Housecleaning!

Today marks the end of a little bit of an era in the household. These things do occur here -sporadically - and today was one of 'em when Mandy decided to clean -and rearrange -the living room. When you've got a house like this that isn't exactly laid out in a way that makes furniture placement attractive or easy, it is quite the task.

I try my level best to stay clear of her when she goes on one of these binges. It's just better that way. Her mood deteriorates quite rapidly when she is in a housecleaning/rearranging frenzy and today was no different.

Kurtis and Maya, on the other hand, do not comprehend that keeping a quiet front, low profile, is necessary on days like this though. And as a result of that, around 2 p.m., Mandy suggested perhaps I'd be interested in going someplace and taking Maya with me. (No, she didn't tell me WHERE to go -although I'd bet she had a really warm place in the back of her mind as a destination for me, for Maya too.

So, I did just that!

Since we have my son's lovely, canary yellow, 1971 Chevy Pickup truck here during the week, while he is on the road, and since I just happen to still have Maya's booster seat in the cab too from when she and I drove Uncle CLate's fine unit up to the store on Thursday, Maya was very happy to go with me when I suggested to her that she and I go for a ride in Uncle Clate's truck.

She does love to ride in trucks! And it really brings out the songstress side of her too as again, she treated me to one tune after another -just singing away, as we drove around like a couple of Sunday drivers out to see the sights on a lazy (for us) Saturday afternoon.

First stop was at the gas station where I splurged and put $30 worth of gas -or 8.11 gallons of the economy type fuel in the tank. From there, we began our little ride.

I decided we'd take a run past the church to see if perhaps our new minister might be there and was intending to stop and say hello, show her Clate's truck so that when she sees it parked in the yard of the house around the bend from the church parsonage, she'll recognize it and know that's my son's home.

I pulled in the church parking lot and parked next to her van but then things went amok on me. I pulled on the handle to open my door and nothing happened! I pushed against the door with my left shoulder while trying to open the door and still no movement of an opening type. I rolled the window down and tried opening it from the outside -a little bit of difficult manuever for me and also one that was futile too.

So, I started the engine up, drove home and pulled in our parking area and went to lay on the horn to get Mandy's attention to our plight, only to learn the damned horn doesn't work!

Wonderful!

So there we sat in the truck with me hollering for Mandy -in hopes that she wasn't on the phone or down in the basement or unable to hear over the tv set probably blaring yet another of the lovely cartoon videos the kids like -or worse, that maybe Kurtis was being ultra obnoxious and fussing, in which case we would be left to sit there till the proverbial cows come home.

Lucky for us, she either reailized I'd pulled in but wasn't getting out of the truck or she maybe heard my calling her name but she came out and when I told her I needed her to open the truck door, she began to laugh. Well, that was a good sign anyway that she saw humor in my predicament.

It took me trying to slam myself against the door and her trying to push on the door lever from the outside but finally, it opened! Neither of us as a clue as to why it is acting that way -didn't give me any problems like that the other day when I drove it, so what is its problem today? Darned if I know.

Since we'd not been gone very long and Mandy still wanted a little more time without Maya underfoot, I decided we would take a run out to see an older couple -good friends of our family, even good friends for many years dating back to when my ex and I were still married. I decided to take Maya down to see Pearl and Don Harter. Don is retired from a position held for many years at the now defunct Corning plant over in State College but he also had a garage and junkyard on their farm property for many, many years -a place my ex, my SIL and my son, love to visit and hunt for car parts they need for various repair works ongong.

Don has also restored a goodly number of antique cars too over the years -I think he may have around 10-12 such vehicles parked in a large garage he had built several years back just for the purpose of storing these antiques in there. Therefore, I knew he would enjoy seeing Clate's "new" truck too!

However, Don wasn't in the house when we got there -seems he was out in the junkyard doing something or other out there so we didn't get a chance to see him. But Maya and I sat out in the yard and had a chance to visit a good bit with Pearl -something I haven't done for a long, long time either and Pearl hadn't seen Maya since she was maybe about two years old so it was a good visit at least in that respect.

When we came back home and the truck door again refused to open, this time I had Mandy's cell phone with me and so I dialed her number and told her she needed to come out and help me free myself from this buggy! When she did that, she also got a big kick out of Maya sitting in her booster seat with Uncle Clate's sunglasses on so she went in the house and grabbed my camera so as to get a picture of Miss Maya, all decked out with Uncle Clate's shades. Here, see for yourself what a little ham Maya is!

However, after getting this shot, as Mandy finished getting me out of the driver's side and went back to get Maya out of the booster seat, tragedy struck! Well, not tragedy for us, exactly but Uncle Clate might not be overly happy when he arrives back home tonight and finds the stem of his sunglasses on one side is neatly broken off -thanks to his sweet little niece and her monkeyiing around with the glasses.

Ok -back in the house -Mandy did a nice job of cleaning and repositioning the furniture so the room looks pretty decent -for the moment at least. If anyone wants to make bets on how long the place will stay neat and tidy though, I recommend putting your money on a short amount of time -oh, say maybe 60-90 seconds at most, once Kurtis gets loose and into ripping and tearing again!

I went to make myself (or us) a fresh pot of coffee, filled the water in the coffee maker, had the basket all washed out nicely, sitting in the dish drainer. Measured out the coffee and turned the thing on only to realize about 5 seconds after I hit the start button that I had put the coffee in the basket but didn't put the strainer inside the basket! So, I had to turn it off, pull the basket out and clean it all out and then, put the strainer in and refill it with coffee to get it brewing for us!

Mandy knew as soon as she heard me utter a little curse word too exactly what stupid move I had just performed there -intuition, ya know! So we both did have a little giggle then about just how darned absent minded I am at times.

Now, it's time for me to try to whip up some food -supper is calling! What to fix, what to fix? I have no clue so I think I will take a relatively easy route and grill some burgers on the grill.

Wonder what I can mess up there, huh?

If you don't hear from me in a while, you'll know I must have caught the house on fire and couldn't get away quickly because we couldn't get the truck door to open!

Later, friends! Hope everyone else is having a good day though!