Another 31

A list of 31 assorted and unrelated ramblings in honor of the last day of August:

1. Rain + the remnants of horse-drawn vehicles (i.e., poop) + bicycles without rear fenders = an unpleasant tourist experience. We witnessed plenty of people in Mackinaw Island with brown stripes up their backs who learned this the hard way.
2. I don't know who thought up dark chocolate peanut M&Ms but he/she deserves an award.
3. Kansas in August is usually hot, parched and brown but not this year. Plentiful rain in the summer has left it lush and green, and it was only 72 degrees when we left El Dorado at 10:30 a.m. this morning.
4. And I'd be thrilled for 72 degrees in our hotel room in Oklahoma City. The AC was cranked down to 55 when we arrived. Since we can't open the windows, the heat is on for a while. There's something wrong about running the heat in August.
5. We could have a contest to see who can guess the identity of the "fruit" in the photo but probably only a Kansan would win. It's a Hedge Apple a/k/a Osage Orange...not really good for anything but throwing into the crawl space under the house to drive away crickets.
6. Michigan has weird auto insurance laws. The at-fault driver is only responsible for the deductible and each insurer pays for the repairs to its own policyholder's vehicle. Probably a truer form of no-fault but really different from Florida laws.
7. When I looked at the photo of my friends on the computer screen in yesterday's post, I realized how much we all look like our mothers...every one of us.
8. How do we get ourselves so wrapped up in mindless TV? At the start of the summer, Wayne and I started watching "Pirate Master." The ratings were so bad that CBS canceled it half way through but put the remaining episodes on the Internet. We stuck with it to the end but I'm not sure why.
9. My  mind isn't mush yet...I saw all the people I was supposed to see when I was supposed to see them. Guess I don't need that planner after all.
10. The new greens at Stonebrook opened for play today. And while all the golfers must be happy, Hiram is surely even more delighted.
11. They say you get a burst of creativity right before you drift off to sleep, and I believe it. Just before nodding off on our last night before leaving for Tulsa, a page idea for a project came to me, and when I was able to work on it earlier this week, it turned out just like I envisioned. Yea, me.
12. We didn't see any lightning bugs at dusk while in Kansas...maybe it's too late in the summer. But Wayne did manage to find the chiggers.
13. And I forget how windy it is here. The winds have been 15-25 mph (and sometimes more) every day. Maybe it blew all the lightning bugs away.
14. There are new albums for the "to do" stack...new waterfall mini-albums with letters along the edge to spell out the album title. Not that I needed them but they're really cute!
15. I take Hurricane Evacuation Route signs for granted so I shouldn't be surprised to see signs like this in Kansas:

    

16. When you return to the town where you grew up, you see a lot of faces that look familiar but you don't know if you should know who they are or not.
17. I've spent too much time sitting in the seat of the car lately as well as eating chocolate Dairy Queens. Time to get back to regular exercise and eating better...not until I get home, of course.
18. Despite having helped customers load and unload for crops when we had the store, Wayne was still in awe of the sheer volume of scrapbook stuff the valet was packing on and hanging from his luggage cart for the women coming to CKC-Tulsa. It was pretty amazing.
19. And the local TV station did a couple of remote segments from the convention. The regular CK spokesperson wasn't there so I filled in for her on one segment. It was only about four minutes but a fun addition to the convention routine.
20. We drove through Dewey, Oklahoma, home of the Tom Mix Museum. He starred in lots of really old western movies. His death came when a suitcase flew forward and hit him in the head as he drove...hardly a fitting end for a guy in a white hat.
21. There is nothing more haunting than train whistles in the night. We heard them in El Dorado and now here in Oklahoma City, too.
22. All the equipment they use in the salt mine comes down that 650' in a small elevator like we rode. They disassemble everything and put it back together when it reaches the mine surface.
23. Two big Harleys were parked in the front yard of what used to be my parent's home. The house and yard are really well-kept but still...two big Harleys. My mother is probably turning over in her grave.
24. Wayne was chief babysitter for Benjamin, his niece's 6-month-old little boy,while she went to the rehearsal dinner tonight...and he loved every minute of it.
25. It's cool to see the next generation as "grown-ups" and good parents. We spent time with my brother's son and family last Sunday and now with Wayne's brother's children and their families this weekend.
26. Gift registries that you can access on-line are the best idea ever! Now if we just had something like that for Christmas presents...
27. If we were still in El Dorado, I'd think seriously about going to the drive-in. It still operates on Friday and Saturday night during the summer. I can't remember the last time I saw a movie at the drive-in theater.
28. Pepsi must have an "in" with the hotel industry. Coke products in the hotel vending machines are harder and harder to come by.
29. It probably would be in poor taste to wear my Croc sandals to the wedding tomorrow, but I'll bet my feet would be happier.
30. If I'm going to continue doing something like this every month...and that was the intention when I started...it would be easier if I kept a running list as the month goes along.
31. Just like the whole summer, the last day of August got away from me before I was ready.

Comments

[sharyn (torm)]

Love the list!
And don't let the Harley thing fool you - often the owners are lawyers and doctors, the only ones that can afford them.

[sharyn (torm)]

ah - but then it dawned on me - maybe that's why your mother would be rolling? LOL

[Jane]

Brenda, I just wanted to say how much I truly ENJOY reading your blog... I found the link through Torm's blog during your Michigan jaunt and I've been hooked ever since. This "list" for August is an awesome idea.

Oh, and I definitely would have won the contest if you had one in regards to the osage oranges (we called them horse apples)! I live in Memphis now, but a few years back when we called Nashville home we had an over-achieving horse apple tree in our backyard. There were about 2 weeks of each fall when I felt like I needed to send my youngest out back to play only when she had on a crash helmet, LOL.

-Jane Rife