Thursday, July 21, 2011

Congratulations To Hayden Hickner! or Road Trip!

Today has been so much fun. This afternoon we went to Wolfmueller's Books so we could meet our dear friend "Patty From Florida" there, so we could go to lunch. Before going into the bookstore we checked out their display window by the door and started to laugh, because they had filled the entire display bookshelf with one of Kinky's, Tony's and my favorite Elmer Kelton's best selling book, The Time It Never Rained and it made me appreciate Sandy's and Jon's great sense of humor concerning our terrible drought.

We were greeted by Sandy and Jon when we walked into their bookstore and they invited us to sit down for a visit, while we waited on Patty, because we were ten minutes early. "I love your display window showcasing Elmer's book," I said. "It says it all and it made me laugh and we sure need something to laugh about since we can't do anything about the drought and..."

Then I saw it! "OMG! Y'all have Hayden Hickner's new book, A Bear & the Bees," I said, excitedly. "I love his book and his illustrations and I can't believe he is only sixteen years old and has Aspergers Syndrome and he wrote it when he was only fourteen years old and..."

"It's a beautiful book," Sandy replied. "Did you know that he's having a book signing at the Medina Community Library next Thursday at 9:30?"

"Yes, and I plan to go."

"Good. Then let's ride together," Sandy said. Then we started talking about the drought and that's when I saw Joan, a friend of Kinky's and mine, who had given him her dog Sophie, so I excused myself and went to talk to her about Sophie. After a short, but fun visit with her, Patty walked up and hugged me and then I introduced her to Joan.

Before leaving the bookstore Patty, T. and I invited Sandy and Jon to join us for lunch. "I'll come down there in a few minutes to drink some tea with y'all, but Jon can't because he has to stay here to hold down the fort."

When the three of us walked into the crowded Water Street Cafe, Kevin, the owner greeted us and then I introduced him to Patty and then we went and found a table and the laughter commenced and when Sandy joined us—we're talkin' one non-stop laughing, hilarious party and believe it or not—we even found humor in discussing politics, religion and our awful drought.

While we were eating our delicious lunch and Sandy sipped her tea Patty and Sandy started talking about how much they loved shopping at Target. "I haven't been to a Target store in over sixteen years, since I left Austin, because I don't do big cities," I casually remarked, and you should have seen the look of shock and disbelief on Sandy and Patty's faces—like I was some kind of an alien from another planet, so I burst out laughing and they followed suit. Then for about five minutes they told Tony and me on how cool Target stores are to shop at and I was pretty impressed.

Then we started talking about Whole Foods and what a great store it is and once again I told them that I hadn't been to a Whole Foods store in over sixteen years, too and I got the same reaction from them—shock and total disbelief—followed by another outburst of laughter.

And when it was all said and done Patty suggested, "The next time that I'm back in town let's do a road trip and take Nancy to Austin so we can take her shopping at Target and Whole Foods!" And that set the wheels in motion, so to speak. "Let's do it. We can go in my car and ...," Sandy said.

After the four of us ate our tasty chocolate cupcakes we went back to the bookstore and while I told Sandy and Patty about our new band L—BeNT & Husky Bound and how good T. had gotten on the mandolin—Jon sat at his desk and "wolf-ed down" (Because he is a Wolfmueller.) the chocolate cupcake that Sandy had brought to him.

After I had told them about Ben picking the song, "My Rifle, My Pony and Me" for our band to learn Sandy pulled it up on YouTube and we watched Dino and Ricky Nelson sing it in the classic movie Rio Bravo. Then it became question and answer time.

We had Sandy sitting at her laptop Googling Ricky Nelson to help us remember his brother's name. "It's David Nelson," Sandy reported. "It says here that "Garden Party" was Ricky's second most popular song. I love that song."

"I do, too," I said. "Maybe our band can learn that song, too." When Patty started talking about Kelly McGinnis living in Florida, I asked, "Was Kelly McGinnis in Top Gun?" So, Sandy checked that out and verified that yes, she was in Top Gun. After fact checking several more questions we had for Sandy I looked over at Jon and said, "Jon, if you had Sandy charging us just a dollar to look up and answer all of our trivial pursuit questions—you'd be twenty or thirty dollars richer." Jon laughed and then he and T. took off to look at some book on photography.

Ten minutes later, after Patty had purchased several books from Sandy to take back with her to Florida—it was time for Patty and us to leave. So after we all hugged and adios-ed each other Trigger took Tone and me home.

Around 5:00 this evening Tony and I went over to the Lodge to visit with Kinky and we sat outside beneath a big, old oak tree and caught up with each others news and talked about Enzo's great adoption, seeing Joan at the bookstore and the drought.

And that is about it for tonight.

Y'all have a great evening and please keep praying for rain for us.

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