LOANING THE KNIFE

 Well that was fun .... or maybe not so much.  There was a horrible crashing sound about midnight that woke me up.  WHAT WAS THAT?  I mean really, it sounded like someone crashed their car into my back fence.  I waited before grabbing my phone and peaking out the window.  Nothing ... there was NOTHING.

How could that be?  The neighbors heard it too because all their lights were on.  Then it happened again.  Good grief ... that's thunder like I've never heard it here!  We rarely ever get thunder and lightning.  Then my phone buzzed.  Yessiree ... it was a thunder storm of epic proportions, but about ten miles away.  It went on for the next two hours.  So if this blog doesn't make sense, you'll know why.  I was up for about 2 hours.

Yesterday however, it was a gorgeous morning when I went out for a run.  I didn't run however.  I just wasn't feeling it and I kept yawning trying to take a deep breath.  No worries, I'm fine.

Lookie here ... a quick walk into my back yard and my Cooper shrub.  It's blooming like crazy!!!  I love the fuzzy flowers ... they remind me of him.  Not that I need to be reminded, as you already know from all the pictures I post!  

By 11:00 I was off to accounting work.  I've mentioned this is AG country, and any road you take from my house, you will see growy things.  I pulled off the pavement to get this picture and almost got stuck in the sand.  I really do need to check on new tires for the Jeep.  I think this is squash of some kind.  There are also fields of lettuce and tomatoes.  The corn has already been green chopped for cattle feed.

Then of course there are fields and fields of almonds and pistachios.  These almonds are ready for harvest and my house will soon be covered in dust.  If you have ever purchased pistachios in those green bags, you bought some that were grown right here in my neighborhood.

So the accounting didn't go well at all.  There was a big fiasco with accessing the bank account online, just like at home.  I spent two hours trying to fix it before finally calling the bank and letting them know it was THEIR problem.  I expect they will get back to me at some point.

Back home, I found this on the doorstep.  What the heck?  It took awhile to figure out the mystery.  This is from the sweet lady that gives me all the amazing tomatoes.  This is a tomato knife.  Who knew?  I called her to get the scoop.  Sure enough, she said this thing works like a charm on tomatoes and cheese.  Probably on lots of other things too.  

There is an old wives tale that says if you give someone a knife, you cut the relationship off.  Back in the day, when her family and mine were both in the cattle business, everyone got a knife when they were a little kid of 7 or 8 years old.  You never knew when you might need to use one to cut a calf free from a rope, or cut a horse loose if they got hung up in something, or cut a willow to use as a fishing rod.  I still have the knife my dad gave me when I was 7 years old.  

However, the knives were never GIVEN to you.  They were LOANED to you in case they needed them back, so you would not CUT the relationship and end up enemies.  And so she stated this knife was LOANED to me to cut up the tomatoes.  When they are gone, she gets the knife back ... which may be in about 30 years.  

My afternoon was spent on the road.  I finally contacted the gal who does the embroidery on the quilts for the four Veterans this year.  She lives about 40 minutes away, so off I went to deliver the fabric.  It turned out that she was not home.  She is a caretaker for the elderly and had a client in distress.  The lady had received one of THOSE phone calls that her daughter was in the hospital.  You know the ones ... send me money for the doctor so she will live.  She of course panicked.  Thank goodness for the caretaker because she immediately called the daughter, but then had to wait for her arrival.  Stinken evil people!!

I had to leave the fabric in the back yard.  She called me later to say she had retrieved it and would be working on them this weekend.  YAY!!  

Kitters bugged me a LOT in the afternoon, so I played the feather game with her for a bit.  She has no problem whatsoever getting her point across.  Later, she meowed and would NOT leave me alone, running to her food dispenser.  You have PLENTY of food.  But that wasn't what she wanted.  She wanted a bit of that canned stuff hiding in the fridge, whereupon she left me alone for the rest of the night.  

That was it ... nothing really exciting except the loan of the knife.  I'll give it a try today and see how good it works.  Oh, and more tomatoes are on their way to my house!!

So here we are with Mr. Cooper.  This was in my Class A rig, possible on our way to Alaska.  I had to put the doggie gate up every time we went somewhere to keep them out from under my feet.  Back then there was no chaining them to the seat.  The second he heard the air brakes, he moved to this spot to see where we were, and to be sure I didn't leave him behind.  He and Jessie were the best travel puppies ever!!

THE MAGIC KINGDOM

 Oh for the cool of winter.  I know, by the time it arrives I will be complaining about the cold.  At least this morning it's down to 68 degrees with a high of 90.  Any respite is better than that 102 oppressive stuff.  My door is open and the fan on high!!  The sun painted a pretty sunrise picture.

It was Tuesday of course ... time for another rousing round of BINGO.  I wasn't exactly looking forward to this one.  I'm too old to be learning new computer programming.

Kitters was her usual troublemaker self.  I'm sure I have one lizard under my armoir in the bedroom because she is always looking under there, and I KNOW I have one under the dryer in the laundry room because I watched him scurry away faster than I could grab.  

Then she got a little OVER bold while I was petting her, which is demanded as soon as I sit on the couch.  She got sideswiped when she grabbed with both paws and bit me.  I don't know if that's play or just being mean, but she ended up on the floor.  It's okay, I just shoved her off and yelled NO.  She got the message.

I did absolutely nothing but phone games for the next couple of hours.  I figured I better rest up for the late night at bingo.  Lunch was quick and easy ... pulled pork salad. Yes it looks terrible.  There is lots of cabbage salad underneath, followed by tomatoes and cheese.  Pork on top with a sweet onion dressing.  It was delicious!!

Having been requested to attend a meeting at 2:00, I was at the lodge at 1:30.  I wandered around looking for anyone who might know about the Bingo Kitchen Menu machine so I could get a head start.  No one even knew what I was talking about.  Okay then ..... off I went to the upstairs meeting.

The problem quickly arose.  The meeting person was not to be found.  I stopped in at the office, only to be forewarned of two MORE problems.  Hey ... I am NOT the problem solver around here.  By the time I went back downstairs, I had two packages of paperwork to look over.

That lasted all of ten minutes before I went back UPstairs for the meeting.  That lasted all of five minutes.  I was definitely getting my steps in for the day.  Down once again, I found the gal who would teach me the register had come in early.  Perfect!  I won't have to have a substitute on the infernal machine for long.

It always works better if I actually hit the buttons and you just tell me which ones, but she would not relinquish the register.  I typed as fast as I could on my phone so I would have some idea when I tried it by myself in a day or so.  It's pretty easy, except for removing tax on one item, hitting those three dots and the today arrow, changing the time, custom reporting and printing twice on some, only once on others.  The good news is our cashier got another flight and will be here for the next six months.  YAY!  

Bingo went okay ... yes some dress alike and all wear their Bingo regalia.  There's everything from stilettos to slippers, probably ten wigs, many of which change every week from black to blond and back again.  Clothing runs from short shorts to long flowing dresses to stretchy pants.  Stretchy pants and short shorts don't go with stilettos, but they wear them.  We've talked about those before.  

With a slew of newbies coming in who have never played our kind of bingo before, there was lots of yelling for the first few games.  Sometimes they have patience, sometimes not!  We even have one sweet lady with Alzheimers who comes every week.  Her husband drops her off and picks her up.  She remembers everything about playing 15 years ago.  On this night she won not ONE but TWO jackpots.  No one complained one bit.  The good news is her husband gets a break every Tuesday night and on THIS night got $500 in his pocket.  

Everyone seemed to be in a better mood, including me.  I even talked to the guy who is supposed to run the show.  I've been more than extremely distant due to the handling of a problem, which finally got fixed ... for the most part anyway.  Sometimes you just have to stand your ground.

The night was almost over and the volunteers were getting antsy.  That's when I got the phone call.  Apparently there was a little fight upstairs at the bar.  Okay, not a little one but a BIG one.  I just laughed ... it was not about Bingo for once.  Beers were slammed down and words said.  I stayed stuck to my little bingo seat and did not get involved.  It's better to get out with your head intact.  

And so ended another lovely night at Bingo.  Some of the newbies won, meaning they will be back next week.  I am very much surprised at the husband/wife combinations coming in.  This used to be almost exclusively a woman's domain.  Even the homeless are getting in on the act.  Two came in late and plunked down $100 bills to play for the night.  You just never know who is going to show up.

Every night when I got home from Bingo, this is what I used to find.  Mr. Cooper with his ball, waiting for me to toss it back to him.  Still missing this sweet face so very much.

It's accounting day .. oh won't that be fun.  Then it's off to get the Veteran quilts embroidery done.  Such an exciting life I live!!  

OH SO SAD, JACKIE IS GONE.

 First and foremost, I have some bad news.  I'm sure you've seen the pictures of the baby eaglets from Big Bear Valley in Southern California.  

Jackie (2012) and Shadow (2014) were a mated pair of bald eagles who lived near Big Bear Lake.  For all these years, their raising of babies has been followed on live cameras.

Oh so sadly, the Mom Jackie has passed away.  She was found on the ground and taken to the Wildlife Rehab facility, that did everything they possibly could to save her.  It was apparently anemia, but they could not come up with anything definite causing it.  Her mate for life is still hanging at the nest with the last two babies, who are now all grown up.  What a horrible loss for the community.  They have produced babies for many years.  Fly high Miss Jackie ... you were a GREAT Mom!!!

I got up at the normal 4:30, only to run outside to ALMOST see some nice color in the sky.  It was a hot 70 degrees, meaning we were looking at another 102 degree day.  UGH!!

I opened the smoker and stuck the thermometer in the biggest hunk of pork. Wasn't I surprised to find it was already 10 degrees hotter than it should be.  Oooohhhhh that's not good!!!  I quickly took it out and shut the smoker down.  

From that point on, I was so distracted by cutting it up that I completely forgot to take pictures.  There was no towel spa treatment ... it was overcooked.  I just chopped it up and stuffed it in baggies.  Of course the pork loin piece was dry as a bone, so I threw in a little apple juice for good measure.  

With nothing else going on, I went outside at 8:30 to lie in the sun for a bit.  Here I am looking through my hat at the brightness that was bringing the heat.  I lasted all of 20 minutes before hanging it up and heading inside.  

Truthfully, I did nothing the rest of the day.  Oh there was the panic phone call that we did not have a cashier for the Bingo Kitchen tonight.  The one on the schedule got her plane reservation cancelled due to weather.  She won't be back for two days.  We called three other people who all said no.  See -- it's easy to say NO.  People just do not want to volunteer any more.  

We finally convinced one gal to come in, if only to teach me that particular cash register.  It's completely different from mine.  That way I can con someone into running the infernal machine and I can cashier for the kitchen in emergencies.  I'm not sure what we will do when NO ONE volunteers.  Close it down I suppose.  Don't tell anyone, but I secretly yelled YES in my head!!!

Lunch was a pulled pork taco with what I had.  It was really quite tasty, but needed some "juice" to moisten it up.  

I wasn't feeling up to par on this day, a rarity for me, so I parked myself on the couch.  Amazon loves it when that happens.  

I did finally go out and replace my old faded raggedy flag with a new one from Walmart.  We shall see how long THIS one lasts.  

I did spend a couple of hours cleaning the barbecue.  I don't know what happened last time, but I forgot to clean up the bottom three pans.  What a JOY that was!  I had to use a heavy paint scraper to get the big stuff off, then soak it for over an hour.  

I have to say this is the best smoker I've ever used.  It's a Bradley electric that uses wood bisquettes that advance automatically.  I actually have another Masterbuilt smoker that is more difficult due to it having a tray for wood chips.  You are constantly refilling the wood chips from the outside, though you can't see the container, making it difficult to know WHEN to add more.  

I got this one on Amazon MANY years ago for half price on Prime Day.  Shipping was free.  I think back then it cost me $200.00.  They appear to be a little cheaper now, but maybe they are smaller.  This one is still going strong and I think it must be over ten years old. 

In case anyone is interested ... this is Pig Powder.  There is no substitute, though many have tried.  It was developed by an award winning smoker of everything pork, named Jim Tabb.  His daughter has now taken it over.  It's not exactly cheap, but I guarantee you will like the flavor.  It's won all the barbecue shows you see on TV and worth every penny in my book.  Great on pulled pork and better on ribs.  Just go to pigpowder.com.  I buy two of the regular 12oz size every time I get down to one bottle.  NOT the spicy.  I am not a spicy girl!!!

That's it for today.  Time to put on my armor and SHINE at Bingo!!!  

ARE YOU SMOKING?

 It looked like the country was on fire this morning ..... and it felt like it too.  Good grief ... this heat has become oppressive.   At 7:30 last night,  it was 103 degrees.  Oooweeeee Mother Nature is mad at someone!!  Or maybe she's just trying to smoke us to tenderness.

The moon was still up, but it wasn't feeling it either.  Just a tiny sliver.  At least it's not full for this meeting I have to attend.

But first ... remember these two running watches?  They tell you how far based on GPS, even shows a map of your route, how fast, heart rate, recovery rate, pace ... just about everything you would ever want to know.  I paid a lot of attention to these back in the day.  Practice makes perfect when it comes to marathons.  I was hoping to resurrect one or both so I could keep track of my time a little better.

Woohoo!!  This one lit up with the correct time this morning.  I was thrilled that it worked.  Too bad it only worked for about 49 seconds.  I'm sure I heard a big sigh about the time it died a quick death.

Well rats.  Sadly, you cannot change the batteries in those watches.  They want you to buy a new one. I suppose I can't complain ... this one worked well for about 8 years and has been sitting for 10.  I looked them up on Amazon and about had a heart attack.  That watch above that I paid about $450 for, was now $1,099.00.  Well that's a big NO THANK YOU!  I settled for this MUCH cheaper one.  It doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but it will do what I need it to since truly, I don't see any marathons in my future.    

In no time I had to head on off to the big town of Stockton.  Yes, that's where my truck died on the last trip up there.  I prayed the entire way that my Jeep made it.  I drove that because the fuel is $2.00 a gallon cheaper.  Still, it cost me $70 to attend this unnecessary meeting.  

They call it the Motel ... which is exactly what it looks like, and probably used to be.  they even have a swimming pool in back. I felt like diving in.  It would have been better than the meeting.

All the bars on the doors made me nervous, but I went inside to find a nice large cool room and a table of my friends.  Well .... most of them were my friends.  I actually had a blast talking to two of the guys I had not seen in awhile.  We laughed and carried on like school kids while others scowled at us.  

I spent a good part of the actual meeting just laughing to myself.  I'm surprised several in attendance didn't get sent to the principal's office.  I stayed as long as I could stand before tapping my watch and running out the door.  I grabbed a donut on the way.  Lucky for me, traffic wasn't too terrible, and thank the Good Lord above I was not going the OTHER direction, where they were backed up for about 5 miles.  

Coming through town, I had an epiphany!  If I stopped at the local Mexican market, I could get a pork roast and smoke that baby.  Unfortunately, they only had one, so pork loin had to suffice for the second one.

Here it is in the fridge, smothered in mustard and PIG POWDER.  Those who have been reading my ramblings for awhile, know about the Pig Powder.  It beats anything out there.

I'M SMOKING!!!  It went in the smoker about 4:30 and will smoke for five hours.  Yeah, that means I have to stay up late, but it's worth it.  It will actually cook for a total of 15 hours.

I did make the mistake of not standing on the other side when I opened the door to pour on some apple juice.  I got blasted with smoke.  The men are going to be following me now!  I smell like SMOKED MEAT.  It will come out at 5:00 or so, get wrapped in foil, swaddled in towels and stuck in the ice chest to finish cooking to juicy deliciousness.  I can't wait to taste it.  It's been a long while since I made smoked pulled pork.

Another sweet Cooper picture from a couple years ago.  Big sigh .... I still miss him every second of every day.

TECHNOLOGY CAN BE AMAZING ... OR NOT.

 I should have been off VERY early on this morning, hitting the road for another run.  What can I say, I got distracted by brain games on my phone.  It was already hot when I left at 7:30, so I tried to stick to the streets with shade and got in 2 more miles.  My legs were NOT happy campers, so I walked a little more this time.  It used to take one day to heal up ... now it seems to take two.  It will get better, but my legs are talking to me constantly!!

When I got back, I wasn't sure what vehicle I was taking to the Elks Meeting up north today.   Truly, I despise these meetings where absolutely NOTHING happens other than telling us we need to make more money by signing up more members.  Well if we could, I guess we would.  

At any rate, lucky for me, the Jeep had a full tank.  The fuel mileage is about the same as my diesel truck, but this one gets into smaller parking spaces.  I suppose I should check the tires ... and so I got out the old air compressor and went to work.  This right rear tire gave me a little trouble, but all the rest got topped off with no problems.

That's when I discovered this.  One of the tire monitors had lost its cover entirely.  I'm surprised it even worked with the battery showing.  Now I KNOW I have a bag of these somewhere, but for the life of me, I could not find them.  I've looked in every junk drawer I have.

Including this one ... where I got totally distracted.  OH LOOK ... lots of crap!  Actually, this drawer is full of running stuff.  Watches and attachments to gather info to make your run more productive.  Well look at that ... there are TWO Garmin watches in there that I'm sure will not work after almost ten years of non use.

I plugged them in anyway.  An hour later, nothing.  Well darn!  These two things that will almost tell you what you had for breakfast, cost me a fortune back in the day when I was running marathons, and I hate to toss them out.

There was another not-so-delicious lunch cleaning up the last of the leftovers.  I really should cook something .... like those shrimp in the freezer ... but I'm just not motivated.  Probably because I'm full at the moment.

There was a little kitty play time stuck in there somewhere.  

I finally took the chargers off the watches, wiped them with my fingers and stuck them back on.  To my absolute amazement, they began charging.  Of course that was AFTER I ordered a new one from Amazon.  This one came right up and everything seems to work.  It has GPS, maps and the whole shebang. Technology is amazing.  It can probably read your fortune if you asked it to.  I'll try it out on Monday and see if the battery holds.   The other one, not so much.  

 Maybe I'll send that new one back.  The other one actually did charge the battery, but it does not do what this one does.  I'll find someone to donate it to.

Later in the day, I placed an order with Walmart.  I used to sing their praises, but am having a change of heart.  I ordered 3 large avocados which came in a net bag.  Every single one of them is so rotten, they feel like there is nothing in the middle.  No kidding ... you can squish the sides together.  So here I go again back to Walmart for a refund.  It will cost me more for fuel than the cost of the product.

Next up ... beef tallow.  But that's a story for tomorrow.

Here's my sweet boy snoozing on the couch.

LIGHTS, CAMERA ..... ACTION!!

It was a hot one yesterday ... ending up with a cool-ish 69 degrees this morning just before the sun came up.  You never know what the sky will look like.  It looks kind of like a floating rib cage to me.  I'm just happy the weather guessers say mid 80's are coming up all next week.  We shall see.  I'm not betting on their prediction.

Here's Miss Kitty this morning, in her usual spot.  She wanted quite a lot of attention yesterday, garnering the spa treatment of massages and ear rubs.

 Breakfast was fabulous!  Just kidding ... breakfast was the normal egg thingy.  I had this for lunch instead.

Since I've gotten old, I can't take more than one appointment in a day.  My next one wasn't until 1:45, so I lounged around the house doing basically nothing.  Oh I trimmed a few more bushes here and there and tried to discover why there was standing water in the flower bed.  I was sure it was another broker drip line, but this time it would be MY fault since I'm the one that trimmed that bush.  

I didn't find any broken ones, so I broke one just for good measure.  I pulled too hard trying to get the plant to let go and broke the end right off.  It turned out to be a good thing since I was able to attach an end that didn't spit out so much water.  Winner winner HALF a chicken dinner.

Then it was on to the bedroom closet burned out light bulb.  Not that I really need to see back in the corner where I've stashed loads of things I never use any more.  San Francisco Giants jackets ... I counted five.  Dresses from the late 1800's with hoop skirts, four ski parkas and three huge suitcases.  Apparently I used to travel in style.  I had to take out nine pairs of cowboy boots (I know, ridiculous) to get the ladder back in the corner.  As with the rest of the house, this ceiling is 12 feet high.  

WHOA those LED lights are BRIGHT!  This one was easy peasy since I had walls to hang on to.  I decided to change the other one since I was there.  It was a little dicey when it came to looking up, but with one hand on the ceiling I got it done.  These two bulbs will last longer than I will!!

Then it was off to the haircut.  Of course I think it's too short, but at least it's the same cut all around instead of way too long in the back where I can't reach.  Yessiree ... my hairdresser loves that I chop up the front and sides, whereupon she has to try and fix the back.  It's a good thing she is also a good friend!!

Back home Kitters took up this spot on the coffee table and I got out my camera.  When she got up, it moved the feather toy.

Let the action begin.  And so we played the feather game for the next hour.  Honing her lizard catching skills I guess.  It's funny though .... instead of grabbing the feathers, she grabs the line and the plastic holder first, then goes for the feathers.  

Okay, enough of that.  Dinner was leftover Cooper-chicken enchilada casserole.  It was nothing to write home about, so no pictures.  I did have a couple of delicious tomatoes with it, which made it ok.

Dessert anyone?  Yes please ... and I still have one more Blue Bunny ice cream sandwich in the freezer.

And so ended the day.  I've downloaded the best of my Cooper pictures onto a thumb drive so I can have some pictures made.  It won't happen today since I've got a VERY early morning meeting, a wonderful 90 minute drive away tomorrow.  Why they would have meetings on Sunday morning is beyond me.

Bye for now my sweet boy.  I hope you are spending your days chasing the ball and actually catching it!!