ANOTHER DAY OF MEMORIES

Thank you everyone for your comments for Barbara and Tom.  She was an absolute JOY to know.  Always happy, always laughing, always ready to lend a helping hand.  You need breakfast?  She would make it.  And she did love her hats!!

I don't think I ever saw her without a smile except when her kitty got out and was immediately lost.  How did we find her?  I let Miss Jessie out on a leash and she made a beeline for the kitty.  Jessie didn't like kitties.  She found her up under their motorhome and she was immediately captured.  I think that was the only time Pansy ever got out of their rig.  Barbara was thrilled to have her kitty back.

Ice cream?  Yes please!!  Like me, Barbara and Tom never turned down the offer.  Everywhere we went clear across the U.S., they had their favorite spots to stop.  I think I gained ten pounds.  She also knitted ... making most all of her tops and sweaters.

This smile ... she was never without it.  Even when eating smores they provided on one of our group steam train trips.  

Being a big dog and cat lover, she always had pets and love for Mr. Cooper.  This was him barking at her out the window.  Good times and so many good memories.  I was blessed to have been a tiny part of their RV'ing life.  

  

And so another day has come and gone.  I was lucky to have Uber (actually a close friend) deliver the backdoor dinner from the lodge.  I really wasn't expecting much, but there was a TON of food here.  Half a chicken, cooked to perfection, REAL mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy, Cole slaw and a Hawaiian sweet roll.  It lasted three meals for me.

I just wasn't feeling it on this day.  I kept remembering moments from that epic trip I took with the Westerfields ....  so I watched the Pendleton Rodeo.  There's no better rodeo in the country.  This arena is the size of two football fields.  The guys not riding on this day sit in the peanut gallery on the grass.  On occasion, they scatter like flies when the horse or bull bucks right through them.  I took these pictures of my TV while watching the Cowboy Channel.  If you get a chance, check it out.

These pickup men ... their horses get a REAL workout running the length of the arena after the horses to bring them back to the chute area.  A couple of newbys forgot the pick up men actually pick them up off the horse.  They jumped off way too soon and were very slow to get up.

This guy hung on for as long as he could, even as the bucking horse jumped over the low PVC fence.  

Here's the titanium fence they put up for the bull riding competition.  Yeah, it's just PVC.  Lots of brave people sit outside the fence when the bulls come out of the chutes.  Just don't move.  You move and that bull will come right through that fence like it was toothpicks.

This guy didn't even blink an eye.  He was smart.  Last year two guys moved, the bull ran through the fence and nailed a photographer who could not run fast enough.  You don't mess with the bulls.

That was it ... I just kept thinking about all the geocaches we found as we crossed the U.S.  Tom and Barbara loved that hobby.  They even laid several geocaches of their own around the country.  You stick a tiny sheet of paper and a pencil in a tiny little container, then hide it somewhere along the roadside.  You give clues to its location in a geocaching app ... and people try to find it.  If they do, they sign the register.

I'm not that good at finding them, so I got lots of help from Barbara and Tom.  Sometimes they would look like a bolt in the fence board, but it was just a cap over a hole where the signing sheet was.  Some are in sprinkler heads ... some hanging from the trees.  They loved it so much they gave seminars every year on how to do it and where to find the containers.  

There are just a thousand more memories floating through my head.  Can you imagine how many other people they influenced??  A wonderful Human Being is now in Heaven looking down on us with a big SMILE!!

VERY SAD NEWS INDEED

 

Sometimes you are lucky enough to meet the most wonderful people on the planet.  That happened to me when I joined the Golden Spike Railroad group.  These two people were officers in the group and good friends of my friends Patty and Dan.  Meet Barbara and Tom Westerfield.  Rarely, if ever, did you see anything but a smile on Barbara's face.  Same for Tom, just not in this picture, I think because he was starving.  This was at a restaurant in Maine where we had lobsters galore.

One day I went to Yuma Arizona with Patty and Dan for an RV rally, where I bought this Tiffin Phaeton.  I went to a few rallies when one day, out of the blue, Barbara said I should travel back East with them and be a part of a convention to help kids learn about Tech Schools.  Mike Rowe was a big sponsor of that project, and so was Tom, Barbara and their daughter.  

Not having had my RV for very long, I said HECK YEAH!  Let's go.  And go we did.

We started on the west coast of California and drove all the way to Maine and back.  We were looking for two things along the way.  Barbara LOVED bread pudding, so we were on a mission to find the best one in the U.S.  I've never eaten so much bread pudding in my LIFE!!  The second was to find the best ice cream.  I mean just look at that smile.  I saw that every single day.

We drove through streets in Gallup New Mexico where I grazed the trash cans on either side.  I just followed Tom like I knew what I was doing.  Barbara gave me a walkie talkie so we could stay in contact.   All along the way she would tell me about things we were going to see.  Zoos, art shows, memorials in Oklahoma City and tornado damage.  

Oh yes, we went right through tornado country.  Barbara navigated us around SEVERAL until we got to St Louis.  One night the wind and rain came up so strongly that we pulled in the slides.  I kept asking her on the radio when we were going to the tornado shelter.  OH NO she said ... it will be fine.  The puppies and I cowered in the corner.  

The next time we had to pull the slides in, I forgot to close a drawer.  Yup I crushed it.  Tom, the expert woodworker, took that drawer, took it apart, glued it up and nailed it back together, good as new.

We stopped at Moose Lodges, Elks Lodges, parking lots and Walmarts, some times having ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  There was never a dull moment.  Even when they took me up to the top of the St Louis Arch.  I'm terribly claustrophobic, so they held my hand as we got in the teeny tiny tin can to ride to the top.  Barbara said it would all be okay.  And it was.

We made it to New York where we got soaking wet on the boat ride at Niagara Falls, stopped in museum after museum and laughed the entire way ... mostly them laughing at me ... until we hit Maine for some fabulous lobster.  She oh so patiently tried to teach me to knit, but I was terrible at it.  It was the trip of a lifetime for me, but just another adventure for them.  

I don't think I EVER laughed so much as I did on that trip because of Barbara's smile and sense of humor.  She was a big advocate for dogs and cats, working for SPCA for many years.  In fact, they both helped me with Kitters when I first found her.  

It is with a very heavy heart that I say Barbara passed away yesterday afternoon.  There was just no one like her on the planet.   I'm going to miss her terribly.  Please say a few prayers for Tom and their family.

Rest in peace Barbara, surrounded by all the kitties and puppies you took care of for so many years.  I'm a better person for having known you!!!

CALIFORNIA ... THE WORST AT EVERYTHING

 Good Morning sunny California.  It's WAY too early for me to be up after a night of Bingo, but here I am, yawning in my coffee.

I took a quick walk outside to check the temperatures and the back yard for foxeys.  Kitters has been very reticent to go outside in the mornings now, so I expect they are cruising the back yards.  They too are good at gopher hunting.  Too bad they don't eat ants because you can't take one step in the corral without stepping on an ant hill.  

The stars were out, but really hard to see with the house lights on.

So I took this one for your viewing pleasure.  Yeah, I don't see any stars either.

So I pulled up photoshop and at least got SOME to show up.  It's pretty amazing what that program can do to a cheap little phone picture.  At least a few are visible.   It's weird to me that all those things up there are just clouds of hydrogen and helium floating around.  Here I always thought they were pieces of rock.

I digress.  Here's my latest tip for all the small dog owners out there.  It's a sweatshirt with a big zippered pocket on the front.  Unzip it, stick your little doggie inside and zip it back up.  Doggie puts his head through the hole.  A great way to travel if you take your dog along.  Even to the grocery store!!!  I posted this for Cindy, Ray and Penny, their tiny little girl who travels with them.

Obviously there wasn't much going on this day.  I did work on the quilt a bit, stitching sixteen of the little squares into four big ones.  It shrinks quite a bit when you do that.  Sometimes a shocking amount.  

Breakfast was delicious.  I took some of that sourdough sandwich bread out of the freezer and had an egg sandwich.  If I could slice it a little thinner, it would be perfect.  The best part ... the crust is much softer.  I'll be making more of this one.

And so it was time to head on off to Bingo.  But first ... I needed to fill my Jeep gas tank.  I checked  Gas Buddy and headed to the cheapest one.  When fuel is expensive, it takes about $65.00 to fill the tank.  I knew it was going to be bad, but this is ridiculous.  It came to $100.00 for a 19 gallon tank that still had two gallons in it.  And the State of California is trying to pass another gas tax hike.  Right now, it's .7364 because they used the gas tax money for things other than fixing the roads.  Oh yes, we are Numero Uno in the entire U.S.  Not a good way to start the day at Bingo.

I was early, mostly because I can get a 4" thick piece of the best meatloaf sandwich in the State.  No kidding, I don't know their secret, but everyone's LOVES their meatloaf.  I should get the recipe.  I eat half for lunch and the rest for dinner it's so huge.

Then it was on to getting a checklist for the Bingo kitchen.  Not that we really need one for the PAID cook because he knows what he's doing.  It's more for the helpers who need to learn how to REMEMBER the ropes.  

Upstairs I signed checks and discussed the latest energy developments.  As I'm sure you know, California is the worst state in the U.S. in which to abide.  Here's why.  We have solar energy for the lodge.  We pay the solar company .174 cents per kilowatt hour.  The State said let's screw the public basically ... excuse the language ... and switch the peak hours to 4:00-9:00, which is of course when most everything happens at the lodge and the air conditioners are running constantly.  We pay PG&E .879 per kilowatt hour ... which is why we have a ridiculous true up bill.  Pretty crazy, yes?  Mine personally is .3976 per kWh.  

Anyhoo ... on to Bingo.  Our main caller didn't show up.  No surprise.  That's what happens when you call someone on the carpet for no reason in my opinion.  They will be looking for a new caller, and NO ... it won't be ME.  

My fairy Godmother didn't show up on this night, so counting went rather slow.  I have a great stand-in, it just takes a little longer.  

The gal who caused all the problems and got kicked out two weeks ago, came back and brought her MOTHER with her.  The mother could stay, but the daughter was told she was banned from Bingo.  Surprisingly, the mother agreed and told her to SHUT UP several times.  They both finally left, but were told they could come back in November.  Too bad because I have no use for people that STEAL.  

The knives and torches only came out once, but this time against one of their own.  How DARE you call bingo when you don't HAVE bingo.  How the players know that without sitting next to them is beyond me.

The infernal machine took pity on me this night and balanced to a tee.  It was very late and I was very tired, but took a quick look at the kitchen.  They missed two boxes on the checklist, one being is the back door locked ..... AND they did not turn the fans off.  I crawled along the walls trying to find the light switch before finally turning my phone on in order to hit the right button.  They FAILED the test.

I hope everyone has a GREAT day.  I'll be on the lizard hunt this morning, because the way Kitters is acting, I'm POSITIVE there is one loose in the house!!!  Oh how I miss Cooper.  He never did stuff like this!!

EXTREME BULLS AND QUILTS

 

It's interesting how a huge conglomerate on the internet called GOOGLE can't seem to get their act together.  Maybe it's all those DEI hires.  I'm sorry, but if you want the best employees with the best work ethic and the highest level of knowledge, you need to hire people based on their experience ... not their gender or the fact that they passed high school.  I would even suggest you CAN'T send them feedback unless they have every spec of information on you for their purpose (whatever that is) ... thus the copy of your drivers license or passport.  That way they can find you if they want to.  What a world we live in today.

I contemplated that as I headed out for an early morning run.  Jog actually.  I never was after the blue ribbon.  Not that I came in last, but sometimes I was pretty close to it when I hit 65.  Seems running was for the younger crowd.  I didn't start the long runs until I was 50 years old.  I just ran those marathons to see if I could do it.  

The sun wasn't even up yet on this morning, and it was COOL .... oh so cool!!!

The forecast finally says we are out of the 90's except for that last one.  Good grief .... it's the 15th of September already and it's still HOT.  Time flies by so fast I think it's going to be Christmas the day after tomorrow.  At least it feels like it.

I purposely scheduled NOTHING on this day.  Mostly because I rest up a bit for today's Bingo adventure.  My only to-do was come up with new prices for the Bingo Kitchen.  As you can see, inflation has NOT hit the Elks Lodge Bingo parlor.  You can get a fabulous hamburger AND fries for $5.50.  A lot of folks just come in for the food and leave after they eat.  Bingo is the only event we have that is open to the public.

Here's the problem ... the more you charge for food, the less they buy in for Bingo.  We would rather they donate money to our kids charities, so I can only raise the prices 50 cents, even if we should be charging at least a dollar more on every item.

With that done, I switched on and off from sewing to rodeo.  This one from Photography by Gini shows the bull fighters playing with the big boys.  There's no one on the planet in better shape than these guys who keep the bulls off the riders once they hit the ground.  

And hit the ground they did.  This kid is probably ten feet off the ground.  Extreme bulls are the meanest worst of the worst and the most fun to watch.  Most of the riders are 5'6" and weigh maybe 140 pounds.  The smaller you are, the easier it is to stay on.  It's crazy to watch!!

When commercials hit, I would rush to the sewing room to stitch up maybe three pieces before running back to watch the bulls.  There's more today and tomorrow, so I'll be glued to the TV.

Later on, I stitched up the rest of the squares with only a few rip outs.  I hate it when that happens!!  At any rate, all 64 little square are done.  Now I get to stitch those 64 into 16 big squares and start on the borders.  That means you will see this picture probably six more times!!

There will be no running this morning.  I'm saving up all my energy so I can wear the armor until 9:30 tonight.  Hopefully the cooler weather has soothed the hot heads and we won't have any problems.  I did not mention that the week before, one lady swiped someone else's bonanza tickets and tried to turn them back in for the money.  We don't do that.  

She got in quite the conflagration with the King, but he held his tongue.  That is until she got to the back door because he asked her to leave .... and she spewed out a bunch of bad words.  The King had enough and said a few things himself before banning her forever from the building.  You just never know who you are going to be dealing with at Bingo.  Luckily it wasn't ME doing the dealing!!

By the way, thanks to a reader, I have found if you click on the last blog posted from your Reading List and click on the name of the blog, it will bring up their latest blog for you to read.  An extra step for sure, but at least you can now see and reply to bloggers.

LIZARD PATROL

 LIZARD COUTER:  22

It was a lovely Sunday, but WAY too hot.  Thus the "before" sunrise picture on this morning.  I hit the road early for my two mile run.  It was a slow one.  Some days you feel like you can run forever ... and some days you feel like you are going to die.  This was the latter.

I got back to find Miss Kitters laying on my velvet antique stool ... where she is NOT allowed.  Yes, that's my camera on the floor on the right that she knocked off.  I'm hoping it still works.  

As I reached for the camera, I spotted something moving in the living room.  BIG SIGH ... BIG!!  There was a poor little lizard trying to escape under my roll of quilt batting.  I moved it ... he moved further under, until finally he had no place to go.  It looks like I'm squeezing him to death, but I barely had a hold of him.  Out the front door he went.  Yes that makes 22 lizards ... no telling how many I haven't found yet.  I have since been on Lizard Patrol.

It was a little cool outside and the wind was blowing, so I sat out in the sun reading for a time.  Watch Kitty took her position in the shade.  She bothers me constantly, so I was lucky she stayed in one spot this time.

I did household chores for awhile ... like all of 5 minutes ... before hitting the freezer for lunch.  My tip of the day .... don't freeze that beef stew.  The only thing that's good when thawed is the beef.  Note to self ... next time make a much SMALLER recipe and eat it in three days.

I spent the afternoon working on the quilt again, only to discover it was wrong.  It has two variations of the same color fabric, both noted as F in the pattern.  I knew not which one to use first.  It looked okay when I was done with the one block, so I continued.

Of course it turned out to be the wrong fabric.  I was soured on taking it apart since I had already done that to 16 pieces.  It's just going to be wrong.  Maybe you will be able to tell when it's finished, maybe not.  I almost have another four big squares complete.

When things go wrong, I eat ice cream.  This time however, the freezer was bare.  No problem ... I'll just make some.  This was another chunky peanut butter delight ... to which I added three chopped up peanut butter cookies.  

The best part by far, is I get to lick the beaters.  Don't lick the bowl because your tongue will freeze to it.  Instead, I used a metal spoon to get out every single teeny tiny bite.  It made my day. 

The rest of the evening I lounged in front of the TV watching rodeo.  It's the end of the year and all the guys are trying their hardest to break into the top 15 money earners.  Only those 15 in each event, get to go to the National Finals in Las Vegas.  That's where the BIG money comes in.  

It's been a real fight since Shad Mayfield, calf roping sensation, not only had his hip replacement done, but  a knee at the same time.  After missing almost 6 months, he's back good as new and winning up a storm.  If only we healed up that fast.  

On another note, I tried and tried to give Feedback to blogger.  To tell them about not getting blogs I signed up for.  I'm sure they already know, but hey .... why not inundate them with messages.  Here's the problem.  Apparently you can only report something if you are an adult.  My birthdate on that site is 1965.  I'm pretty sure that makes me 61 years old, yes?  NO ... it says I must have parental permission in order to report a problem.  If I want to report, I have to prove to Google by way of a picture of my drivers license, a picture of my passport or a picture of my credit card.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  There's no way in HEQQ that is going to happen.  Nothing like stalking people and setting up a database with all the info required to invade your privacy and bank accounts.  There should be a law against that!

Still missing my Cooper so very much.  I can't seem to get into any kind of routine.

QUILTING AGAIN

It appears Blogger STILL has not gotten their act together.  My "reading list" has not updated in days.  So if you are posting blogs and I'm not commenting, that's why.  I think maybe I have to copy and paste the blog address into my search engine to have them visible.  There used to be a link where people could add their email address and it would automatically be sent to them, but I have not been able to find that yet.  Hopefully they get THIS one fixed soon.   

It's HOT.  The mornings are not even worth going outside for.  That's why I took this picture at 4:00 in the afternoon.  Yes, it actually WAS cooler with the breeze.  That's a tiny mirror image (sort of) to the right.  It's the neighbors flag behind the trees.

I was out the door as early as possible.  I turned the sprinklers off on this day so the weed stuff would work.  Sure enough ... this was bright green, now turned brown.  Possibly from the heat, but I'm hoping it stays that way.  Though I love vegetables, I am just not a gardening girl, especially when it comes to flower beds.

Next up I went through the videos of foxy.  Oh look ... he found another delicious egg hanging out on the driveway.  These guys look pretty young ... maybe the kids of the kids from a couple of years ago.  I really never expected them to come back after the house next door was built.

Once he ate his prize, he came back for more and got a little too close to the camera.  I'm surprised he didn't knock it off the bucket.  Isn't he or she a beauty?

Watch this one to the end.  Just look at that gorgeous tail!!!  Kitters got in on the action too.  She was outside at the same time in the very early morning, hiding under the van watching them.  Those darn interlopers!!

The best news of the day ... I got another haul of fresh tomatoes from a neighbor.  What could be better for lunch than homemade onion sourdough with cheese and tomatoes.  I was in HEAVEN!  To be honest, I really didn't think this bread would set well with my stomach, but amazingly, I have no problems eating it at all.  Does that mean it's all the additives they put in bread to keep it somewhat fresh? 

At long last, only because there was nothing on TV, I put one quilt block together.  I hate it when the directions are so vague that you really can't figure out what you are supposed to sew where.  I stitched 16 pieces together, only to find I had done it wrong.  It's just so fun to rip apart every stitch!!!  

On the other hand, it's truly amazing what happens when you see a bunch of these with no rhyme or reason .............

Turn into this.  Not sewn together yet, but you get the idea.  I really wasn't thrilled with the colors at first, but I like them in the pattern.  This came from a jelly roll of 20 different fabric designs.  I'll work on it here and there.

Dinner was ...... well ...... dinner.  I had some frozen shrimp.  Truly, they don't even TASTE like shrimp, so I loaded it up with garlic and butter, a kind of shrimp scampi.  The tomatoes were MUCH better!!!

And so ended a very hot day.  Kitters and I both laid low in the semi cool house, just waiting for fall to arrive.

My tip of the day.  If you remember to plug your phone charger in to the outlet, it will actually CHARGE your phone.  

I TAKE THAT BACK!!

LIZARD COUNTER:  21 

Good morning once again from sunny California.  Our temperatures went through the roof yesterday, and I'm praying that was the end of it.  It hit 109 in the next town over, where unfortunately, I spent most of the day.  When I got up in the morning, it was 80 degrees.  YIKES!!

Now that Blogger is putting up photos once again, this was the first thing that greeted me the last morning.  Sadly, this one didn't make it.  This is why the lizard counter is now up to 21.  

In a flash it was time to head to DMV.  I take back every single good thing I said about this place.  Yes, the reservation system seems to be working better than sitting for two hours, even when you HAVE an appointment.  

They called my number and I handed the gal the paperwork.  I didn't received my stickers.  "That's because you renewed it in person".  No ... No I didn't.  "YES YOU DID".  I'm sorry, but NO I DID NOT.  I paid it online.  "If you have this paper, that means you paid it in person".  I was almost screaming at this point ... I PAID IT ONLINE.  THAT'S WHAT THEY SENT ME AFTER I PAID IT.  Oh she said.  Well if you get a late smog AFTER paying it, you have to come in to the office to get the sticker.

I thought your plan was to get people OUT of the office.  You have moved absolutely everything to on-line to do just that.  And now you tell me you are making it so we have to come IN TO THE OFFICE?

Yessiree ... that is exactly what they have done.  They get the smog via electronic means.  Why don't you just mail out the tags????

So that pretty much ruined my day.  To make it a little better, here is a LIVE lizard who is only about 1-1/4" long and was hiding in my garage.  Hopefully he survives.

From there I rushed off to the quilt store.  These two bags had four quilts in them.  Hopefully they get done by the first of October.  No idea what the price will be because they charge by the inch of quilting.  That's why a queen sized quilt will cost you $225 dollars depending on the pattern you choose.

On the way back, I stopped in for fuel.  Did I miss something?  Last week diesel was $6.79 a gallon.  Now Chevron has it up to $8.59 a gallon?  YIKES!!

I went across the street to my favorite station and STILL paid $7.46 for diesel in the van.  At least I didn't need that much because the tank was already half full.

What about the trustee meeting?  It was the usual fighting and bickering with a complete lack of interest in the money problems.  That's what happens when you have people who have never run a business, nor keep track of their household expenses.  It's frustrating to say the least.  I had a headache in the first two minutes.  Unfortunately for me, it drives me crazy, keeping me awake half the night.  

I thought I might be  headed out to HORROR RANCH.  Oh yes, it's soon to be October and Halloween time.  Come to find out, the last gal I taught to use the infernal machine, owns that place.  Who knew??  She asked if I wanted to help out.  You know me, I'm all about Halloween scary things.  

But on second thought, I backed out when I saw their hours ... working until midnight four days a week.  Midnight and I don't get along any more!!

This boy ... he didn't care one bit about Halloween ........... just throw the ball Mom!!!