VaCaTiOn!

From the way I feel today, I must have had more fun than I remember on our vacation.

And I don’t drink.

Whoo, boy, I am pooped beyond belief. I feel like I been sittin’ up all night at the funeral home.

And I have a question. I hope you can solve the mystery: Why did I bring more dirty laundry home than clean laundry that I actually took? Where did it all come from? I know – that’s two questions – but this mystery is big enough for two questions, and I need to know.

We had a good time, though. We were in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. We went to the Dixie Stampede, or as they are now calling it most the time, Dolly Parton’s Stampede. Some store clerk was grousing about the change in the name, saying some !?!#* Yankee protested about the word “Dixie” saying it was "racist". Apparently they made a big old stink and the Stampede caved and changed the name. If that’s so, it’s a shame. We are in the land of Dixie. At any rate, the show was great, the food is really good and audience participation is near 100%.

We also went to The Comedy Barn. They live up to their name. Think “The Ed Sullivan Show in Overalls” and you have The Comedy Barn. I really did laugh till my sides hurt.

We went to a place called “Parrot Mountain”. Thousands of tropical birds live there: Parrots of all kinds. They have a baby bird store, and one Amazon Parrot

attached itself to me and would not leave me. Now, you may ask if I purchased him. The answer is no, because of a certain 22 pound Maine Coon cat who is very possessive of me. But I felt guilty when we left the store. There were also Lorys, which is a kind of small parrot that only drink nectar. They hadn’t been fed in a few hours, and they flogged us when we walked in the enclosure. I had ten birds on me in about 2 seconds flat. I didn’t even have the nectar, Daughter was holding the cup, but they like people a lot, so they stayed on me anyway.

Husband felt left out, but finally a few landed on him and started licking his arms. We figured for the salt.

 

We heard the birds talk: “Thank you” after I fed a Macaw, “Hello” when we entered their enclosure to feed them

and one Cockatoo told Daughter “I love you”. She was very touched. She went back over to him later and got him to say it again, which she videoed.

The shop keeper of the baby bird store told us a story. She was adamant that it was true.

Apparently they had a Macaw that refused to talk. They worked with him just like they did with the others, but he would never utter a word. One day someone brought in a service dog and somehow the bird agitated this dog. The dog jumped up and drug the bird down to the ground and was on top of the bird. People got the dog off the bird, and the first thing that happened after that was the bird yelled, “Praise the Lord!”  Don’t much blame him.

They also have a Hornbill bird that came from the Hugh Hefner estate. Apparently, when Hefner died he did not leave any directives regarding the bird. Someone who worked there made a mysterious phone call to this place and told them the bird was going to be put down, could they take it? They said yes, of course. The bird was delivered anonymously to them.

We ate way too much. And then we ate more.

We went into a couple of shops. One was the Mountain Cat House. They have three cats roaming the place, and as much knick knack stuff and tee shirt cat related stuff, etc. as you can imagine.

We also visited “Long Story Short Books and Antiques”. It’s the kind of place that you love almost everything in it, and you can look six times and on the seventh look see stuff you missed before. I bought my one souvenir from the trip in this shop. So did Husband.  

  Husband and Daughter went out on their own to play put-put golf. I sat this one out and stayed at the hotel to regroup.

By the time we got back home, we were pooped.

I was not ready to do laundry. But I did the next day and the next and believe it or not, the next.

Granted, some of that was towels and wash clothes and stuff that needed doing before we left, and sheets. But still…

Where does it all come from?

2 Things

You know how  you're just going along, minding your own business and every mechanical thing you have bands against  you in a revolt?

Yeah. Well, that happened to us day before yesterday. Or it all came to a head then, anyway.

The truck was already at the Garage because it was sputtering and Husband almost didn't make it home in it the other day. Since we have two other cars, we told them no hurry, get to it when they could.

The car I drive all the time kept having a dash light come on. They had run the diagnostics and said it needed a software update, and a dealership had to do it.

So, we made an appointment with the dealership. Who promptly told us they had to run their own diagnostic. Which they did. And said it would be $700 to fix the car (!) plus $70 more to replace a headlight that had just burned out. I called our Garage and they said, "No, no, no! Bring back here." I told them how soon we needed it and he began to whimper.

It's very sad to hear a grown man whimper.

We slipped it under radar early the next morning before they opened, and they fixed it by opening time.

But when I thought they couldn't I said "We can drive the other car meanwhile." Husband informed me we could not, as the transmission seemed to be slipping.

So, we have NO cars?

Meanwhile, the hard drive on my desktop stopped allowing me to have Internet. The nice geek I spoke with on the phone, who had me standing on my head and whispering strange incantations, said the thingamabob inside the hard drive had apparently croaked and would be pretty expensive to replace (of course!). However; since it sits close to the modem I could probably buy a $20 whatsis and set it on top of the hard drive and it could pick up the Internet by wifi wireless.

I'll get right on that in a day or two.

The other thing I was gonna write about will just have to wait.

I'm too tired to even bring it up.

Brief Commercial

We interrupt the normally scheduled program for a brief announcement:

Thank you very much.

Sitting Bear

Sounds sort of Indian(y) doesn't it? The feather kind, not the dot kind.

It all started yesterday afternoon when Daughter arrived from work. She'd stopped at the fast food junk supper store and was unloading her goodies when she hollered, "Mama, come'ere!  BEAR!"

I got there mighty quick for a cripple, let me tell you.

And sure enough there was a big old bear, sitting himself down to supper. 

Husband had recently put fresh birdseed on the sundial. Now, bears have never bothered this before. We think what did the trick was he added sunflower seeds to the mix for the Cardinals that live in the yellow belle bush, that you see to the bear's right.

Daughter and I were frantically rushing from window to window, to get better photos. I went upstairs to her room, opened a window and screen and hung out the window. I made a kissy noise so he'd look up, which he did, curious.

He ate a little bit, laid himself down under the yellow belle for a few to rest, then ate some more. When he got done, he proceeded to drink from the bird bath.

 We were all excited! But then it hit us. Husband was out behind the garage, in the studio. The bear had gone behind the house, but then wound his way up and walked down the driveway, straight toward where Husband was. I started praying that God would protect Husband and have the door closed! We waited till the bear got out of sight, then hurried to Daughter's car, which was parked in front of the house, drove down to the garage and started blowing the horn. Then I got out of the car and rushed to the studio door. Husband was walking toward the door, to see what the horn blowing was about. I asked excitedly did he see the bear? He'd missed it. 

He missed a four hundred pound bear walk within twelve feet of him, right on the other side of a french door.

Sheesh.

Anyway, I bet I don't have exciting company like that again for a while.