Kinky's Doing The Harley Show, Tuesday Morning, Live At 8:00!

This morning, after I had walked my six fast miles, and Tony had finished with his chores outside, he went to Medina to get some gas for Kermit and Buttermilk. Even though we are not driving Buttermilk right night, because the air conditioner is dead, and our hard hitting, rock tool, no longer seems to work—she needed gas.

When Tone returned, he apologized for being gone so long. "Nance, I'm sorry for being gone so long. On my way to Medina, I had to stop to help a man stand his Harley up, near Freeman Crossing."

"What happened? Was he hurt?"

"He took the turn too fast. It happened just before I got there," Tony said. "He was wearing leather and a helmet, and he just got skinned up a little. Then after I got gas, Ed asked me to help him lift an air tank, inside the Old Timer. Do you still want to go to Kerrville?"

"We have to. We're nearly out of groceries and cat food, and I need to go by Home Depot."

"Home Depot?" Tony asked. "What do we need..."

"The Eternal Squirrel died last night. It never came on." I said. "I need to buy a solar battery for it. Let's go." T. and I took off in Trigger.

I am going on my third Eternal Squirrel, not counting the one that I gave to Kinky for his Friedman Family Bone Orchard. Every time that they quit working—I threw them out, and bought another one. A few months ago, when I was in Outer Space, visiting with Ben and Cindy, I found out that all I have to do to fix the dead squirrel, is to replace their solar battery. I never knew they had batteries.

When we arrived in Kerrville, we decided to eat an early lunch at our favorite Chinese restaurant, before running our errands. Tony ordered sweet and sour shrimp, with a medium sized bowl of hot and sour soup, and I ordered their house fried rice with shrimp, and a medium sized bowl of hot and sour soup. After our waiter brought out our two teas, he returned with two giant bowls of hot and sour soup! "I apologize for the extra large bowls, we are out of our medium sized bowls. I just broke the last one. I am giving you our large serving, but not charging you extra." Then he walked away.

Tony and I love their hot and sour soup, but our bowls were so big, people were staring at us, as we ate our soups! After my fifth spoonful, I coughed and my nose started running, because of the hot spicy soup. Then the same thing happened to Tony. And, about a minute later, a man and woman coughed, and teared up as they ate their soup. "Tony, you can tell who is eating the hot and sour soup, because of the coughing and people blowing their noses!" I whispered. Then a man coughed, at the table next to us. We looked over, and he was eating the hot and sour soup, too!

When Tone and I had nearly emptied our gigantic soup bowls, our lunch was served. Three minutes into our meal, Tony put his fork down and so did I. "Are you as full as me?" I asked. Tony nodded yes, then we started laughing at ourselves. Tone flagged our waiter and asked him for two take-out boxes. We laughed as we filled the boxes with our uneaten meals. After paying our bill, we went to H.E.B. and Home Depot, and then we came home.

As soon as we got home, I put a new battery into the Eternal Squirrel!

Then I helped Tony bring the groceries into the trailer. While we unpacked our groceries, we listened to Carlton's latest phone messages that he had taken. There were only two, and they were both from Kinky. "Call me, Nance!" Kinky said. "I've got to talk to you. Please call me as soon as you get this." The second one was an hour and ten minutes later, "Tone? Nance?" Kinky said. "Where are y'all? Nance, please call Kinky. Thank you very much!"

After putting up the toilet paper, I punched in Kinky's phone number. Five minutes later, I was over at the Lodge, talking to Kinky, in the kitchen. Then we carried our conversation outside, by the Friedman Family Bone Orchard. An hour later, we were in Kinky's office discussing our books, and that's when I saw a picture and picked it up. "Kinky is that you?" Kinky looked at it and laughed.

"Yes, Nance," Kinky said. "That's me with Dylan, when we were in the Peace Corps. Dylan found it the other day, and he made me a copy."

"Wow! I love it, Kink! How old were you then?"

"I was twenty-three or twenty-four," Kinky said. "I was in the Peace Corps from '66 to '68." Then Kinky started laughing, again. Here's Dylan Ferrero's picture of him and Kinky:

Kinky then invited me to go on a walk down to the creek, with him and The Friedmans. We took off. Twenty minutes later, after the dogs had tired from swimming and fetching, we headed back to the Lodge, but when we reached the area where Kinky had buried his beloved cats, Cuddles and Mr. Scat, Kinky said, "Lets write the word 'Love' using rocks, to honor Cuddles and Scatman."

Even though it was pretty hot, I wasn't tired, so I helped Kinky gather big rocks, by the creek, to write the word love. Just when I thought we were done, Kinky walked over to an old oak tree, where he picked up a large heart-shaped rock, and then he placed it in the middle of the 'O.' It took us about twenty minutes to complete his project and I loved the results of our efforts. Here's a picture of it, that I took later in the day:

Before I go watch the movie, The Secret Life of Bees, I forgot to tell you that this afternoon, while over at Kinky's, I gave him a copy of the Two Wolves and he absolutely loved reading it, and he thanked me for giving it to him!

Y'all try to have a great evening, even though Mercury went into retrograde today!

P.S. Kinky is doing Harley in the morning, live at 8:00 CST! I hope that y'all can watch it! And, I just looked outside, and the Eternal Squirrel is glowing! I love it!