The Weird-Ass Boat Saga – Part 3

Buying the weird-ass boat posed a few, let’s call them, challenges.  First, we had to pick all of the options.  Solar was a must because we don’t have power at camp and no power means no electric backup.  No electric backup means more pedaling for me.  Solar was a necessity!

Upon further research, it became apparent that the solar backup was not going to provide enough power to keep the boat going without charging via electricity.  Damn!  This meant I had to get creative.  Bill’s no-gas rule was really putting a crimp in my style.  I was not looking forward to hauling batteries back and forth to charge them, either.  What to do?  What to do?

Maybe I could set up a solar array on the shore and it would provide enough power to charge the batteries?  Hmmm…  I started to look into wattages and voltages and amperages.  My head was spinning.  It was time to bring in an expert.

We have a merchant marine friend who is an engineer.  Mike knows boats and electrical stuff and I was sure he would know how to make this work.  Or at the very least, come up with an alternate plan that would work.  I called him up and he was so intrigued with the weird-assedness of the boat, he came over to look at the specs and see the pics.  After he stopped laughing, we talked about options.

Mike checked everything out.  Being a guy who likes his motorized toys, he thought this was a pretty cool boat.  Once that was ascertained, it was time to ask him what he thought about my solar idea.  I couldn’t quite figure out how the voltage put out by the solar panels would work with the voltage needed by the boat.  If it could work, Mike would know how to do it.

I told him my thoughts and posed the question.  Now, let me just preface this by saying that Mike has no filter when it comes to what comes out of his mouth. Political correctness is not on his radar at all so his response to didn’t surprise me.  He listened to my idea, and with an incredulous look on his face, said: “That’s retarded!”  All I could say was:  “I KNOW!!!”

He tried to explain why it would be improbable by throwing electrical terms at me that went over my spinning head.  I finally had to tell him that he was explaining how to make a watch when I merely asked what time it was.  Hell, when it came to this, I didn’t even know what day it was.  At the end of it all, it was obvious that charging the electrical part of this boat was going to be impossible without hauling batteries back and forth to charge them.

It was then that Mike asked why we didn’t just get a generator.  When Bill realized that he meant a gas-powered generator, he didn’t want anything to do with it.  Mike went on to explain how easy it would be.  Bill was unmoved.  His vision of a gas-less lifestyle at camp was going up in smoke.

By the end of the evening, Mike had me looking up generators online and had Bill convinced that it would be insanely simple to run.  Then he sweetened the pot by telling us that we could use it as a backup in case we lost power at the house.  After a lot of hemming and hawing, Bill agreed.

So that is how we ended up buying a gas-less boat that will be partially powered by a generator that takes gas.  Poor Bill just bought a new gas can.  He just can’t win.

 

 

 

 

WHAT THE HELL IS AN E-RING?

A couple of hours ago, Bill informed me that his riding lawn mower had a flat front tire.  Ok, simple enough.  Keep in mind that Bill is allergic to all things mechanical.  I, on the other hand, have half a clue about such things because my Dad was a mechanical whiz and I tended to pay attention.  Doing that has paid off handsomely in the years that followed, but back to the lawnmower…

I go out to the barn with my Dad’s handy ratchet set.  I figure if it has a non-metric nut I can just take it off and pull the tire.  I look at the mower and try to determine the best place to jack it.  But then, I actually thought ahead and figured before I did that, I’d best see what I’m dealing with.  I pull off the axel’s dust cover and there is no nut; only a smooth cylindrical thing and what appeared to be a couple of large washers behind that.  Ok, Dad’s ratchet set isn’t going to do squat here.  Sorry, Dad!  This is something I’ve never seen before.  I knew I had to tell Bill and I’d have to endure that crestfallen face that is so very hard to endure.  Nope, I wasn’t going to do that just yet.  There was only one thing to do.

I headed indoors and fired up YouTube to see if there was anything that might help me.  Sure enough, there was this wonderful guy who not only shows how to pull the tire but also shows that he is replacing his pneumatic tires with solid rubber ones.  Bill would love that!  No flats! Ever!  I would love that because I wouldn’t have to hear about flat mower tires again!  Ever!  This was worth pursuing.

So I watch closely and I see that there are no nuts involved in this thing.  Apparently, that cylindrical thing was the end of the axle.  Then what held the tire on?  The only thing that’s holding this tire on is an e-ring.  At least that’s what this guy said it was.  What is an e-ring?  He takes it off and kindly shows us e-ring newbs what it looks like.    WHAT THE HELL IS AN E-RING?  I’d never seen anything like it.  Obviously, this was not my father’s e-ring, to loosely quote an old Oldsmobile commercial.  To my knowledge he never had e-rings.  But you never know.  Some dads can be tricky if they are hiding e-rings from their daughters, but I just know that mine was not an e-ring hiding dad.  I’ll never know for sure, but I bet he wasn’t. I would think an e-ring hiding dad would have a certain vibe, wouldn’t you?

Ok, those of you who are laughing at me because you know what an e-ring is can just go stand over there in the corner till I’m done.  That’s right, over in that corner right there.  You’ll just have to imagine me pointing, but since you can’t see me, just go to any available corner and wait for further instructions.

On with the YouTube video.  The guy presents his audience with his spanking new no-flat tires.  He does admit that they cost $42 a piece and he thought that wasn’t cheap.  I almost shout at my computer screen:  “Who cares what it costs if it means never having to deal with e-rings again?  No flats and no e-rings!”  I try to calm down.  He just slaps those tires on, puts the washers over the axle, puts that e-ring on, and proceeds to grease the wheel.  Damn it, I don’t own a grease gun.  That’s ok, I know I can get one, and I’m pretty sure I can do this thing.  Easy peasy and extra greasy.

After a few deep breaths, I go and tell Bill I have good news and bad news.  It went something like this:

“No, I’ve never seen anything like it but this very nice guy on YouTube showed exactly how to do it.  Really!  Once I found out the subtle mysteries of the e-ring, all became clear.”

I got a sideways glance.  He says:  “Maybe I should call Janusz.”

Janusz is this little man who comes every spring to get the lawnmower going.  After he yells at Bill for not bringing the battery in for the winter, he gets everything tuned up and sharpens the blade.

“Humph!  Why call Janusz if I can do it??  All I have to do is buy the tires and a grease gun.”

He grabs the phone and tries to call Janusz.  No answer.  He doesn’t leave a message but says he will call again.

I guess I’m the one who got the message.  It seems that I won’t be replacing mower tires any time soon.  I am incensed, yet secretly happy that I don’t have to mess around with highly suspicious e-rings.  Besides, Janusz will yell at him for not knowing what to do and that provides a certain amount of entertainment value right there.  I think I’m still going to buy that grease gun, though.  You never know when I might need to grease a few wheels here or there.

And Now For Something Completely Different…

And now for something completely different…The Larch.

Those of you are not Monty Python fans will not get that, but I’m in a reminiscent mood, so you’ll have to bear with me.

I’m sitting here on a Friday night thinking about previous Friday nights of my youth.  This all came about because I watched the first episode of Jeeves and Wooster this afternoon.  You see, I’m a Britcom fan.  Yes, it’s true.  I admit it.  I misspent a good deal of my Friday-night-youth watching Monty and Bertie and all sorts of imponderable characters.  They were an escape for an outcast kid in a rural mill town.

Our local Public Broadcasting Station aired shows that made me laugh when little else did.   As a kid, I didn’t know a single soul who shared my love for these shows.  For most of the kids in town, Fridays were given up to football.  Pep rallies and games were taken very seriously.   Since I couldn’t play, and I sure as hell couldn’t lead a cheer, my Friday evenings were spent with the funniest folks the UK could offer.  And funny they were!

Today, this trip down memory lane started when Bill and I were talking about P.G. Wodehouse.  He was reading a magazine that included a rather pithy quote attributed to one of the best writers I’ve ever read,  And he liked it!  Now having Bill like something that was written by an early 20th century British writer was a bit of a fluke.  He positively loathes anything that even hints of British humor, especially anything set decades ago.  Even with the faintest of allusion to British royalty is strictly verboten.  So how could it be that Wodehouse amused him?  Could it be that some part of British humor might tickle his fancy?  I decided to put it to the test.

I offered to show him the very first episode of Jeeves and Wooster.  This show was based on P.G. Wodehouse characters and starred Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry.  Upon offering to do so, I was met with a look of skepticism and a barrage of not unexpected questions:

“Is it sci-fi?”

No

“Does it have British royalty in it?”

Well, it does have British aristocrats but I assure you, they are the butt of all of the jokes.

“Is it present-day or set a long time ago?”

It’s based in the twenties, I think.

“Ok, well that might not be too bad.  I suppose it will keep me from wasting my time reading the stories if I don’t like it.”

Great, I’ll put it on…  And I’m thinking: “…I’ll put it on even if I am pretty sure you won’t like it.  There’s always a chance!  Oh please let there be a chance!”

You can all guess how this turned out.  The show started and I was thoroughly enjoying the crazy humor that only Fry and Laurie can convey.  As things hum along, Bill had this rather scowly look about him.  I had to explain a few things and I knew we were on rocky ground when a visitor arrived.  At that point, I knew all was lost.  15 minutes of Jeeves and Wooster had been endured and a guest had rescued him from this wifely torture.  Sigh…

It was later revealed that:

1. The accent was hard to understand.

2. There were too many British phrases he didn’t understand.

3. They talked too fast.

4. He didn’t know what they were talking about.

Besides, he said, it left him cold.  Cold!?  Aww c’mon!

I can’t say it was a shock to me.  If something doesn’t grab his attention and hold it for more than ten seconds, he glazes over.  This is the guy who falls asleep during a Star Wars movie.  He literally snored through Pirates of the Carribean.  But I’m straying from my original thoughts about Britcoms.

I understand why it is hard for Bill to ‘get’ British comedy.  You have to give it a chance.  Let things unfold in the fullness of time.  Ok, that was a bit much but I truly think that a great deal of British comedy is based on repetition.  Getting the repetitious gag means taking the time to hear it more than once.  Monty Python’s “And now for something completely different…” is a great example of that.  Are You Being Served had Mrs. Slocombe repeatedly shouting “I am unanimous in that!”  Of course, her greatest gag was always talking about her pussy.  It was always about her cat, but the double entendres were hilarious.  These gags were repeated enough that every time you heard them, or knew they were coming, you laughed.  It couldn’t be helped.

After the tenth time of:  “And now for something completely different…The Larch”  popped up on the screen following various unrelated sketches, a geeky kid in Maine laughed…repeatedly.  I still laugh, so maybe those Friday nights weren’t so misspent after all.

 

 

 

 

My Niece’s Wedding

 

Last fall, we attended our niece’s wedding.  Amy is a free spirit and doesn’t always go along the lines of staunch tradition.  It’s just one of the many things I love about her.  I should have known that the wedding would be fun after getting their ‘save the date’ card.

The wedding was being held at a lovely ski resort and we were really looking forward to a weekend getaway and hanging out with the family.  Our family is a lot of fun and it was shaping up to be a great time.

When we arrived and started to get ready, it was obvious that the toilet was being a little “sluggish” and the water dropped ever so slowly upon flushing.  Of course, I had to see how bad it was.  I’m not sure what I thought would happen.  It’s not as if I have magical powers in such matters.  I am not a toilet whisperer.  Still, I hit the handle and things went from bad to worse…all over the floor kinda worse.  This was surprising because it was a pretty classy hotel.  Ah well, luckily it was relatively clean toilet water if you know what I mean.  Sigh…

The housekeeping gal was just as nice as could be.  In short order, it was all cleaned up and we could get on with getting ready.  I should say that Bill could get on with getting ready because I had the good sense to arrive in the clothes I was going to wear to the ceremony.  So I tapped my toe as I watched the clock.  Bill was making ponderously slow progress.  Those of you who know Bill well will not be surprised at this.

It was ten minutes before the ceremony and he was almost ready, but not ready ‘enough’ for me.  So when I knew we were cutting it way too close, I just looked at him and said:  “you’re on your own buddy!”  This might seem cruel but I was not going to miss the wedding of two of my very favorite people.

I knew that the site of the ceremony wasn’t too far from our room.  Getting there looked like a piece of cake on the little hotel map.  Let me tell you, hotel maps can’t be trusted.  That’s not really fair because the ceremony was being held exactly where I expected it to be in relation to the hotel, and exactly as it looked on that little map.  In spite of the fact that the map appeared correct, I was not expecting to exit the building onto a rickety deck-like structure. There I came upon a couple of workers having a smoke safely out of the view of guests.  Obviously, I had taken the service entrance and I had ‘caught’ them.

My guess is that their worry about being found evaporated when they saw me jump over the drainage ditch as I determinedly made my way to my seat.   Let me tell you, I am a very large woman.  I am not a drainage ditch jumping kinda gal.  But at this point, I only had five minutes till show time and I wasn’t about to go back inside and take a more dignified route.  I was on a mission!  Besides, dignity has never been my strong suit.

I arrived at the site of the ceremony just in time.  Thank goodness Bill’s cousin and his wife saved us seats.  I guess I didn’t have to worry too much because Amy hadn’t walked down the aisle yet.  I chatted a bit and still no Bill.  He was going to be in big trouble if he missed this, or walked in late, making a spectacle of himself.  The clock was ticking!

Still no Bill.  I was sure that none of the family was ever going to let him forget it if he missed Amy’s wedding.  I knew beyond a doubt that they would never forgive him for tardiness related to toilet issues.  Family lore is full of Bill’s lack of punctuality, and much of that lore is bathroom-related.  We used to joke that it took him 3 hours to take a shower.  As the years went by, the joke morphed into a more general thing.  If he even looked at a bathroom, the family would groan in unison.  If that toilet in the room kept Bill from arriving at the wedding on time, he would never hear the end of it.

As the wedding guests fidgeted a bit, and the groom stood there looking more and more nervous, there was still no sign of the bride…or Bill!  I vacillated between feeling sorry for everyone waiting and being thankful that Bill might just make it because the wedding party was late.  It seemed to take forever, but Bill arrived.  Just seconds later, Amy came down the grassy path to the birch tree arch.  What a stroke of luck that Bill arrived just seconds before Amy came into view!

The ceremony was short but filled with all of the things one could wish for at a wedding.  There was so much love and it heartwarming.  There was also a lot of humor.  Our family has no shortage of that.

The fellow officiating was Sloan’s dad.  Now, Paul is neither a preacher or a justice of the peace, but he did a great job. Amy and Sloan are not religious, but Paul found it necessary to ad lib a bit as he went along.  I think he mentioned the God Belichick and I’m almost positive he made a correlation between Tom Brady and Jesus.  I’m also sure he did this to amuse his son who happens to be a rabid New England Patriots fan.  I’m surprised the guests didn’t give a rousing Patriots cheer.  I’m also surprised some didn’t walk out due to the blasphemy of it all, but we weren’t that kind of crowd.

It was even more hilarious when he ended the ceremony with along the lines of:  “with the power invested in me by a sketchy outfit online for $39, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”  And the fun continued…

As you can tell, it really was unconventional and one of the most fun weddings I’ve ever attended.  After the ceremony, all in good spirits, we headed toward the reception venue. Once there, we learned the reason for Amy’s delay in walking down the aisle.

Remember when I left Bill behind because he was late in getting ready? Apparently, as he rushed toward the site of the wedding, he realized he really needed to ‘go’ and stopped at the restroom right near the spot where everyone was gathering to walk down the aisle.  Once the wedding party was ready, Amy’s Dad told them they had to wait.  He said:  “He’s my brother, we can’t do this until he’s in his seat.”  So the wedding was held up as they waited for Bill to exit the bathroom.

Everyone thought it was hilarious that the family joke had played out in such a big way.  Bill wanted to sink into the floor but his embarrassment was short-lived.  Within minutes, all eyes were on the mother of the bride as she started dancing on the table.

 

 

House Holes

Today I’m going to talk about holes in houses.  House holes, as it were.  You know the type…doors, windows, that sort of thing.  In the last couple of days, house holes have been rather important around here.

Bear with me as I give you a bit of personal door history that seems irrelevant, but isn’t.  I break door latches.  I am a world-class latch breaker.  You see, we live in a farmhouse that is well over 100 years old.  Old houses like to move with the seasons.  When they do, the outside doors often don’t shut properly because everything ceases to line up and the latches don’t latch.  To me, this is unacceptable, so I try to force them closed until I break the latch.  I should be more precise and say latchES because I’ve done this more than once.  I swear it will work someday, but don’t tell my long-suffering husband Bill that I said that.  I’m in enough trouble already.

Since I’ve broken multiple latchES, I’ve had to make do.  I swapped a latch from one much-used door to another that is used rarely.  They are identical so I thought: “hey we never use this door so let me swap the latches out and we’ll be good to go!  So I did that and we WERE good to go.  The two doors we used the most were in perfect working order.  For a while…

It was when the frost settled under the sunroom that things got a little dicey.  You know where I’m going with this right?  Yes, the main door at the back of the house was no longer shutable.  Is that a word?  Hey, if I typed it, it must be. Being the stubborn person I am, I HAD to make that door close. Yes, I broke that latch, too.  This was a problem because this door would now swing in the wind unless we locked it.  But if we locked it, we could no longer enter the back of the house.  I finally figured out a bungee cord solution that kept the wind from opening it up, but we still locked it most of the time because our Great Dane Walter would get out otherwise.  It wasn’t a perfect system, but it worked…sort of.  Keep in mind that during all of this, long-suffering husband Bill is trying his best to avoid saying:  “I told you not to force that door closed!”  He would be right, of course.  Still, saying it might have been life-threatening so he restrained himself.

Yeah, that’s the very long door history.  It does provide a backdrop to explain why the next part was so mortifying.  Yesterday was a ‘Wendy day’.  Wendy comes here a couple of times a week to clean and generally keep us from being the slovenly people we are.  She puts up with a lot around here.  She keeps things somewhat orderly and keeps us in our place if we mess up.  ‘Mess up’ literally and figuratively, that is.  She’s like family and I don’t know what we’d do without her.  She loves Walter, too.  That’s saying a lot right there!

Yesterday, Wendy informed me that she entered the house through the dog door.  I’m not kidding!  That door with the broken latch was locked and she couldn’t get in that way.  She could have tried getting in by the front door, with a perfect working latch I might add.  But since the snowbanks are high, she would have to walk along a very busy road to get there.  She didn’t want to park in front because the carpenters were working away on the new garage and mudroom.  This was not going to deter her.  Wendy, being the resourceful woman she is, just crawled through the dog door to get in.  Let me emphasize that she not only had to get through the dog door itself but also had crawl under a flight of stairs and through another opening.  It’s hard to describe, so see below.  Why didn’t she call and have me unlock the door?  It was because it was very early and she didn’t want to wake us up.  I know I can be frightening before I’ve had my coffee, but still!  Silly woman.

Dog door accessed under a stairway and through an opening into the back of the house.

 

Crawling through the dog door won’t happen again, thank goodness.  I still don’t believe she did it, but after today things will be much easier.  Today the carpenters are putting a hole in the side of the house.  They are cutting a great big hole in my pantry to put in a door.  We’re getting a new house hole that will be the opening for a man-sized door…or woman-sized door, as the case may be.  It will definitely be a Wendy-sized door. The new mudroom and garage are going to be accessible from the main house!  This is all very exciting but still, let’s have a moment of silence to mourn the desecration of my beloved pantry…  Sigh…

 

Meet Steve, our carpenter/designer who made this process so easy.  We are so lucky to have him.

 

Here’s Joe, Steve’s trusty sidekick.  He’s always smiling, even when he’s trying to avoid the camera!

 

So that’s the story of the house holes.  Doors, dog doors, and a new entryway.  The only thing we didn’t talk about is windows.  A window is what I’ll be thrown through if I break any more latches.

Guest in Jest #69 Everyone Else Has the Best Titles

I can’t quite believe it, but 33 years ago today I married my long-suffering husband, Bill.  I’m not sure what you envisioned our wedding might be like, but I’d wager you’d be wrong.

Bill and I first met when he delivered my mail for a three weeks.  And then I moved.  Not because of him, mind you, but I like to tell him it was.  If you want the whole story of that meeting and whatnot, I actually wrote a post ages ago and called it Part 1 and then left it till now.  So I guess this is the second and final part.  Here’s the first post, in case you are curious.   How I Met My Husband Part 1

If you want to see the Prologue, here’s the link to that.  How I Met My Husband – The Prologue  Yes, there is a prologue.  Don’t ask me why there is a prologue because I don’t remember.  I started writing this whole mess over a year ago and I would have forgotten all about it except it’s now the second day of November and it’s exactly 33 years since I married the poor unfortunate man and it’s Guest in Jest day and I figured if I’m going to beg for posts, the least I could do was be my very own Guest…in Jest.  GASP  Sorry, that was pretty long-winded and I ran out of air.

When I left off this story I had just received an April Fools phone call from Bill, whom I’d only really communicated with via the backs of letters going to and from my Aunt Polly.  I know that sounds weird, but if you want to know why and how, you’ll have to click the link up there and get caught up.

Continuing the story, Bill and I decided to go on a date.  He picked me up that afternoon and we spent the day having a picnic by the river, talking, having dinner, talking some more, going to a movie, and talking more into the middle of the night.  It was one of those “I knew the first time I met him” sort of scenarios.  Actually, I knew the first time I met him and we talked for 10 hours sort of scenarios.  And that’s how I met Bill.

After four months of long distance (an hour apart) dating, we decided to live together.  This meant I had to move back to the area where I grew up.  I wasn’t terribly happy about that, but love conquers all, as they say.

Bill and I found this fabulous little apartment in Skowhegan.  It was an old house that had just been converted to apartments and all of the architectural details had been preserved.  It was a great place.  Who needs more than a bedroom, a kitchen and a living room?  We were happy and it wasn’t long before we started talking about getting married.  At this point it was six months after we first met.  I know it was fast.  But there was that whole “I knew the first time I met him” thing going on.  Still, we were in no hurry.

When we mentioned our intentions to Bill’s parents, his Mom went into full Mother-of–the-Groom mode.  If I looked into her eyes, I could practically see her calculating venue sizes and table plans.  Bill and I started to get nervous.  His family wasn’t rich, but they did fine and they were very well respected in the community.  Bill’s Mom wanted to make sure that our wedding was grand enough to impress not only friends and family, but a large part of the well-heeled portion of the community.  This was becoming a problem.

As each day went by, there was something new; another addition to the grandiose plan.  This train had left the station.  It was on the tracks and gaining steam.  We decided to let her go on planning because she couldn’t do anything concrete without our consent, right?  As the days passed, I started to worry about that, too.

While that was going on in the background, we decided to have a party to mark our first Halloween together.  We invited all of our friends.  It was going to be a lot of fun!  It was certainly something to take our minds off the ridiculous wedding plans.  I don’t even remember how many people she wanted to invite, but it was a lot.  Many of them Bill didn’t even know.  The social event of the season was going to star two very unhappy people.

We were talking about this debacle and then we looked at each other and it hit us.  We didn’t have to do any of those things.  It was our wedding and we could have what we wanted.  Right that minute we wanted to elope.  But where?  We couldn’t really take off for parts unknown when we had already invited people for the Halloween party and…then the lightbulb truly went off.  We would elope in our very own living room and the previously planned Halloween party would be our reception!

And that’s what we did.  Bill had a best man and I had a best woman.  Bill’s brother and his wife took pictures, and a friend of ours married us.  That was it.  We got married, went out to dinner, and then we came home and put on our Halloween costumes.  All of our friends arrived and as the party was in full swing we told everyone we were married!  yay!!!  They didn’t believe us.  Not a single one of them thought we’d actually done it.  It took a while to convince them, but we finally did.  But that wasn’t the end…

We still had to tell our parents what we’d done.  In full disclosure, I didn’t have to tell my Mom because I’d already told her what we planned to do.  She was always the ‘whatever makes you happy’ kind of person.  Even so, telling her she couldn’t come to our wedding was a big deal.  She knew what had been happening with Bill’s Mom, and that this was the most expedient way to stop the wedding freight train.  Like the saint she was, she agreed it was the best course of action.

So that left Bill’s parents.  It so happened that they were away for the weekend.  That was just a happy coincidence, but it meant we didn’t have to show up and tell them in person.  Bill made the call during the party.  When he came back he was smiling.  I was dying to know how it went. “WHAT HAPPENED!?” I yelled over the din.  He grinned and told me she said:  “I knew you’d do something like this!”

 

 

 

Islands In The Lawn

Bill is not fond of mowing.  He has been known to let the grass “go” for a few weeks between mowing.  Perhaps I should have said ‘grow,’ because growing is something it does very well…and fast.  Is it bad when your LAWN goes to seed?  Yeah, it’s a little bad.

One of my favorite lawn traditions around here is the presence of the floating Queen Anne’s Lace garden.  You might think that Queen Anne’s Lace, a wild relative of the carrot, belongs by the side of the road where all good weeds should dwell.   Not our Queen Anne’s Lace!

Bill likes Queen Anne’s Lace.  He likes it a lot.  How do I know this?  I know this because he lets it grow willy nilly all over the lawn.  Now it could be surmised that he likes it because it shows up when the grass is at its most dreadful state and that gives him an excuse not to mow.  Whatever his reasoning, the mowing of the lawn sometimes stretches to the point where the Queen Anne’s Lace is three feet tall.  Thank goodness we live in the country!

Queen Anne’s Lace usually grows in clumps and when one of these three-foot-tall clumps appears, Bill mows around it making a Queen Anne’s Lace island in the sea of newly-mown grass.  Queen Anne’s Lace is a capricious thing and the strongest plants are not always in the same spot.  One year the clump might be under the apple tree, and another year it might be near the road.  Not ON the roadside where any logical Queen Anne’s Lace should be.  No, it is merely NEAR the road so that it can be mowed around.

Bill’s mowing habits must irk the neighbors across the road.  Their mailbox is on our property but it’s quite far from our house.  Bill doesn’t pay it much attention so they actually haul a mower across the road and mow around their mailbox and beyond.  Queen Anne’s Lace would never have a chance there.

While Bill has his mobile Queen Anne’s Lace ‘gardens,’ it occurs to me that things are rather reversed.  The fastidious neighbors are mowing their horse pasture.   Who does that?  The fact that our lawn is taller than their horse pasture doesn’t bother Bill a bit.  He’ll just say:  “Hey, look at my cool Queen Anne’s Lace gardens!”

The Truck Hamper Experience

Well over a decade ago all of our appliances died at once.  Not all at once like at the very same minute, more like all at once in the very same month.  One after the other, they all bit the dust.

First, it was the fridge.  It stopped fridging.  Things that should be cold got warm.  This was unacceptable.  Then the dryer met its maker.  If I remember correctly, it was made by Whirlpool.  So yes, you may infer that the dryer met Whirlpool when it stopped drying.  The washer met Whirlpool, as well.  Whirlpool is a very just appliance god.  Whirlpool made sure that the washer wasn’t separated from its mate.  If they were going to go, they were going to go together.

It was obviously time to go appliance shopping.  We headed to Sears.  Remember Sears?  Yeah, this was WELL over a decade ago.  Anyhow, we went there and bought a washer, dryer, fridge and just for fun, a dishwasher and upright freezer.  I got a black fridge (very cool) and the washer and dryer were in this really cool slate gray.  That color would be perfect in our laundry room.  Woohoo!  Now you would think this would be the happy ending that anyone would wish for after surviving an appliance apocalypse, but it wasn’t that easy.

The new fridge was awesome and it fridged everything just right.  The upright freezer was an outstanding addition to our appliance fleet.  I could freeze as much as my heart desired.  Apparently, my heart desired a lot of frozen stuff because we filled it rather quickly.   How did I ever live without a dishwasher?  I love my dishwasher and it loves me.  I just know it does.

The dryer was delivered but it was hard to know just how well it worked because the washing machine was back ordered.  The really cool shade of slate gray I ordered would be available in a week.  I could live with that, no problem.

The week turned into two.  It was no longer a ‘no problem’ sort of deal.  It was a problem.  When it stretched out to three weeks and then four, it was a big freaking (not the first word that came to mind as I typed this) PROBLEM!

You might be asking yourself why we didn’t just go to the laundromat, and that would be a valid question.  I didn’t go there because of an oath I made to myself.  When Bill and I were first married, we did the apartment/laundromat thing and I was not a fan.  But the necessity of clean clothes made my path clear. I had no alternative and I accepted that…until we bought the house and had appliances of our own.  It was then that I vowed I would never do another load of laundry in a laundromat ever again!  Just because this stupid washer in a cool shade of slate gray was going to be late, I was not going to let myself down.

As you can imagine, there were certain ramifications that resulted from this decision.  About a week into this fiasco, we ran out of hamper space.  As time went on, I was wearing outfits to work that were increasingly “interesting.”  I dug clothes out from the back of my closet that hadn’t seen the light of day in ages.  My mixing and matching of separates became more ‘peculiar,’ or as I like to think of it, ‘creative’ as time went on.

I drove by that laundromat twice a day, and I won’t say I wasn’t tempted.  However, an oath is an oath and I wasn’t about to break it.  I had to come up with another plan.

By the second week, we were stuffing dirty clothes in garbage bags.  That helped alleviate the hamper problem, but where to put the bags till that freaking (again, not the first word I thought of) washer showed up.  Then it hit me.  The truck!!!  We both had cars but we also had an old Chevy Luv pickup truck with a cap on it.  The truck looked a lot like the one up there at the top of the page, only it was black.  That truck became our new hamper.  The truck hamper was born!  By the time that freaking washer arrived, the back of that truck was full of dirty laundry in garbage bags.

I sense you have some questions.  Let me see if I can answer some of them here and now:

“How on earth could the truck be so full of laundry that it piled up to the ceiling of the cap?”  Perhaps the better question is “How long did we have to endure this washerless existence?”  About three months.  I’ll just pause for a second for you to process that.  Three months of not washing clothes.

Did we end up wearing dirty clothes during any of this?  We did not.  I did a lot of clothes shopping during that time, I won’t lie.  When my mode of dress became too outlandish, I had to buy some new duds.  Hey, it was a sacrifice I was willing to make!

During the truck hamper experience, I bought 100 pairs of underwear.  Ok, it probably wasn’t exactly a hundred, it was well over 100!  No lie.  The truck hamper experience happened well over 10 years ago. Every once in a while I will tell Bill that I’m still wearing truck hamper underwear and we’ll have a good laugh.  I haven’t bought a pair of underwear since!

Yes, I do wear underwear till it has holes in it.  Yes, my mother would be mortified if I had to be picked up by an ambulance and they saw that I had holey underwear.  Still, I am proud of the fact that I still wear truck hamper underwear!  It is a testament to keeping my oath to myself!

Last year I had to smile as they were hauling off that washer.  I’m sure the appliance guys wondered why I was so amused.  They had no idea that some of that truck hamper underwear outlived the washer, including the pair I was wearing then and there.

 

What Else Are You Hiding From Me?

A couple of days ago, Bill and I were riding in the car and he nonchalantly mentioned that the pants he was wearing were 30 years old.  This elicited a number of emotions on my part:

1.  How did these pants escape the Great Closet Purge of 1988?
2. Why were these pants in tolerable shape after 30 years?
3. What other clothing from previous decades might he be hiding from me?
4. How on earth could he still be able to wear clothing that he wore 30 years ago?
5. Did he have even an inkling what turn our conversation was going to take?

Ok, I admit that probably wasn’t exactly the order in which I thought those things.  There were a few eye rolls in there and a bit of self-loathing, too.  I couldn’t fit a leg into a skirt I wore thirty years ago.

In order to abate my weight-related introspection, I turned my attention back to Bill and his ability to hide ancient clothing from me.  It went something like this:

Me:  “Where did these come from?”

Bill:  “I bought them in Dexter in July of 1988 on the way to Joe’s camp party.

Me:  “That is not what I meant and you know it!  Where have you been hiding them all these years?”

Bill:  “Ummm”

Me: “Do you have any other ancient articles of clothing hanging about or are these pants it?”

Bill:  “Ummm”

Me:  “Spill it, what else do you have lurking in the back of your closet!”

Bill:  “I got rid of that wool brown and white jacket that I wore in high school that you hated so much.”  He said this rather hoping it would divert my attention to something he actually got rid of that I loathed.  It didn’t work.

Me:  “That was NOT my question.  But it’s good you did that because we’d be having a bonfire otherwise.  What else?”

Bill:  “Ummm”

Me:  “Don’t tell me you have that plaid shirt that I can literally see through!”

Bill:  “Ummm”

Me:  “Where is it?”

Bill:  “I got that shirt in 1978 when I was a junior in high school and I’m not ready to give it up.  It has sentimental meaning to me.  Besides, it’s a PERFECT mowing shirt.

Me:  “That was 40 years ago!  Why is it that any old piece of clothing is the “perfect” mowing attire?  You have four pairs of “perfect” mowing shoes that are coming apart at the seams!  You have a t-shirt that has more holes than fabric.  It is not a good sign when you have to wear sunscreen UNDER your shirt.  You are always saying you need more closet space for your sports gear.  Maybe if we weed out some of your decades-old “mowing” clothes we can make some room.”

Bill flattened himself against the closet door protecting the contents held within.  Why is it I think he has a pair of bellbottoms in there?  Maybe they are “perfect” mowing bellbottoms.  Worse yet, they probably still fit him!

 

Midnight on Puppy Eve

Yup, it’s midnight on Puppy Eve.  Her big crate is set up in the kitchen so she’ll have a cozy place to hang out on the first night.  We can’t have Walter chasing her all over creation!

I have a bunch of stuff packed up for the trip, including lots of treats and some of Walter’s toys.  TWO rolls of paper towels.  Hey, if a Dane makes a mess, it’s a BIG mess!  I also put in a spare leash and a collar.  Water and bowl.  Hey, I’m ready for any eventuality!  Hopefully, she’ll sleep the entire 3 1/2 to 4 hours home and I’ll need none of that stuff

To say that I’m excited would be understating it greatly.  There is a combination of over-the-top joy, fear, trepidation, and hopefulness rolled all into one big ball of anticipation.  You might think the fear and trepidation are a little strange.

I have two fears that feed the trepidation.  What if she (probably Greta) and Walter totally hate each other?  I know there will be a period of transition, but what if they never become buddies?  My second fear is that the two of them will break my long-suffering husband.  Just this last week he had back spasms that were so bad that he couldn’t even sit down.  It was heartbreaking to see him in such pain.  What if the dogs are so rambunctious they injure him?  Scary stuff!

In spite of those fears, I am beyond excited.  I’m hopeful because she is absolutely perfect for our situation.  The only reason she was given up was that she got too big for the people who owned her.  SHE’S A GREAT DANE!  Of course, she’s going to be big!  Their loss and stupidity is our gain.  Unless she tries to eat Walter or breaks Bill.

All of this rambling was the preface to my true message.  I will probably be rather busy over the next couple of days so I won’t be here as much as I’d like.  I promise there will be pics and stories, but I might be dealing with growling dogs and broken husbands.  Wait!  That should have been ‘broken husband.’  No plural because that would be bad!!

Wish us luck!  The next few days are going to be eventful, I’m sure.