How has your week been going? My parents and my brother came to visit me this past last weekend, Yay!, and it was amazing. They haven’t all been here together with us for at least six or seven years. Denton and the kids and I go home, but having them here was special and sweet. I loved it.
We played in the creek and blew bubbles, drew with chalk on the sidewalk in the rain, played Uno and five card draw poker. I loved every minute of it.
Everyone went home late last Sunday afternoon and we were back to our normal. Which is good in it’s own way, but still bittersweet.
The previous week, we had my niece and nephew the whole week. One of our traditions is to go to the movies or have a movie marathon. This time it was Planet of the Apes. We watched the second movie in this trilogy (everyone had already seen the first) and then the next night ($5.00 night!) we went to the theater and saw the new one – War for the Planet of the Apes.
On the way home, we had a flat. Ten thirty at night on the interstate, not fun. Then we discovered that new cars DO NOT come with spare tires anymore. Seriously. My Daddy taught me to change a tire when I was 15 years old. You didn’t drive a car until you could do this. New cars apparently come with this handy dandy compression kit to make it easier. Well, not if you have a gash that you can push your thumb into, it doesn’t.
So, we had a friend tow the car home and Denton ordered a new tire FROM AMAZON! It arrived in two days. Don’t you love Amazon! Taking off the tire, finding a place to mount and balance a low profile tile – after four tries, the trials and tribulations of living in a tiny town – putting the tire back on has taken a culmination of 6 days.
After all of that, I started driving my trusty Jeep again. First, we replaced the battery, since it had sat since March and not been driven. Bad mistake. Second, I took it to get an inspection sticker since this one had been out for over six months. Gah! Then, later that day I opened the passenger door to put my purse in the Jeep and heard a tearing sound. My brain heard this sound and I thought, Wow that sounded bad, what could that possibly have been. At the same instant, wasps started boiling out of the car door. Isn’t it funny how your mind can hear, and think and realize things in fractions of a second?
Technically, it wasn’t bee’s swarming out of my car, but wasps. Red wasps. And they were not happy that I had just ripped their home in two. I slammed the door shut and that effectively sealed them in. Next, I stood their contemplating what I should do. I very carefully opened my driver door and stood back. Nothing. I got in the Jeep and started it up. Nothing. They seemed content to stay in their door home as long as I wasn’t opening and closing it. So, I very cautiously drove a half mile to one of my thrift store haunts. Still nothing. I went inside and did some thrift store shopping to soothe my nerves and came back out 1/2 hour later. Still nothing.
After all of this, I decided that I could make it home where I would make Denton deal with the stupid things. You know, since I had nothing to kill them with, like the sun, or a giant ray gun. I drove very tentatively across town and started up the mountain. I was terrified to turn on the A/C because it hadn’t been on since before spring and I had no idea what could possibly come flying out of that at me and I didn’t want to roll down the front windows because I didn’t know if that would affect the peace inside the door frame. I compromised and cracked the back windows a little bit. I was almost home when something flew across the car and bumped into my arm and I literally almost had a coronary. It was a fly. Good grief.
Finally safely home, Denton eradicated the horrible swarming things who were not happy to be evicted. I wanted to take a photo of the nest, which was about the size of a cantaloupe, but I wasn’t taking any chances with my life after all of this. So you will just have to imagine. Or google wasp nest photos. Yuck.
What’s been happening in your world?
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