Do You Ever Have Times Like This?

It's been zany lately.

I was going to say a weird 'month,' but our strange period ran over the last few weeks of August, then bled into September. I'll explain -- are you ready?

Grab a cup of coffee and brace yourself: it's going to be a bumpy ride.

*Friday - Monday: went camping on Grand Mesa. (Very peaceful, since everyone and their brother were down in town for the peach festival.) Stopped in Palisade the last day -- even better, since most people had gone home the day before. Got a boatload of peaches. (And they're ripe. Really ripe. Oh oh, need to deliver and process these -- fast.)

*Home late Monday night. I have to be in Cheyenne, two hours drive away, at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday morning.

*Worked all day Tuesday - Friday, judging for the Cheyenne Heritage Quilters show, then three full days of appraising.

*Meanwhile... Dave had started a dogsitting gig we'd promised to neighbors down the street. Our puppy of the week was a golden Lab named Nitro, 15 years old (that's 105, in human terms).  The deal: we'd stay there as much as possible, and sleep overnights.

Nitro the wonder boy. (He doesn't like photos.)

*I got home Friday evening to Nitro and company. Stayed there as much as I could. Jammed all the peaches into the refrigerator (no time yet to process them, hoped for the best), worked on appraisals and hung out with Nitro and our dogs. Did this for a full week.

The Brick, meanwhile, came over for supper, stayed the night, then breakfast before leaving for the 'other' house. Because he needed to practice all week for...

*Friday's wedding rehearsal for our friend Ana's wedding. (Nitro's owners got home just in time for me to head to the rehearsal.) Supper was fun, too.  Next day:

*Saturday afternoon: Ana and Jerred's wedding, in a lovely outdoor garden in Sedalia...near the railroad tracks. This didn't seem like a big deal until halfway through my rendition of "Ave Maria," we had a Very Big Visitor. So what the wedding guests got was:
     "A-ve Maria..."   HONK HONK HONK chug chug chug chug chug.

Not as graceful as this:

Oh well. At least I got the first half of the song in.

*Once the ceremony was done, schlep the keyboard, amps, stands, wires, etc. upstairs for the reception. (The Brick had already lugged everything down once from the parking lot, for the ceremony. Poor guy.) 
     Set everything back up. Ate -- fast. Then we played keyboard for four hours-plus straight: classical, Beatles, love ballads, John Denver, you name it. We spelled each other -- but really, the Brick did most of the work. A cheerful crowd, lots of music...

*Got everything stuffed back in the car, headed for home. Exhausted. Arrived, only to greet our friend Mary...who decided to make a quick trip to Colorado to see her family. (She only had a day or so warning herself.) She came in on Friday evening, and was perky...we, on the other hand, were brain-dead.

*At this point, stuff is EVERYWHERE in the house. Groceries, books, work....you name it, it's probably stacked on a chair, hogging space on the table or elsewhere. Dirty dishes in the sink, dirty clothes to wash. At least Mary's bed had clean sheets. (She was very understanding, even when we had to hand her a key and tell her to let herself in all weekend.)

*Sunday morning:  Worship Team for church. Downtown in the park. (Creekside Bible does this every year.)  Drag the keyboard out of the car AGAIN, and the Brick went to practice. (I, on the other hand, spent a blissful hour doing nothing but read the paper.)
     Got home early afternoon -- and took a nap. We both conked out, practically unconscious.

*Sunday evening, with Mary, decided to go see a movie with other friends. (Florence Foster Jenkins, which was surprisingly good. Friend Tommy and the Brick, who had words about having to go to a 'girlie' movie, wanted to know where the explosions were. Sure, guys.) Came home late...

      To find three dogs in the backyard, behind the 6-foot chainlink fence.

We only have two dogs. 

One of the biggest Great Danes I've ever seen was barking at us, along with Charley and Abby. Where in the world did he come from? No markings...was he a neighborhood dog? No collar or tags.

The Brick booted him out, and we went to bed. Come 2 a.m., and...

Right under our bedroom window. INSIDE the yard.

The Brick got up, booted him out again, back to bed.

*Seven a.m. -- you guessed it. Barking away inside the yard again, and now hanging around our back door.
           Only this time, he has a snoutful of porcupine quills. 

*We'd planned to sleep in Labor Day...fat chance. Gave up, and called Animal Control. They came and got Big Boy, who by now, had calmed down some. He was huge -- half again as big as Charley, who is no tiny puppy in his own right. But a very sweet dog.

The animal control guy came back later in the morning -- the quills were out, and Big Boy's family, from the next town over, had picked him up. Whew. How he ever got in our neighborhood, we never found out. (The guy was laughing; on the way into our subdivision neighbors had stopped him and said that 'a horse was running loose up there.' That's how big this dog was.)

Charley, Abs and Nitro -- on patrol

The rest of Labor Day was spent hanging out with Mary, grilling steaks and watching another movie.
     And just plain vegging.

*She left Tuesday morning -- out the door, just as appraisal clients were coming IN.

Since then, I've been trying to clear out the rest of the appraisals, and the piles off the floor. Picked beans and delivered eggs. Washed a boatload of clothes, and started in on three weeks of accumulated ironing. We're making progress -- slowly. But a few days ago, the Brick came down with the flu.

Guess what? I now have a sore throat and headache that won't go away.
               Oh goody.



Welcome to the fun-packed world of the Bricks.

We spend all our time lazing about. Just like this.