself slow down and think about whether it was right or left and didn’t just blurt out the first one that came to mind.

Honestly though, navigating was seriously cutting into my picture making. (I might be a little obsessed.)

Road pictures, pictures I snap as we travel down the road, can be a little hit or miss. They can be blurry if my camera doesn’t focus quickly enough or I can get a pole or vehicle in a bad place or I can miss the shot all together. And there are a few things you can count on seeing in my road pictures. Dwellings are one of them.

“I wonder what those round houses are for?” I don’t remember if Lori asked the question, or if I brought it up for conversation.

“I think they might be for ceremonies,” I said.

“Maybe it’s their houses,” Lori countered.

There were a lot of them, that’s for sure.

Now that I am home, I Googled it. Turns out we were both right, according to the website I found.

“The hogan is a sacred home for the Diné (Navajo) people who practice traditional religion. Every family -- even if they live most of the time in a newer home -- must have the traditional hogan for ceremonies, and to keep themselves in balance.” 

Graffiti is something else I’ve been photographing for a few years now. I like to see if I can figure out the message. Sometimes the graffiti shows a very talented artist and are really beautiful and sometimes the message is perfectly clear.

  The southwest is rich with photo ops!

Cows are a favorite of mine and something you will find in lots of my road pictures, especially if they are in the water.

My mother is the one that got me into cows-in-the-water photos. She took one a whole lotta years ago that was just perfect and I’ve been trying to capture one of my own every since then.

I have been on many of the eastward roads Lori and I traveled and there are barns that I’ve photographed more than once.

I took this photo in August of 2009.

And I took a picture of the same barn on this trip, May, 2015.

I got a lot of good photographs from this adventure and I’ve had some of them up as my desktop photo, but this next one has stayed up the longest and is up there still. It is, of course, the skeleton an old billboard.

I took the photo because it’s just the kind of stuff I photograph, but when I saw it on my computer I immediately thought of the story of the crucifixion of Jesus and the two thieves. One thief went with Him to heaven and the other remained unbelieving even unto death.

The first leg of our adventure was a fast dash to Pennsylvania with long drive days and many miles to travel. We had an appointment with the movers and we had to have Momma packed and waiting.

Until next time, let's call this one done.

The Great RV Adventure -- Part 1

Have I ever told you that I hate to fly? No? Well let me tell you now, I hate to fly.

"Flying is the safest form of transportation!" my husband Mike tells me.

"Yeah? Well if my car wrecks, my chances of survival are much greater," I counter. I consider ships to be in the same category with airplanes. I can’t swim very well, so I have no desire to be on the water and I can’t fly at all!

With the recent turn of events, I had little choice but to fly. Not the way I wanted the story to unfold, but I put on my big girl pants and flew anyway.

"Peg! What are you going on about!" you exclaim with exasperation.

Let me start at the beginning, which is always a good place to start when you are telling a story, don’t you think?

My beautiful mother is getting a little long in the tooth, if you know what I mean, and requires more care than she used to. We have all seen and heard nursing home horror stories, some of us have even witnessed these things first hand, and my mother had thus extracted a promise from my oldest and much adored sister Patti, that she will NEVER-EVER-EVER! have to go to a nursing home.

I too have extracted the same promise form my children after watching a 60 Minutes exposé on nursing homes.

“Don’t you EVER put me in a nursing home!” I said more sternly than I intended but I was still seething with anger laced, profound sadness, at the treatment of a segment of our populace that we should be revering -not abusing.

“Don’t worry Mom,” my quick-witted teenage son responded with hardly a pause, “I’ll shoot you first.”

That broke the tension and I laughed. But if you think about it, a bullet to the head would be fast and relatively painless and would be preferable to many other ways that one could die, however, I would not want my son to go to jail over ending an old woman’s misery and suffering and I told him so.

“I swear officer, I don’t know how she got out in the middle of the road in her wheelchair,” he quipped and again I laughed.

When the time comes, I don’t know if my children will remember their promise to me, but my beautiful sister certainly remembered her promise to our mother.

The plan to move Momma from Pennsylvania, where she lives, to Arizona to live with Patti and her handsome cowboy husband Lee evolved over time. Truck, trailer and the hassle of motel rooms was traded in for movers and a three week RV good-bye tour.

“Lori, my longtime girlfriend, has agreed to go with me on this trip,” Patti told me on the phone. “We’ll rent an RV, drive to PA, then on the return trip to Arizona we will stop and visit with family that Mom may never get to see again.” As much as our mother loves to travel, being on oxygen full time and with limited mobility, her traveling days would most likely be over. Some family members were simply on route and it was easy to plan a stop to visit them, others are of limited means and would most likely not be able to afford to travel to Arizona, at least not in the foreseeable future anyway.

Momma, who has lived in the same tiny little apartment for twenty years, the longest time she has ever lived in any one place, was apprehensive about the move. Yes, she needed more help these days - no, she did not want to go to a nursing home - yes, she was comfortable where she was - yes, Pennsylvania winters were hard on her - yes, the warmth and sunshine of Arizona appealed to her - yes, she would miss her friends and family -yes, she loves to travel and see the countryside - yes, she has spent several years wintering with Patti in Arizona and finally - yes, she gets along with Patti very well.

Patti, as the oldest, holds a very special place in Momma’s heart. And that is not to diminish the place any of us have in her heart. She wanted each and every one of us, prayed for us in fact, and had room in her heart for many more children, if God had so chosen to give her more. Eleven was all she was given.

I am the middle child. There are five older than me and five younger than me. Patti, first born and oldest, is eight years older than me and John, last born and youngest is eight years younger than me. I am the middle child both in number and age too! But let me tell you something about being a middle child. If there are more than three kids in the family, you are not allowed to have Middle Child Syndrome and that’s because nine of us are middle children. Nonetheless, furthermore and be that as it may, each of us have our own place in Momma’s heart, she loves us all and this I know to be true.

I have been making phone calls to Momma on an almost daily basis for more than fifteen years now. I won’t say I have called her EVERY day, because I have missed a day here and a day there but by the same token there have been days when I’ve called her two or three times in the same day!

“Would you come early and help sort some of this stuff out?” Momma asked on the phone one night after plans were made to move her.

“Sure,” I said. I’m in Missouri most of the time, right smack in the middle of the country, right smack in the middle of the state because that’s where our business is but my heart belongs among the mountains and streams of Pennsylvania where I was born and Mike and I have a summer home just eleven miles from where Momma lives.

“Good. I don’t want to take everything with me.”

It was all planned. I would leave here in the middle of April, take the Jeep, our pets - two Yorkies and two domestic shorthair cats, and make the seventeen hour drive to our Mountain Home. I’d open the mill, which we are currently renovating into a home, and stay three weeks, spending time with my mother and helping her prepare for her move. Mike would stay in Missouri and run the business, possibly joining me later.

Then it came.

A call.

I got a call from Patti one day in early April. “Lee is not doing well,” she said of her husband. “I’m not going to be able to make the trip. Lori has offered to make the trip without me and as good of a friend as she is, it’s too much to ask of her. Would you consider making the trip with her?”

I didn’t know Lori, but I know Patti. She wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. She needed me and how could I say no?

“I want to drive to Arizona,” I told Mike later.

“Peg, it takes two days to drive to Arizona from here,” Mike says, “and only two and a half hours by airplane.”

“I know,” I said not giving voice to my fears, but he knew, and we went around one more time ending with me saying, “…and I can’t fly either!”

Sigh.

In the end I flew.

Arriving at the airport early for my flight, I settled into a secluded spot and prepared for my wait. I pulled out my Nook and drifted between the post-apocalyptic world of a story called After The End and watching the seats around me fill with people. A young man with a backpack takes a seat in my row, three seats to my left. I watch surreptitiously as he digs in his bag for a minute and pulls out his head phones. Plugging into his newfangled phone he settles down into his own world. I watch the people around me wondering if they are concealing anything. An explosive device- like a bomb maybe?

Stop thinking like that! I tell myself.

My course has been set, my destiny has been sealed. Explosive devices or not. Guns or not. Fears, real or unfounded. I will be boarding my flight.

My thoughts drift to the passengers of the fateful flight on September 11, 2001. The courage it took to sacrifice their lives to save others. Could I be that courageous? I doubted it.

I watched the people coming and going from the terminal. Flight attendants, both male and female, coming and going from their respective flights. Pilots and co-pilots with their attaché cases full of secret papers. Would my pilot or co-pilot have a death wish? I was making myself crazy reviewing the latest tragedy in my mind and I had to wonder. If I had been one of the passengers on that flight, on the flight where the co-pilot slammed the airplane into the side of a French mountain as the pilot beat on the cockpit door, would my life have mattered? Would I have left a mark on this world?

I was contemplating this when I was distracted by a couple who sat down right across from me. She pulled out her newfangled cell phone and after a few swipes with her finger, she was soon busy poking buttons. Jeepers! Does everybody but me have one of those newfangled cell phones that do everything a computer can do? She tried to show him something - the weather report, I thought, but he seemed disinterested as he reached down into his carry-on bag and pulled out a plastic wrapped magazine. Did he just get it or had he been saving it for the trip, I wondered. He unwrapped it and stuffed the plastic and a paper - the mailing label? An ad maybe? - back into his bag. He settled back and flipped it open. I was somewhat surprised and shocked to see it was an issue of Playboy.

“I’m sure he’s just interested in the articles,” you spring to his defense.

Yeah. In my mind’s eye I imagine him flipping through the pages until he gets to the centerfold and turns the whole thing sideways, flipping down the fold to view Miss May in all three pages of her glory. Do they still do centerfolds that way? But he didn’t. After turning a few pages he appeared to be reading.

Who does that? Who unabashedly reads Playboy in public? What if someone walks past and sees over his shoulder what he’s looking at? Will they be offended? Will they say something to him or look the other way? After a while the woman gets up and wanders away. I kept expecting the man to put the magazine away at any moment but he didn’t.

You guys aren’t going to believe this when I tell you about it, I thought. Then I remembered I had Andrew’s camera with me.

I call my small Canon Andrew’s camera because it is the camera I let my grandson use when he comes to see me. Since the day of his birth, two and a half years ago now, I have been taking pictures of him. I joke that he wouldn’t recognize me if I didn’t have a camera stuck in front of my face. A couple of months ago Andrew started to take an interest in my camera and I let him use it but it was much too big for him to handle. I dug out a small Canon that I seldom used, charged the battery and the next time Andrew came to see me, I gave him the camera and asked if he would like to go out and take some pictures. As a child of the technology age, he is adept at anything with buttons and he readily and eagerly agreed.

This camera has no view finder, you simply look at the screen and push the button when your shot is framed. Andrew didn’t really understand that but because he’s always seen me hold my camera to my eye, that is the way he does it.

Andrew got some amazing shots that day.

I reach for my bag where it sat on the floor by my feet and furtively slip Andrew’s camera from the side pocket. I sit back in my seat glancing at the man to see if my movement had caught his attention but he never looked up. I kept my hand over the camera as I turned it on (to mute the sound it makes when it powers up). Would he know what I was up to? I wondered. I didn’t want to draw his attention but if I did, I planned to keep the camera out of sight and look totally innocent. Luckily the sound either didn’t carry to where he sat, he didn’t recognize what the sound was, or he was really engrossed in his article because again he never looked up.

Keeping the camera low in my lap I pointed it in his direction and pushed the shutter release button. One picture. That’s all I took. That’s all I needed.

Who knew a two-and-a-half year old could teach me something about taking pictures?

Until next time,

Let's call this one done!


 

My Gril T

Started in April, worked on a couple of times since then, finished last night.

　

　
　

My Girl T

 



 

--Peg Kraft

 

<<<<<>>>>>

　

　

“Seriously, Monday would be great.

My life is in turmoil right now and if you come over Monday

you can hear all about it--

and I can hate you for being happy.”

<<<<<>>>>>

 



　

My girl T called me last week.

“Why do you call her T?” you ask.

Her name is Theresa but whenever she left notes for me at Curves -- where we both worked (and she still does)-- she always signed them with just a great flourish of a T. To me she was just T.

My phone vibrated and I picked it up and looked at the caller ID. “Hi T!” I answered brightly.

“Hi Peg! Hey, listen, the reason I’m calling is because Linda’s here to do a workout and we were just wondering what you have been up to,” she said.

Linda is like my best girlfriend in the whole wide world (if you don’t count family) and is a business owner here on the Strip in Lake Ozark, Missouri.

“What business?” you may wonder.

She and her husband Gene have Bob’s Sunglasses.

“Linda? Gene? Who’s Bob then?”

Bob is Linda’s daddy. He started the business in 1980 but has since gone on home to be with our Lord.

“T, I am so busy, I don’t know how I ever found time to work!” I told her. “I’ve been making dishrags and scrubbies and tee shirt rugs for pets. Cats just love these rugs!” In my mind's eye I could see our old cat Missy dragging one across the living room floor in much the same way a lioness will carry off her kill.

“My kids have a cat… could you show me how to make them?”

“Sure, just call me and we’ll get together.”

Later that week, T calls me. Guess when?

“At the most inopportune time?” you guess.

Yes. I was feeling stressed and bitchy when she called.

“Hi Peg! Do you want to get together Monday?” she asked.

I was in the middle of mopping my floor. It would be clean now, who knew what it would look like come Monday. “This afternoon would be better for me.”

T couldn’t come that afternoon and I’m afraid I wasn’t very nice to her. “I'm running errands right now, can I just call you on Monday?” she asked.

“You can call but I don’t know if I’ll be available or not.”

“Okay then,” she signed off cheerfully, “talk-to-you-later-bye.” And she was gone. My bitchiness didn’t seem to affect her one bit. She hung up sounding as sing-songy and happy as she was when she first said, “Hi Peg!”

I was ashamed and I went back to my mopping.

I reminded myself of the Wicked Witch of the West.

I mopped a little harder.

I was sorry.

I mopped harder still.

Soon my mopping slowed and stopped as I knew what I had to do. I propped the mop against the table and reached for my phone. I called T back. No answer. I wasn’t entirely surprised. I left my apology on her voicemail then I went back to mopping.

She was just doing what any normal, polite human being would do! Me admonished Myself and I mopped a little harder. She was just trying to make an appointment with you and not show up on short notice-  like you do! And I mopped harder still.

Me wasn’t making Myself feel any better but my floor sure was getting a good scrubbing!

And you were mean to her for that?

All right already! I apologized! What more do you want me to do!

Tell her Monday’s fine… like any normal, polite human being would do!  Like you should have done in the first place!

I knew Me was right. Don’t you just love these internal conversations we have with ourselves?

I propped the mop up again and for a third time I pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket. I didn’t think T would answer if I tried to call again so I texted instead.

“Seriously, Monday would be great. My life is in turmoil right now and if you come over Monday you can hear all about it and I can hate you for being happy.”

I felt better as I finished the job and went about putting the cleaning supplies away. It wasn't long until my phone vibrated in my pocket notifying me I'd gotten a text. “See you Monday,” T replied.

Monday arrives and my floor doesn’t look half bad. T called me in the morning with an approximate time of when she would be here and I busied myself tidying up the house. When she arrives we exchange greetings as I lead her into the kitchen and we sit at the table. "Here's the one I just finished," I said as I handed it to T. This rug is fifteen inches by eleven inches - or there abouts, and I haven’t figured out how to change colors very neatly yet, but hey, practice makes perfect, right?- and the critters don't care!

“These are pretty enough to sell,” T said.

“Thank you, and they are pre-loved too,” I said thinking of Baby Blue.

Baby Blue thinks every thing new in the house is hers. After a thorough inspection she will usually end up laying on whatever it is. It could be something as silly as papers I dropped in a pile on the floor while cleaning off my desk. Or the boxes I set out while packing.

Or even a basket of freshly laundered clothes. Anything that appears where it wasn’t before she will fully inspect; walk around, smell, taste, rub against, lay on. I've never thought too much about it because cats all have their own personalities and it's just something Baby Blue has always done.

 

The other day I’m watching her rub against the table leg then she goes over to the stove, rubs her face against the corner of it, continues on around and stops just as her ass comes in line with it. Her tail twitches. That little stinker! I think to myself. Is she marking it? It isn’t the first time nor the first place I’ve ever seen her tail twitch when she was backed up to something and despite some gentle persuasion with my foot every time I catch her, she keeps doing it.  Why does she do that! I've frustratingly wondered more than once and I'm not even sure I was thinking that this particular time, nonetheless, it hits me.

That's how she knows where things are!

None of our other cats do this and I'm guessing that since Baby Blue is mostly blind, it's her way of keeping track of where things are. Cats have scent glands on their front side as well as their backside and she probably has to re-mark from time to time.

More than you wanted to know, I'm sure, and definitely way off the subject.

I showed T how to fold and cut a tee shirt and turn it into yarn but I bet she won't remember how it's done when she gets around to sitting down and doing it.

I didn't remember how to do it from seeing the You Tube video one time then a week later sitting down to try it. I had to find the video online and watch it a couple of more times.

"T, if you forget how it's done, just Google it," I told her but knowing T has problems with her memory, she probably won't even remember to do that. I should call her one of these days and see how she's getting along with it.

Our conversation moved on to some of the other projects I was working on and we landed on my story making. "I have extra copies of some of my stories, would you like to have them?" I asked T.

"Yeah," she said, "I can read them at work."

"Maybe you could leave them for Mary Ellen to read too?" I suggested.

"I can do that," she replied.

I dug out copies of The Great Heron Debate, Josh and Myra, Andrew's First Photography Lesson and Jasmine's Story (which I had just completed) and gave them to her. T had to get back to work and we never had a chance to talk about the tumultuous events happening in my life right now.

I never expected to hear anything more. In fact, I haven't heard from T since then but the next day I was surprised to get the nicest note from my old ex-boss, Mary Ellen.

"Thank you so much for dropping off your 'stories'. Theresa left them for me and I read them this morning. They are wonderful stories and I felt like I was right there with you....Your Andrew is such a special gift and a really super 'kid', he doesn’t even seem like a toddler, he is so grown up and smart. Thank you for thinking of us."

Despite what anyone thinks of Mary Ellen I have always admired and respected her. I value her opinion and I was pleased that she liked my stories.

　

　

　

　

Sunday, June 7, 2015

 

Hi everyone,

          Another week has passed and if you ask me, it has passed much too quickly.

          Life is so very busy right now with moving out of our apartment and taking care of Luby's Plaza, our business, and it hasn't left me much time to pursue any of my hobbies. I haven't been out walking the dogs beyond what is necessary and that means I haven't been out to take any pictures either. I know that the wild garlic is up and if I am going to gather any, I'll need to do that pretty soon. I know the simple, understated daisy's are in bloom right now too, and I love those. Especially when I catch one of the little spiders that are known to inhabit them. And I haven't been able to spend much time writing either.

          It was my plan to finish our moving out yesterday and write today. The moving out did not get completed but despite that, I decided to go ahead and write today anyway (I should be finishing up the moving).

          First, let me show you my current desktop photo and then I'll tell you what kept me from finishing our move-out, okay?

          My current desktop photo is a road picture from my recent RV Adventure. I can't tell you anything about it other than the date I took it.

 

          This weekend was the third annual Lake Race. A two day race here on the Lake of the Ozarks. Power boats from all over the country come to compete and speeds can exceed 115 miles per hour with prizes totaling $75,000. They actually close Bagnell Dam to traffic so spectators can watch the race from there. But let me tell you something. It was hot out there. Well into the 90's and I think the best place to watch the race from is your couch. It's televised.

          One of the coolest things about the whole race is watching them lift the big power boats into and out of the water.

 

          Okay. So the Lake Race has been going on and Mike, along with Gary, his helper, are building a garage for our RV and snow plow truck.

          Bear with me here.

          Tucker's Shucker's and Salsa, two brand new, very expensive business have opened at the end of our block. These two places have something like five public parking spaces in front of them. That's it. You can call them restaurants if you want to but I consider them bars that serve food. Their patrons may eat there but I bet you ten-to-one that most of them are there for the alcohol and live entertainment.  Both bars are two levels with seating capacities well over the one hundred mark. Where did they think their patrons were going to park?

          Our little city has no ordinance about providing parking for your patrons in the C1 district. So they were allowed to build, advertise, bring tons of people down to the Strip and not provide them with any place to park. That may sound like a good thing but they are not the only business's here on the Strip. Other business owners would like to do business too and have a little parking for their patrons.

          Mike and I have 14 tenants, a stage, and a parking lot with 70 spaces, all on two and a half acres right in the middle of town.

          Guess where everyone wants to park?

          "What's wrong with that?" you ask.

          Well, for starters, and like I said, these two new places are bars. People come and stay for hours and hours and sometimes are too intoxicated to drive. So their cars are left overnight. So when our parking lot is full of Tucker's and Salsa customers, where will the customers of our tenants park?

          Yeah, it's a problem.

          We have posted a sign declaring this as a private parking lot for the customers of the business here but people ignore the sign. When Mike tells them it's private parking they say they didn't see the sign. So a new improved and much larger sign was ordered and mounted on a sawhorse that sits right smack in the middle of the entry lane to Luby's Plaza.

          They have to drive around it.

          It's only been run over once.

          Believe it or not, people still ignore the sign. I can't say as I blame them- there isn't any street parking- however, it is clearly posted along with a sign telling them that violators will be towed.

          All of this means that on weekends or during special events, we have to man the entrance and ask every single car where they are going.

          It is time consuming and people can be mean! And the people who are the meanest are the ones who were trying to do something wrong. The people who are regular patrons of our tenants are glad to know that even during the busiest of times, they will find a parking spot here at Luby's and they are grateful.

          Yesterday, instead of finishing up our moving out, I did Parking Lot Duty so Mike and Gary could work on the garage.

          I thought I was doing a good job of staying out of the sun, until I was washing up to go to bed. My face and my neck are bright red.

          Sigh.

          I didn't have a lot of trouble with people. I smiled at each and every one and asked, "Where y'all goin'?" as politely as I could.

          Once people realized they could name one of our stores and they were allowed to park, it seemed like word spread like wild fire. Then we would see them walk into one of our stores and maybe buy something but most often not, and the next thing you know, they were walking down the street!

          I'll fix that! I thought to myself. "We have a one hour parking time limit today," I told them.

          The people who were truly patrons didn't have a problem with that. "Even if you're drinking?" one gal asked me.

          "Heck no!" I told her. "As long as you are in Wise Guys (or patronizing any of our stores) you can stay as long as you like."

          When it was someone who fully intended to park and walk out they just circled the lot and drove back out. They never even parked.

          One guy was totally up front with me. "So if I buy an ice cream cone I can park here for an hour?" he asked.

          "Yup!" I said.

          "What if I come back in an hour and buy another ice cream cone? Can I stay another hour?"

          I had to smile as I thought about it. I didn't know how to answer that so I decided to forestall the decision. "I don't know. Come back in an hour and we'll talk about it."

          The guy smiled, stuck out his hand and said, "My name's Mike."

          I shook his hand, "I'm Peg."

          "Nice to meet you," he said.

          "Nice to meet you too. Now go get that ice cream, don't get me in trouble with my boss."

          He didn't let me down. He bought two cones, one for himself and one for his little boy and as they walked out to the street, I called after him, "See you in an hour."

          He gave me a big grin and the thumbs up sign.

          They were gone a little longer than an hour, but never asked for more time. I'm guessing the sun beating down on them wore them out and they had had enough anyway and they left.

          All in all my day was going really well and when the regulars asked why the restrictions, I told them ending with, "...and I want you to have a parking space when you come down here to eat at Wok & Roll," or wherever they said they were going.

          Traffic into the plaza had slowed and I was a little bored. I see this guy come walking down the sidewalk and I decide to talk to him.

 

          "Hey, hey! What are you up to today?" I greeted him.

          "I'm looking for my friends but they're not answering their phone. But I wasn't answering mine earlier either because my battery's dead."

          "Retribution?" I asked.

          "Yeah," he says and shakes his head.

          Thinking of my recent snafu, I decided to do some good natured ribbing. "Is that poor planning on your part?"

          "Huh?"

          "You knew you were coming here today, why didn't you charge your phone? Poor planning on your part or what?"

          He smiled sheepishly, "I brought my charger with me." He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the charger. "I had my phone on the charger earlier but I guess something's wrong with it because it's not working."

          "I'm just teasing you because you know what? I just did the very same thing!" It wasn't with my phone though, it was with my camera on the RV Adventure. I hadn't been paying any attention to my battery when an Amish man sitting behind a team of horses in a freshly plowed field passes by my window and I raise my camera to capture it and--

          "Doggone it!"

          "Did you get it?" Lori asked.

          "No! My battery's dead!" I was crestfallen. I scrambled out of my seat to get the battery on the charger and plugged in and when I got back to the Navigators Seat I said, "Poor planning on my part, huh?"

          "That would have been a good shot too," Lori said feeling my misery.

          I never thought about grabbing Andrew's camera and photographing it with that until it was way too late. Heck, it was right there in the pocket in front of me too!

          Once I had a chance to review my photos I saw that I did actually get two shots of it.

 

 

          I had a very nice conversation with this guy who's name is Key. "How did you happen to be named Key?" I asked.

          "Interesting story," he tells me. "My name was supposed to be Keith but when my mom got the birth certificate back it was Key." He went on to elaborate and told me that his mom said he was so much trouble to carry and deliver that she didn't want no more trouble. He mimicked the way his mom must have said it to him because he shook his finger at an imaginary little boy standing in front of him and said, "'...so now you're Key.'" 

          It was as we were standing there conversing, and me running out every so often to ask new arrivals, "Where y'all goin' today?" when we heard a crunch-scrape-crunch. We looked and saw a car squeezing into a space between a car and a pole that wasn't even a parking space.

          "Well at least he didn't hit the other car," I said. The man got out and looked at his car and just walked off, leaving his car like this most of the day.

 

         

          My worst experience came almost at the end of my shift. Two guys came in with an Illinois plate and I went through my whole spiel ending with the one hour parking time limit.

          "Why are you talking to us like we're three years old?" the passenger asked but the driver never waited for an answer. He pulled away from me and into a parking spot.

          "I wasn't trying to treat you like three-year-olds," I said as they approached where I stood at my station which was between them and their intended destination. "I was trying to be nice to you."

          "Yeah? Well it isn't very nice to put a time restriction on someone who wants to spend money in one of your stores," he said rather snootily, never slowing his pace.

          I followed a little ways. "Let me tell you what's going on," I offered.

          "NO. I don't have to listen to you and I don't want to hear anything you have to say."

          I wanted to say all kinds of mean things to him ending with something like, "And you don't have to be such a dick about it," but I only said, "Fine!" and turned my back to them.

          And this has made me appreciate the nice people all the more. "Thank you for being so nice to me," was added into my spiel or, "Thanks for understanding." And I most definitely did apologize when I had to ask them to park someplace else.

          Now, I want you to understand something. Parking, or not parking, is like almost everything else in life. It's not all cut and dry; not all black and white. I had a few people who told me they wanted to patronize another business that, even though it wasn't one of our business's, it was nearby and they couldn't find anyplace else to park. I let them park in our lot, with the time limit of course, and sometimes with the stipulation that they come back sometime and go to one of our business's. They readily agreed and they were grateful. A group of four gals who were going up to the swimsuit shop went out to our Mexican Restaurant when they came back and drank margaritas for an hour. They were really happy when they left.

          The people who were nice to us stood a better chance of being allowed to park than those who were mean. Mike allowed one lady to park simply because she was so nice to him and she gave him a hug. (And she knew him in a round-about sort of way.)

          It's true. You do catch more flies with honey.

 

          Let's end this with another road picture from my RV Adventure.

 

          Lots and lots of love,

          Peg and Mike