Chances Are!

Continued from yesterday….

Sunday afternoon Kinky called me, from the big H-E-B, in Kerrville, to see if our electricity was on yet. After I gave him the bad news about us still not having power, he told me that he had to do a telephone interview, at 7:15 and he asked me if he could use our phone. And of course, my answer was yes.

Kinky drove over here, at 6:55 and Tony and I were outside, sitting in rockers, underneath a shade tree, in my pink cabin’s front yard, because it was so hot inside The Cabin, even with all of the windows opened.

After greeting him I warned him about The Cabin being so hot, as we headed for The Cabin. Then our phone rang and it was the interviewer calling, off-air, to make sure that Kinky was ready to be interviewed.

While Kinky was being interviewed he sat, in one of our barstools, at the breakfast bar, with Tony and I sitting in our chairs, listening to Kinky do another one of his great interviews.

About mid-way through Kinky’s 45 minute interview Tony came over and whispered in my ear, “I’m going to drive up to the top of the Kerrville Pass and call Bandera Electric, again.” Then he exited The Cabin. And then Kinky finished his interview and exited The Cabin, too.

Then Tony and I spent another hot, sweaty evening just staring into the fake candlelight and the battery-operated lanterns that once again lighted up our lives.

Monday morning, we still did not have power, so Tony called Jim, in Kerrville to see if had heard any news about the weather.

 Jim was very helpful, because while he was talking to us he got on the Internet and went to the Bandera Electric’s website.

Jim told us that it showed that there were over 140 outages in our area. The crews, at the PEC (Pedernales Electric Co-op) had come to help the crews at BEC fix the outages and that a crew had been assigned to us. Finally, we had heard some good news and it lifted our spirits.

Around 11:30, we decided to go to Kerrville to buy some bread, bottled water, dog food, etc. So Tony called Jim, “Hey Jim. If you’ve got a gas mask, would you like to meet us for lunch, at the Hat?” Then Tony laughed.

“No,” I chimed in, in the background. “We don’t stink, Tony.”

“Nance said to tell you that we don’t stink,” Tony said, followed by a chuckle. “We took sponge baths a little while ago. Okay, we’ll meet you there, around 12:30. And yes, we still don’t have any electricity.”

As Tony and I were driving out, a BEC crew was driving in and they pulled over and stopped to talk to us. And the nice man told us that they had just finished patrolling our line and they were ready to connect us up! And that made us really happy.

We had a fun lunch with Jim. Then we quickly went straight to the small H-E-B, in the adjacent parking lot and bought some supplies. And before left the parking lot I called our phone to see if we had electricity, yet. When I heard my recorded voice message saying, “Rescue ranch...” I hung up and then said, “Tony, we’ve got electricity! Thank goodness.”

As soon as we got back home, we climbed out of Buttermilk and could hear our central air conditioning unit purring and saw that our front porch light was on. And when we walked inside The Cabin, to our delight, we heard the sweet sound of the refrigerator humming, the ceiling fans were spinning and it felt much cooler than it had been.

After we had unpacked everything and put it away, we turned on all of the faucets to get the air out of the lines. Then I started a load of laundry, washed our dirty dishes, took showers and I have never had so much fun, because the BEC had literally lit up our lives. Thanks to the dedicated, hard working folks, at the Bandera Electric Co-op.

Today has been great even though we’ve had a few thunderstorms. And that’s about it for today except I want to share a true, but funny quote that my dear friend Mari found and e-mailed to me this morning, because it made me laugh out loud. Here's the quote:

"If, after the age of 50, you wake up in the morning and nothing hurts, chances are you died during the night.”

Y’all have a great evening and keep on laughing!

Iowa!

I wrote this Sunday afternoon and I was planning on posting it last night, but we had no electricity.

Today has been great sort of. You see last night at 6:15 our electricity went out. And it hadn’t even been twenty minutes since I had called Kinky to warn him, about thinking twice, before going to Kerrville, because we were under a severe thunderstorm watch until 11:00.

Around 6:30, thinking that our phones were out too, Tony told me that he was going to drive up to the top of the Kerrville pass, so he could call the Bandera Electric Co-op to report our power outage.

At 7:40, our phone rang and that startled me, because earlier, when I had picked up our portable phone there had been no dial tone and the only phone that was ringing, inside The Cabin was from this one.

 So I cautiously picked up the phone, even though I was scared to, because of the lightning strikes that were nearby. “Hello?”

“Nancy, are y’all okay?” Our dear friend Jim asked.

“Yes and no,” I said. “We’ve been without electricity for nearly an hour and a half and…” Then Jim went on to tell me that he had just looked at the radar and it looked like the storm was right on top of the rescue ranch. And I believed it.

After a brief visit with Jim about the weather conditions and Kris, I gave him Kinky’s cell phone number and asked him to please call Kinky to let him know that the electricity was out.  Then I heard thunder and I quickly put the phone in Tony’s hand, because better Tony get struck by lightning than me.

At 9:22, our power came back on, I was thrilled, so I immediately called Jim, to tell him that we were fine and for him not to worry, because the power had just come back on, while Tony was busy plugging everything back into the wall.

As soon as I hung up, the phone rang—it was Kinky. His loss of power was no longer and he just wanted to make sure that our electricity was on, too.

Then at 10:15 we had a major storm with thunder and lightning and a little pea-sized hail, thrown in for color, so we quickly unplugged everything again.

And then 12 minutes later our electricity went out again. We figured they had to fix something, so we waited. Finally, at 11:48, Tony called Bandera Electric, from The Cabin. Then we decided there was nothing else for us to do, but go to bed. So I turned off our lantern and turned off my red candle.

I got up this morning, at 6:29, expecting our electricity to be back on, but sadly it wasn’t.

So later on, after Tony did his morning chores outside, I fixed us a delicious breakfast—a tall glass of water, that I obtained from our water cooler dispenser and of course it was not cold. And we each drank two glassfuls. Talk about delicious!

Trying to be in a more positive mood about our situation, I jokingly asked Tony if he wanted to watch television with me and that made us both laugh. Then I dusted off my television and we sat down, in our chairs, in the big room and watched my television do nothing, but collect new dust, for about ten minutes or so.

Around 10:30 this morning, Tony went to go check on the creek’s water crossings and when he returned, he said, “We can make it over to Kinky’s, but not the other water crossings, yet.” So we jumped into Buttermilk and went over the river, into the woods, to get to the Lodge.

“Hi Kink,” I said, trying to sound cheerful. “I tried to call first, but your phones are down.” Then we had a fun visit with Kinky and Scott, out on the porch, with The Friedmans.

About 40 minutes later we heard some thunder rumbling, so we adios-ed our friends and high-tailed it back over to the rescue ranch. And by now, Tony was starving, so I gave him our last  banana.

Around 1:30, I asked Tony, “Do you want me to fix us lunch? Water is all we’ve got, but I can put it in bowls and we can pretend it’s soup.” Tony tried to chuckle, but I could tell that he was pretty stressed out about our situation and that he was probably wondering why it was taking so long to get our electric meter back to costing us money, again.

A little while later, we went and ate lunch, at The Apple Store, in Medina. Tony ordered a cheeseburger with no onions and I ordered their chicken salad plate. And the funniest thing happened while we were waiting, in line, to pay the cashier.

Some nice woman told the cashier that she was from Iowa and touring the Hill Country. Another woman who was checking out some wind chimes overheard her and says, “We’re from Iowa, too and we’re here visiting relatives. Then they started telling each other where they lived, in Iowa.

And when it was my turn to pay the bill, they were still talking about Iowa this and Iowa that. Then one of them says, “We have wooden shoes!” I looked over, at Tony and he winked at me and that nearly caused me to burst out laughing.

Then the other friendly couple, says, “We have wooden shoes, too! They are so expensive we waited until our son’s feet had quit growing to buy him his pair of wooden shoes.” And they were still talking and bragging about their wooden shoes, as we quietly exited the Apple Store. And Tony and I were still laughing about their wooden shoes, as we climbed back into Buttermilk to come back home. 

It is now 3:32 and we still don’t have any electricity or running water. Tony is outside filling up the dog bowls again, with more water that he got from the creek. And The Cabin’s temperature is 81.1 degrees and slowly rising.

I have to quit writing now, before my computer completely runs out of juice and I am hoping that I will get to post this tonight, as soon as our electricity comes back on.

To Be Continued...With A Happy Ending!

Back To The Future!

Today has been great even though I overslept this morning, because I had stayed up late watching the movies, Back To The Future and Back To The Future II. And Little Debbie, Big Al(ice) and Henry stayed up with me and watched them too.

This afternoon, for our lunch,, I cooked another new recipe, Fried Cabbage With Bacon, Onions and Garlic and it was delicious and it was very easy to make. I served it with some Italian meatballs covered in tomato sauce.

While I was cooking our lunch, our dogs started barking outside, which usually means that someone is driving in, so Tony, who was starving, told me to keep on cooking and that he would go outside to see who was here.

About 45 minutes later, Tony walked back inside The Cabin, and said, "We've got another great adoption and you are not going to believe who it is!"

When he told me who it was I was more than thrilled about it, because I love this wonderful dog so much. Then I turned off the oven, that was keeping our lunch warmed and then I quickly did the paperwork for Springsteen's adoption, while Tony told me about the family that wanted to adopt Springsteen.

A few minutes later, I grabbed my camera, Springsteen's adoption papers and then Tony and I hopped, into Kermit, and took off for Springsteen's pen. 

Like Tony had done earlier, I instantly liked Mimi and her family the moment that I saw them and that made me even more excited about Springsteen's fabulous adoption. 

After we had a fun visit with Mimi and we had told them what a super, great dog Springsteen was, Mimi filled out Springsteen's adoption papers, while Tony and I leashed up this very sweet, handsome dog. And before they loaded up Springsteen, into the backseat, I took this picture of Springsteen with his new fabulous family.

So like us, please keep your fingers crossed that Springsteen's adoption sticks and that he will get along with their other dog and cats, because this special dog deserves the very best.

After we had adios-ed these great people and hugged Springsteen, they drove away and we drove away, in the opposite direction, so we could eat our lunch. And that's about it for today, because our four-legged family is fixin' to go watch Back To The Future III with me.

Y'all have a great day and keep on laughing!

He's So Vain!

Yesterday was Henry's last Clicker-Training class. When Tony and I were getting ready to take him to his class, we could not find him, until I checked our bedroom and found him doing another one of his down-unders.

When I told him that we were taking him to school, he shot out from under the bed and then raced into the big room, with Little Debbie and Big Al(ice) chasing after him and barking at his heels. So, he did this to escape from them.

And he stayed up there until we attached his leash to his red dog collar.

Once again we went straight to Wild Birds Unlimited, so we could follow sweet Marguerite to Linore's awesome, do training center. For the very first time we were the first to arrive, so I got out of Buttermilk and headed towards the Wild Birds Unlimited front doors, because I wanted to go inside to say hello to Linda and Tricia, but instead I came to an abrupt halt, about three feet away, from the front doors, because of this beautiful windmill that was spinning in front of me. 

Then I turned around, looked at Tony and Henry Standing Bear and pointed at the  coolest windmill, that I've ever seen. Tony smiled and nodded his head and then I went into the store. And right after Tricia and Linda greeted me with smiles and howdies, I said, "I love that windmill outside and I want to buy one..."

"That windmill is the very last one we have, but we've got more coming in," Tricia said. "Marguerite has one. Do you want that one?"And a few minutes later, Tricia and I walked outside and put that awesome windmill, that has two beautiful, separate, decorative, half-wheels that spin in opposite directions. Then we followed Marguerite to the training center.

Linore's class was so much fun and Henry had a total blast going through his clicker routines that we had worked on, then figuring out puzzles to get treats and learning how to balance himself on a ball.

And Henry had all of us laughing at him, near the end of class, when we caught him admiring his good looks, in the mirror. So it looks like we're going to have to buy Henry a wall mirror soon, because he's so vain.

When we got back home, I planted my new, super-duper windmill, in our front yard.

While Henry sat there and watched.

Today has been great. This morning I cleaned out the change inside my purse, because it had gotten so heavy. And you're not going to believe this, but I removed $19.71 in coins. So I took this picture to prove it.

Late this afternoon, I cooked a small batch of Cafe du Monde's famous Beignets for Tony and me and they were absolutely delicious. It has been quite a while since I've cooked beignets, but when I saw them making them and eating them, in the movie Chef, I purchased a box of the mix and some powdered sugar, the last time that we visited the big H-E-B.

It is 7:35 and Kinky has just called me, from the Houston airport. He sounded great and he was looking forward to be getting back to the ranch, late tonight and we can't wait to see him. And that's about it for tonight.

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing.