How NOT To Do It

 I think this is a record.  We have had ten days of NO SUN.  How could that be?  To make it worse, the weather guessers say there will be ANOTHER ten before the sun shines again.  That makes it really hard for me to want to head out for a walk, especially when it's 43 degrees ALL DAY LONG.  We haven't even had a temperature change!!

I was bundled up as much as Santa was when I hit the neighborhood.  I love these guys ......

I was surprised to see so many folks out walking on a Monday morning, including myself.  It's damp ... you can smell the mold in the air!!  Sneeze sneeze!!!

It's so bad, my lovely golden rocks are now covered with green moss.  It's like the Grinch has taken over the neighborhood!!

Back home and STILL bundled up, I scanned my phone for recipes.  I had one container of sour cream left that I needed to use.  Funeral Potatoes popped up.  I know ... another round of carbs.  I probably should have thrown the sour cream out.

If there's one thing my ancient body doesn't like ... this is it!!  Sour cream.  Within the hour as the pain began in earnest,  knew I had made a big mistake .... BIG!!

I threw some carrots down in the hopes it would calm the storm, to no avail.  Exercise ... that's it ... I need exercise.  I did some stair stepping before heading back outside.  It worked for a little bit.

I claimed squatters rights and camped out on the couch for the evening.  Round Five is here ... and I didn't want to miss a moment.  No it's not your eyes ... the pictures are blurry.  Ever since I updated my phone, action shots are fuzzy.

This is how NOT to bulldog.  Smart steer here ... he just turned around and bulldogged his head into this guy.  

This is what it SHOULD look like.  Think about this ... they take off on their horse running at full speed, reach over and grab the horns, fall off their horse at the same time, then throw the calf to the ground ... all in an amazing 3.5 seconds to win the night.  Pretty crazy considering these calves weigh around 600 pounds.

These guys .... I mean really, would you get on the back of THIS?  The rope is to keep them from raising up and falling over backwards on the rider.  It happens quite often.

Here's how NOT to do it.  I don't EVER remember it being fun to hit the ground, though being young, I bounced a lot.  Yes we rode calves in the corrals on occasion, but only when the adults were gone.  You would get in trouble big time if you got caught.

This is how you do it.  Herein lies a problem.  You STILL have to fall off on the ground, even if you WIN.   You may be able to tell, the ground in front of the chutes is the most hard packed of the entire arena.  There are lots of broken shoulders in bull riding, not to mention being stomped on by those hind feet.

Did we ever ride bulls on the ranch?  That would be a no.  They can weigh upwards of a ton and are really good at throwing that around.  Bulls do what they want, when they want, and we just stayed out of their way.  

Cantankerous is a good word to describe them.  If I had to move the cattle from one large field to the next, I always moved the lead cow first.  Yes there is a hierarchy when it comes to cattle.  Everyone follows the lead cow.  The trick is to know which one it is in any given herd.  Yup I can read COW.  It's a gift, which is why I always seemed to get that unwanted job.  If you get HER headed in the right direction, all the rest will follow, EXCEPT the bulls.  

Bulls hang back because they are stubborn.  It takes 24 hours for them to figure out it's more fun with the cows.  They wait by the gate until you go back out and open it for them.  Every move was a two day affair.  No you can't just leave the gate open because the cattle will come back through and eat down the grass way too far, making it hard to grow back.  There was a method to our madness.

Sadly, THIS is my fav Stetson.  Round five and he got bucked off.  He did win third place in the saddle bronc riding, so there's that.  Two events puts you in the running for All Around Cowboy.  He's been hurt so badly in the past, I'm not sure he's going to survive this NFR, but he's trying his very best.  Tough kid.

On todays menu ... I got a frantic call last night.  "I really messed up the books this time".  Oh JOY!  I guess there will be a couple of hours on the computer before donning my armor for Bingo time.  This is going to be a very busy week.  Hopefully I can sneak in a nap or two.

GOING TO THE DARK SIDE

It was a day to remember.  When I was a kid, I always wondered why another country would try to completely take over OUR country.  Peace around the world wasn't even anything anyone talked about.  To compare what we went through as kids to the peace treaties and agreements we have today, has been amazing to watch.  Somehow, some people got rich and assumed power of their country, then tried to do the same with every OTHER country.  Thankfully we won this war, despite losing so many of our young men.

There are very few left who survived this attack.  One of them was our very own Elk, Frank Paredes.  We had a little bit in common ... he was from the same area of Arizona that I spent time in, so we hashed over the Indian reservation life.  He passed away two years ago.  

So here's to all the heroic survivors and here's to all those who gave their life, keeping our country free.  

 I call this guy Mr. Mr.  He sleeps a lot in his old age, which is NOT so good.  The Vet said he was EXTREMELY overweight ... but then changed it to ... well he's not that bad, just 2 pounds overweight.  I thought she was talking about ME.  

SO ... maybe if we become VEGETARIANS, we can lose a few pounds for the umpteenth time.  Yessiree ... we are going to the dark side.  Mr. Mr. started off with SENIOR food.  Wasn't I surprised that as I added a little more of the new stuff every day, HE ATE IT!  

So maybe if I add a little salad, he will eat that too.  NOPE ... not a chance.  He left every single piece in the bowl.  I can't blame him, I don't like salad in the winter either.

So just WHAT do vegetarians EAT?  I looked it up ... tofu and garbanzo beans.  Yes, that is DEFINITELY the dark side, and I'm NOT going there!!  I decided to try that cornbread casserole instead.  Jiffy cornbread mix, can of corn, can of creamed corn and some other stuff including lots of butter added in.  I used HONEY cornbread mix and threw in some cheese for extra flavor.  Not bad ... not bad at all!!

The trouble was I felt like all I had for lunch was cornbread.  I was back at the fridge in a flash.  Maybe some roasted carrots would do the trick.  Actually this wasn't bad, but again, I felt like I didn't eat anything.  Maybe that's the point.  Cooper wasn't impressed with either one.  He ate the carrots, but they didn't stay down long.  After cleaning up that mess, Mr. Cooper was taken OFF the veggie diet.

I've still got broccoli, more carrots, bell peppers and mushrooms to go.  If anyone has any recipes, maybe they would be so kind as to pass them along.  I mean really, there MUST be something you add to make these things more filling and taste BETTER!!

This would work, but probably will not help the diet.  Hawaiian banana bread, mostly for Mr. Jonathan, though I admit, I probably eat the majority of it.  It's banana bread with crushed pineapple.

I've been stocking up for the current trip, so my freezer is full to the brim.  I had a hard time getting that banana bread stashed in there.  I have a bad feeling that hardly ANY of this will fit in my RV freezer.  I still have a few days to whittle it down.  If not, I'll leave the frozen TV dinners behind.

There was one bit of excitement that lasted about 30 minutes.  I HATE THE TIME CHANGE.  It gets dark around here at 4:30 pm.  I went out to check the mail, to see a car next door, and two guys bending down next to the garage with a flashlight.  

Now that looks like two guys trying to break into a house.  I stood and watched them until they spotted me.  They slowly got up and walked back to their car.  I grabbed my phone for a picture as they backed out of the driveway.  

Just two days ago, about a big country block away, two guys tried to steal a car.  Seems they ran my direction when spotted, but I never saw them.  Are they BACK?  I called the homeowner ... this being the one who lets her dogs do their business on my lawn every day.  Turns out she was out of town and hired these two kids to check on her dogs.  Okay then ........

I spent the rest of the evening watching the rodeo.  I'm mostly interested in the saddle broncs and the bull riding.  I am NOT an adrenaline junkie.  I would be shaking in my boots if I was even at the far end of the arena when one of these guys was loose.  I've been run over before ... and it is NOT pleasant.

Two guys got stepped on, but not badly hurt thank goodness.  My fav Stetson won first place in saddle bronc riding and second place in bull riding.  That's four bulls he has covered in four outings.  That's unheard of.  He has to ride TEN bulls in ten days, as well as TEN broncs.  He's getting twice the action and twice the hardship.  Here's hoping he can finish with another THREE World Championships under his belt.  One for bulls, one for broncs and one for All Around.  

THE THIRD DAY OF CHRISTMAS .......

 It was a nice quiet morning in the central plains of the West Coast.  This valley is longer than most states.  Formed by glaciers WAY back in the day, it was actually a prehistoric lake ... Lake Corcoran.  It was the largest lake west of the Mississippi.  Who knew?  It was eventually drained through dams and canals, making a desert of sorts, to provide agricultural land for growing food and livestock feed.  So there you have it ... I live at the bottom of a lake.

Mr. Cooper doesn't care.  I spy a little bed hair this morning!

I did some real exciting things on this day ... like making sure Kitters had plenty of food in her feeder and replacing the batteries in my driveway alarm.  That was fun until I dropped that teeny tiny screw that was 1/4 inch long, right into the rock pile by the fence.  I could not find that thing to save me, so I got out my strongest magnet.  No luck there either.  At last I said ... SELF ... you need to switch the direction you are looking.  Sure enough ... there it was, right under my feet.  YAY for small favors.

Lunch was terribly unimpressive.  Thank goodness this is the last of that macaroni I made with the homemade tomato sauce.  I'm trying to eat up all the leftovers so I have room in my RV freezer for important stuff like pieces of that apple pie.

There was other boring stuff like laundry and cleaning off the kitchen counters, which was so epic, every time I walk by now, I can't believe how much space there is!!

TIME FOR RODEO!  There's actually a rider still trying to hang on to the back of this bull that is literally standing on his hind feet, smashing the kid into the steel bars.  That would be enough to make me quit the rodeo business.  Not this kid ... he rode the bull a few minutes later.

Another one ... the kid slipped to one side, got hung up and was eventually thrown under those hind feet, which came down on one shoulder.  He was just inches away from a very bad trip to the hospital.  I guess they are used to it, but that would be enough for me to rethink my priorities in life.

The good news is Stetson is the only one to ride all three of the bulls so far.  He came in second on this night.  I don't think there is anyone riding bulls that is as passionate as that kid about his sport.  It's not even about the money, and he has made millions in his career so far.  

Eventually it was time to head out to the third day of Christmas.  Part of my problem with this is the night driving.  My bionic eyes reflect headlights like search lights.  Remember those?  They were the only advertisement around here for the circus that came to town once a year.  

Speaking of which, that's kind of what my driveway looks like as I back out ... the carnival.  I'm trying very hard not to run over those candy canes.  Luckily, I knew where the location of this party was, and there was no construction.  I picked up a hitchhiker along the way .... a friends husband who wanted to go since his wife was working.

THE SPREAD!  Thank goodness there was no HAGGIS.  Or anything Scottish that I could see.  How three French Hens became Scotland, I'll never know.  There was the normal meat and cheese, and lots of veggies.  I think I mentioned they are vegetarian.  The dark one on the right was caramelized onions on cream cheese.  Delicious!!  

There was also red pepper and artichoke spread on toasted bread.  I went for that right away.  In the other room were mushrooms which looked amazing until I tasted one and discovered they were cooked in dark red wine.  

I didn't take a picture of the bar, but there were some of the craziest bottles of alcohol I've ever seen.  I went for the screw top bottle of wine, which OOWEE was WAY strong!!  1/4 cup was all I could drink!

I really had a great time.  On the left here is the Kings neighbor.  She and the Kings wife started this back in Covid.  They each put a chair out on the sidewalk and yelled across the street at each other.  When it got too cold, they moved to the washing machine in the garage, posting pictures the entire time.  Soon it turned into an appetizer and alcohol fiesta.  

That's the King in the middle ... a really great guy I enjoy working with ... and my latest cashier emergency replacement.  She was quite sick for some time, but has finally recovered just in time for me to take off.  If the other gal runs screaming out of the building, this lovely lady can take over the infernal machine.

And that was it.  I stayed for two hours before finally getting choked out by the smoke.  They lit their first fire of the year, without cleaning the chimney out.  He's a retired firefighter .... ummmm yeah.  Enough smoke was coming into the room that it set off not one, but THREE smoke alarms.  

It's okay, even if my clothes and my hair smell of smoke this morning.  I had a great time.  The good news is I don't have to attend any more, since Elkdom calls.  Tuesday is Bingo and Wednesday (the next party date) we are cooking and serving dinner to 100 seniors at the Senior Center in town.  If I'm really REALLY lucky, I'll get next Friday off!!!  

TODAY ... I'll be trying to force myself into a nice walk in the freezing cold foggy weather.  If I don't keep moving, I'm afraid I'll become a statue on the couch.

TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

Well .... (that's a deep subject) ..... it is again 41 degrees in lovely Central California, with not even one tiny ray of sunshine.  Truly, this is getting old.  Cooper doesn't even want to go for a walk.  He scoots outside and three seconds later is back in the house.   And Kitters ... she spends all her time in the heated house.  I'm glad I got that for her.

Knowing the third of Twelve Days of Christmas was upon me, I did my best to sit around the house and do nothing.  I prefer one day off in order to gear up for any party.  That didn't happen, so I stayed in my jammies as long as I could.  Not just sitting on the couch however ... I was standing in front of the TV watching the National Finals Rodeo ... Round One.  If you want to see some world class athletes, go to the Cowboy Channel.  

Oh there's some wrecks, like this one.  Laying on your back is NOT how you ride a mean nasty bull.  This one is actually named Buck Nasty, because he does.    

THIS is how you ride a bull with only one hand gripping the bull rope (you can't touch the bull with your other hand) and your legs holding you on.  THIS is Stetson Wright.

This kid is 26 years old and has been riding bulls most of his life.  They call him Superman because he can ride like no one EVER!  

He was badly injured about 18 months ago.  Tore his hamstring completely loose from the bone.  The doctor told him he would never ride again, so he got a second opinion from a Doc who fixes up football players.  A year later he was back, only to get run over by a saddle bronc horse, resulting in a broken rib, collapsed lung and lacerated pelvis.  Those are career ending injuries.

But not for Stetson.  He barely made the finals, which is determined by how much money you make throughout the entire year.  This first night ... he won both the saddle bronc AND the bull riding, to the tune of about $36,000 for each one.  

Last night he won the bull riding AGAIN on a bull that I'm sure no one else would be able to ride.  It was crazy ... and the entire building full of people were standing on their feet screaming for him.

This kid .... he was SO DARN HAPPY that his career wasn't over yet, that he cried.  He was overwhelmed ... and so was the crowd ... me included.  Superman indeed!!

And then I was off to the party.  I knew there was construction on that road, but I had no idea it was so bad.  Pitch black outside and with no street lights, I was lucky to see the first row of cones and dodge them over to the far right.  Trouble is, I needed to turn left.

I saw the turn ... and I saw the cones ... but no way to get there from here.  This is ridiculous ... I made a left turn right over all those cones, to almost be run over by the guy coming to the stop sign who also could not see where the road was.  YIKES!!  

Whew ... I made it.  Early of course, because I've been to these before.  If you want something to eat and a chair to sit down, you go early.  The spread was amazing.  Swedish meatballs, bbq meatballs, some kind of weird sausage with potatoes, Deb's famous mushrooms and plate after plate of veggies and dips.  

Literally in 30 minutes the table was empty.  I'm pretty sure that's because the King kept asking people to show up.  They ran out of food completely, so everyone hit the bar.  I did too ... the DESSERT bar!!

On the way, I spotted this.  Talk about keeping track of your ancestry ... each picture on this cute little tree is of their parents, grand parents and great grandparents who all hailed from around Sweden.  I'd like this tree for Cooper and Jessie pictures.

The dessert bar ... cheesecake with jam, Danish cookies, the best crispy gingersnaps I've ever had in my life, and rice pudding with cinnamon.  I tried to leave something for someone else, but a few of those gingersnaps ended up in my pocket.

I skipped the alcohol altogether ... they had shots of something ... but the lovely hostess gave me a shot glass anyway to take home.  She said this says Merry Christmas.  I quickly snuck out the front door at 7:00.  

I had PIE waiting.  This turned out to be an apple caramel pie.  I wasn't hoping for much, since these grammar school money raising food sales are not usually the best.  Boy was I wrong!!

It said to bake at 350 for two hours.  YIKES!!  Okay, if you say so.  Turn it every 30 minutes, so I did.  Well let me just say this was the BEST apple pie I've ever had in my life.  And I've got EIGHT more slices to eat!!

Due to the Elks calendar, and everyone else's, there is another Day of Christmas tonight.  I'm going, only because it's the last one I can attend due to the Senior Dinner I have to help cook next week.  The theme of this one is Scotland.  I hope they don't have anything weird to eat in Scotland.  It can't be TOO bad (or maybe it can) because this couple are vegetarian!!  OH BOY!!

MORE MOON EFFECTS!

 A great morning to ye .... it's a lovely 43 degrees here in sunny California.  Every day they say it's going to be partly sunny ... and every day it's totally cloudy.  No problem though ... this face warms me up every morning.

And I smile every time I look out the windows.  This is the SECOND good neighbor, a lovely couple from India that I always meet on the road walking with their puppy.  I took this picture because I love their lights.  My phone picked up more blue than there actually is ... a beautiful blue glow around the roofline of their house.  

That took away the sting of yet ANOTHER traffic toll road fine.  I'm getting pretty tired of this guy not paying the piper as he races along the highways of San Francisco.  I'm sure it's much cheaper to buy the little window sticker and pay the $2.30 every time you go to work, rather than adding a $10.00 penalty to it.  Personally, I would find another way to get to work.

I called of course, and the kid was nice about it as I ranted and raved about their equipment not reading it correctly.  It reads a Q as an O.  What if they were looking for a murder suspect????  I mean really, that black square is a picture of the car.  Yup .. that's what I thought.  At any rate, he said he would flag my license number so I wouldn't not get any more toll notices.  Hey ... now I can drive in the fast lane in San Francisco and not get charged!!!!

Not much went on for the rest of the day.  I don't seem motivated to do much of anything.  I did rummage through a bunch of big fabric pieces I know I won't ever use, and stack them up to go to Ray and Cindy when I get to Yuma.  I just don't have the gift of color selection.  Cindy can put it to use making something gorgeous.

We talked about a place for sale in their RV park.  It's the right price and I think the perfect spot.  I really want to take a look ... but then I think ... do you really want another house?  Yes, it's actually a small house with a huge RV parking spot.  The good news is there's not much maintenance at all, but there IS an HOA fee.  And then there's that thing where you have to go there many times a year to make it worth it.  Decisions ... decisions!!  Mr. Cooper slept through it all.

Evening came around for me at 4:00.  I was off to the lodge for dinner and a meeting.  I have SO enjoyed playing hooky, and I wish I had on this night too.  The after effects of the full moon were shining right in the door.  

The Chairman of the dinner insisted on Rib Eye steaks.  They cost $16.00 a pound, and each person gets a one pound steak.  We charge $20.  Add in the rest of dinner and you know where we stood.  There was lots of arguing back and forth.  I clawed my way out of that, only to be drug back in.  That moon ... He's relentless!!

That was followed by a lot of yelling outside the building.   

I had purchased two pies ... I mean really, how could I turn down THESE ...  which were in the freezer.  I picked them up and snuck out the back door to my Jeep so I would not forget them.  The hollering caught my attention.  I don't know what it was about, but the folks were VERY loud and mad.  Okay, I do know, but I can't say.  I stood behind my car and listened like a school girl.

SURPRISE!!  Weren't they embarrassed when I finally walked by them and back in the building.  I admit, I laughed at their faces.  Gee ... aren't we ADULTS here??  The generational difference hit me right in the face.  It's HUGE!!

The meeting went fast and I was home by 9:00 with two of these beauties ready to bake.  I think I'll donate one to a neighbor.  No way could I ever eat two of these monster pies!

Tonight begins the party trail.  I know I should be more excited about this, but as you know, I'm a homebody that doesn't drink hardly at all.  The King and his wife have the Twelve Days of Christmas every year.  Twelve nights of parties which used to be held at different bars around town, are now held at someone's house.  

Every night has a special drink and lots of appetizers to celebrate Christmas.  This time it's countries we are celebrating.  Tonight is Sweden night with Swedish food and drink.  I'm thinking some stinky fish.  Tomorrow night is Scottish night, followed by England, All-American, Hawaiian, Portuguese ... and so on.  You get the picture.  

Thankfully I will be gone for most all of them, but I've been asked to attend tonight.  It's okay, I'll have a drink without the alcohol!!   Hopefully there are NO residual MOON effects!!

Recipe From A 13 Year Old

 Here we have the last super moon of the year.  It's known as the COLD moon.  No kidding .... it's freezing around here, mostly because of the fog.  I imagine it might be even colder were it NOT for the fog.  It's also called the Long Nights Moon by the Native Indians.  No surprise there ... it's dark here from 5:00 pm until 7:00 am.  

Did you ever notice that the spots on the moon are in the same location every time you take a picture?  It's just weird when you think about the earth floating around in space like this, with people walking on it.  Yeah, that's the full moon effect.  This isn't my picture ... I got it off the web.

Here in my location ... it looks like this.  Fuzzy because of the fog that never left.  There are lots of things that can keep me on the couch all day, and this is number one on the list.  It's cold, damp and dreary, sucking any and all life out of my body.  Unfortunately, that didn't keep me from doing accounting work for three hours instead of the 30 minutes I expected.

After spending a few hours on the couch with this guy ... I mean really, how could you not with that face staring at you ... I was off to balance account after account.  I've never been a big business kind of gal, so giving advice about major investments isn't my forte, though most of it seems to be just common sense.  

Everyone breezes right along until it gets close to tax time, when they begin to panic.  I try to explain, there are four kinds of accountants.  Those that give financial investment advice, those that give advice about how NOT to pay so much taxes, those that PREPARE your tax return, and the bookkeeper who provides all the necessary information for ALL of those.  I prefer to stay on the bottom rung of that ladder.  Three hours later I was back with my little kid.

Now that the turkey is gone, because most of it is in the freezer, I was looking for something different to eat.  It's hard when you are single.  You really don't want to cook up a batch of anything and then have to eat it for six days before throwing a bunch of it away.  Not to mention the lazy factor that creeps in because it's a lot of work to marinate and roast a pork loin or make chicken dijon.  

So when a far off relative by marriage who lives three states over posted that her daughter who is home schooled, had to take classes on cooking, I paid attention.  Seriously?  They are actually teaching REAL life skills?  WOW!!  She even has her own checking account.  She posted this recipe ... and so I'm passing it on.

1-2 pounds meatballs (I had some chicken meatballs in the freezer)

1 sweet onion, chopped

1 green pepper, chopped

1 red, or yellow pepper, chopped

1 can of pineapple chunks

1 12 oz bottle of BBQ sauce (I used Sweet Baby Rays)

Throw it all in a crock pot on low for 6-8 hours.  How simple could it be.  Though I definitely had my doubts, this sweet and sour meatballs was DELICIOUS.  Who knew???

I seriously couldn't believe how much I liked this.  The barbecue sauce has a completely different flavor when heated up.  I cooked up a bit of rice and ate a HUGE portion for dinner.  The leftovers were packed up for the upcoming trip.  Just heat and serve like any good TV dinner.

Though I had been staring at the ingredients for this next one, I didn't really think I had room in the freezer.  Funny how when it's a sweet treat, room just opens up.  Patty Chance will remember this one.  She showed me how to make Christmas Moose Crunch.  

Popcorn, pretzels, marshmallows, M&M's and white chocolate poured over the whole thing.  It's delicious, though I think with old age, your taste buds tend to get old too.  Maybe it was just that hot chocolate that burned my entire mouth yesterday.  At any rate, it made it into the freezer to snack on when the full moon overwhelms me, which of course is EVERY full moon because I'm a sweet-a-holic.

And thus ended another day.  Hopefully the moon effect wears off quickly, because there's a lodge meeting tonight.  I played hooky the last time, so I suppose I should go THIS time.  

Honestly, I've never been so tired of steak and green beans in my life!!  They tried chicken about a month ago and got carried out of town on a rail.  So steak it is!!!  I'll save it for Cooper!!!

The Full Moon Effect

 It's the morning after.  Drug out, terrible dinner, and not enough sleep OR armor!!  Yes, it was full enough to cause a little havoc.  The MOON does it every time!  It will be full tomorrow night.  That is WAY too close.

But first ... no, it's not raining here.  THAT is tule fog.  If you go out in it however, it FEELS like rain and you will get soaking wet.  There's nothing like riding a horse across the oh-so-wet pasture early in the morning to move a herd of cattle from one field to another.  

There were NO umbrellas, just a big cowboy hat.  When you returned to the corrals, you looked like a drowned rat.  The hat was immediately parked on the clothes rack over the floor heater (thankfully one you could actually STAND on) in order to dry out and not lose its shape too bad.  My hats (I had three) were my most expensive acquisition, so they were handled with care.  I still have two of the three.  Back then, things were built to last.

I was up extra early in order to get my act together for the alarm repairman.  SURPRISE!  He showed up right on time.  He walked into the garage, after I reminded him he would need a screwdriver, took the panel off and in less than two minutes, replaced the battery.  That will be $145.00, thank you very much.  It just feels like companies are ripping us off right and left.

Though he wanted to leave, I made him go to the panel and run it through its paces so he had to stay another five minutes.  I suppose it's worth it, since Fort Knox is now back in business.

It seems like it was just five minutes more that I was headed off to the lodge.  We discussed holes in the walls from the vendor fair and the lack of corn dogs.  It's a real dilemma picking between the little ones or the bad tasting ones, when both are in short supply.  

Then it was on to setting up the bingo machine and six televisions.  Here's the problem ... people come in for a meeting, and they change the TV's to their local baseball, wrestling or football channel.  These are all cheap SMART tv's and it takes a magician to get them set back to where we need them for bingo.  I am NOT a magician.  Figuring out how to get all SIX of them to the correct setting is a challenge, especially when they are all different brands with different controls.  

They look like this.  If you think you have bingo, you yell first, then one of our volunteers reads the number on the card.  Don't ask me how, but when that number is put into the machine, it knows whether it's good or not and shows a picture of it.  This is called a line with a four-pak.  This person won $250.00.

With everything set up, I went upstairs to sign checks and get blasted with more problems.  Truly, the solutions aren't rocket science.  Back downstairs ... let the spears and daggers fly!!

I ran from room to room gathering cash and taking it to the pull tab counter.  It's a rush to sell at least three games completely, before calling the first set of pull tab games.  We didn't have that many folks on this night, but they were FULL of cash.  Payday as it were.  Instead of our usual 8 games, we sold ten.  Never EVER sell eleven games because that means the callers will be working until 10:30.  That's a no-no!!  They volunteer too and won't be back if you go too long!

Of course there's always that ONE volunteer who seems to cause more trouble than everyone.  Someone yelled BINGO ... and on his way to read that persons number, someone ELSE yelled BINGO.  He told them to wait.  He forgot to go back to that person and they closed the game.  OOOWEEEEE you should have heard the ruckus!!

Spears, shovels, javelins, flaming torches and the sharpest of sharp knives came out in an instant.  Half the crowd said GIVE IT TO THEM and the other half said TOO BAD, YOU WERE LATE.  There was no making everyone happy on this night.  They paid it out, while the FIRE BREATHING PEASANTS screamed.  I hid in the back room.  No use getting my eyebrows burned off.

It went okay for most of the remaining night.  Here's a picture of our littlest pull tabs.  They cost $1.00 each.  There are two $500 cards in each box.  About half are not even worth the paper they are printed on.  The other 48% may be worth $1.00 each.  It's the $500 they are after.  

Here's what we DON'T tell them.  The $500 was won on the first day the box was dumped into this container.  If anyone finds out, the rest of the box will never sell!!  

Also full moon affected ... one game was won by four people.  If you win with the Hotball number, you also win that pot of $1199.  Sadly for them, that also had to be shared by four people.  Still a nice pot at $362.00 each, but that makes for a frantic cashier trying to come up with the correct amount to pay each person.  See?  It's always something in Bingoland.

In no time, my cashier had closed up.  I didn't even see her counting anything out.  That probably means I'll get a phone call this morning asking why she was $5.00 off.  Well because it was close enough to a full moon, of course!!

With very little sleep, I'll be off to do some accounting this morning.  Then I'll be hunting down Cooper's treats.  His MOM forgot to order them, and of course they are being delivered four days AFTER they said they would be delivered.  The barking has been epic.  And so another day begins .........