Journal: Brouhahas and Adieus

Last Monday, my niece, Christine, sent me a booklet I’d seen at my brother-in-law John’s funeral July 16, and had hoped to read in its entirety.  It was put together by her son Joshua as a school interview project several years ago.

Here’s one of my favorites of the questions and answers:

Joshua:  Do you have anything else that you would like to tell me about your life up to the present?

John H.:  I didn’t realize when I was young how much I would enjoy my grandchildren.  I don’t think that you probably do until you become a grandfather yourself.  I also didn’t know that I would enjoy my granddaughters as much as my grandsons.

 

I laughed over that last line, and then I cried because I miss him.

A friend who is preparing some quilts to send me was asking questions about size of backing, batting, and suchlike. 

I don’t need as much extra for batting as for backing, I told her.  Batting is pliable; that helps.  I did learn, once upon a time at about age 20, that you really shouldn’t strrrrrrrrretch batting too, too much to make it fit.  The poor quilt I did that to was shaped somewhat like a bubble, after that endeavor.

I learned (or rather, I should’ve learned – don’t know if the lesson has completely taken yet, or not) that when I’m saying to myself as I go along, This is bound to be trouble, I really should listen to me!

That evening, Victoria asked, “Is there any way you could find out the name of that fancy restaurant we ate at in Texarkana on our way back from Florida?”

I sent her all the pictures I had from Park Place Restaurant, where we ate in 2016.  That was our last vacation with Victoria before she was married.

“Ah, finally,” responded Victoria.  “A name to that delicious soup I got as an appetizer:  Seafood Okra Gumbo.”

“That wasn’t fair,” I lamented.  “I ordered something I expected to be hot and tasty – and it was COLD.  Aiiiyiiieee, shiver me timbers.”

“Oops,” laughed Victoria.

Guess I wasn’t quite upper-crust enough to like the whatever-it-was.  I also couldn’t understand how people managed to plow through an appetizer that I consider a full meal, then have a main course that was the size of two meals, after which they had dessert.  😮

“I did have something really good there,” I told Victoria, “but I sure don’t remember what.”

“We needed to take more pictures of our food, I guess,” she replied.

We laughed, because we have friends who mock people to scorn for always taking pictures of their food and posting it online.  I, however, actually like seeing pictures of food, all pretty on people’s plates.  Recipe books would be sorry publications without pictures, after all!

One of the abovementioned friends once took a picture of his empty, messy plate, posted it on Instagram, and captioned it, “I meant to take a picture of my food to share with everybody, but I didn’t find the shutter button in time.”  🤣

Late Tuesday night, I finished the central section of the Colorwash Blooming 9-Patch quilt top.  It measured 93.5” x 102”, and there were four borders in graduated sizes, with cornerstones, yet to be attached.

I headed downstairs to my recliner – but the Carpet Fresh I’d put on the rugs earlier, planning to leave on overnight, had much too strong of an aroma to comfortably sit in the middle of.  So out came the vacuum, and I vacuumed all the rugs.  Larry, who was having his evening siesta in the bathtub, was undisturbed.  Sometimes it’s handy to have a husband who is a bit deaf! – you can vacuum at 1:30 in the morning without bothering him in the slightest.

Wednesday, I cut and attached all the borders to the quilt.  There’s Teensy kitty, supervising the photoshoot.

Just in time, the fusible web arrived.  I planned to cut silhouettes for the quilt with my Sizzix eclips2 electronic cutter.

But first, I patched half a dozen pairs of pants – two for Loren, four for Larry.

I started the silhouette project by scrubbing my fabric cutting mat.  After it dried, I was all prepared to apply Elmer’s spray-on adhesive, but the mat felt fairly sticky, so I decided to give it a try.

I began importing silhouettes from the Internet into eCAL lite, the software program for the eclips2.

Meanwhile, the friend who was finishing the quilts she plans to send me accidentally put a slice in her quilt top whilst cutting the borders, and then had to repair it.

“Oh, dear, Joyce!” I commiserated with her.  “At least you didn’t catch it on fire.  😲  (Yeah, I did that.  Once.)”

Of course, she immediately wanted to know how that happened.

Well, it was back when my sewing room was in the basement.  One rainy day, it smelled sort of musty and mildewy down there, which bothers me immensely, so I lit a ‘scent-removing’ candle.  I positioned it at the far end of the table where I was sewing, and thought, I sure hope I remember that thing is there.  And, That might not be a wise idea.  But I wanted it there.  MILDEW BE GONE!!!

All went well, the greater part of the day.  I sewed away.  The ‘scent-removing’ candle helpfully removed scents.

It didn’t have much of a scent itself, or I might’ve remembered it was there.

I finished the quilt top – it was for a quillow, so about the size of a personal throw – and gave it a toss to spread it out and see how it looked.

Yeah, right over the top of the candle.

I remembered at approximately the same instant I saw smoke curling up from one corner of the quilt.

I jerked the quilt off the candle, saw flames, and, being an extremely impulsive sort, instead of reaching for a nearby chunk of fabric that wasn’t part of the quilt, which would’ve taken maybe .0098 seconds longer, I ker-smushed that quilt into a wad upon and into itself, fast and hard, ka-WHAMMITY-BAM.

The fire was out.

It may have extinguished itself purely out of fright from my sudden, violent attack.

Amazingly, I only had to replace two or three small squares, and the few charcoal smudges rinsed out without a trace.

I have never again had a lit candle anywhere near my sewing or cutting tables.

I spent the rest of the evening playing with my Sizzix eclips2.  After making this moose the size I wanted, cutting fabric and fusible web to the size I needed, I positioned everything just right... and clicked ‘Cut’.

And here it is.  Wheeeeee!  It cut it, fabric, paper, fusible, and all, almost perfectly!  On to the next shapes.

After that first flush of success, it turned out that the cutting mat wasn’t sticky enough after all, and the Sizzix eclips2 was evidently hungry, so it gleefully chowed down on a couple of pieces of fabric and expensive fusible web.  But I managed to get three more decent cuts – a grizzly and a couple of eagles.

I scrubbed the mat again and then applied the Elmer’s spray adhesive that someone recommended – and after that, the thing wasn’t one bit sticky.  So much for that recommendation.

Friday, I went to Hobby Lobby and got some Krylon Easy-Tack, which another person on YouTube recommended.  The video showed that she could pick up the mat by pressing her fingertips to it, after applying the adhesive.  I certainly couldn’t do that with the Elmer’s.

I valiantly forged ahead, rescrubbing the mat and spraying it with Krylon Easy-Tack.  It was nice and sticky – until it dried.  And then it was... uh, dry.  Exactly like the Elmer’s.

So... I got everything ready:  I imported a shape I wanted, cut the fabric and the fusible to the right size, laid them together and finger-pressed until they adhered to each other, then dashed downstairs with the mat, hurried out onto the back deck, sprayed the mat, and went flying back up the stairs to lay the fabric and fusible on the mat before it dried.

I ran it through the cutter.

It cut perfectly.

And the fabric stuck so tightly to the mat that when I tried to remove it, small appendages were ripped off, and edges all frayed out.  A majestic 10-point buck turned into a button buck.

Not having one of those ‘scrapers’ or ‘spatulas’ that people use with these mats, I resorted to using ‘That Purple Thang’ – a plastic stiletto that you’d think, to see it advertised, would solve all your sewing and quilting problems and cook supper too.

What it did was remove some of the adhesive I had sprayed on, and a bit of the original adhesive, too.  The mat is now all lumpy and gunky and messed up.

I tried another tack.  (Is that a pun?  If I ever make a pun, it’s totally accidental.)

I gave the fabric itself a quick, light spray just before putting it and the fusible web onto the mat, ran it through the cutter, and then removed it from the cutting mat fast, before it was irretrievably stuck tight.  And that was the only way I got the last few shapes cut.

Yep, that was The Last of the Silhouettes (apologies to James Fenimore Cooper).

I then closed up shop on the Sizzix eclips2.  I’m not going to use the shapes I’ve cut on the Colorwash quilt; they’re much too small in proportion to the quilt.  I’ll save them for use on another quilt one of these days.

I like the Colorwash quilt the way it is, and I don’t want to wreck it up with too-small of appliquéd silhouettes that I don’t think do it justice.  Another thing:  this method of cutting fusible and fabric together winds up forcing me to do raw-edge appliqué, and I’m not fond of that method.  I won’t mind it on a boy’s quilt, but I do mind it on the Colorwash quilt.

The silhouettes did turn out cute, and I’m pleased to have learned that I can import any kind of shape under the sun – so long as it has a clear outline – to my electronic machine, and to see that it will cut any intricate shape I give it.  I’ve ordered more fabric cutting mats and a spatula and scraper, and one of these days I’ll try another type of fusible, too, just to see if some kind other than Lite Steam-A-Seam 2 might work better.  I think this fusible would’ve been just fine, had my cutting mat been sticky enough.  Buying those shapes ready-made is higher’n a kite! – around $15.00 per piece, depending on size.  These cutouts will look cute on a little boys’ quilt.

So, with that, the Colorwash Blooming 9-Patch is ready to be quilted.  I’ll do my customer’s three quilts first (they should be here Friday), and then this one (unless another customer quilt arrives before I’m done with Joyce’s).  I plan to do some serious custom quilting on the Colorwash quilt, and maybe something special with the binding.  Maybe. 

We’ve had several smoky, hazy days here in middle Nebraska.  The smoke is coming from the fires in the northwest, and winds in the upper atmosphere are transporting the smoke all the way over the mountain ranges and across the Great Plains.  The smoke is so high in the atmosphere, I cannot smell it, most of the time.

There was a thunderstorm that night.  We sure did need the rain.  Everything looks lush and green around our house now.  Especially the weeds.

Tuesday or Wednesday morning, I’m going to give weeding a try for the first time since I ruptured a disk in my back six weeks ago today.  It’s fairly well healed, and doesn’t cause too much of a ruckus if I’m careful and don’t pick up heavy things.  I might’ve tried weeding last week, but there were heat advisories almost every day.  Good excuse to avoid weeding, don’t you think?

I will not pull up sequoias.  I will not pull up sequoias.  I will not pull up sequoias.  I will not pull up sequoias.  I will not pull up sequoias. 

A friend on an online quilting group posted a picture of the fabric she’d gotten.  In the background, I spotted a coffee cup.  I zoomed in, and laughed.  I needed me one o’ them thar cups!

Accordingly, I did a Google search, checking prices hither and yon.   Eight minutes later, I wrote to my friend, “Yaaaay!  I found a mug like yours on eBay for only $5.00!  (’Course, shipping was 10 bucks, but... Cat Cup, Cat Cup!)”

It arrived today.  It was listed as ‘used’, but it sure doesn’t look used.  I’d be surprised if it ever had a drop of anything in it.  It was a good deal!  It was listed at $27 plus shipping on some websites.

(No, I did not need this cup.)

(Yes I did, yes I did!)

Saturday morning, I got up, made the bed, dropped off my clothes in the bathroom, then hurried out to the kitchen to give Teensy his medicine – a tablet for hyperthyroidism, crushed into the Fancy Feast soft cat food he likes.  I always give Tiger a small spoonful of the food, so as not to hurt his feelings and make him think I like Teensy better than him.  😉

But Teensy had just thrown up a mouthful of water, and was sitting unmoving by the pet door in the back hall.  I called his name.  He did not turn.  Odd, I thought.

I stood and watched him.  He gulped a few times, and finally went out the door.  Hoping he’d be back later, I went to conduct my ablutions.

Tiger stared after me.  Hey, you forgot about me!

Teensy did not come back in until after 10:00 p.m.  I walked around outside calling for him a couple of times, but didn’t see him anywhere.  (Remember that ‘lush greenness’ I referred to earlier?   Think ‘impenetrable jungle’.)

A friend, agreeing with me that the Colorwash quilt is good exactly as it is, wrote, “Knowing when to stop has not always been your strong suit, but the end product has always been super.”

Hmmmph!

“Okay, now you’re getting insulting,” I retorted.  “You’re sounding just like my family and friends!  ‘Not knowing when to stop.’  In fact, you sound just like my father and mother!  (They weren’t always talking about sewing.  In fact, they weren’t often talking about sewing.)”

Ah, if you could see some of the things I first sewed.  It was bad enough when I had my old Singer.  But then I got a brand-spankin’ new Bernina, the 830 Record, when I was 17 years old. 

It had 20 decorative stitches on it. 

Therefore, everything I made (clothing, lots and lots of clothing) for the next several weeks sported... yep.  20 different decorative stitches.

If I needed more places to add stitches, I just added pockets.  Tucks.  Pleated cuffs.  Rouched insets.  Gotta have those decorative stitches!

The end product was not always ‘super’.  But boy, oh boy, it was well-stitched, let me tell you!

And then I got a ruffler.  It could be adjusted anywhere from 1.5x to 4x – that is, the ruffle could be from 1 ½ times the fullness up to 4 times the fullness of whatever it was being sewn to.

I leave you to imagine ruffles (4x, yes indeedy) of all types of fabrics, colors, and widths, spilling forth from the family home’s windows, doors, and chimney.

Since I quit playing with the Sizzix eclips2 and couldn’t start quilting the Colorwash quilt yet, I scanned photos that day.  The album I’m scanning is from 1997.  Victoria was from 4 ½ months to 6 ½ months in most of the pictures.

This is Lydia at school in early 1997.  She was 5 ½.

Teensy was back in the house, lying on the rug outside of the bathroom door, when I came back downstairs from my little office.  He wouldn’t eat or drink, and didn’t want to move much.  If he had’ve seemed to be in pain, I would’ve called and asked to meet the vet regardless of it being an emergency call, which is pricey; but I really don’t think he was.  We petted him, and he purred softly.

I scanned 112 photos that day.  That’s a fairly good number for one day.  I now have a total of 20,334 photos scanned.

What a job this is!  I was sooo snaphappy!  And thus I’ve made a giant project for myself, scanning all these before-digital photos.

In this picture, Hannah was teaching Victoria pat-a-cake.

Below is Teddy and his friend Jonathan Wright, Bobby’s younger brother.

We’ve been having extra (i.e., ‘more than usual’) drama with my brother Loren.  I could tell stories all day, but I’ll just tell one or two.

Perhaps you remember when last year, he decided to take a vacation.  His ‘vacations’ consist – have always consisted – of driving out to the mountains of Colorado, camper in tow, going over Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park, possibly staying overnight in a primitive (aka ‘free’) campground, and then heading straight back home again.  He’s never gone more than three days in recent history; more often it’s only two.  He will not stop at a campground; they cost money.  He will not go in a restaurant, for the same reason.  He knows how to cook eggs and toast, and that’s the end of his repertoire; so his diet on these ‘vacations’ leaves a lot to be desired.  I suspect mostly he just doesn’t eat.

Anyway, last year he headed west without letting us know he was going (though he had been making some noise about it in previous days and weeks).  He didn’t take his cell phone.  He hardly ever takes his cell phone, these days.  Larry plugged it into his Jeep and told him to leave it there.  He won’t.

On his way back home a day and a half later (who knows where he’d been, really), a few miles this side (east) of North Platte, Nebraska, he stopped at a rest area – and then thought he’d ‘lost’ his wife Norma (Larry’s mother, my mother-in-law, who had passed away in June).  He was asking passersby if they had seen her, saying he was worried she had passed out in the restroom.  Kind people helped him look, then called the police.  The State Patrol and rescue units showed up – and soon discovered via the ol’ Information Network that Norma had passed away a couple of months earlier.

The State Patrol, realizing Loren was confused, took him to their station in North Platte and called us.  We went to get him.  Larry drove Loren’s rig home; I followed in our Jeep.  We got home at 5:00 a.m. the next morning.  Larry had been up 24 hours.  That was not one of our more enjoyable ‘day trips’.

Flash forward to last week: when I took Loren some food one afternoon, I saw maps on his table. I thought, Uh-oh.

Yesterday after the morning church service, we took him some food and several gallons of water.  I walked in first – and Loren informed me, “I’m going to take a vacation for a few days.”

I said, “We really don’t think you should do that” – and he came unglued at the hinges.  It was wild.  He angrily (and loudly) informed me that he wasn’t my little boy, and he didn’t have to do anything I said, he wasn’t going to listen to me, and he was going to do whatever he wanted.  

It got worse.  He accused me of looking at him like I ‘wanted to kill him’, of ‘wanting to shoot him’, and of ‘lying about him and telling everyone he’s insane’.

“News gets back to me!  People tell me what you say!”

We told him he was wrong.  We told him that if we allowed him to do this, he would again wind up in a State Patrol office somewhere, and this time they would probably take away his keys – whereupon he informed us that he ‘knew how to avoid North Platte’, and ‘they won’t get by with doing that to me again!’

(I told Larry later, “He might ‘avoid North Platte’, but the trouble is, he carries the problem right along with him in the form of his own head!”)

One of the last things Loren said to me before we walked out was, “For two years, you’ve been getting the benefits from my...”  He petered out, probably unable to come up with the words he wanted.

“What benefits?” I asked.

“YOU tell ME!” he said in an accusing tone.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.  “Benefits?”

So he said, and I quote, “Pffffffft!”, made a ‘get outa here’ gesture with both hands, and added, “Neither do I!”

I suppose he was accusing me of stealing his money (logical assumption, wouldn’t you say, since thievery, murder, and lying go hand in hand), but who knows.  He wouldn’t listen to a thing we said, so we soon departed.

And that’s the abbreviated version of the brouhaha.

After the church service last night, we picked up a hitch lock from one of our nephews who offered to let us use it, went home and changed into dark stealth clothes, waited until after dark, and then drove to Loren’s house, parked on the other side of a line of thick fir trees, and then Larry sneaked over there to the camper and did the dastardly deed.

The game cam picked up a pair of pale green pants with nobody inside them! (apologies to Dr. Seuss) (Larry’s britches weren’t quite dark enough. 😄 )

Looking back on the melee, I suspect Loren was already upset.  He’d probably been peeved since last Thursday, when he went to Janice’s sister’s house wanting to know the last name of one of Larry’s brother Kenny’s grandchildren, because he needed him to hold a ladder, or so he said.

Judy, worried, called me, and put her phone on speakerphone.  I said the child was much too little to hold a ladder, and we don’t want Loren climbing one anyway.  Judy agreed. 

Loren said huffily, “He doesn’t have to hold the ladder; I just need someone there to call 911 if I fall!” 

Right.

I asked what he needed a ladder for.

Loren:  “Oh, just to climb it.”

Me:  “What for?”

Loren:  “For the fun of it!”

Me:  “What are you planning to do?”

Loren:  “Climb a ladder!”

(He’s not being ‘dumb’; he’s being a smart alec.)

I can repeat things, too.  Watch:

Me:  “What for?”

Loren, a bit agitated:  “I just need to climb up a couple of feet!”

Me:  “Why?”

Loren:  “To look around!”

So I said to Judy (the phone was still on speakerphone), “Tell him I said for him to just go back to bed!”

He was not amused.  In fact, when I asked again what he needed to do, Judy told me that he’d marched off in a huff, gotten in his Jeep, and driven away.

“Well, that’s odd,” I said, and she agreed.  I don’t think she’d seen him act like that, at least not recently; he’s usually all agreeable and pleasant with her and her husband.

I called Larry, who said he would call Loren and try to find out what he needed, and see if he could help.  Sometimes Loren will listen to another man, when he won’t listen to a woman at all.

Larry finally got him on the phone (he hadn’t taken his cell phone with him, as usual).  After some hem-hawing around, Loren finally said he needed to clean his windows.  Larry told him he shouldn’t be doing that, and further, the heat index was over 100° that day. 

“I’ll do it for you, when it’s not so hot out,” said Larry.

“I’ve been cleaning my windows for years!” protested Loren, “and I’ve never fallen once!” 

Actually, he’s probably never cleaned his windows.  Janice did it, or they paid a friend to do it.  But directly he told Larry not to worry about it; he’d already decided not to do it.

Most likely Loren had suddenly remembered the boy’s name, known it was someone in Kenny’s family, and thought perhaps if he arrived at their house unexpectedly, he might catch Norma there by surprise.  He has, at times, accused Kenny and family of ‘squirreling her away’ and ‘hiding her’ from him.

Meanwhile, poor little Teensy kitty had not been eating or drinking for yet another day.  He didn’t seem to be in pain, so we thought it would be all right to wait until today.

Here’s Teensy and Tabby (above) in October of 2015.  Teensy was waiting patiently (or otherwise) for Tabby to finish his soft food, which we bought for him especially, because he had gum disease and had lost several teeth.  Look at Teensy stretching out those looong legs of his.  He knew good and well it made Tabby nervous, and he hoped Tabby would thereby abandon his dish sooner rather than later, leaving Teensy more to scarf down (I always let him lick the saucer clean).

Here he is thinking he’s well hidden under a quilt hanging on my quilt rack:

 And now he’s being a speedbump while I’m trying to quilt:

Teensy was probably approaching 20 years of age.  That’s a rough guess, since the neighbors from whom he fled didn’t know how old he was when he came to us in May of 2009 – they guessed anywhere from 6-8 years old).  He had hyperthyroidism for the last three years, and we’ve tried hard to keep him from losing weight, making sure he had his medicine twice a day, and getting him the soft Fancy Feast canned food he likes.  He got so thin and feeble these last few weeks, poor old kitty.  It was time to say goodbye. 

This morning I called our veterinarian office and made the appointment:  Teensy would take his last ride to the vet this afternoon at 5:00.

Here’s a picture of Hester at age 7 ½, playing with schoolmates at recess time in early 1997.  Craig, the little boy on the left, was killed in 2015 at age 26 in a construction accident.

When I checked on Teensy in the middle of the afternoon, I found him lying in the warm sunshine in front of the French patio doors in the laundry room.  I took a couple of pictures of him for the last time... and funny old Tiger came hurrying to see what I was doing, so I took his picture, too.  They’ve always had an uneasy truce (which one or the other has broken now and then); but Tiger has been acting downright worried about his fellow house-feline.

I took the picture of Teensy sprawled on Larry (below) just a couple of days after Teensy decided we were his family, and not the neighbors.  

Their daughter dropped him off there when she moved from an apartment in town to another city.  He’d never been outside – but they didn’t want him inside.  They put him in the garage, which badly frightened him.  When they opened the door to back their vehicle out, he fled for his life. 

Victoria found him a week later at the bottom of the hill, curled up on an abandoned car.  He was so hungry and thirsty, he was weak.  She carried him home and gave him food and water.  He was ours from then on.  We called him TNC – ‘The Neighbors’ Cat’.  Say that fast – TNC, TNC – and it sounds like ‘Teensy’, which was a joke, because he was a whole lot bigger than our other cats.

Larry declared we did not need another cat, and made snide remarks every time he saw us petting Teensy.

And then I found Teensy atop Larry, purring with his very soft little purr, front paws resting on the side of Larry’s head, a back paw tucked between the buttons on the shirt placket, the better to keep that footie from slipping.  And Larry was not protesting in the slightest.

I took the picture... and kept it handy to pull up on the large screen on my computer if Larry ever started making noise about ‘too many cats’.  He gave that up, right quick-like.  😄

Here's a more recent shot of the same scenario.

One day last week, I entered the quilts I wish to exhibit on the Nebraska State Fair’s website.  We’ll take them to Grand Island on the 19^th.

At our Nebraska State Fair about three years ago, Larry and I were wandering down the aisles, with me taking pictures of every last quilt we passed.  (A li’l ol’ lady glared at me for doing that.  Yeah, g’day to you, too, li’l ol’ lady.  This is permitted. Even encouraged.  There are ‘happy camera’ signs all over the place.)  We came to a paper-pieced quilt of a grand piano, and on the song board was a real piece of linen paper with music on it, scrolled, tied with a ribbon, and inserted in a little pocket.

A lady and her husband approached it from the opposite direction, just as Larry and I drew near.  We all stood looking at it in silent admiration for a few seconds – and then both renegade husbands at the same instant reached a hand toward that scroll.

“Don’t touch it!!!!” snarled the other man’s wife at precisely the same moment I elbowed Larry good and proper.

Both wayward husbands jumped like they’d been shot, flung their hands upward, and jerked backwards abruptly, quite as if we’d smacked each of them soundly with a two-by-four.

Then the other lady, a nearby white-glove helper, and I all burst out laughing.

The husbands joined in, just to prove they were good sports.

We proceeded on, snickering, with the quilts remaining pristine and untouched.

Look what I found peering in through the French patio doors of the laundry room this afternoon!  A woodchuck (aka groundhog, aka whistle-pig)!

After tasting the edge of the patio door, he decided the mulberry tree was better.  He pulled down a branch, and gnawed off leaves and small stems alike.

(The pictures are from the Internet; by the time I ran upstairs and grabbed my camera and came back down, he was gone.)

So now I know what the animal was that went scurrying off the deck (one story up) last night when we headed out to go to church.

Okay, I’m done (for now).  I’ll be sure to let you in on any future fireworks when the hitch lock is discovered.  Who needs soap operas?!

We now return you to your regular programming.

,,,>^..^<,,,          Sarah Lynn           ,,,>^..^<,,,