First thing last Friday morning after watering the gardens and planters and packing up My Beloved's car which I was taking up north I closed up the house filled up with gas and headed out.
Half way to the cottage on a stop to run a few errands en route Number One Son and I managed to lock both keys and cell phone (and yes even knitting) in the car. We had to use a pay phone (for the first time in a hundred years or so - you can use a credit card to pay for a call!) to call Darling Daughter/My Beloved - to find out how to get On Star to do whatever it does to unlock the doors.
While they sourced contact, ID and pin numbers for me I went in to Micheals to pat wool to keep from panicking that our weekend guests would beat me to the marina while Number One Son looked around for floral wire sturdy enough to help us unlock it ourselves - he was fascinated with the idea of doing the "old school" way!
Once back in the phone booth, to make the second call to get the information, I realized I didn't have a pen in my purse. I sent the boy back into Michael's with a five dollar bill to get a pen. It took forever but he finally arrives without a pen or a marker or even a crayon but instead with a
box of white chalk! I'm in a glass and metal phone booth on a tile floor with a million white receipts in my purse on which I was planning to write and he's got a whole box of
white chalk!
"Where can I write with that?!!?" I screech
"On my shorts." he calmly replies (as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.)
Now my daughter at the other end of the phone, listening to my struggles with her brother is laughing in my ear as she recites the numbers. 'Having "caught" the giggles from her I am trying to repeat them so my long lanky son can record them along the hem of his black shorts. The numbers have many digits - he has to go right around into the inseam and beyond. Passersby are staring, children being dragged past holding their parent's hands are fascinated. We are all three of us laughing now - tears are rolling down my cheeks.
With the information "recorded", I hung up, pulled myself together and called OnStar - at least that's who I thought I was calling. 'Turns out a couple of numbers got transposed as he read them back from his "notepad". Let's just say the woman's voice on the recording that answered was indeed keen to provide a "service" of sorts over the phone (there was a fee per minute of "service" if you know what I mean and I doubt her "services" included remotely unlocking a car...I quickly hung up, redialed - same result. Back to calling DD who howls with laughter at the news of my most recent difficulty - as do her coworkers around her listening to the saga unfold - ditto the 6' tall human memo pad standing outside the booth. My guffaws - now adrenelin fueled by the amount of time we're wasting is now making breathing difficult never mind talking!!!!
'Seems the last two numbers - located on the lower thigh at the back of the shorts got transposed somehow... another call to OnStar and in moments we were in. (How easy was that??!!!) For the remainder of our errands at that location I carried the keys in my teeth so as not to loose track of them again and asked Number One Son to kindly act his age and stage and start carrying his phone with him everywhere he goes!
By the time we were back on the road, having laughed so hard and so long I felt like I'd just had a full aerobic workout. There was more excitement ahead to get my heart pumping again though. We arrived at the cottage to find this...
Its a bear's muddy paw prints. Its about the size of an adult hand so it probably belongs to young curious bear. Its on the screened door leading into the porch (at least it was screened before the bear punched through it - the screen's been repaired again in this shot) There was a matching set that had also taken out the screen on the back door and a can of paint My Beloved had left outside with the lid less than securehad been dented and set upside down allowing its contents to pool onto the back porch steps. At that point I had at least 2 hours of unpacking and guest room prepping to do and any minute I was expecting a call from the marina that it was time to go pick up the people coming up for a nice relaxing weekend away from it all (at a bear ravaged cottage?)
I raced upstairs to the guest room to prep it first - there is a spectacular array of bird doo across the window - back downstairs for glass cleaner and paper towel - upstairs again, I crank open the window to allow me to clean it and what do I see on the roof right below the window? A bird carcass - unfortunate result of a bird strike no doubt - that can't stay - back downstairs to muster the boy to get a shovel and retrieve and dispose of the poor thing.
And so on went the late afternoon and evening - by the time I crawled into bed having prepped the guest room and cottage (including planting a few more annuals in the pots around the deck), retrieved by boat, two groups from the marina, taken Number One Son water skiing, fed everyone a grilled garlic shrimp dinner I didn't have it in me knit a stitch.
