Thanksgiving Traditions

 Tradition is what you make it, isn't it? Every year for the past four years we have spent Thanksgiving with Ray. To start the festivities off, he traditionally Cancels The Trip. This is done for a variety of reasons, it's too far, too cold, the weather, the time. We return volley with un-canceling, this year was faster than most. He called David early on Tuesday and I called him back before 9 am - the next time he cancelled us it was too late, we were 100 miles away. It didn't go as planned of course. My Master plan was to do a visit super early, get home, throw the dogs in the car,dump them in jail and off we go. The visit took longer than expected - of course!- when I got home I still had to finish packing, David was dawdling, the cats still needed to get settled... We FINALLY got on the way. Then halfway there David remembered he'd forgotten the dogs paperwork at home. ARRGH. The place we take them knows us and was not concerned, they said they'd just call the vets and it could be faxed over. So we finally get going and for once the weather was right, it was snowing like predicted. The roads were surprisingly good but it still held us up. Instead of the usual five and a half hours it took us over seven. We arrived almost 7 pm, tired and cold. We called Ray to let him know we got in ok and would see him in the morning, we had tiny four dollar frozen pizzas for dinner and turned in for the night. Morning wa much better - cold and sunny, snow melted. Ray looked great, he's recovered from the accident he had earlier in  the year. He's back to driving and doing his own grocery shopping, has gained back al it of the weigh he had lost. We went to the Stack for breakfast, did a little shopping, hung out at Ray's and then back to the Stack for our traditional Thanksgiving dinner. You might think that's a little weird or depressing, but it is the best night of the year. We laugh and talk of times past,the boys Setsu, Mikio, their kids, the crazy things we did. We talk of the years of Sunday brunches when everyone sat down to eat - sometimes as many as a dozen people. How that expanded into Sunday dinner too, hours of talking and laughing. The next day we went to the bookstore, drove byBest Buy -no thank you - and then for an afternoon at the art museum. We had dinner at the Arlington for a change of pace, then spent the evening at Rays. Saturday saw us off early - we had to be back by noon to spring the dogs. The ride back waa much faster, we manage it in about 5 and a half hours. So, that is our tradition - I hope everyone had a great holiday too.

A House Made Of Straw

I don't know if these pictures will stay -  I've been having quite a lot of trouble with them lately. I mean I like my iPad, but the pictures just don't seem to come through but I miss blogging so I think what I will do is blog without the pictures. In other news some people may have wondered what happened with the houses - it's still going on and it's still quite a mess. We went under contract with this woman and she claimed that the title was not clear,  the family of the woman that had passed away, oh jeez,  this is just so complicated so let me start again. The man and woman that originally owned it had a land contract (that's a separate type of contract that you make monthly payments on) when he passed away she got a loan and she purchased the house and  that satisfy the land contract. When we went to sell it  there was a paper glitch because it was never taken off the deed . They had six children between them so this woman and her lawyer claimed the title was not clear. Two title companies said they would underwrite the title but she refused that, then we had offered to just let her out of it and she refused again,she became quite upset so what David did was he got six quick claim deed signed by the children l-et me tell you this is a lot harder than it sounds,. He had to pay a full day salary for four of them and I couldn't blame them for asking. I mean they had to give up a day worth of work for something that was really not their concern David had to pay for that to be filed and this all took about three weeks. We were supposed to close on that Monday and on Friday she told us through her lawyer that she was no longer interested the house, she decided not to buy it after all. This was a huge problem for us as the house had been taken off the market for two months of prime selling. This time of year it's near to impossible to sell the house - in addition we've been paying the taxes the utilities and the mortgage on this house and now we have nothing but to start over. Even if someone wanted it tomorrow it would be at least another two months for inspections, closing, etc..the house in Fairmont is not complete yet either so we have the expense of that. We had to file a claim with the title company and now they gave us a lawyer and we are going to sue this woman but in the meantime we have a house we cannot sell and cannot rent so my one salary is supporting three houses, taxes,utilities and all. A little bit of a stomach clenched. A little bit.

You can have too many friends

I was recently friended by somebody on Facebook that I had worked with briefly about a year and a half ago give or take .I realized after her first post chances were pretty good we would not continue to be Facebook friends or friends anywhere else for that matter. The first post I read was her and her friends posting they would not be going to Starbucks because Starbucks serves gay people  - of course God would be smiting them too but hopefully after they got their Mocha latte. This for me doesn't work on several different levels. First of all that's not very Christian or very human for that matter. I mean I honestly I cannot believe that there is a God sitting around proclaiming things like that. And second of all really - why would God even care who's getting some Starbucks coffee . Does he not have anything better to do like save starving orphans are quietly get rid of Obama? And then we get into the hell thing, for some reason religious people seem to want me to go to hell. A LOT. They mentioned it in general conversation and sometimes more than once. I don't mind them thinking I should go to hell - after all I don't believe in it nor do I believe in God but to me it's sort of like if your friend brought a dress and called the color forest and you actually thought it was the color of vomit. Or you thought have made her but look extra fat - it's okay to think it but you probably shouldn't say it out loud. First of all,  that's just your opinion and second of all, you don't even know if it's really true. Maybe only you're the one that thinks it's the color  of vomit. The bottom line is this is  a bunch of people telling you what God thinks. Why would God think about me going to hell or  spend any time thinking about how gay people shouldn't get Starbucks coffee. I'm personally glad that gay people can go to Starbucks for coffee and I don't have to boycott it. it would be pretty awkward for me. I would either have to give up drinking Starbucks coffee or send David in to get it for me. See that's technically okay because David isn't drinking the coffee and I wouldn't be going in but that's neither here nor there Starbucks lets everyone have coffee.  I very politely told that woman maybe  we were not friend material and quietly unfriended her. No one is going to change their mind and I can keep going to Starbucks winner winner chicken dinner!!

Winds Of Change

We took the dogs to the game lands this morning, Reuben as usual ran like the wind - back and forth, up and down. Anyone that wants to outlaw electric collars has to take him for a week  without it and let me know how you made out. We usually just beep him and he comes right back but today he was very excited and it took awhile to reign him in. David was grousing, according to him all the Dogs Past behaved perfectly, yadda, yadda, yadda. I just laughed and said the dogs haven't changed - we have. Maybe it's because we're older, the kids are gone (Adam moved out a month ago and now lives in Kentucky), who knows. I reminded him of Lady, one of his first Vizslas he owned that the pound would cheerfully scoop up every time they saw her and wait for us to call. She would get snagged  as far as 10 miles from our house, sometimes be gone for a day or two. The only reason we got her back on a regular basis was the breed is very distinctive  and easy to describe, they knew who she belonged to.  The other reason was the fine was increased for each offense and she was a sure bet. The last time they caught her I said Maybe I Won't Come Get Her. The dog catcher laughed and said, Well, Maybe I'll Have A New Gun Dog This Year. I swore all the way there and all the way back, Lady of course could have given a rat's ass - she just wanted her dinner. We had one dog that ran off and after the 3rd time said the hell with you - we saw her happily riding shotgun in someone else's car and decided then and there to stop looking for her. We had cats disappear, reappear and then disappear - I don't remember getting too worked up about it. My grandmother Carter had Mama cat who procreated on a weekly schedule, she kept them in the lilac grove and you could play with them until they went crazy and feral. Then they'd run off and a new batch would take their place. But that was then and this is now - we get all of our cats fixed and vaccinated, they come in at night and we go looking for them if they're not. Vincent has lived with us for about 10 years and has spent exactly two nights outside. Scout, the newest addition has not been out at all since we rescued him from the garage. Molly and Reuben are taken out with collars on. I love to read so I've cleared paths in our woods and placed chairs around the whole place. They snuffle and hunt while I read - I can read outside just as easily as inside and I love being out in our woods so it works for all of us. But I think we get carried away sometimes about the pets - and I don't think we're alone in that boat, are we? Can you imagine what your great grandparents would say if they were told you take your dogs and cats for their annual shots and physical? That some of us drop them off in doggie daycare - or that I had a dog walker come to the house each day that we worked late when Pearl was alive? Or the stray kitten I adopted is not allowed outside until he's neutered and has all of his shots? But with our busier schedules, shrinking families and everyone moving away from each other, we depend on our pets more and more for social interaction and family. We socialize with Molly and Reuben on the weekends, with all my driving and working the idea of going anywhere just wears me out. I see people all week, my pets are my downtime.But I have said to David we need to be realistic about them, they will not outlive us, they might run off, you never know. He agreed - but that didn't change things, we are still going to worry on them, aren't we?

Catch My Breath

I can't believe it's been 3 weeks since I last posted - where to start? It's been busy! A couple of weeks ago I had two consecutive conferences to go to so I spent a week or so trying to get everything done. I went to the first one on a Thursday outside of Pittsburgh - It's called Giving and Receiving Feedback but it's essentially Don't Be An Ass. After I snuck over to Harmony PA to cross yet another yarn shop off my list. It was run by a rather amazing young woman with dreadlocks down to her waist covered in a variety of crocheted items.I could have stayed there all week but I had Things To Do so I bought some yarn and vamoosed. Friday was a Run For It type of day, I finished up as much as I could and then Vamoosed again, this time in the direction of Janet and Diane's. My two day annual training for Bayada was Tuesday and Wednesday so I took Monday as a vacation day. I was going to stay overnight in a hotel halfway and wander my way to their house before dinner, but they had a birthday party to attend in NJ on Saturday. We had to leave by 11 am so there was no point to a hotel room, I drove straight through. On the way there David called to tell me they were moving the closing up for the Bridgeport house to Wed so I needed to find a notary and overnight the paperwork by Monday morning. Yippee. We did some stuff on Saturday morning involving Whoopie Pies and coffee and then headed for the Jersey Shore where I did not see the Situation, but I think his show was cancelled anyhow. I did see Diane's family and they are all pretty nice. Sunday we peeped a little at the Amish and mainly shopped, they were getting ready for their trip to Europe so it all got combined. Monday Janet and Diane headed to work, I headed to the do some Intense Amish Spying, since they live there year around the gild is off the lily for the both of them regarding the Amish. I wandered my way to the hotel in Philly and honestly - headed straight for my room and collapsed. Until I remembered I hadn't eaten anything and schelped over to the local Ruby Tuesday to eat, schelped back to my room and re-collapsed. Two days of 8 hours of training - yes, it's very helpful and I'm glad they do it, but when it occurs during the week and you have to drive 6 hours (after the 8 hours of training), go to bed around midnight and then be back to work the next morning - it's a bit wearing. To say the least. I called David on Thursday to see how the closing went - and it didn't. Seemed there was a weird glitch and the house not only didn't close, but the title was not completely clear as promised. We have title insurance BUT the house we are buying (which was supposed to be tomorrow) is now in jeopardy as it is a contingent deal. So the lawyer that cleared the title is frantically trying to fix it, the seller of house #2 is willing to give us a (little)extra time, we are holding off the vultures and I will be laying waste if this does not work out. And yes, we do have a back up plan so don't get your panties in a bunch - this is not our first rodeo and it's not the first time things have gone south at the last minute. We'll ride it out as we always do.This weekend has been thankfully quiet, we did our shopping on Saturday and went out to lunch, just the two of us. It has been so long since we've done that! This morning we loaded the Hooligans into the car and took them for their Sunday Jaunt to the gamelands down the road where they ran like crazy things for a couple of hours. I can't believe Monday is looming right around the corner, I wish I could rewind back to Friday night. 

Cooper's Rock

This morning was a day of no excuses. The weather was perfect, not a cloud in the sky, gas in tank and it's Sunday. I found my backpack and fired up the compass - we were not going for the day but I haven't been in so long this was a combination hiking/practice run. I only take Molly on these excursions, Reuben just wants to RunRunRun and it is super Not Relaxing. Not to mention he will be getting plenty of exercise in the coming weeks with hunting season right around the corner. So I put together my backpack with water and dog biscuits for Molly, a few dry items for me, and off we went. We did the main park first, it was early when we got there and not too many people. The trail we did gets rough at the end and you actually have to scale a steep climb of rocks. I could figure out how to get me up there, but Molly? As I stood there pondering something touched the top of my head and I started a bit - there was Molly peering down at me, problem solved. That was a fairly short path and it was starting to get busy so we got back in the car and headed back to the Henry Clay Trail. I took Molly off the leash when we started hiking, she's really great at this. She stays in view and comes back right when I call. I put the electric collar on her just in case, Cooper's Rock is 13,000 acres and if she bolted I'd be hard pressed to get her back. As we were walking I heard whining and looked to see a dog Molly's size heading right for us, crying and running. He ran up to us hopefully and then cried when he realized we were strangers. He had a collar on and I heard someone call faintly in the distance, he turned heel and ran back down the trail so I figured he was not lost. When we got down to the Henry Clay Iron Furnace we met him again with his owners who said he was uber friendly, he like Molly can walk unleashed.When I saw them coming I put Molly on the retractable leash and she put some distance between her and Mr. Overlyfriendly, but no panicking.  We hike for about 3 or 4 miles today, since we haven't really hiked in a long time, this was really a practice run. Walking by other people, going into the bathroom with me (I can't tie her by the door, if a stranger  walked by and she was alone she would freak), hearing people she cannot see - she did very well and once she remembered it was all good. When we got home she and Reuben went straight out to the woods and now we are sitting. I am going to work on the baby blanket I'm knitting for my niece to give to her cousin at her baby shower, I have to do a couple more rows around the edge, bind it off and then it's DONE. And then onto other projects. I have to make one more baby hat for someone in my office and then I might make a sweater. I found this great yarn at a clearance sale -  I got it so cheap and it's such an expensive linen mix I could cry! And it's more than enough to make a long sweater or cardigan so I think that will be my next project. I went to the yarn shop in Bridgeport yesterday, a little sad, After we sell the house there we won't be stopping by to check on it of course so I won't have a reason to go to Bridgeport anymore. But I'm sure I'll get out there again someday.