HAPPY BIRTHDAY BECKY!!!

I won’t say how old she is, but she’s 5 years younger than I am, so figure it out (for you non-family members I’ll be 59 on December 1st).

I’m getting settled in here at the mobe, but it’s taking some getting used to. The first night I was here, I was so tired I didn’t unload the car but did take the bikes off the rack, put them on the porch (to Florida people it’s a lanai), and put the rack between the mobe and the storage shed. After going out to dinner with Mom and Brother Bob (you may know him as Bobbie Butane), I turned on the TV to let my brain unwind before I went to bed.

As I was sitting there I heard something fall and it sounded like it came from the kitchen. Because I was so tired (I’ll blame it on being tired…not my normal paranoia), I immediately thought it was a mouse since the mobe had been unoccupied for 6 months. But the noise was quite loud, so I figured it must have been a rat. I looked through all the cupboards, but couldn’t see anything that had fallen. I laid in bed for an hour, unable to go to sleep, listening for “the critter”. When I got up in the morning, I opened the vertical shades that cover the slider to the porch and noticed that all 3 bikes had fallen down. So much for the rat.

(Don’t tell Jean this one…she says she’ll be coming down in December before Christmas and this may keep her away).Yesterday I decided to clean some windows and do the laundry. The people that we bought the mobe from left their washer and dryer. Jean and I talked about running a wash cycle before I put any clothes in just in case there was rust or sediment in the lines. I did that, cleaned off the outside of the washer and dryer, and cleaned an area to fold clothes. After the cycle finished I opened the washer lid and it was perfectly clean except, there in the bottom, was a lizard. I reached in to grab him and he went under the agitator and hid.

I couldn’t get him to come out so I thought I’d run another cycle. I know they can swim and I figured it would force him out. Most family members know that I love animals (except cats). When I was in one of my early grades, I went to a one room school (kindergarten through eighth grade) near Three Rivers. Mom was called to the school by my teacher and I was crying uncontrollably. Apparently I had picked up a bird while walking to school (a mile uphill each way) that had been hit by a car. I felt sorry for it, took it to school, and put it in my desk. After a few days, the odor was noticed by everyone. The teacher checked the desks at recess, found the bird, and threw it away, hence the crying jag.

Anyway, I’m sorry to tell you all that the lizard didn’t stand up well to two washings. After the cycle was over, I opened the lid, and there he was resting in peace with his feet up in the air. Even though he was very, very clean, I picked him up with a couple of sticks (just in case he came around and was vindictive) and took him out to sun himself in the yard. He must have liked it because an hour later, he was still in the same spot, still sunning the bottoms of his feet.

The dryer is a relic but either it or I can’t tell time. I set the first load on 30 minutes and went out after 25 to check on things. It still showed 10 minutes to go on the timer. I checked the clothes and they were dry, so I put the next load in for 25 minutes. I was watching the Ohio State football game and went out during a time out which was right at 25 minutes. The timer said It had 10 minutes to go, so I decided to set my own timer from now on.

I joined the YMCA and go there Monday, Wednesday and Friday to lift weights and swim. I waited until around 11AM on Friday and went out to US 19 and turned right. I noticed there wasn’t a car on the road at all, which is unusual. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw police lights behind me at Hudson Road and 19. I assumed it was an accident at that corner and traffic couldn’t get through. I went a mile North to New York Avenue and there were two police cars pointed at me with their lights on. That was where the accident was and they were rerouting traffic there too. I u-turned at a turnaround and went back. I couldn’t get through Hudson Avenue so I did another turnaround and went back into the mobe park (does this sound like a repeat of the Saturday I came into town?).

I went through the park and took the exit that goes out on Hudson Avenue. I hit the lights just right and was able to head East, but half a mile down the road the traffic was backed up a mile because of the traffic signal at Hudson Avenue and Little Road. Brother Bob tells me that he heard a cement truck was going around the corner, it’s load shifted, and it tipped over onto a car. When I came back at 1:15, they were still cleaning up and pieces of the car were on the flatbed of a wrecker.

After an hour, I finally made it to the Y. I lifted weights and decided to do the EFX (elliptical trainer). The televisions were directly above my head, so I looked out at the weight machines. Staring at me or, hopefully, someone directly behind me, was a guy in his mid-forties. I was quite uneasy, thinking back to the “nice pecker ” incident from a couple of years ago. I thought I may have to stay on the EFX all day until I was sure he wasn’t in the locker room. After a while he left and I noticed a woman wearing a t-shirt and Levi’s working out on the machines right in front of me.

She could have been anywhere from 40 to 60. Se had a set of keys fastened to one of her belt loops and looked, using my buddy Ron’s description, “…like she’d been rode hard and put away wet”. Get your minds out of the gutter…the expression refers to horses. The t-shirt had a picture of a cartoon kid that could have been one of the “South Park” kids. It said “Good News. I’ve decided not to kill you”. Maybe I’m being a prude,  but I can’t imagine a situation where a t-shirt that says “I’ve decided not to kill you” would be appropriate.

The times, they are a-changin’.

Just (Borrowed A Line From Dylan) Jack