Monday, March 21, 2011

Lock It Up!

So, this afternoon I had to make a drive over to Curwensville because I had a doctor's appointment there with my primary care physician. Had to take all the meds I have here that I use with me so they could go over the bottles, check the dosage, all that happy stuff, ya know.

How it happened that I left the house a little later than I should have in order to arrive there on time for my appointment is something I still don't understand because one minute it was 12:30 and the next, sheesh, it was 1:45 and my appointment was -I thought -for 2:15, but turns out I had the time wrong too. It was actually for 2:00 p.m. so I arrived late and ended up having to reschedule said appointment then for this Friday.

Oh well, guess I am slowing down more than I thought I was these days. But my tardiness is not the point of this post. Just setting the scene, you could say I guess.

When I arrived at the doctor's office, got out of the car and slammed the car door shut, I got a little bit of a surprise because the door of my trusty little old jeep wouldn't shut!

Nope! Just gave a clanking noise and bounced back open again.

I tried to look at the latch mechanism to see if I could figure anything out on my own but, true to form, my unmechanical ability was coming through loud and clear and I didn't have clue one as to what I could do myself to fix this situation.

So, with my driver's side door hanging wide open, in I went to the waiting room and to speak to the receptionist on duty.

First, I asked her if she might, by chance, happen to have a Phillips screwdriver handy there because I had noticed this much about the latch mechanism -there were two big bolts there and they both required a Phillips screwdriver to work on them! (Give me 10 points there for being observant of that and knowing too the difference between a plain screwdriver and one with a Phillips head. Some good actually came from having been married to a mechanic and having a son who likes to tinker too with various tools.)

I also asked her to call my daughter as I figured if I couldn't get things squared away and drive home with the door to the jeep closed, safely, I'd have to have her or Ken come get me and get the door working again.

Well, the receptionist dialed the number for me and handed me the phone and as I stood there, listening to the rings, I remembered Mandy had gone upstairs to try to get Kurtis to take a much-needed nap (and to take a nap herself too) and her cordless phone, which is normally on the hook in her room, was laying on the end table beside my recliner. Rats! With that phone downstairs on that table, I knew she'd never hear the incoming call just ringing away.

So, back to the drawing board I went as I tried to think who the heck I could call then!

Ah ha! Every now and again I do have a "let's use all parts of the brain" moment and I had the other recepionist -Wanda (who I have known since she was just a little bitty thing) looked up the number for me of the garage in Clearfield where my lovely ex-brother-in-law works -as an auto mechanic -and a darned good one he is at that!

So I got Uncle Tom on the line and explained my dilemma to him and, as he has done for me and my kids on too many previous occasions to begin to remember, he told me things I could do in order to get the locking system to work so I could then return home.

Back out to the jeep I went with the good old Phillips screwdriver in hand and tried my level best to get these two big old bolts screwed back in tightly but with no luck. (The one was, as I had suspected, stripped out and was sort of like a car, stuck in the mud -revolutions galore but just spinning tires, if you know what I mean by that.)

About that time, and after having said numerous words that turned the air around me probably a fine shade of blue, I saw two young fellows leaving the apartment building adjacent to the doctor's office and I called out to them, asking if either of them knew anything about car door lock systems.

They came over and looked at the situation and the one guy then moved the bolt that was in the stripped out region to another open slot and he managed to get that bolt and the other one, each screwed in tightly so when he attempted to close the jeep's door, it actually latched!

"God bless your pea-picking little heart," I told the young man, and then also told him "I'll buy you a beer when you're old enough!"

He laughed at that telling me he was already old enough. So then, I told him that if he knows my ex-brother-in-law and which local pub he hangs at, to go up to him and tell him that his sister-in-law said for him to buy this guy a brew and I'd repair Uncle Tom next time I see him then with a six pack!

The fun thing about this whole event though was that I had taken with me the last tablecloth I just finished last week along with the tulip one I had done for Mandy's birthday for the sole purpose of showing them to the receptionist in the doctor's office. That Wanda happened to be working there today was just icing on that cake though.

Wanda informed me she had seen the pictures of the tulip tablecloth on my Facebook photos and had immediately called her Mom to tell her about that tablecloth. She then informed me that she has a set of pillow cases, hand-embroidered, in a tulip pattern identical to the one on my tablecloth. And furthermore, she said it had been embroidered by her grandfather, the late Wayne Raymond! (Keep in mind here I knew Wanda's family quite well -her parents as well as her grandparents too!)

Now if you'd ever known her grandfather, learning that he had been very adept at doing exquisite needlework would probably come to you as a big surprise the same as learning this about him did to me! And, Wanda understood completely when I said that was incredible to learn that about her Grandfather.

She said yes, it was something quite extra-ordinary and went on to tell me that her Mom is now in the process of teaching her son, Isaac, who is probably 10 or 11 years old, how to do embroidery work too -and not just that but also that he LOVES doing that stuff!

So, imagine that! Not only did I manage, with a little bit of assistance, to get my car dilemma fixed -at least for the time being anyway -but I also learned about a man I had known much of my life who did embroidery work as a hobby (and did it extremely well too) but that his great-grandson was no also going to be carrying that tradition forward.

Oh, and I'll be posting some pictures of the most recent tablecloth in the near future, just as soon as I can figure out a way to lay the cloth out to show it in the best light possible.

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