Thursday, July 22, 2010

Looking Forward to Future Fun

The laundry lady is off today, as are the cook, field hands, and chauffeur, so I guess Richard and I will have to get busy doing all the tasks we’d like to assign to our help – if we only had help. The sheets won’t walk to the washer, and the peas won’t pick themselves. It’s still too early to take our surplus garden goods to Pastor Lynda’s food pantry, so all the squash and beans that we’ve shoved into the RV refrigerator until our guests departed are now in desperate need of disposition (or maybe disposal, by now.)

I had an appointment in Atlanta yesterday, and my van shimmied all the way down and back every time my speed exceeded fifty miles per hour. We know my tires are due for replacement, so we’re hoping that the problem is simply the tires. But when one has one hundred, nineteen thousand miles on a vehicle, there’s no telling what may be wrong. It’s time for Richard to take a trip down the mountain to Mac’s Auto Car for diagnosis.

The driver’s side window began misbehaving while we had family here. Once we finally got it into the up position, Richard secured the control button with duct tape to keep it that way. I’m now unable to go through any drive-thru for food or banking business. Maybe, when one begins to duct tape one’s vehicle, it’s time to look into a replacement. Should I get another “Santa’s sleigh” -- or a little red sports car with standard transmission for downshifting on these mountain roads? Of course, shifting entails clutching and with that kink in my right hip, I don’t know how that would work out.

I just hate how reality keeps intruding on my fantasy life.
On the up side, Susan emailed me that she and Mark are coming through Tennessee in late August, on their way to Florida from their home in Kentucky. I’ve been telling them that Mark, a certified scuba diver, can go snorkeling in the Conasauga. We haven’t tried it, but I’ve read that it is possible to see dozens of species of fish, mussels, and other forms of endangered wildlife in our area of this mountain river. It’s said to be one of the six most biologically diverse river systems in the United States.

Susan and I are famous for our “cremation cooking.” This may be excuse enough to assign our guys all meal plans, with restaurant reservations being acceptable forms of food foraging.

There’s a chance that Terry Sue and her three children will make it up this way from Florida for a fall session of Granny Camp. By that time, all of our canning should be done; if not, Terry Sue, Theresa Ann and I could make and put up grape jam. Richard, Tristan, and Trey might make pizza or some other culinary creation. Cooking with kids is a whole new level of kitchen fun; Corinne, Kathleen, and Solomon may have started a trend of having our young guests cook for our crowds.