Got My Mind on My Money, and More Money I Did Find

Whew! Such a busy day Friday! And I spent part of it with Hick! Not exactly by choice.

Hick and I have our own interests, you know. We don't have to be in each other's hip pocket all the time. And by that, I mean that Hick has no reason to be in MY hip pocket. I don't go out of my way to seek his company. And I definitely don't want anything to do with any of Hick's pockets. Ever since that time he put his hand into his coveralls hanging in the BARn, and felt a nest of hairless baby mice.

Hick is currently in the throes of birthing several yards of concrete for the foundation of his freight container garage. So he's busy micromanaging the concrete pourers. Just that morning, before 8:00, he let me know that they didn't tie off their rebar. They just laid it out. So he was going to tell them to do it right, and tie off that rebar! He was kind of heated, having just paid them half of the money for the job on Thursday. After I wrote the check, of course, for which he gave me the command and the amount, but not who it was going to.

I was busy getting a package ready to mail The Pony when Hick had his rebar crisis. Poor Pony is so far away! If we get a notion, we can hop in A-Cad and go visit Genius. Get there in less than two hours. Not that we ever have such a notion. But The Pony is 9 hours away. It saddens me to even type that. Last year, when he was a freshman, and on his own for the first time EVER...I caved to the university mailers and got him those care packages that are sent out several times a year. He had a meal ticket and a car, but I know how The Pony loves to graze on his snacks.

This year, I can't send The Pony those care packages. His university apartment clubhouse will only hold packages sent by the USPS. And those care packages are sent by FedEx.

Anyhoo...I got some snacks together, including Chex Mix, and stuffed them in a flat rate box, and wanted to get that to the main post office before Hick and I started our togetherness. He was waiting for the concrete guys to tell them how to do their job. We had already planned on driving separately to our appointment with our financial advisor, as Hick had business afterwards at the pharmacy, the barber, and a ringside seat for the concrete slab. I was headed to the credit union and bank, and to Walmart and Save A Lot. Shh...don't tell Hick, but it was to get supplies for his surprise retirement party that is probably going on as you read this. His four sons planned the festivities, with three of them attending. We're having a giant platter of BBQ, with Genius and The Veteran manning the grill.

Did you ever get so bored that you felt like jabbing ice picks into your eyes, ears, and nostrils, just so you could liven things up with some screams and spurting blood?

You have not lived until you've sat through an hour-long appointment (at the crack of 9:30, an hour at which I am usually stretching out in bed and wondering if I can sleep another half hour) with your financial advisor and Hick, each droning on about their joint pains, and people they know, and flirting with complimenting a Fidelity rep in Arizona about her British accent. I wasn't sure I would be able to maintain consciousness until 10:30.

I survived, though. Lived to buy mass quantities of meat to feed 16 people. As you might imagine, I was dragging when I bagged my last grocery at Save A Lot. Only one stop left, and that for my 44 oz Diet Coke. I hated to think of carrying all that meat into the house and shoving it into FRIG II's bottom. Save A Lot was out of boxes, too. Even though I checked every aisle I went down, and the freezer cases too, to see if I could redistribute some items and snag a box. No such luck. So I had to put about 25 pounds of meat into plastic bags. Yeah. I know there's a box in the picture. But it's WAY too large for me to carry full of meat. I needed boxes half that size.

Whew! I was ready to take that stuff to the car and get my soda. As I pulled back my cart from the bagging counter, and turned it toward the door...

I found a penny!

It was a 1984. Fitting, perhaps, seeing as how I'd been listening in stereo to my checker and the one beside me talking about a recent news story, and their conspiracy theory. Not that I minded, of course.

And for all you antipennyites...YOU ALREADY GOT YOUR STORY before the penny, by cracky!
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This was penny #33. It's resting comfortably in my penny goblet on the kitchen counter.

Back-of-the-Book-Blurb Friday #76 "Uncle Tom's Nabbin'"

Blog buddy Sioux is hosting Back-of-the-Book-Blurb Friday. I have 150 words to convince you to fake-buy my fake book. This week, Val takes a look at the tasty seamy underbelly of the meat-processing world. A world where even mythical creatures are not safe from man's voracious appetites. If you hunger for a canned tale of betrayal over meat byproducts, Val's latest fake book might temp you into developing a taste for her fake library.

"Uncle Tom's Nabbin'"

Tom Foolery grew up in a holler near the Mason-Dixon line. Beef, pork, and poultry raised on his daddy's farm was plentiful, but strapping teenage Tom had a hankerin' for SPAM. Or TREET. His daddy told him that the hunting of wild SPAM and TREET had been outlawed because of the demand for their meat. So Tom made his own version, nabbing wild unicorns from the herd running free in the holler.

Now Tom is in hot water with PETA, the USDA, the BBB, and the EPA. He needs to allow a tour of his processing plant PDQ. Tom is afraid it's all a ploy by the French horsemeat distributor who recently set up shop down the road. An effort to horn in on his monopoly. Does it behoove Tom to take a stab at his naysayers? Or should he put his dream out to pasture? (146 words)

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Fake Reviews for Val’s Fake Book

The Abominable Snowman..."Thevictorian's writing is an abomination. I have traveled to the end of the top of the earth to distance myself from her fake book."

Kilroy..."I was here. This fake book shouldn't be."

No See Ums..."Thevictorian's fake book really bites."

A thing going 'bump' in the night..."The true horror of this woman's fake writing cannot be measured by worldly instruments. It's more of a gut feeling, telling one that Thevictorian is not quite right. Her fake books have caused more sleepless nights than ME!"

Vlad Dracula, looking in mirror..."I feel that Thevictorian's fake writing reflects poorly on her talents. Her efforts are anemic at best."

Disappearing ink used by spies..."If only Thevictorian had written her fake book with ME!"

Leprechaun..."I know ONE thing you won't find at the end of the rainbow: Thevictorian's fake book!"

Nessie..."Thevictorian can take a jump in the loch! Who knew that her fake writing would sink to such depths? I'd be shocked if she ever shows her face around these parts again."

Easter Bunny..."I find Thevictorian's fake writing to be hollow. Nobody should egg her on. I don't carrot all if she ever fake-publishes another fake book. You won't hear a PEEP out of me, promoting this junk! I'd be a basket case if I had woven such a fluffy tale, bereft of any redeeming qualities. Her fake writing leaves a cavity in my soul. Thevictorian is a cad--bury her sickeningly sweet treacle on the bottom of the bargain books bin!"

Where Is Rebecca DeMornay When You Need Her?

I came home from town a few days ago, and met Hick on the Gator in front of our second 10 acres. Let the record show that the weather has been dry, and he was heading into my wake, a dust storm only slightly less dramatic than the Oklahoma plains in the 1930s.

"What's going on?"

"I'm headed up to HOS's. I'm meeting the county deputy."

"What have you done now? Are you poking Crazy Stick Dude again?"

"No. HOS found out somebody dumped a load of trash over at the other mailboxes. He took some pictures and sent them to me. I went over there to look. HOS had opened up some bags, and found an address. I want to load it up in the bucket of my tractor and take it up there and dump it in their yard. Just to return it. It's that subdivision across the county road. So we called the police, and asked if they'd go along with us."

"Yeah. No. I doubt that's gonna happen."

"The deputy said he'd meet us out here, but my phone just rang, and nobody was on it. I gave him HOS's number, too, and HOS just called and said he's there. So I'm going up there."

Let the record show that Hick had been up at HOS's most of the morning, gathering flat rocks from the creek, which he is transporting back to our homestead, building a little wall around back under the porch by the basement door and Poolio. And now, as he left me to drive that Gator up to HOS's house, he was hauling about a half ton of rocks in the back, over hill and craggy dale, up the dusty trail.

I will admit that I kept an ear cocked for gunshots. One week Hick was threatened to be shot at once, and actually shot at once. Not this time, though. Later, I found him out back stacking rocks.

"So what happened with the trash? Did you get pictures?"

"No. HOS did. I'll have him send them to you."

"Did you take the trash back?"

"No. The deputy said that probably wasn't a good idea. We said we wanted to prosecute, and he said the county won't prosecute people for this. It's public dumping! But he says they've taken them stuff in the past, and they don't deal with it. If it's on your land, YOU can try to prosecute. But the county won't get involved. Not unless it's in the actual road, blocking traffic."

"Well, it's not on OUR property."

"No. But it's on SOMEBODY'S property here in our association. It was right at the edge of the road. The part that's supposed to be kept clear. Just like with Crazy Stick Dude."

"So what are you going to do?"

"HOS wants to go through it and find the stinkiest thing in there and mail it to them. Just the grossest, I said."

"Nah. I wouldn't put anything stinky in there. Then they won't open it. I mailed some trash back one time, that I found down by our mailboxes. Just so the people would have to drive to the post office to pick up the package. I put a note in it that said to quit dumping trash on our road."

"Maybe I should take a crap in a baggie and send that to them!"

"Way to go. You're not a good criminal. You just sent your DNA along with the crime!"

"Yeah. I'm not doing that. HOS put the pictures on Facebook, on What's Happening Around Backroads. He put a close-up of the address, and warned people that this person is dumping their trash on other people's property. It's not just a bag of trash. It's like a whole truckload."

"Great. Now that dumper will come after HOS instead of you."

Let the record show that we pay a hefty fee for our weekly trash pickup, and in the winter we're lucky if it even gets picked up when the weather calls for snow, and we never get a discount when it isn't. But we DON'T drive it around (or merely across the road) and dump it.

Where is Rebecca DeMornay when you need her? We rural route dwellers appreciate extra trash like the homeless appreciate muffin stumps and toilet books.

Hick Attempts to Frame My Best Ol' Ex-Teaching Buddy, Mabel

Hick is up to his old shenanigans again. This time, he has involved my best ol' ex-teaching buddy Mabel. Last week, Hick and I had lunch with Mabel and her husband, and followed that up with a visit to Mabel's palace near the Missouri/Illinois border. During Hick's grand tour, Mabel mentioned that she's in the market for frames. Specifically, gold picture frames. Fancy. Metal or plastic or wood. Makes her no nevermind. It's the gold in them thar frills that interests her. And furthermore, Mabel declared that size doesn't matter.

I think Mabel might be suffering from just-missed-it jitters. She saw a picture frame perfect for her needs, and was prepared to pay a princely sum of $30 for it, but when she went to make her move, the object of her desire was already in the loving embrace of another. Hick revealed that he sees frames like this all the time at Goodwill, and the auction. So an unofficial unpaid contract, unwritten and unsigned, was entered into between Mabel and Hick.

Saturday night at the auction, Hick bought a gold frame for Mabel. He texted me a picture. Then Sunday morning, he bought another one at Goodwill. I told him to text me a picture of that one, too, and the dimensions of both, so I could text them to Mabel while I was in town. Forget about trying to do it from home, because my cell phone reception is pitiful. I need 4 Gs to send my data in a timely manner.

As blog buddy Joe H knows, men have different thought processes than women. Here is what I got from Hick.

"Got Mabel a frame. $4.00."

"She will like that bargain."

"I got Mabel another frame. $2.50."

"Okay. Are you going to send a picture? And dimensions?"

"Two frames with rule."

"Can't tell dimensions except I see 18 on one side if I enlarge it. Can't you just tell me? Looks like two pictures of the same frame to me."

"14 x 19 and the last picture shows both frames."

"Both are 14 x 19?"

"The big one is 14 x 19."

"Don't understand. Never mind. Too hard."

Let the record show that I was walking through Walmart at the time, trying to pull my walker/cart over each time so as not to be annihilated by beeper carts while texting. It was obvious that Hick was not picking up what I was laying down.

"Ok sorry the little one is about 10 x 16."

"The other one didn't send."

See? I had no idea that Hick had put one frame inside the other. I still couldn't read that tape measure, even enlarging the picture on my phone. All he had to do was send a picture of each frame, with the dimensions.

I guess that's too complicated in man methods.

A Line Must Be Drawn, Or a Leash Might Be Shortened

I might as well start a second career as a dentist. Prompting Hick to voice what he wants to eat is like pulling teeth. You'd think answering a question would be the easy part. It's not like he has to make the grocery list, drive to town, brave the beeper carts in Walmart, possibly rip a leg off in Country Mart, locate the items, load them in the cart, wait in line longer than shopping, take the items out of the cart, load the bags in the back of T-Hoe, drive them home, carry them in, put them away, then cook them within a given time frame, and wash the dishes. Uh uh. All he has to do is say what he wants. But he won't!

Thursday, I finally got him to mumble that chicken and dumpling might be good. Hick knows darn well what kind of chicken and dumplings I make. Rudimentary ones. Nothing like your grandma used to make. Nothing like out of a can of Sweet Sue. Just cut-up tortillas tossed in a pan of boiling chicken broth and cream of chicken soup, a little ground black pepper and minced garlic added. Boiled 5 minutes exactly. Easy to make. Once you've done your shopping.

But then, get THIS, Hick said, "I want to take a bowl to Swappy at the auction." Let the record show that Swappy is a woman. So, in effect, Hick is asking me to make a meal for his lady friend! What the Not-Heaven? As if I'm not surly enough waiting on HIM hand and foot, now I have to prepare a meal (such as it is) for his female companion who is NOT ME!

"Oh, Val," you might say, because we're informal like that, and on a first-name basis, "Hick is surely just bragging about your culinary skills to some brazen hussy who is trying to get her hooks in him."

Hick DID say that he was telling Swappy about my chicken and dumplings last week, because she said how much she and her husband (even laster to know about this relationship than ME) love them, but they're so hard to make.

"When I told her, 'No they're not,' and how YOU make them, she kind of looked at me funny."

Indeed! Probably looked askance at him, wondering why he had to mention HIS WIFE.

"Anyway, I told her I'd bring her a bowl and let her try it. So if you can make them on Friday or Saturday...I'm going to the auction both nights."

"You can't take her a BOWL of chicken and dumplings. How are you going to drive with that?"

"I mean a container. You know. Like one of your Chinese soup containers."

"I need those containers! Everybody keeps them! They're good heavy plastic, and they don't spill. But Sis has never returned any, and Genius threw them away after he took back leftovers, and Auntie probably threw them away when I put her Chex Mix in them. That's why last time, I put her Chex in those Walmart deli thin plastic containers. Same shape, but not sturdy. I don't care if people throw them away. I can put some chicken and dumplings in one of them for you to take."

"Or you can put them in Ziploc bowls."

"WHAT? What in the world? Ziploc bowls? I don't get it."

"They're like baggies. But they're bowls."

"Huh?"

"You know. Disposable bowls."

"You mean like those square ones I have, to put your bologna in? With the blue lids?"

"Yeah. They sell them at Walmart."

"Okay. So you want me to make chicken and dumplings for you to give a lady at the auction, AND you want me to buy containers to put it in? I don't think so. She can eat out of a Walmart deli container. Are you taking her a fork, too?"

"Yeah. A plastic one."

"Well, you'll take those black plastic ones from Hardee's. Not the smooth white plastic ones out of that box we had for the solar car barbecue."

Really. I don't see why Swappy needs to be treated like royalty.

Okay. So straighten her crown and polish her scepter. I bought these four containers (cost me one-and-a-half 44 oz Diet Cokes!) so Her Royal Highness could receive her poor man's chicken and dumplings in style.

I stood my ground on the Hardee's forks, though.
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For anybody wondering from yesterday what a Chicken Bacon Ranch pinwheel is...it's my lunch of choice these days. Of course, they are rare. So you'll have to make do with this picture of the lesser pinwheel, the cinnamon babka, if you will...the Turkey pinwheel.

It's meat and cheese rolled up in a tortilla with lettuce and ranch dressing.

Let the record show that the ingredients are not always equally distributed. But it's a tasty lunch for $2.98. It tastes even better because I don't have to make it myself. I've tried, but I can't seem to get the right order of the ingredients. I've deconstructed plenty of them, but mine don't turn out the same. I DID discover that adding 1/4 of a slice of bacon to each pinwheel makes the Turkey version better.

Occasionally, Val's Faith in Humanity is Restored

Last Friday, I had lunch with my favorite gambling aunt. Unfortunately, it was NOT at Burger Brothers inside the casino, where we had lunch last time. We chose the Backroads Hardee's for our repast. That's because it's close, and because I really like their Chicken Bowl. Auntie had never sampled such ambrosia, and wanted to try it.

Our feast did not go as planned.

I pulled onto the lot about 15 minutes early, and parked under one of the two small trees on the strip of land that separates the lot from the road. I had a good view of the highway ramps, and one of the outer road at the light. So I would be able to see Auntie when she arrived. I knew that she would park by the building, in one of the handicap spaces. She has a mirror dangler, she's not a scofflaw. Her hip replacements and recent knee replacement qualify her. I figured that I would have walked across the three rows of parking spaces by the time she got out of the car.

Another car was parked under my tree. Someone had left a doggie inside. It was a medium size doggie. The windows were down. The car was in shade. Temps were in the upper 70s. Doggie stood up and stuck his head out to look at me. Then started jumping around the interior again. After my air conditioning wore off, I put down T-Hoe's front windows. My radio was on, but not at an obnoxious level. Doggie came back and looked at me, then went back to seat-hopping.

WOOF WOOF WOOF! WOOF WOOF WOOF! WOOF WOOF WOOF!

"C'mon, Doggie. Are you serious? I've been sitting here for 10 minutes? What's going on?"

Doggie did not have a good answer. The WOOFing was quite loud. I was kind of afraid somebody might think I was a dog thief, or some kind of canine perv. I put the window back up, but Doggie kept on WOOFing. The driver of that car came out and got in. But just sat there. Didn't leave. After five minutes or so, I saw Auntie pull in. I was almost afraid to get out. What if Doggie jumped out that window and put a police dog bite on my arm, trying to bring me down?

Thank goodness I escaped from T-Hoe and made it inside Hardee's without incident. Auntie said she almost cancelled, she hurt her side, and was on the way to her doctor in the city. She didn't feel adventurous enough to have the Chicken Bowl, which includes refried beans and salsa, so she had the chicken strips. We sat down along the wall of windows by the drive-thru lane, and were soon joined at the next two tables by a construction crew in orange t-shirts.

The guy who took our order brought it out, and some of the burgers for the work crew. Another worker I recognized from former drive-thru visits brought out some more of their burgers. Sadly, I saw that I'd gotten a dud Chicken Bowl. About every 5th time (not that I eat a lot of Chicken Bowls...now) I get one that is only half full. AND the guy had not brought me any hot sauce. The drive-thru lady always gave me four packets.

"I'm going up front to get some sauce." Auntie told me it was on the self service counter, but she was wrong. There was only a push-pump ketchup dispenser, forks, and soda lids. I went to the counter to ask. Standing there ahead of me was one of the work crew. I recognized him by his orange shirt. The workers behind the counter were really busy ignoring us. I'm sure that with their normal peripheral vision, they could tell that there was a man in a glowing orange shirt, and a woman of not slight stature, standing in wait. There were NO customers in line. Just us.

After five minutes, I was ready to give up. OrangeMan said, "Hey! Can somebody help me?" A lady messing with straightening burgers on trays turned around. OrangeMan asked why everybody else in his party had their burger, and he did not. "They told me they were making it. Just a plain burger with cheese. No sauce." He was told that it would be out in a minute. He left, and since that wench turned her back on me after talking to him...I threw up my hands in disgust and went back to the table.

"Didn't you get your sauce?"

"No. I didn't feel like being ignored for more than five minutes. That's enough. You're already half done. You'd think they could answer a question. Nobody's in line."

Thus a discussion ensued with Auntie and the work crew. OrangeMan grew more upset by the moment. He looked at his receipt. At 29 minutes past his order time, he went back. And was told that his burger would be right out. We arrived at the conclusion that this restaurant was understaffed. And that even though they KNOW that lunch time rolls around every day, they don't bother to schedule extra crew to work. The problem seemed to be the drive-thru business, though that line didn't appear to be moving, either.

Auntie was done before me. "Do they have ice cream here? No. I don't really need ice cream."

OrangeMan finally got his burger. The rest of the crew had gone, save a lone companion who sat and watched him eat. They were probably riding together. As he left, Auntie told him that she thought he should have at least have gotten his meal for free. That he should let them know up front. Because 29 minutes is a bit excessive for fast food. He thanked us for understanding his plight. "I know I don't have enough patience. I pray for it all the time. I'm stopping by the counter on the way out."

We went on with our conversation. A few minutes later, the guy who had taken our order came to our table and set down this:

"Oh, we didn't order those, " said Auntie.

"Well, a gentleman stopped by the counter on his way out, and he asked me to bring these to the two ladies back here in the corner."

"Was he wearing an orange shirt?"

"Um...yes, he was."

So...even though we didn't really NEED any ice cream...Auntie and I each enjoyed a delicious strawberry shake, courtesy of OrangeMan.

I know it wasn't a wise choice. I haven't had a shake in a coon's age. But I couldn't see turning down a thoughtful deed from a real nice guy.

Penny and a Road

Val is on a roll again. Found a penny today! Second day in a row for free coinage.

I headed to Walmart to look for some Chicken Bacon Ranch pinwheels. Of course I stopped for my cemetery visit on the way. It's only a half mile from there. All Walmart had were about 15 of the Italian variety of pinwheels. Nobody likes those! That's why Chicken Bacon Ranch is always sold out, and Italian lingers on the shelf until past the USE BY date.

So...I left Walmart empty-handed, with the plan to stop by Waterside Mart and Casey's to cash in some winning scratchers. On the spur of the moment, I decided to hit Casey's first, instead of on the way back. I was backing T-Hoe to park along the side of the store, by their ice machine, when a white van wheeled around me from the direction of the car wash. T-Hoe doesn't have a working back-up beeper. Good thing I saw the bright white in my mirror.

Anyhoo...that white van went around to the front of the store, and parked all cattywompus. Not that I cared, because I didn't want to park there, and the store wasn't busy. I'm not the parking police. I did look askance at it on my way by, though. Just to show my general disapproval for taking up three cars worth of space.

Funny thing, I never saw anyone from that van inside Casey's. I was the only customer at the counter. Nobody walked in or out. Yet when I left, that white van was gone. I was looking at that space where it had been, and I saw it. A PENNY!

Good luck spotting that without a frame of reference. I just pointed my phone and snapped. The sun's glare prevented me from seeing what I was taking a picture of. I also zoomed it in.

Looks like fortune smiled doubly upon me, because I got that penny right in the center of the picture! If that van hadn't moved, I would have been penny-less today. This one was a 1982 version. Funny how I just wrote something about 1982 in a comment yesterday over at blog buddy Linda's place. Ain't the world just full of coincidences?
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And now, for all you antipennyites...

Here's another photo, of Hick's recent handiwork.

That's the last hill on the gravel road leading up to our homestead. If you ignore the shade-dappling, you can make out the blacktop layer on the left half of the road. Hick's buddy, Buddy, is a retired mechanic who freelances with his own dump truck. If he's got the last load, and there's blacktop left, the customers often give it to him. Buddy and Hick have a scheme to blacktop this part of the road. It gets all washboarded with ruts, and nobody is going to pay for blacktop and a contractor to do the job right, much less maintain it once it's done.

I've been driving over it for three days now, and I'm no road expert...but I think maybe Buddy and Hick should have bladed the road before dumping the blacktop.

It's still just as bumpy, but now we have blacktop covering the washboarded ruts. I'm pretty sure the people without tractors who never do any work on the roads, or contribute money for gravel...are not-so-silently fuming every time they drive over it. I hesitate to draw Hick's ire by bringing it up. The slightest mention puts him on the defense. He has already pointed out that Buddy has no idea when he's getting a load of blacktop, and that it must be spread right then while it is hot.

I'm no road expert...but I don't think it's possible to blade the lumps out of already-hardened blacktop.
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Let the record show that this is penny #32.