The Guy Who Sleeps With The Girl was traveling by car to New Orleans to watch the Colts get decimated by the Saints with a friend from Hattiesburg, but he missed all that snow by taking a circular detour. He did break down in Russellville, Arkansas and had to spend an extra night on the road. Nothing a few hundred dollars couldn’t handle, though. Did I mention he had to get new tires before he ever left?  And The Girl had a friend come and stay the weekend- she was hoping the winter storm would trap her in Casper for a week, but she was able to fly out on Monday morning. They went to see Reba in concert Friday night and had a great time. They were seriously underdressed for the occasion, but their cowgirl getups were out at the dry-cleaners. They could’ve brought some genuine cowboys home, you know those two have always been partial, but they decided that might infringe on the girl’s weekend they were going for. After forgetting where they parked their car, they were impressed by all the offers of assistance from strangers after the concert.   The good news was they were saved from embarrassment by mingling in with all the drunks who had also “lost” their vehicles. Ah well, memories…

Well, cheers to y’all and goodbye fall…6-8 inches of snow headed my way tonight…

She warned us all she had come back with a new lease on life and a new attitude (in a non-Patti LaBelle sort of way).  Time away from the homestead had given her a chance to observe the shenanigans around our apartment as a spectator, rather than an unwilling participant.  It also pushed her patience with our neighbors to a new level, an underground one that will not be registering on the Richter scale any time soon.

It started with her requesting- not asking, mind- that her steam cleaner be brought back to its rightful home- it had been staying over with the neighbors for more than 3 weeks- her first day back. Two days later they asked to borrow it again and she very cheerfully said, “No”.  It continued with her giving the ‘cease and desist’ throat-cutting motion and ear-splitting screech to the neighbors’ heathens, I mean children, on 2 separate occasions while they were [attempting to] pick her new mums out of their pots and later throwing rocks at the kitchen windows. It continued more when, awakened for the 3rd consecutive weekday morning before 6 am with tantrum-throwning, foot-stomping, and all around screaming upstairs, she beat on the kitchen ceiling with a broom for an extended period of time.  And it has apparently ended  with her picking up, for at least the 6th time this summer,  a sack full of cigarette butts and wrappers, children’s play paraphernalia, and 2 piles of doggie-poo from right outside her apartment door and hanging them altogether on the stairway rails to the upstairs apartments where they could not be- and were not- missed.

It has, perchance, worked.

No children have been downstairs at all hours in the evenings begging for cups of ketchup, bottles of vinegar, black thread, pencils, expensive candles, newspapers, toilet paper, snacks, drinks, food just pulled off the grill, money, nor steam cleaners to clean up from the NEW PUPPY they’ve got. No adults have harassed, joked, or generally even spoken to the rents in more than a week. And there have been no cigarette butts, new puppy poo, nor loud noises before 6 am in that time as well. The Guy Who Sleeps With The Girl says ‘this is just the calm before the storm’. The Girl says ‘bring it on’.

We’ll have to watch and see what happens next- not, however, from our knees…

“You ain’t cold, are you?”, [harrdyharrdyharr].

The Girl: “It’s definitely a lot cooler here than where I’ve been. Don’t think the temps got up as high as they said they would today.”

“Naw, they didn’t. I checked.”- and at this point the neighbors turn to The Guy Who Sleeps With The Girl’s wardrobe: long-sleeved tee and shorts.

“But ‘shore looks like he’s gotten inclimated! Haven’t you?!”

*sigh* we’re all a little ‘inclimated’ to the weather, I’m afraid.  It just seems to be the locals we have trouble adjusting to…

We decided, even arriving in extreme-heat-advisory-conditions that first day that nothing was as sweet as HOME- especially around Nanny’s house. The air was fresher (fresh-cut hay, flowers blooming in profusion, ripe, green earth, even pesticide-sprayed cotton), the skies were blue-r, the view was prettier (again, those blooming flowers, all manner of trees as far as the eye can see, and the sunset across the “back forty”).  All that was missing was Nanny.

We didn’t know that day, or many after, that Nanny had a trip HOME planned herself.  That sweet, sassy, spunky lady- who humorously called me “Sinbad”- left us on September 4 to make her last trip HOME. We were surprised when we learned she’d be leaving, we thought she’d outlive us all (Harper’s really aged me…), but she left us nonetheless, and with a big hole only she could fill.  I wasn’t ready to let her go- I had some new tricks I wanted to show her, and I was so looking forward to snacking on her dinner scraps (The Girl doesn’t cook chicken and dumplings anymore), but I knew she was heading for HOME, and that there was no place any sweeter.

Nanny Rotenberry- April 10, 1914- September 4, 2011

They enjoyed some bread slice-sized tomatoes from home last week- The Girl’s brother had flown out about a month ago and spent some time with us. And last weekend, the rents met The Girl’s parents in Colby, Kansas to exchange The Uncle for some ‘maters and some other goodies. I enjoyed having The Uncle here- he kept The D-O-G off my back (literally) and distracted for a little while. He also snuck us some snacks off his plate every time he ate, and The D-O-G’s new little fat roll can attest to that. We love having home folk in the house- hint, hint to the rest of you out there needing a little getaway trip. (Please bring more tomatoes.)

Naptime’s gotten a little better with the addition of a new couch in the living room. I have plenty of room to stretch out on the leather. I pretty much have it all to myself, too, ‘cos Harper stays off of it. Don’t know if it’s the smell of it that does it, but we’re all glad for it!

Guess it’s about time for us to be looking for a new place to land- the upstairs neighbors were astounded to discover they were older than the rents. Now, the man of the house up there looks like he’s pushing 45, if a day, he’s a seriously overweight heavy smoker, and his legs are the color of steamed beets from the knees down (don’t know what the beet comparison has to do with his age, but I just wanted to paint you a pretty picture), and his wife looks like she’s around 40, with mousy brown hair, and an unmade, Wyoming face (visitors to Wyoming know exactly what this looks like)- also a heavy smoker. They have 2 unruly kids whom they don’t spank because “that’s just not right”, and never go anywhere, do anything other than get cheap refills on their gas-station drinks and hang out upstairs on the porch interrogating the rents about their lives anytime they walk up to the apartment. It was on one of these walk-ups to the door that the man noisily asked the rents their age, then almost fell off the porch laughing when enlightened because he thought they “just looked so oooollllddd”. I guess being employed, getting up everyday going to work in nice clothes, buying groceries, and going for nightly walks will do that to a person. Regardless, the rents have noticed some crow’s-feet and a few little wrinkles creeping up on their faces. Is this just the aging process (they both did just have June birthdays) or is it Wyoming? We’ll have to wait and see…

“Thank you for coming in today Mr. NameHasBeenChanged.  I’ve taken care of that deposit for you. Was there anything else I could do for you today?”

“No, thanks, I think that’s about it.”

“Alright, and I see a couple of happy tails wagging in the back of your truck. How many dog bones can I send out for you?”

“Just two, I didn’t bring my mother-in-law with me to the bank today.”

- – - -incredibly awkward silence- – - -

(this was a true conversation. no mother-in-laws of the rents were harmed in the telling of this conversation. much love to the collective  four they are lucky enough to have.)

Midwest, previously featured in a blog about the Salt Creek Days' golf tournament, used to a be a booming oil town.

Derived from edge-of-town, the place near Midwest where oil folk could sneak off to for a little excitement at the saloons or cathouses.

A church in Carlile, Wyoming- deer to the left.

The facilities for the church.

The nation's first national monument (1906), the natural formation is the core of a volcano exposed and eroded by the Belle Fourche River.

The tower is 865 feet high, over 1200 feet above the Belle Fourche Riverbed.

Native American folklore says the rock was scored by a bear that chased seven little Indian girls to it. Their pleas for help caused the rock to ascend into the sky where they became seven stars. The bear clawed at the rock until his claws broke and he fell to the ground.

Harper enjoyed Devil's Tower- he reported that he did not see any bears while there.

‘Road tales to be continued…

Then on Saturday, the rents took their clothes to their favorite laundry to dry like always.  When pulling the load of whites out of the dryer they noticed a sticky yellow substance all over every item of clothing in there.  The Girl sniffed the stuff and thought it smelled like either stickytac or yellow paint. It was gummy and smelly and had pretty much ruined every pair of work pants and khakis the rents owned. They ran the clothes through a wash cycle there in the laundry hoping it might pull the tacky stuff off their clothes, but to no avail. The Girl told the laundry attendant what happened so maybe the next people wouldn’t experience the same thing from that dryer and I can’t tell you what happened next for several reasons, but I can tell you that they came home with two dry loads of laundry, one wet, yellow-spackled load of laundry and the night ended with The Guy Who Sleeps With The Girl mixing a giant pitcher of homemade sangrias they each partook of- and you all know it’s a rare occasion indeed for The Girl to imbibe. Harper and I stayed in a different room for a while…

But after all of that, they ended up taking off on vacation- with The D-O-G in tow- and I’m enjoying a little r&r by myself. I’ve got all my toys out, even the ones that chirp, so I’m on a little vacay myself. And if any of you have any suggestions for removing weird substances from clothes, pass the word along. Happy Trails!

Not sure why he likes the wicker baskets so much- they can’t feel good going down, or anything else…But he’ll snack on one quick when your back is turned.  He also helped himself to an oven mitt, a paperback novel, some underwear, and an empty dog food bag that was sitting by the trash can. You know, those big dog food bags are double-lined, so there was double mess, double shreds of paper all over this house.  Do they ever grow out of this?

By the way, that shredded wicker mess- it stretched into three rooms of the house. I’m still picking splinters out of my feet…