Spring at the lake

These are cheddar pinks...not from my garden. Mine look decidedly less robust.

I just walked over to visit with my neighbors across the street and ended up with a taste of his spicy baked beans and chipotle barbecue sauce, a tour of his garden, and two plants to bring home. Paul has a gorgeous garden with lots of herbs, hanging tomatoes, a koi pond, and several little out-buildings one of which we call the cabana. He has great parties in the summer where he cooks pizza in a brick oven or huge shrimp on the barbecue grill. He and Julie and I got to telling funny tornado stories about things like their post-modern carpenter, the guy who put in my front walk who said he had a PhD in Botony, the roofer with a wooden leg and Cliff the ceiling plasterer who thought he was an artist and Billy his EBD helper. Quite a cast of characters. I said someone should collect those stories because I'm sure you could multiply our stories by hundreds.

What a change in the weather. Last night must have been about 40 degrees. The flag and the wind chimes outside out bedroom window made a lot of noise all night but it was pleasant noise. The wind reminds me of the cool wind off the lake in the spring and early summer. Quite a change from the 90 degrees on Sunday. Things in my garden starting to bloom: daisies, cheddar pinks, phlox, columbine, and something else I can't remember the name of.

Regis and I went to the pet store tonight for provisions for our livestock, including the fish and the wild birds. A fellow who worked in the bird seed department told me more than I ever wanted to know about grackles and grosbeaks. We stopped at Famous Dave's for an appetizer and a beer. Now that Regis is home every day by 5:30, I'm back in the habit of cooking a meal most nights and most nights I do alright but some nights we have grilled cheese sandwiches or omelets.

A guy is coming to look at my pick-up tonight. We've had an ad in the paper for three weeks and this is the second call we've had. A man I work with has been interested but he's one of those tough car customers....he wants to know about the previous owners, how many miles it gets to the gallon, and what kind of rubber it has. That's a whole other story, that rubber thing...
I had a Mustang years ago that I wanted to sell. Dad made a list of all the car-related information so if anyone called I would know what to say. Things like how big the engine was, how many pistons it had, what kind of oil it used...stuff like that. So this man calls and he starts with the questions. I answer every one, looking at the list. His final question is, "How's the rubber?" Long pause. Very long pause while I search up and down the list and do a mental survey of the car. I can't find anything about rubber on the list and for the life of me, I can't think of anything rubber inside, so finally I say, "There's no rubber on it." Of course, he meant the tires. I was mortified but what an asshole. Really, who would call it that?

So, that guy might be out of luck if this guy wants my truck. But I'm having seller's remorse, meaning that I might be asking too much. After all, it needs a timing belt, a tune-up and will need tires (AKA rubber) in the next six months. Regis is rolling his eyes and reminds me that I once bought a car for the sticker price. Oh, yeah. I did.