He Can't Drive 35

Look what I saw Saturday on the way home from a 44 oz Diet Coke run to the gas station chicken store:

He can't drive 35. Heck. He can't even stay alive!

No, I did not run over him. He was there on the way, too, but I had a better photo op on the way back. Look how artsy-fartsy Mrs. HM is with her hand-me-down phone camera! This is from behind the wheel of my Acadia. A-Cad. Because you may recall from elsewhere that I had major automotive troubles on Saturday, and T-Hoe had to stay home sick.

No, the hood of A-Cad is not misshapen. That's the style, baby! And that 35 mph speed limit reflection was a happy accident that I did not notice until now.

Poor Mr. Army Dillow. He was having an even worse day than T-Hoe. I don't think there is any recovering from what ails him. In fact, I know so! Because today, I saw him about a quarter mile up the road, not so put together, with three birds of prey sitting on him until I got really close. Sure, it could be a totally different Mr. Army Dillow, a doppelganger, perhaps, and the photogenic original Mr. Army Dillow got up and walked away.

AND INTO YOUR NIGHTMARES!

Happy Halloween.

The Fruit Of Mrs. HM's Labor

This evening I inherited the chore of feeding the chickens and the goat and the mini pony, because Farmer H has forsaken me for Sweden. That's not an underage pole dancer. That's the country. He's away on business, or a spy mission.

The chickens were rude cluckers who would not come down out of their tree to eat. I think the overcast sky made them think it was bedtime a couple hours early. The goat screamed like a little girl when I started walking toward the pen. He's like that. Kind of excitable. The mini pony gave a whinny and shouldered the goat away from their trough made of a piece of plastic PVC pipe cut in half. Then he proceeded to run his nose down the length of it, pushing sweet feed off the uncapped end and onto the ground by his feet. He's either an evil genius, or a slob. The goat only had about 1/5 of that feed, but it's his own fault for running around like a chicken with its head cut off, and stepping into the narrow trough with his front feet, trying to look over the fence while I scooped out the food.

As I left the feeding area, I spied something on the gravel road that runs past Shackytown. What in the not-heaven?

As I looked at it, Juno ran up and grabbed it in her soft jowls and took off to taunt Jack with it. Huh. When did Jack and Juno get a ball? I proceeded to the outside spigot next to Jack's litter-box swimming pool, and ran a half-bucket of water to carry to top off the goat and pony's tub. While providing their hydration, I noticed two more of those things inside their pen. And they were broken on one side.

Oh. Those must be persimmons! It's that time of year! I can cut one in half and check on the seed shape for my blog buddy Sioux, to corroborate (or not) this year's Woolly Bear caterpillar long-range winter forecast. That's how Mrs. HM rolls. Always ready to help a friend who's still in the workforce.

Juno had lost interest, and left the persimmon in the yard while she rough-housed with Jack. I picked it up and put it on the decrepit picket fence that Farmer H insisted on putting along his brick sidewalk. As soon as I showed interest, I knew Jack would want it. So I put it out of reach for him until after my walk.

Huh. I've always asked Farmer H and The Pony to get me a persimmon. Now I have one. I've never cut one open before, because they would forget, and then tell me it was too late, because the goats had eaten them all. When I was a kid, my cousins and I used to get the persimmons that fell off the tree in my grandma's hog lot, and over the fence into the yard. We didn't cut them open, though. We ATE them. Or threw them at each other in a persimmon war.

Grandma's persimmons were not this big. And not this round. They were kind of flattened on top. More orange. With kind of a grayish dusty look to them in places. As long as you didn't eat the very sour skin, they were tasty. But these looked like giants compared to the persimmons of my youth. Maybe there weren't ripe yet. I need to go look up at the tree branches and see if there are more.

Anyhoo...after walking and giving the dogs their nightly treat, I went to the kitchen to prepare for my persimmon dissection. I put it on a paper plate, and got out my newest knife. Not the big butcher knife from Farmer H's factory, not the small paring knife that is my favorite. A knife that Goldilocks might have termed just right.

No matter how hard I pushed, or how many times I tried to slice, I could not get that knife more than a couple of millimeters below the rough surface.

Occam's Razor. Sometimes, a dog ball is just a dog ball.

Bully Woolly! Bully Woolly!

On the first trip up the driveway for my evening walk, I saw a Woolly Bear caterpillar. They are said to foretell the harshness of the coming winter, you know. I've been seeing them on the road, but without my glasses (makes you feel safe, huh) I can't tell how much of them are black, and how much of them are that rusty brown. Supposedly, the more black on them, the harsher the winter. If this little guy holds true to that superstition, then we have nothing to worry about here in Hillmomba.

Poor Woolly Bear! I had my hand-me-down-phone camera all lined up for a perfect shot, but then THIS BEAST came hurtling out of nowhere:

Don't you worry about Mr. Woolly Bear, though. Because after big bad bully Jack flattened him with one of his diggers while dancing on his hind feet in a ME ME ME bid for attention when he saw me with the camera phone, Mr. Woolly Bear revived. Uh huh. Exactly 10 minutes later, on my second trip down the driveway, the way back, I caught Mr. Woolly Bear trying to run away before we could squish him with a big fat puppy paw again.

Neither picture of the caterpillar is very clear, but that's the best I could zoom in on him without losing focus, or having a dog nose pop up on the screen. But if you look at how the setting sun glints off his woolly hairs, you can see that he is mostly rusty.

Too bad for my educationally-employed brethren and sistren...but so enabling for trips to town for 44 oz Diet Cokes.

The Things You Overhear At The Gas Station Chicken Store

So...as I walked into the gas station chicken store around noon today, I overheard this thirty-something lady at the counter telling the newest male clerk this story. I wish I'd gotten a better look at her, but I was making a beeline for the soda fountain to get my 44 oz Diet Coke.

"Oh, that's nothing! A few weeks ago, my husband and I were on the way back from California. We'd been driving a long time, and it was late, but I had to go to the bathroom. We stopped at a Walmart and I rushed inside.

There was a man in the bathroom, and I realized that I was in such a hurry that I'd gone in the wrong one. But I really had to go, so I went in a stall. When I came out, that man said, 'You are SO pretty!' I was kind of embarrassed, and said, 'Thank you. I feel bad for coming in here, but I HAD to!' 

I went back outside and told my husband that the man though I was really pretty. And he said, 'You idiot! You went in the men's room. He thought you were a transgender!'"

Yeah. I couldn't help but smile. I might even have snorted. So much for pretending I wasn't eavesdropping.

Something Stinks To High Heaven At The Dead Mouse Smelling Post Office

Perhaps you recall the saga presented two weeks ago concerning the loss of the weekly letters I mail to the #1 son and The Pony. While #1 received his letter the following Monday, three business days later than normal, even accounting for the Columbus Day holiday...The Pony STILL has not gotten his letter. The letter containing a check for his monthly expenses.

I held off as long as I could. Both boys are used to getting their expense money on the 15th. I hold them to it, because in the real world, a boss is not going to pay you early if you blow through your paycheck too soon, or an emergency comes up. Learn to live with a cushion, so you can weather the rough economic seas.

The Pony said he was fine for money. That we could wait and see if the letter showed up. When it wasn't there by October 21st, I did a mobile deposit to The Pony's credit union account at college. I had to drive to town to get a good enough telephone signal, and make sure I had glasses to read my phone screen, and took two tries to get a good enough photo...but I got it done. Not as conveniently as dropping a check in the mail for The Pony to deal with, as has worked in the past. But there was no great hardship on The Pony's financial well-being.

As of this morning, The Pony STILL had not received that letter, even though he has gotten two others that are newer. When I looked up the policy on lost mail from the USPS online, it said you can file a lost mail form, even for regular mail that is not certified or insured. BUT you have to set up an account and give your email and jump through many hoops, and it wants to know the size and how the mail was addressed, etc. I figured they pay people a salary (and good benefits!) to do that job, so I went to the dead mouse smelling post office in person this morning.

As you might imagine, that was a wasted trip, fraught with tomfoolery.

The old lady in front of me had just finished complaining about lost mail, I think. She was a nice old lady, wondering where in the world it could be, and worried that her daughter might not get it, or that it would be damaged. To further exhibit the niceness of this old lady, the object lost in the mail that she had sent to her daughter was a prayer book. Uh huh. So it's not like this old lady was a-cussin' the postal clerk and a-rippin' her a new excrement exit. She was being quite polite, voicing her worries, not pointing blame, simply wanting her daughter to receive her prayer book.

Postal Clerk was not the middle-aged lady I regularly deal with, who had a couple of kids who attended Newmentia under my tutelage. The one I had seen picking up the mail from the box early one day last week. Nope. This clerk was early-middle-aged, with a fried perm that wasn't bleached blond, but was bleached lighter than brown. A brassy color. And a tan from a bed, or out of a bottle, with that orange tint to her skin. She rushed that old lady out of there before she was finished talking. Sometimes, you know, it's more about what people NEED to say than what they are actually saying. The old lady was obviously thinking about her daughter, and wanted everything to be okay.

Postal Clerk brushed old lady aside by turning to me (waiting patiently behind, because where do I have to be, anyway) and asking how she could help me.

"I'd like to buy two books of stamps, and then I have a missing mail issue."

Postal Clerk foisted some stamps on me, but that part of the tale will be told elsewhere. Then she asked what my problem was with the mail. I had an envelope addressed to The Pony, in my regular writing, which, those of you who have seen it know, is the antithesis of sloppy. It's block letters. All caps. Neat. Legible.

"It was a letter to my son that I mailed at the box out there on Monday, October 10. I know it was Columbus Day, and the mail didn't go out until Tuesday. But I put it in the mailbox. It has been 12 business days, and my son has not received his letter. It's important, because there was a check folded up in the letter for his college expenses."

"Oh, we don't have any way to check mail dropped in the box. Sorry."

"So...there's no way to see the last place it was scanned?"

"No. Probably somebody else in your son's dorm got it. A different room. Maybe they'll give it to him. Or it might arrive any day now. If it couldn't be delivered, you would have gotten it back, because the return address is clear."

How quick she was to deny responsibility and lay it at the feet of a lowly college student! That federal wench must take me for a complete idiot. A complete idiot who does not have access to the innernets. Seems one in her position could at least tell me about the process listed here and here, under What Options Exist for Late, Lost, or No Delivery of Mail? .

It's a good thing the dead mouse smelling post office didn't have a suggestion box on the counter.

Little Big Mom

Since her recent retirement, Mrs. Hillbilly Mom has nothing better to do than roam the countryside looking for trouble, her mouth itching to write checks her ample buttocks can't cash. She's like a female rabble-rousing Johnny Appleseed, sowing ill will throughout Hillmomba.

Take today, for instance...

For two months now, signs have been in place by the oft-flooded low water bridge to prevent parking along the side of the road. The county road department even plowed in a big ditch, but whether the purpose was for water drainage or parking difficulty is a moot point. The law now says DON'T PARK HERE. There used to be people there all the time. Or just cars, with no people in sight. Who knows what was going on? Sometimes fishing off the bridge, making it difficult for cars to speed across pass. Sometimes swimming. Sometimes dumping old couches and chairs. Perhaps illicit trysts. Or drug deals. Which, the last time I checked (not that I'm in the market for purchase or sale) was illegal.

Anyhoo...signs were put up, and a ditch was dug.

People can still break the law by straddling that ditch with their tires. I literally chortled with glee one day to see a car hung up in the mud there after scoffing the law. The fact remains, however, that people are NOT supposed to park there.

ANY TIME! Get it?

So this morning I went through around 10:00, and there was an old lady with a buzz cut sitting on the bridge on an upturned white ten gallon plastic bucket, fishing. Over by the NO PARKING zones were a truck and a car. Parked. The white pickup was directly in front of that NO PARKING sign, facing toward the creek. I swear that its mirror had to hit the sign as it parked. It was that close. The dark blue sedan was facing up the hill. I turned to look as I went by, wondering how one lady could drive two vehicles. Or if there was more going on than I first imagined.

THERE WAS A WOMAN SITTING IN THE PASSENGER SEAT OF THE SEDAN!

Oh, well. I had my sunglasses on. I'm sure I was unrecognizable, throwing up my hands as it were, gesticulating wildly to convey "WTF! The signs say NO PARKING!"

I headed on to town on my everyday mission to procure a 44 oz Diet Coke. And I hatched a plan to snag a photo to put on my blog. A truck parked directly in front of a NO PARKING sign! That's never been done before, right? But matters were complicated by the presence of The Gatekeeper.

What was going on there? Was it a daughter who came along with her mom on a fishing trip? To make sure no ne'er-do-wells, like, perhaps, someone who would park right under a NO PARKING sign, would harm her? If so, then who put the truck there? Did the old woman drive the truck, and the daughter the car? If so, then why was the daughter sitting on the passenger side of the sedan? And had the old woman been ill, perhaps, resulting in the very short buzz cut? Was this on her bucket list, sitting on a bucket and fishing from a shallow creek? Or was she a woman who prefers women (not that there's anything wrong with that), who prefers a manly cut of her tresses? Too many questions for as-yet-uncaffeinated Mrs. HM.

On the way back, I was thwarted by a tractor in the middle of the county road, trying to go where no road went before, to some land that had been raped by the Rockers. Then a speeder ran up on T-Hoe's rear bumper. So I pulled off at the entrance to the sheep farm (the dog was minding the flock yesterday, but no sheep were seen today) to let it pass, and put my hand-me-down cell phone into camera mode. Mrs. HM was loaded for bear! She was going to get her picture of the scofflaw! From the side, to show the sign. No identifying license number. I waited for a school bus to pass. What kind of crazy route is that, a school bus out on the county road at 10:50 a.m.?

The thought of The Gatekeeper was weakening my resolve. What if The Gatekeeper hollered at me while I was taking the picture? I had my phone ready. It shouldn't take but a second. I could stop at the side of the road where a 20-something man asked if I needed help while I was taking the original sign pictures. If The Gatekeeper dared question me, I had a smarta$$ answer all ready, "I'm just taking a funny picture for social media. I'M not breaking any laws!" Heh, heh. That should put her in her place. After all, I live out here! Where did SHE come from, anyway?

I pulled back onto the road and proceeded over hill and dale along the dusty trail. I was afraid The Fisher would be gone. Nothing to see there. But as I crested the hill that drops to the creek, the one where I have the last chance to turn around if I see that it's flooded, I saw The Fisher, still perched upon her bucket.

AND THE GATEKEEPER WAS STANDING BESIDE THE SEDAN, TALKING ON HER CELL PHONE!!!

No way was I going to stop and snap a picture! Not with that gal out of the sedan. No siree, Bob! Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is not about confrontations. So now I'm mad as not-heaven, and I'm going to take it again and again.

There's no need to order more checks for my mouth...but my butt needs to get a check-cashing card.

Oh, yeah. And upon further scrutiny as I drove across the low water bridge...that woman sitting on the bucket was a man, baby!

We Probably Shouldn't Be Allowed To Roam Freely About The County

I had lunch with my favorite gambling aunt today. While neither one of us gets up with the chickens, we do eat with the senior citizens. Early. The plan was to meet at 11:00 for lunch, but Auntie sent me a text asking to move that to 11:30, since she didn't get up until 10:00.

We drove separately to bill-paying town, where we planned to dine at Bison Tame Legs. Neither of us had been there since last summer, when we took The Pony and Auntie's grandson. Who's in his twenties, but not one to turn down a free meal. Today it was just the two of us, though.

Let's not forget that Auntie, most recently on one of our culinary excursions, ordered fries at Pizza Hut. And that when we go to Burger Brothers at the casino, she orders an Italian Sausage. Farmer H, who likes his taco salad to come from Hardee's, sees nothing wrong with this. I kind of do. At Bison Tame Legs, I had the naked tenders. They may not be legs, but at least they're CHICKEN. Auntie, though, had the little street tacos. Sweet Gummi Mary! We could have eaten at Hardee's if I knew she wanted Mexican food!

Anyhoo...as we were dawdling and fending off the waitress hungry for us to hit the road, Auntie said she had been to the city yesterday for a doctor's appointment, and that she ate at Tucker's. She highly recommended it, even though I rarely go to the city, and NEVER if I have to drive myself. But she insisted the food was delicious.

"You should look it up on the internet so you can see what they have."

"Okay. Is it a restaurant? Tucker's Restaurant?"

"Actually, they're a steakhouse."

"Okay. I'll look it up."

"Just look for Tucker's. It's by South County Mall. We were going to go walk around and look at stuff, but since neither of us can walk, we decided against it."

Let the record show that Auntie has new hips and they still hurt.

Anyhoo...you'll never guess what she had to eat at Tucker's that she was raving about. Oh, come on! You know better than to guess "steak." Uh huh. Auntie went to that steakhouse, and said they had the best PIZZA!

No point in this little tale, really. Except to point out that Auntie does not seem to choose restaurants for their specialty.

Let the record show my best ol' ex-teaching buddy Mabel that my calendar is open for lunch any day between now and...um...let's see...where's my social calendar...oh, yes...there it is...FOREVER!