Oddz and Endz

We have been kinda busy this last week, so here's a short post.




Went for a horseback ride on Fathers Day with one of the daughters (GunDiva).  Wonderful ride.

J & J Paris...  The puzzle is done.  As it turns out, another couple that stayed with us last week  had been here a year and a half ago, and the SAME PUZZLE was on the table, and they had to leave before it was done.  I'm not sure he believed me when I told him we had saved it for him to finish.  It is missing a piece, so if you guys could check your luggage... 

We have been working a lot lately.  Bed at midnight, up at 5:30.  Sometimes in the morning, the brains are not
fully functional.  But I still knew what Juanita wanted when she asked for the "squeegee-spoon".

My hand writing leaves something to be desired.  I have the fine motor control of a drunken buffalo.  So when
guests leave notes like this, I can't read them.  I mean, I see the words, but I get so distracted by how pretty it is, I loose all comprehension.

 (Click on this one to see it larger)

Juanita went to the post office last week and bought some stamps.  I congratulated her on buying some exceptionally ugly stamps.  She gave me "that look" and told me "I thought they were pretty."

Oops.

Bill


(Okay Momma Fargo, here's a post.  Quicha bellyaching.)

Happy Father's Day to my wonderful other half - who bravely stepped into the lives of four wild Indians (ages 6 to 16) when he should have been enjoying a leisurely bachelor life.  Now...many, many years later....I thank him again for doing a super job he didn't have to do.

Humiliating his horse....

On a good day with his horse....

As our guests see him....

Enjoying the WNFR in Las Vegas....

What he's wishing he could do the rest of the day!

Juanita

It Worth It?

I had to go down the mountain to drop a friend off for a flight.  Driving back up I stopped to pick up some supplies.  After grabbing what I needed, I called Juanita to see if she needed anything.  She told me what she needed, so I wandered over to domestics.

"May I help you?" asked the young sales associate.

"Miss, It boggles my mind the number of things I didn't even know existed before I got married, that I find myself shopping for nowadays.  Do you have any Full Bed Dust Ruffles?" I asked.

"Why yes, right over here" she says.  "Here are the bed skirts."

GunDiva's note: Do yourselves a favor - click on the picture to enlarge :)

PS - Bill and Mom - aren't you glad I set up your blog so I can break in whenever I want?

I made my selection, and walked to the register to pay for my Pet Proof Window Screening, my Window Spline Installation Tool, my Can of Spray Paint (yes, I'm over 18), and my Dress for a Bed.

Driving back up the mountain to the lodge I reflected on our current life, both pluses and minuses. 

I thought to the trips to the store and crowds and scrubbing toilets and vacuuming floors and plumbing repairs
and dealing with salesmen and calls at all hours of the day and night and the 8 month winters and and and...

I thought of the horse back ride I went on yesterday with one of  our daughters and one of our granddaughters.  A Papa/aunt/niece ride.

 

I am blessed.  I would change nothing.

Bill




PS-  Do you know how you get down off a horse?


You don't.  You get down off a goose. (didn't think I could end on a sappy note, did you?)

Maybe I Should Just Stay Inside

I try to avoid Estes Park this time of year.  Lots of people milling around making it hard to run errands.  Particularly on the weekends.  But sometimes we run out of something and have to make a quick run into town.

Today we ran out of cottage cheese, syrup, oranges, and beer.  Okay, that's pretty much a crisis to me, so I braved town and went to the brewery.  Then I figured as long as I was in town I'd get the other stuff, too.

I hit the grocery store and drove around the parking lot for a while, wishing Juanita was with me and still had bad hip joints.  That handicap parking tag was GREAT!  Finally got parked and scuttled into the store.

LOTS OF PEOPLE.

They were out of the normal sized shopping carts, and only had these odd little units that were about 1/4 sized.  I stuck the few items I needed into the tiny thing, and headed to checkout.  While standing in line, I was looking down at my toy cart and blurted "Damn.  I feel like I should have my baby dolly in here."

It was at that moment I noticed a 275 pound biker dude in line behind me.  He looked down at my cute little undersized grocery cart.  Then he slowly looked down and appraised his own pint-sized cart.  When he looked down at me a moment later, he spoke with a chill in his voice........

"I hear you, buddy."

Bill

I Don't Need Any Help to Look Like a Fool, Thanks Anyway

Last year one of our horses took our sign out front for a walk.  Actually, a wild, crazy, scary run.  During the trip, the lights attached to the sign broke off.  They hadn't worked very well at night anyway, so I didn't replace them.

                                    Unlit Sign During the Day

                                       Unlit Sign at Night

I decided that reflective paint on the lettering would be the way to light the sign.  No unsightly wires, no light pollution, no electric bill...  I would use the cars headlights as they drove by.

Reflective paint is often made by sprinkling VERY SMALL reflective glass beads  onto the wet paint, and they stick to the surface and reflect light.

Very cool.
Very easy.


A half pound of the beads will cost $10, + shipping and handling.  You can get fifty pounds of glass beads for $50, but I'm unsure what I would do with the other 49.5 pounds.  Would be something of a false economy.  Like a single guy shopping at Costco or Sam's.  So I did the obvious thing.

I did nothing.
Sign stays dark.

Yesterday they painted the yellow lines down the road in front of the lodge.  And Hurray!  They sprinkled the glass beads onto the paint!  I waited until this afternoon, and ran out to sweep up some of the the excess to use on my sign.

                              The white sand actually glass beads.

While I was sweeping away I happened to glance up.  I saw the neighbor that I haven't met yet looking at me.
No, staring at me.  Arms hanging, slack jawed, open mouthed, incredulous expression, staring.

His lunatic innkeeper neighbor was sweeping the street.

I gave a little half wave, finished picking up what was in the dustpan and went back into the lodge.

 I'll have to wait a few days before I go outside and work on the sign.

Time spent.............5 minutes
Money saved.........$10
Damage to ego.......priceless

Bill

Move It

Last weekend our youngest daughter, Nebelle and I flew to Phoenix to help the oldest boy, Deejo and his family (Lana and kids) move back to Colorado.  He has been in Phoenix for about 15 years now and is ready to "come home".  It probably doesn't have anything to do with the 120 degree summer days, or a somewhat stagnant job market.  I think he just misses being picked on and abused by the rest of the family. 

Nebelle and I hit the ground running and loaded up a good many boxes into the trailer and box truck in a hurry. 

One item in particular we were told, was not going to make the trip to Colorado with them.  A drop leaf table.


(B)   "Look Nebelle.  That's just like the table you got from your great-grandmother." 
(N)   "Yes it is, Bill.  Except it's got some broken parts."  
(B)   "Ya know, I bet I could glue it back together"

(N&B)   "Let's load it up!"

So load it up we did.  We made a space for it well in the front part of the box, and stacked TONS of stuff on and around it.  We got caught loading it up by Deejo's kid, and Nebelle and I swore the kid to silence. 

"Don't tell.  This will be funny!"

By the time we finished for the day, the table was just barely visible under the other boxes and furniture.  When we got back from our hotel room the next morning, the broke table was in the middle of the driveway.  Deejo greeted us in the kitchen with an angry-

"You two really need to slow down!  Some of this stuff isn't going with us!"

Nebelle and I laughed until we nearly cried.  Deejo, not so much.

Then I loaded it back into the truck later in the day.

(Sorry about the focus, but the empty wall Vanna White pose had to make the post.)

                                           Big 'ol truck.



The drive was mostly uneventful.

Nebelle started off driving the Subaru, Deejo drove the big Penski box truck while Lana rode passenger with him, and I drove the other car pulling the U-Haul trailer with their kid as passenger.

After a while we were all ready for a change.  Nebelle opted to drive the box truck.  She said that she feels it's "good to do things that are scary, to help you grow".  You know, get you out of your comfort zone.  Like next school year she is going to teach kindergarten rather than 2nd grade.  Scary.

 I sat in the passenger seat to offer helpful comments while she was driving.

"LOOK OUT!"

"DON"T HIT THAT!"

OH.........MY...........GOD!!!"

(That's a lie.  She did great.)

                     After just a little while, it was old hat to her.

By late evening we were thinking of stopping, when the Subaru I was driving started jerking to the left like I was hitting potholes in the road.   I was on smooth pavement.  We parked it at a park-and-ride by the interstate and drove on another half hour to our hotel.  Next morning Deejo and I drove back to work on it.  We couldn't find anything that might cause the jerking.   We surmised it was perhaps a brake pad grabbing.  So I oiled the rotor.

Kids, don't try this at home.  Oil on the rotor will keep the brake from working at all, but since I was following a car pulling a trailer and a box truck, I figured I could still stop faster than them.

No more grabbing.

Made it up to Fort Collins and started unloading the trailer.  Our youngest son and his feeancee feansee feancee  Bride To Be showed up to help unload.  Oddly, whenever my youngest son came to the truck I seemed to be holding a very lightweight box, and when his BTB came up, I had something heavy to hand to her.  It seemed to peak when I handed the boy a 3 pound box of wicker baskets and her a 60 pound crate of bricks.

I'm glad she's a good sport.

The unloading finished just before dark, and Juanita and GunDiva showed up with a half dozen pizzas.

Glad they're "home", and I'm glad the move is over.

But what in the heck am I supposed to do with THIS?!?

 Bill

A Continuation: Stuck!

Bill and I are happily fixing breakfast for the guests when one of them comes into the kitchen announcing, "Juanita, I think you horse needs another backing lesson."  Huh?  I stare at him blankly as he further announces that Jesse appears to be stuck in the fence.  Bill drops everything and shoots out the door; I look around to get a measure of how we stand in breakfast prep, throw some stuff in the oven and dive out the door, too.  Sure enough, when I get to the corral Bill and guest are standing beside a horse halfway through the fence and very, very stuck!  I think the only one NOT upset by the situation I saw was the horse.  Jesse was so focused on the nice green grass she found - outside the fence - that she had just munched her way through, one little foot at a time, ducking under the top rail.  Unfortunately, she hadn't paid much attention to where she was and had climbed through a small opening between the big metal feeder and the fence post!  That meant there was zero flex in the rails and the hole was smaller than the hips (have any of us had that feeling?).  She was perfectly willing to lower her head when asked, but her position was such that her withers were still too high to back out of the hole and she couldn't wiggle from side to side because of the feeder and posts.  Bill took his leatherman and unscrewed the bolt that held the rail on the post, which just gave her enough room to hop her back feet through; a less agile horse would have still been stuck.  She was non-plussed....and guess who's electric fencing is now up and running.  It's such a tiny shock, I'm amazed it's a deterant, but they hear the clicking and keep clear.

I have been very careful to give her some outside time each day since, just to keep her thinking, and she has been good about staying in.  And yes, Mr. Daddy, that horse needs a definite 'talking to'.
Juanita