Zombies!

This morning at 7:22 I heard, "Nancy! Are you up?" I opened my eyes, looked at the clock on the bedroom wall—I had overslept, again. The dogs jumped off of the bed and ran to the big room.

"Morning, Rick!" I half-hollered from the bedroom. "Come on in. I overslept. I made the coffee last night and if you will push the second button on the bottom right side—you'll have coffee. I'll be right there." I threw on a red and black flannel shirt that was hanging on the back bedpost and pulled on some navy colored sweatpants, brushed my hair and pulled it back into a gray ponytail, put on my Utopia cap and then my bifocals and then walked into the kitchen as Rick was pouring his first cup of coffee for the morning. "I'm sorry I overslept. Did you sleep okay in the Space Ship?"

"I love the Space Ship and I slept great, but this morning when I woke up I felt like I had been hit by a truck. Every muscle in my body ached, so when Tony invited me to go with him to the Old Timer I told him no and went back to sleep. I think I am too old to ride a motorcycle two-hundred-fifty miles..."

"Do you want some aspirin?" I asked, as I opened the cabinet door to get the aspirin bottle for Rick. After he swallowed two baby aspirin Rick told me about his friend Bo Powell, as I fed the dogs. "Bo is an incredibly talented artist," Rick said. "He lives up in Fort Worth and..." After the dogs had eaten their breakfast I started preparing our breakfast.

After breakfast Rick went outside and helped Tony with his chores and then Rick and I went over to the Lodge to see Kinky, before Leisa arrived. I let Rick drive Kermit.

When we arrived at the Lodge we drank some coffee while we visited with Kinky and his friend, Jerome. Then we went outside to the Friedman Family Bone Orchard and talked about Kinky's plants and the beautiful, thriving Plumaria plants that Rick and Leisa had given to him last year. Then Kinky suggested a pool tournament. "Jerome aka The Red Demon, beat me last night and he is now the current pool champion," Kinky said. "Let's go inside. Rick, you play the Red Demon and then I will play the winner."

As we followed Kinky back inside the Lodge I jokingly remarked, "I like the way Kinky didn't invite me to play." They laughed. Then I said as Jerome racked up the balls and Rick put some chalk on his stick and Kinky checked his phone messages in his office, "Rick, you have to have a nickname. You can't play if you don't have one. How about Easy Rider?" Rick laughed.

"I was thinking of Skippy, but I don't think it sounds tough enough?" Rick joked, then he went into deep thought for ten seconds. "Scooter! What do you think? I like Scooter."

After all of us quit laughing I said, "I love it, Scooter. It's perfect!" Then the tournament began. The Red Demon broke up the rack and then he and Rick showed off how good they were at pool. I was impressed and so was Kinky. When the game ended it was Red Demon - 0, Scooter - 1.

Game Two was pretty fun to watch. The Hummingbird Man and Scooter were evenly matched and they took turns removing their balls one-by-one off the table as they kidded each other on their pool playing skills. Bottom line: The Hummingbird Man - 1, Scooter -0. As Kinky jokingly marched triumphantly around the pool table as the new pool champion I said, "Rick, I think Kinky won because Mercury is out of retrograde." After the laughter subsided, Kermit returned us to the rescue ranch. "Leisa's here!" I said, as we drove up to the house.

After a fun visit inside the trailer with Rick, Leisa and Tony we decided to follow Scooter and his better half to Kerrville for lunch at the orange colored restaurant, because they wanted to drive around the Hill Country on the Triumph and Tone and I needed to mail Bob Schloss the books he bought from me and we also needed to go to Wolfmuellers.

When we walked inside the restaurant the waitress showed us to a table. "We meet, again," a familiar voice said behind me as I sat down. I turned around and it was Kinky. He and Jerome were sitting in a booth, not three feet away from us. We laughed and visited and then Leisa and Scooter walked inside the restaurant and as they were sitting down at our table Kinky said, "We meet, again! You have got to quit stalking me." Leisa and Rick burst out laughing as everyone in the restaurant watched.

After a lunch filled with laughter and refried beans, Rick and Leisa decided to follow us over to Wolfmueller's Books before going over to Dave's in Center Point. After we paid our bills we went outside. As Leisa was climbing on Rick's Triumph I joked, "Tony, I'm going to ride with them." It took a second and then Rick and Tone burst out laughing. Leisa didn't laugh, because she had her helmet on and couldn't hear me or else she didn't think it was funny.

A few minutes later the four of us walked into Kerrville's favorite bookstore and we were greeted by Mary Jo. When I saw Sandy step out of her office in the back—I took off to go talk to her. "Leisa and Rick are with us. They are on vacation," I said. "When they leave here they are going over to Center Point to check out Dave's."

"Dave's is closed," Sandy said, as Rick and Leisa walked up to greet her and Jon, who had just come out of the office. "Dave's is closed on Mondays," Sandy said, "but y'all can go there tomorrow. It is a really cool place." Even though it wasn't funny, I tried not to laugh at Rick and Leisa's disappointed, frowning faces. "Tucan Jim's is open today and they are real close to Dave's. It a cool place, too" Jon added, trying to cheer them up.

"I hope this isn't a vacation omen for y'all," I said. "I guess that you could say that y'alls vacation seems to be starting out on the left foot instead of the right foot." They started laughing and then we went to the front of the store and started visiting over by the checkout counter. Everyone was laughing and having fun as we traded funny stories and then the front door opened and in walked Kathleen, our friend and Sandy's best friend.

"Kathleen," I said. "These are our good friends Rick and Leisa from Port Aransas. And, Leisa and Rick this is our good friend Kathleen, the wife and better half of the famous songwriter / musician—Robert Earl Keen. Kathleen made a funny remark which made all of us laugh and then she joined in on our fun. Fifteen minutes later she and Sandy took off to run an errand together and Jon followed us outside to look at Rick's Triumph before we took off in different directions.

When T. and I drove through the Albertsons' parking lot on our way to the UPS Store, we saw four police cars parked in front of Office Max arresting a man and putting handcuffs on him. The man did not look happy nor did the officers. "Did you see that man they were arresting? He looked like a zombie," Tony said, as he slowed for a speed bump. I trusted Tony's assessment, because he watches movies with zombies in them and I don't. "He looked higher than a kite..."

"Tone, look! There's Eileen Gotke in the parking lot!" I interrupted, as we slowly passed by Albertsons' front doors. She was standing next to her car talking to another woman, but she didn't see us as T. lightly tapped the horn at her. "I bet she's pretending to be talking to that woman and is actually rubber necking the Office Max crime scene," I said, half serious. Tony started laughing at me as we pulled to a stop in front of the UPS Store.

Y'all have a great evening!