On Wednesday, the lumberyard in Scott City called Bobby to tell him his new garage door was in. This forced us to have to make the choice whether we were going to go install it now, before our real estate agent begins showing the place with it's garage door all caved in from a windstorm a few years ago, or wait until we had a little more free time in October. But who are we kidding, free time in October? We hope, but we can't be certain. Since Marci was planning on leaving for her vacation at noon on Saturday, we had to be back by then, so we finished a few loose ends and odd jobs, then, late Wednesday evening, hit the road in a very packed-full Subaru, dog in the backseat, his head out the window, his jowls flapping in the wind, drool streaming back from the corners of his wide grin. We pulled up to our house in the wee hours, in fog that only revealed about three highway dashes ahead of us, threw some sleeping bags down on the floor for padding, and crawled under a light blanket, the only bedding needed on a foggy, warm Kansas night.
The next morning, we were woken early by a deafening cacophony of birdsong outside our open window, a novelty since we moved to Colorado, and by a dog who was anxious to eat some dogfood and go outside. We went to my parents for breakfast, and i got my bike out of the car and put the wheels on it, and took it for a quick ride around Marienthal. I pulled up to my parent's house and was greeted by two yellow striped kittens, purring loudly and winding themselves around my ankles- my mom's latest rescue, after they were unceremoniously, anonymously dumped on the Heartland Mill yard a week ago. Over breakfast, mom and I schemed our day, wondering when we would get the time to get down to the state park and ride some trails, and I asked Bobby if he thought the kittens weren't completely adorable, hint, hint, while they made themselves at home on his lap. I went outside, and noticed a goathead sticking into my bike tire. I plucked it out, and for my trouble, was rewarded by a loud hiss. I had forgotten about the goatheads. Thick, heavy slime tubes are a must in Kansas. Three years without a flat in Colorado, but one mile in kansas, and and the rubber was left puddled under my wheel. As it turned out, all my plans for mountain biking in the park were not to be, since the only tubes to be found in the small-town local Alco store had Shrader stems, and my rims will only accomodate a Presta stem. Dad, bless his heart, took my tubes to Co-op to get them fixed, filled them with slime, and in the process of airing it back up, what do you know, I broke the stem. I finally had to give up, leaving my bike in a useless $2000 dollar pile of aluminum and stainless steel. I borrowed my dad's bike, late in the day, and we did go to the park, but after we had sat on a picnic table and changed both of his flat tires to big, thick tubes, we only had time for a half-hour ride, but my mom tackled the singletrack with her bike-path cruiser like a pro, big, narrow tires rolling over difficult portions without skipping a beat. We finished our ride, threw the bikes on the car, and raced the clock back to Scott City, where I needed to be by 7:00 to have dinner with Bobby and some of our friends.
The next morning Andy let us sleep until 9:00, exhausted as he was by the life of a farm dog. A quick breakfast, then I moved a cord or more of firewood from our shed to my dad's yard, displacing mouse nests, spiders, frog skeletons, and damp, moldy, heavy chunks of wood that have been sitting under the trees, soaking up the runoff from our eaves, for four years. I finished at noon, and after lunch, cleaned the house, washed windows, removed and washed storm windows, and helped Bobby clean the shed and place struts on the new garage door to sturdy it up against future 100mph windstorms. We dragged into the house and dropped into chairs around my mom's dinner table, saying hello to Grandpa and Grandma Unruh who were there for dinner, and we were tired, dirty, sweaty, and mosquito eaten, wondering how we used to work in the heat all day. It wasn't even so hot, only in the 80's, but humid and windstill, not something Kansas is used to, and neither are we.
At 6 o'clock the next morning, Andy was up, and so were we, frantically cleaning the fridge, removing all sign that the house had been stayed in lately, the last odds and ends, pipe fittings and paint cans, pushed, stuffed, and shoved everything into the car, leaving half of the backseat for Andy, and stopped by my parent's house on the way out of town. And Bobby finally gave in to my begging. When we left the yard half an hour later, Andy was not the only animal in the car. Two yellow kittens were winding their way around the back of Bobby's head, purring loudly enough to be heard over the car's engine.
On the way home, trying to beat noon back to Summit County, Andy slept uncomfortably cramped in the backseat, two yellow tiger-striped kittens slept in our laps, and we tried out names for the cats. They are identical, as far as we can tell, so one of them sports a permanant marker spot on it's head, put there by a big red M
arks-A-Lot. That one took a shine to Bobby, so naming privilages fell to him, and I took on naming the other one. I already know the name I wanted. Max sounds, to me, like a wonderful name for a big, beautiful, yellow tomcat, as they will someday be. Bobby thought Marks-A-Lot looked like a Paco. And that is how it comes to be that I sit here with a small yellow Max draped over my arm, eyes contented slits, paws reaching up from time to time to adoringly brush my chin, purr rattling loundly while I type, Andy stretched out at my feet, farting and snoring, his paws in the air, and Paco trying his hardest to climb the clothes rack sitting in the dining room. Never mind that we are also babysitting Frau, Marci's fat brown tabby cat who is so overwhelmed by a new house and three new, high energy animals, that all she can do is hide and hiss. This place suddenly feels like a zoo. Bobby wonders if he has gone insane, allowing me to fill the place with yellow canines and felines.Today, after locking Frau in our bathroom with all her cat-stuff, litter box, food, water, scratching post, box, bed, etc, locking Max and Paco in the guest bathroom with their own collection of litterbox, etc, I loaded up Andy in the Subaru and went to work. At noon, I was at a stopping point, so we took up our friends on a lunch invitation, and grilled, and ate on their deck, while the dogs kept themselves very distracted by the ten-pound cow femur bones given to us by the butcher in Kansas and hauled back to Colorado with us. I left Andy there, where he got to go an a walk with his doggy friend, and we went to work for another seven and a half hours, delivering clean dry cleaning back to units. And now, it is late. I am so tired I am amazed I am still making sense...at least I hope I am. It is time to let my head fall back and do what Andy, Max, and Bobby are already doing- let the eyes close. No, I should not. I should go get ready for bed, then actually go to bed. So much work, going to bed...At any rate, until next time...
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