Thank You, Harold! We Love You! And Have A Merry 'Mercury Free' Christmas!

Today has been exhaustingly hilarious! By ten o'clock this morning, I had my Himalayan salt lamp turned on and I was lip singing "Why Me Lord?" with Kris Kristofferson. The reason that I was lip singing is because I am tone deaf thanks to a Emerson, Lake and Palmer 'Tubular Bells' concert that I attended in the early seventies. It seems when I do sing it really upsets our dogs and Lucky because they think that they are being punished. Little do they know that I would never do that to them. I only sing in the car when I am alone.

It all started around nine o'clock this morning. I had just finished posting Pete and Kelly's cute videos up on my blog and on Utopia's Facebook page showing Smilin' Jack and Fiona playing tennis, when Pat our talented and wonderful web master for utopiarescue.com called and left a message about our site being down! I had planned on making some coffee, but when I heard her words I put the coffee can back into the cabinet, because with news like that my heart was jump started instantly!

After checking out our site to make sure it was down, e-mails started flying out of my computer to Pat, and to Harold, a great guy who hosts our site for us. Then I called Harold and got his machine, so I left an urgent message about our site being down and asking him to please call me as soon as possible.

Knowing that there was nothing else that I could do about the situation, but wait, I paced around the big room with Leslie for about ten minutes, but my heart wasn't into it, so I stopped at the one mile marker and checked my e-mail hoping there might be a note from Harold.

I was so excited when I saw that I had one new e-mail inside my mailbox! I quickly opened up the mailbox to see if the e-mail was from Harold, but unfortunately—it was an advertisement from Domino's Pizza, so I deleted it. Ten minutes later when I checked again, the same thing happened but this time it was from Sundance catalog. Then I got them one at a time from Amazon, Apple, Crate and Barrel, etc.

Frustrated because I am an impatient person, I decided to return some phone calls and do a little paperwork to help pass the time and that's when I turned on my salt lamp and iPod and began singing with Kris. When our duet was over, I decided to call Ron and Susie to see how Clark Kent was doing with Marcus.

Ron told me that Clark Kent was doing great and they were real happy with their sweet, medium sized low rider! He said that Clark only goes outside to play with Marcus or to take care of business, and he has only had one accident inside the house, but it was their fault for feeding him and not giving him enough time to go outside. Ron told me that Clark likes to chew on things, so they bought him a giant rawhide bone. Before hanging up I asked Ron what Marcus had named his new best buddy.

"As you know, he wanted to name him C.C. the name of our old dog that had just passed away. We suggested calling him something else like C. K., for Clark Kent, and Marcus liked it. So, his new name is C.K. He is a great dog and we all love him, especially Marcus."

After we hung up, Tony came inside the trailer. "Mr. Rogers and I are best friends, Nance! I had him sitting in my lap, and he let me scratch his chest and belly and he even gave me a kiss on the lips!"

"That is fantastic news! How about Miss Dee?"

"She is doing great, too. She wanted to sit in my lap, too but Mr. Rogers wouldn't budge. They are cool dogs." After Tone's report, I told him the good news about Clark Kent and then I checked my laptop, again for e-mail. This time I had received an e from J.C. Penneys.

After lunch I spent my time finishing up my paperwork. Around one-fifteen Matt came inside to get a Band-Aid for his finger that he had accidentally stapled. Ten minutes later Lisa showed up and the four of us had a fun visit, and we teased Matt nonstop about stapling his finger.

At two o'clock Tony called our good friend, Maribeth, who is good friends with Harold, to see if she had another phone number for Harold or knew if he was out of town. She told us to call Doug, because he might know something. T. called Doug and Doug told him he would try to get a hold of Harold for us.

Then it dawned on me that we had not paid Harold this fall for hosting our web site. "Tony he always bills us in October or November and he sends it by e-mail. I bet I accidentally deleted it or forgot about it or something!" I then pulled out the checkbook and wrote a check to pay Harold. "Tony!" I half-hollered down the hallway. "We've got to go to Vanderpool and mail this check to Harold, now!" Then I called Harold's machine to tell him that we were heading to Vanderpool with our late payment.

"Can't we just mail it from Medina? Vanderpool is thirty-five miles away."

"No, Tony. Not with the holiday mail and all. It could take days to get there. If we mail it from Vanderpool he will get it tomorrow! Let's go!" At two-thirty before leaving the ranch we found Lisa and Matt walking Paul McCartney and Bluebelle and we asked them to lock things up for us before leaving, then we headed for Vanderpool.

We arrived back at the rescue ranch at three-thirty five. As soon as we came inside, I punched Carlton's button so we could listen to our new incoming messages. "Hello Nancy, this is Harold. I've been out all day repairing computers and I just got home. I am checking on the problem right now and want you to know that I would never cut you or anyone else off for being late with a payment. In fact, you are current and you don't owe anything. Call me." I picked up the phone and punched in Harold's number from memory!

"Hi Harold! It's Nancy. I'm sorry for the many phone messages. We just mailed you a check from the Vanderpool Post Office and we just got back from there. I am so sorry for not paying you. I went through the checkbook from October to December to see if we had paid you and we haven't. I must have deleted your invoice, or forgotten or something! I'm blaming it on getting old and Mercury going into retrograde in four days. You know weird stuff starts happening about a week before Mercury goes ..."

Harold laughed! "Nancy, it is okay," Harold said. "I am working on the problem with the techs right now. Somehow some wires got crossed on their end and Utopia should be up and running online in less than thirty minutes or so. And, you didn't forget to pay me. I normally bill you on the first of December, but I have been so busy, I still haven't gotten around to doing it. In fact, I paid the company two weeks ago for your site. You know that I would never cut y'all off like that even if you were late with your payment. I wouldn't do that to anybody..." Harold was right, I knew that. He is one great guy!

As soon as our conversation ended the phone rang—it was Jon Wolfmueller. "Hi Nancy. I just wanted to let you know that Utopia is up and back online. What happened? Did you forget to pay your bill?" We started laughing.

"No, Jon. I thought I had. In fact, we just got back from Vanderpool so I could pay our bill and mail it from the Vanderpool Post Office so Harold would get it tomorrow. I just got off the phone with Harold, who has hosted our site for over eleven years and it wasn't about money at all. It seems the techs on the other end had crossed up some wires and...You do know that all of this happened because Mercury is going into retrograde in four days! Don't you?" Jon laughed!

"I guess. If y'all come to Kerrville tomorrow come by and see us. If not y'all have a Merry Christmas."

"Thanks Jon. If we do come to Kerrville we will definitely swing by to see y'all. If not try to have the best Mercury Christmas, I mean Merry Christmas!..."

P.S. I want to thank Paul Emerson for driving out from Helotes today to bring us some free dog food for our dogs.

Y'all have a great "Mercury free" evening!