One Horse Shy ...

I'm feeling a bit like I moved into Deliverance country lately.  Well, again.  You know what I mean.  I just want you all to feel like you're in the Deliverance Loop. 

Dirty Andy hasn't really been around much lately, so I've not had any good stories to tell.  But he's been busy, all right, so without further ado, here's a little background.

I'm not going to sugarcoat it.  Dirty Andy tucks his shirt into his underwear.  I know.  I know!

Yesterday we went to Home Depot to buy all those terribly non-exciting, but essential, things that we need for the house.   You know, electrical plugs, switches, switch plates, heating system vents, light bulbs, vanity lights, canned lighting, and ... toilets.

Yesterday morning as I'm "helping" (read being accused of ripping out by the roots) Katie with her hair before school, the following conversation took place:

KATIE:  Mom?

ME:  Yes?  (Because she can never just carry on without an affirmative response, even though we're the only two people in a six-foot square room.)

KATIE:  You know how when a buffalo gets hurt, like stabbed with a spear or something, and they go down and all the other buffalo stomp on them, trying to get them to get up, like they're protecting them or something?

ME:    Uh ... yeah?  (I don't know that, but why start an argument at 7:00 in the morning?)

KATIE:   So when the Indians stabbed a whole bunch of them at the same time, were the rest of the herd all taking turns stomping on the hurt ones, trying to get them up?

ME:   Uh ... I'd guess probably so, sure.

KATIE:    Well, how'd the Indians get those buffalo to get out of there so they could get the dead ones and make food?

ME:    Uh ... I think they had some on horses and some on foot and they all ran in there whooping and hollering and waving their hands and making lots of noise to scare the non-hurt ones off.  

KATIE:     Oh.

(Several seconds of dead silence.)

KATIE:   Mom?

ME:   Yes?

KATIE:   Don't the Canadians still do that?

Yes, this is another story about another local man.   I can't help it, they're more interesting people, at least around here.

So.  Anyway.

I'm still going to write in this thing, I swear.  It's just been busier than all get out this last week with working on the house, school starting, and so on,  I now have a Photobucket account, even though I've not uploaded any pics to it, so at least I'm one step closer to getting pics on here.

I'm too old.  I just am.  Friday night the Princess and her servant wanted to have the girls stay the night.  So we figured we'd really cut loose and go out.  We're just spontaneous like that.  Now, just so no one is confused, there are only three or four establishments here that one could really go out to, and none of them would even come remotely close to qualifying as a "club."  They're bars, pure and simple, and not very fancy ones at that, with some very bad karaoke singers.

I never thought I'd be at a loss of something to say, or some long-winded story to rattle on about.  It's weird.  I've been in a funk since I started this thing.  And it's a small town, and aside from the whole Bubba thing, which I'm faced with every time I drive *into said small town, I don't really know of anything else that's going on around here that I can talk about. 

I've decided I have to give up on my project of finding Bubba  a Mrs. Bubba.  (And I know all three of my loyal readers know this story, and I won't pretend like I have others, so I'm not going to repeat the story at this point.)  The reason I feel I must give up on this project, even though other than telling you all about it, I haven't really done *anything, is what I saw this morning when I went past his new house.

Now, I can forgive the 4-wheeler on the front porch.  I can forgive the horseshoe pit in the yard.  I can forgive the can full of fishing poles on the front porch. I  can forgive the big "BUDWEISER" sign across the back window of his truck.  What I cannot forgive are the new curtains that replaced the sheets previously covering  the windows that made an appearance today.  They are camoflauge.  And that's all I have to say about that.

I posted an entry earlier, but decided I didn't want it out there as part of the history of my not even a week old blog, so away it went.

My husband's paternal grandparents have been here this past week.  They are 80-ish, give or take a few months each, and travel the U.S. from Arizona to Montana in a big ol' motorhome.  Which would be great, if that's all they did.  But what they *do while they're traveling is go to flea markets, county fairs, arts and crafts fairs, and whatever little local festivals they come to and they set up a booth and sell the kinds of things those kinds of events typically have,.  Their wares have changed through the years since I've known them, but currently they have Rada cutlery (which, for a fair-booth sort of thing I actually really, really like), and Rada stoneware (like Pampered Chef, but I've never tried) some sort of gold/silver jewelry that looks like Black Hills Gold, but is a different brand name, and Bill's creation of a marshmallow gun, made of small PVC pipe and spray painted -- you put a small marshmallow in one end and blow into the other and it "shoots" the marshmallow out. I  don't personally get it, but apparently it costs them less than a dollar to make and they sell for $5 each, and they sell a *ton.  People at fairs are weird.

Anyway, the bottom line is, 80 is too old to be driving around the countryside doing this, in my humble opinion.  Because they have to pull a little trailer with all their stuff, Ellagene has to drive their car behind the motorhome/trailer.   They both have tons of health problems, have both been in the ER no less than three times each this past year.  Yet they won't quit.  But that's their deal, I guess, and something they both argue with their own respective children.

So they're here this week for the county fair.  And Ellagene has a doctor's appointment to get the test results for an MRI and various other tests she had done this past week.  She needs to have a surgery on (and I quote her here) "the tube that goes into her kidney", her blood pressure is through the roof, and she has a spot on the side of her head that they're going to do further testing for to see if it's cancer.  Not that much good news for one doctor's visit.

On their way out of the doctor's office here they decide they'll go visit some relatives.   They promptly get T-boned at an intersection in a town that probably only has 20 stop signs to begin with, and a population of under 1,500.   What are the odds?  The woman who hits them leaves the scene and all they get is the first part of her license which only identifies her as being from this county.

They're *80, for crying out loud.  And they're shaken up.   And their meager SS and whatever piddly amount they're actually making at fairs is the income that's making the payment on a car that now has the whole side smashed in.  And they've just come from yet another worrisome doctor's visit.  And they're still of the notion that cell phones are for rich folks, so they don't have one.  So they do what they think is right ... they drive to the police station.  Where *they get threatened with the possibility of a hit and run charge since they, too, left the scene of the accident.  

Anyway, the police were able to, through their super-duper CSI methods find the green van that hit them and the woman was charged with ... no insurance.  No hit and run, since all parties left the scene.

So.  Yeah. 

Well, after yesterday's emotional spew, I'm kind of back to blank this morning about what to write.  So I thought I'd fill you in on the morning phone call from my neighbor, Drunk Joe, (who will from now on just be called DJ) because if I can't live without knowing what he's got going on for this day, neither can you.

First off, he called at 8:00, and even though I was awake, I *was still in bed, trying to force myself to sleep in.  That's what  you're supposed to do on weekends; right?  So I didn't answer the phone, even though I knew that was an exercise in futility because he'll just keep calling until someone answers.  But anyway.  I put him off for another 30 minutes

Here's how the call goes:

My 20th (gasp) high school reunion was last weekend.  I didn't go.  Why?  Well, I had several reasons, all of which were good, logical reasons.  We're right in the middle of this house thing and busy as all get-out.  The risk of fire is high here, and I don't want to be gone.  I didn't want to plug out $100 to eat dinner with a bunch of people I don't really remember, or figure out how to make something from a hotel room to bring to the potluck picnic thing.  I didn't want to make a ten-hour drive.   I didn't lose any of the weight that I wanted to.  And so on.

But that's not the real story.

The real story is, when I got the letter in the mail, I was excited.  I loved high school, I had a good time, didn't do anything that would make me never want to see anyone again, and I'd love to know where some friends are that I didn't keep in touch with.  And as I read through the letter, detailing the activities for the weekend, it all sounded good, and I mentally started planning.  Then I got to an event, a golf/luncheon thing, and that's where things came to a screeching halt.  The name of the person coordinating this event was the brother of my first, real, can't-get-your-head-out-of-the-clouds-I-would-die-for-you love, who was also the first person who really, really broke my heart.  And somehow seeing this person's last name in print, weird and dumb and maudlin and pathetic or whatever as that sounds, just brought all that crashing back.  

And I realized, when I started shaking, and then crying, that I wasn't over that yet, some 20 stupid years later.  I'm not ready to see his brother, or go back to that town and see things or people that remind me of that time or him.  I'm just not.  It shocks me that it's still that raw, and that it still has that kind of power over me, but there you go.

So.  I threw the letter in the trash, didn't mention it to my husband, and I didn't go to my reunion. 

Literally. With close to 500,000 acres in Montana, mostly in the western half, now burned, and 23 active fires,  plus the almost 650,000 acres burned and 15 active fires in Idaho, suffice it to say the air quality at my house is not good. However, the fact that I'm not facing evacuation or the loss of my home and the forest around me should be enough to keep me from whining so much about it, I guess.   There's a new fire very near here, close enough that the smoke has little particles of burned stuff in it.  Ick.  (((My poor lungs)))

However.  Not to worry, because my neighbor, we'll call him Drunk Joe (the name has been changed to protect me), bless his heart, is here to take care of us. He called early this morning to let me know that the smoke is pretty heavy today.  Which was very helpful, because I'd have probably just thought my windows were just *that dirty, otherwise, and I'd have felt kind of guilty about my poor housekeeping skills, and then I'd probably have had to have a drink to assuage some of my guilt, then probably another because I felt guilty about drinking in the morning, and next thing you know, my kids would be stepping over me on the floor.  So it was nice of him to call.

Further, he advised that we probably ought to get the Cat (conveniently implying that he has some sort of ownership in said Cat, but I was still feeling so relieved that it wasn't just my dirty windows that I let that slide) home from our other neighbor's, Normal Terry, in case "we" need to dig a fire barrier around "our" house.  My husband informs me that he's not an idiot, he knows where the Cat is if "we" need to get it and he's perfectly capable of getting it at that time, and that Drunk Joe doesn't need to concern himself with it any further.  If you're a praying person, you should pray for Drunk Joe, because he's been put here on the earth to attempt to control our lives, and Lord knows, we are a difficult bunch to control, so boy, does he have his work cut out for him.

He also confided in me that he just can. not. have his place burn, because it's "all he has."  (And I'm forcing myself not to dive off into discussing just exactly what "all he has" entails in terms of dead cars, piles of rotted lumber, pieces of snowmobiles, machinery parts and so on.)  Anyway, that did sort of make me feel guilty when he put it that way (I almost made myself a drink right then and there) because after all, aside from this place, you know, we have the condo in Hawaii, the loft in San Francisco, and the cabin in the Adirondacks.  Oh.  Wait.  That's right.  This place is ALL we have, too, you jackass.

And then we got to the portion of the phone call where he attempts once again to be helpful by reminding me that I probably need to make sure I have an extra inhaler on hand, because as he earlier pointed out, the smoke is heavy in the air.  He also stated that he's been having a lot of problems with coughing and his lungs hurting, headaches and so on, and how he feels it's the forest fire smoke that's bothering him, too.  Then he pauses in reflection for a few seconds, and says, though, that he guesses it might be that since he's quit drinking he's up to close to two packs of cigarettes a day.  Hmmmm, something to consider,  I suppose. 

I might have a drink.  It's 5:00 somewhere.

Someone once said I'm incapable of making a long story short, and I've been making short stories long for years.  Which usually applies.  But now I have an official blog, and nothing to say.  Not one thing.