Country Life

Our first stop was Uncle Don and Aunt Velma's in Eastern Oklahoma.  They live at Airman Acres where everyone has a hangar and an airplane.  This is Don's vintage Porterfield.

You can see how happy the kids are.

     Now we are at my Uncle Terry's in western Oklahoma.  

My mom will be pleased to know that we are getting good use out of the metal detector. Troy lost two arrows shooting at mushrooms and hay bales. 

Meanwhile, the boys are shooting frogs out of the ditch. 

Troy:  Good shot, Tristan. You got it. 

Wyatt:  You didn't get it. There is not a mark on it. It IS dead though. 

Car talk

Five things I learned while chatting with Gary the auto shop manager:
1.  What a firewall really is:
We are now on a first-name basis with Gary at Ben White Automotive.  On the first visit, he said, "Take that 'check engine light' back to Covert Ford.  They're good people and stand behind their cars, even if you did buy it used and as-is."  He was the maintenance manager for Covert for 13 years.  We heard all about the property easement dispute between the car dealership and Rudy's Barbecue right next door and the firewall that Rudy's had to put up as a result.  "Rudy's could burn to the ground and them Covert brothers wouldn't feel a thing.  That's how good that firewall is."
     Sure enough, Covert did the $1000 worth of work, no questions asked.

2.  Monster truck tires equal monster truck bills.  "Some idiot comes in with no brakes.  I tell him he shirred the brake housing clean off because those wide tires make the wheels lean in.  He says, 'but I didn't hear a thing.'  Of course he didn't hear a thing 'cause those tires make so d*#@! much noise."

3.  How to have a tailgate party without involving a wrecker.  "You got one of them keyless entries on the door.  Just don't go off and lock your keys in the car, thinking you can get into it with the keypad.  I see it every time there's a game.  They leave on the dome light and have the stereo playing for the tailgate party, and then they throw the keys in the car and go to the game.  When they get back, the battery is dead and they have to call a wrecker."

4.  How to measure conjugal love by the depth of the tire tread.  "Some lady DRIVES in here on a flat and her tires are completely slick.  She has three kids in the car and is driving up from Mexico.  I'm thinking, 'Lady, your husband must not care very much for your life, to let you drive up from Met-see-coh on bald tires.  I wouldn't let my wife drive to the house on tires like that and it's only 8 miles from here.'  Then the lady asks if I have any USED tires to sell her.  NO-I-DO-NOT-SELL-USED-TIRES.  It ought to be illegal."

Gary's rant about tires was in response to a terrible roll-over accident that killed four adults while five kids survived.  The papers blamed a blow-out.  His point is that the tires aren't to blame.

He gave our tires the thumbs-up for our road trip.  Y'all be safe out there and take care of those cars!

Galveston, thoughts on 'home leave'

Troy earns 'home leave' on top of regular vacation.  What a hard life we have, having to burn up 3 months of vacation. 

It would be hard if we didn't have a home to go to. Some Foreign Service families don't have family to go back to, or the family they have can't accomodate them for more than lunch out at a restaurant. 

We are incredibly blessed to be welcomed with open arms everywhere we go. 

We took the ferry in Galveston with friends last month. 

Bolivar was completely flattened, down to empty streets, by Hurricane Ike, but seems to have recovered. There are new beach houses and traffic cruises on the beach like it always has. Cars driving on the beach was normal in Oman, but unthinkable in Europe. 

Troy's new best friend is Elisabeth. 

Thank you, everyone, for making America home. 

Country Song

Troy has been missing his truck ever since Wyatt came along and he insisted we trade it in for a minivan.  Troy insisted, not Wyatt.  That is true love.

Our first order of business after setting up cell phones was to get some wheels to take us up and down any mountain between here and Canada:  this 2006 F150.  Wyatt was feeling poorly and napped in the back seat.

Winston crawled in and out from every angle, pressed every button, poked every cubby, and tried every lever. He flipped the bed extender back and forth a great number of times.  It is the tube thing that Tristan is sitting on below.

Tristan was also enthusiastic in his more subdued way.  While Troy and I were making our 4th of 5 trips to the dealer to sort out all the bugs, the kids were helping their Aunt Teresa clean up her yard.  Tristan got his badge with the weed-eater, if there is such a badge and the axe saw some more action.  The chickens killed a snake and left its broken body on the patio.  Go chickens!  In this photo, we are discussing Teresa’s long list of yard things she wants to do that require a truck.  

 

     As for the five trips, the engine light came on before we even got home from the first trip.  The mechanic near the house said that he worked as a mechanic for Covert Ford for 13 years, they were good people, they stood behind their sales, they would repair the light no questions asked.  He added, “I’ll take your money, but why not get them to pay for it?”  So we did, even though it is a 2-hour round trip.  And he was right: no questions asked.  The dealer told us we had to put 100 miles on the truck and then bring it back.  I can’t explain it because I am so annoyed, but it has something to do with the State of Texas reading my car computer and making me prove that it really is fixed before their computer will spit out the inspection paperwork.

 

Me:  OK, Teresa, we have to put miles on it, so where do you want to go?

Teresa:  It’s too hot to shovel a truckload of mulch.

 

Troy said he’s living the country music joke.  What do you get when you play a country song backwards?  You get your girl back, you get your truck back, you get your dog back.

Security Measures

This post is really about my new fringe purse, but who would want to read that?  Please do keep reading for what Winston has to say about it. 

How often is it that you buy a new purse or something and it turns out better than you expected?  For me, never.  The only time I don’t have buyer’s remorse is when Troy buys it for me.  And how often is the thing you want still there when it goes on sale?  I bought this purse for the cute tassel, because fringe is the BEST THING EVER.

So what could be better than a fringe tassel?  A fringe tassel that is also a wristband.  No purse snatcher is going to get my bag.  (Disclaimer:  Of course I know that a clever thief can easily outsmart me.  What I really mean is that the purse has one more impediment between me and the snatcher.  I am giving him every incentive to go target someone else.)  Important stuff inside is fastened in with clips and cable ties.

Me to my kids:  Isn’t my fringe wristband great?

Winston:  Kind of great, but not very.

Me:  What would be great?

Winston:  A gravity field that brought it back if it got stolen.

How NOT to prepare for pack-out--2

Why sort out an enormous pile of books, clothes and toiletries when you can make jewelry?  The sorting was particularly painful this year because we are shipping to 4 destinations.  I am not kidding.  Imagine five packers here at once asking where everything goes:  storage, China, Virginia for language training or Austin for vacation.  I am not complaining, because the government pays for it and hires a good company to do all the work.

So, all in all, it was an excellent time to procrastinate.  Those cluster earrings are done one bead at a time.  What a pain.  My English neighbor comes over once a month with her own bead projects.  She introduced me to an English designer called Azuni.

These are typical: teardrop shapes and dangles inside of loops.  Dangles and loops were the inspiration for the necklace, with a ruby dangle inside two loops of beads.  The earrings are actually the first project I wanted to try 10 years ago when my mom first introduced me to beading.  Needless to say, I would have been in way over my head back then.

How not to prepare for pack-out was a post in Oman about the phenomenon of getting sidetracked with unimportant details.  In that case, spice jars needed labels and you can still see white labels on two of the black lids.  Back then, I caught myself after I had done six and quit.  By the time I got to the destination, the project was not important enough to finish.  Here and now, the packers were really strict and would not pack them.  Boo-hoo.  My neighbor generously adopted my babies.  I am poking fun at myself, but these were lovingly collected from around the world.  For example, I could not part with the cinnamon sticks.   My maid had them sent from her own backyard in Sri Lanka.  (Click for a link to that post.)

The movers made us take the two axes out of the camping gear.  One went yesterday in a box by US mail with the spices and the other went in Winston’s luggage.  He has the biggest suitcase, but since he doesn’t bother to fold anything, it is always the lightest.  Troy tasked the boys with breaking up some really stout lumber from his mat for weightlifting.  Troy’s idea was that they jump on it.  They had other ideas.

Wyatt:  We have an axe!

Me: Yikes, I don’t know about that.  Would Daddy approve?

Tristan:  We have badges (from Boy Scouts).  We earned them.

Me:  OK.  Be safe.

Wyatt is making little angled chops on both sides until it is weak enough to break.  I am amazed at my own kids.  THEY know how to prepare for pack-out.