The Big Day Is Approaching

As I type this, it's the evening before Farmer H must capture Pupsie for her very special operation. Sorry to say, I am not optimistic. The vet wants Pupsie to stop eating at 3:00 p.m. for her appointment the next morning. That means Farmer H must somehow catch Pupsie and leave her in a pet carrier overnight.

At least Farmer H finally brought the pet carrier over to the side porch. It has been there for three days. Pupsie is suspicious. Farmer H said he put food in the carrier. He was mowing the front yard/field on Monday. He said Pupsie kept an eye on him, but DID go into the carrier to eat the food. Silly me. I figured Farmer H had baited the carrier with a delectable treat. But no. When I went to town on Tuesday, I saw that Farmer H had merely scattered some of the dry dogfood in the back of the carrier. What in the Not-Heaven? The same food is available four inches away in the self-feeder!

Anyhoo... Farmer H must have help loading Pupsie in the back of SilverRedO. He can't carry a carrier full of a 30-40 pound dog. The Veteran said he'd come out to help. But I don't like the thought of Pupsie being closed up in the carrier, sitting in the back of a truck all night. I would like Farmer H to leave her on the side porch, where Jack can come up and sniff at her, and she can see out into the yard, and knows where she is. Of course, if Copper Jack comes up on the porch, Pupsie will go ballistic. Copper Jack has been tied up at his own house for over a week, due to turkey season, and his human dad not wanting Copper Jack to be shot, or follow him into the woods. Since his release, Pupsie has been quite vocal in her opinion of him being in our yard.

Farmer H said he plans to give Pupsie some of the melatonin so maybe she will sleep and not be so nervous while trapped in the carrier. Maybe that will work. I hope he at least uses hot dogs to lure Pupsie into the carrier.

I suggested that maybe Old Buddy could come out and help Farmer H to load Pupsie into SilverRedO on Thursday morning. That way, she won't have to be in the back of SilverRedO all night. The Veteran won't have to come out so early in the morning. We'll see. I am still not confident of Pupsie's capture on the previous afternoon.

NIce Gals Finish Later

On my way to pick up The Pony Sunday, for our cookout, I stopped by the School-Turn Casey's for scratchers. The only cashier working was a Mature Lady who waited on me a couple weeks ago. She's not very fast. 

I was the only customer at the counter. A man had just left, and Mature Lady was counting a stack of bills before placing them in her register. I handed her two winners to cash in, and started telling her my selections.

A Young Woman customer had walked up behind me. She held a big blue bottle in her hand. She was waiting her turn with patience. Calmly. Not tapping her foot or sighing. 

Mature Lady paused in tearing off my scratchers, and addressed Young Woman:

"Is that all you have? Just a water?" [Sometimes at this store, the cashiers wave people off without paying if they just have a fountain drink. Although this beverage was clearly bottled.]

"No. I need to pay for gas, too. It's okay. I'm fine."

"Step over here to this other register, and I'll ring that up. How much gas do you need?"

Well. This rankled me a bit, me being the current customer, there first, in the middle of my transaction. Of course I didn't say anything. Young Woman stepped over. Mature Lady rang her up. Then Young Woman started COUTING OUT COINS! She was paying for her gas with $10.50 in coins.

Mature Lady came back to tearing off my tickets. Then she started scanning them into the register, saying out the side of her mouth, "Every time I try to move the line by ringing somebody up on the other register, they pay with COINS!"

Well. I think Mature Lady knows how to prevent that problem in the future. It was not Young Woman's problem, nor my problem. Young Woman had clearly said she was content to wait her turn.

Anyhoo... Mature Lady turned to deduct my winners and tell me my total, and saw that there was no transaction. She had neglected to bypass the prompt for AGE that comes up on lottery transactions. I suppose she was too disctracted by jumping Young Woman ahead of me.

For all this annoyance, I only won $3 there. As I told The Pony, Mature Lady is perfectly nice, and probably needs the job, but I'd prefer not to have her wait on me again.

It Once Was Lost, But Now It's Found

Thank you, Pony!

Remember the clear cap that I lost off the bottle of glasses cleaner that my mom gave me? It has been missing for weeks now! Four weeks, to be exact. No matter how much I looked, at different times of day, in different lighting, from different angles, I could not find that lid.

The Pony came out Sunday to partake of grilled sausages. I asked The Pony to look. Perhaps to get down on the floor, and look from that angle, since I cannot. Within one minute, The Pony discovered my precious missing bottle cap. 

"Here it is."

"What? WHERE? Show me! I need to know!"

"Right here. Under this leg on the pedestal."

The pedestal table came from my mom's house. There are four curved supports that branch off from the main pedestal. This was not the support in front of my feet, nor the support to the right of my feet. It was the support that points to the windows. My view of the underneath part was blocked by the other supports, or the pedestal itself. A broom did not reach under that pedestal. Unless I could have laid down on the floor between the pedestal and the windows, I would not have seen that clear cap.

Mystery solved! And I have the cap back, so my glasses cleaner fluid won't evaporate.

The Pony is quite handy to have around.

An Unusual Day In Hillmomba

On the way to town Saturday, I passed a small white SUV parked beside the creek, down by Mailbox Row. It was on our road. Facing the way that takes you into our enclave. Saturday is not a school day! Why was there an older lady sitting in a car down by the mailboxes? It's not like she was waiting for a kid to get off the bus. She was alone. Not sight-seeing with a companion. The temperature was 54 degrees, with rain and wind. Not a day to be wading in the creek.

In town, I was in line behind a young couple at the Gas Station Chicken Store. They were asking if the GSCS sold worms. No. And did they sell fishing licenses? No. Fave referred them to Orb K. "I know they used to sell worms. I'm not sure of the license. They just remodeled, but I don't know if that would affect what they sell. The Farm and Home Store used to sell them, but I think they closed at 4:00." So off went the couple, looking for a fishing license and worms in cool windy weather. Maybe they wanted them for the next day. They could probably buy the license online these days, from the conservation department website.

Back home, the lady in the small white SUV was still parked by the creek. That had been 45 minutes that I was gone. I still don't know why she was hanging around, but she was gone when Farmer H came home 30 minutes later. 

Up the gravel road a couple hundred yards, there was a small brown SUV parked in the road on a curve. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, that driver! He was out of his car, at the edge of the creek, dipping his hands in the water. Let the record show that the water is not clear right now, the mussy creek full of rainwater run-off all week. I hope this dude wasn't washing up after a crime!

That's Hillmomba. You never know what you might find when you venture out.

Customer Service Is Alive!

The Pony has planned a BBQ at the Mansion for Sunday, having invited The Veteran to join us when they had lunch earlier in the week. I asked Farmer H what he wants to grill, since he is the one who will be preparing the main course. Farmer H said he likes sausages. So I was off to Save A Lot on Friday, hoping to find our preferred bratwursts, made in-store.

The Universe smiled on me that day, my friends! Plenty of bratwursts, including the PINEAPPLE variety!!! We love them! They are hard to find. Farmer H also wanted the sausage variety that comes in patty shape, like a hamburger. The only choice of that style was the CHEDDAR type. You can see chunks of cheddar cheese embedded in the patty. Not our favorite, but they'll do. The sausages were on the 5 for $25 deal. I needed six packages. That's because The Veteran is joining us, and we want leftovers, and we send at least a whole package, sometimes more, home with The Pony. It's easy to freeze a pack or two for Farmer H to grill later, just for us.

 

Anyhoo... I picked up three packs of the bratwursts, and three packs of the patties. At Country Mart, once you have five of THEIR 5 for $25 special, each additional package is also $5. Not at Save A Lot. Still, I wanted six packages. 

When I got to the checkout, I told the old lady checker that I had trouble getting all my items out of the bottom of the cart. Their lanes are quite narrow. I have to stand in front of the cart and set out those items, then push it back to get behind it and set out all the items in the child seat. So awkward.

Old Lady Checker said, "Don't bother, I'll get them." She came around and looked at my stack of meat packages. "Oh, you have six?"

"Yes. I need three of each."

She proceeded to ring up all my items. Then started looking through my meats already in the cart. "I'm seeing what the lowest priced one is, so I can use it to ring up for the extra one."

"Oh, thank you so much! You're so helpful! You deserve an award."

While she had been processing my order, a manager-type guy came over and interrupted. Asked her how to use the intercom to make an announcement. She showed him. Twice, because he didn't get it. Then he said over the intercom: "Bridget? Why aren't the carts brought in? Bridget! Why haven't the carts been brought in?"

That doesn't seem like something a manager should be saying over the intercom. Perhaps just a directive to Bridget to bring in the carts. Anyhoo... Old Lady Checker said, snickering, "She hasn't come up to relieve me. So I'm pretty sure she's not going to be bringing in carts."

Manager Guy went out and brought in the carts himself. Old Lady Checker said, "I've been waiting 20 minutes to get off. I have to get to the GARAGE SALE! I've waited all year for this. I don't want to miss the GARAGE SALE!"

I don't know where it was, or if it was a special yearly garage sale, but I felt bad for Old Lady Checker. The rain had been coming off and on. I didn't want her garage sale to get rained out. As I was boxing and bagging my groceries at the front counter, I heard Old Lady Checker talking to the next customer.

"Don't you worry about it. Take your time. Nobody is in that damn much of a hurry!"

Heh, heh. I really like that Old Lady Checker. I hope she got to her garage sale.

The Sense Of Entitledness Boggles Mrs. HM's Mind

After hobbling across the parking lot of the Sis-Town Casey's on Thursday, to pre-pay for T-Hoe's gas, I was happy to see only one customer ahead of me at the counter. Only the right-side register was open. A balding 30-something guy was wrapping up his transaction. He had bought a scratcher. Looked to be a $10 or $20 ticket, but I didn't have a good view.

As I patiently waited for Dude to step aside, Dude started scratching his ticket! Not leaning on the counter. Just standing there after paying, holding it in his hands, scratching with a quarter. He had glanced over his shoulder. He knew I was there. In line. Behind him. Whose turn was over. But no. He stood in the same place, scratching his lottery ticket, as if it was his right.

THEN Dude handed the ticket to the clerk, a young guy who is personable enough, just doing his job. "Oh. Did you have a winner?" Dude shook his head. "I don't think so. Check it." So Clerk scanned it, and affirmed that it was a loser.

"Give me a number 13 and number 14," said Dude. Because, you know, he's entitled to never-ending transactions while he stands in front of the counter with three people now waiting behind him.

Lucky for me, the older lady clerk, who looks like Linda Hunt the small actress, came to open up the left-side register, and said she could help me. She WAS quite helpful! Sold me $46 worth of winnings. 

Take THAT, you entitled Dude!

At Least There Was Break Time

Scary weather here in Hillmomba on Tuesday! At 12:45 I was sitting at the kitchen table at HIPPIE, and the skies went black. BLACK, I tell you! So black that Farmer H's solar lights on the porch rail came on. Black as night. Blacker than during the solar eclipse. I sent The Pony a text:

"Wow! You need a headlamp!"

"Yeah. So much for it briefly saying the storm was gonna miss us. Taking my 10 minute break now."

Good thing! The rain started whipping sideways, pounding against the kitchen window it never hits. Like it started normally from the west/northwest, then swirled in from the northeast. Terrible wind. I was actually feeling anxious. It lasted for about 45 minutes. 

The Pony knew bad weather was on the way, and that it would arrive around 12:30-1:30. In fact, The Pony went into work an hour early. They've been mandated to start at 8:30 now, because the Amazon trucks have been arriving later. The Pony figured that if the trucks came on time, he could get the walking part of his route done just before the storm. I don't know how that worked out. Only that I was worried about The Pony in that weather.

By 3:30, the rain had stopped. I had to take the alternate route to town because of the bridge flooding. The Pony got off work around 5:00. Picked up some tortellini to treat himself for supper:

The Pony added sausage to the tortellini. I'm hoping it was some of the grilled bratwursts from the freezer, sent home with love after our cookout several weeks ago! No garlic toast. Just the tortellini with sausage. It looked filling.

The next morning I saw on the news that the next town over from Newmentia had experienced a tornado AND flooding. Also, a tornado hit Pittsburgh! Genius was texting me about another matter, and I asked if he was okay. He said there were trees down all over the city. That the roof was torn off a commercial building a mile away from his (3rd Floor!) apartment, but that it was "just" due to the 80 mph straight-line winds, and not the actual tornado.

Mother Nature is a harsh taskmistress.