Still Holding Out

Sydney Jean, my 2014 Rav4, hasn't hit the mark just yet. She has 700 miles to go. 

The "Win Big" prize is now a family meal with the rest of the Sunshine family. The winner gets to pick the restaurant and the rest of us can't complain. Buck is promising McDonalds or a Japanese Steak House (None of us know where we'd find one). Polly said she's picking Verona--the fancy Italian restaurant in town where lunch will cost us $175 but it will cost the restaurant $15 in ingredients. I think if I win, we are getting Wingstop and staying home and playing Uno. 

Studying

 

Buckaroo is fortunate enough to have a study partner. 

Roosevelt and Buck

Finn vs. Hempstead

Picture was taken from their Web site, because Marty didn't take pictures of the court proceedings. Not that we really could, because there was zero electricity in the courtroom and our only source of light was 8 oil lamps. Did I mention it is DARK at night? 

Last Saturday night, Marty and I attended a reenactment of the 1856 Arkansas trial of Finn vs. Hempstead (Hempstead County, Arkansas). It was an absolute blast! The dinner theater was held at the Historic Washington State Park, which is about 40 miles from here. 

The town of Old Washington, Arkansas became the de facto state capital during the Civil War when the North took over Little Rock. Fast-forward 150+ years, the State of Arkansas turned the town into a state park. The buildings still exist--several are in use, including the museum-courthouse, tavern and blacksmith shop (ever watch "Forged in Fire" on the History Channel?). Of note, the world's oldest magnolia tree is also in residence and that girl is about 200 years old and still blooms. 

Back to Saturday night. 

This trial by jury event the park runs is so popular, people come from all over. We sat with three delightful folks from Little Rock. A family of 20 from Houston showed up as well. All together, there were about 60 of us who met at the tavern for either a pork loin or chicken fricassee dinner. Both meals came with a "pie" that someone at our table dubbed "chocolate fricassee," because nobody we dined with knew exactly what either the chicken dish or the pie-thing was. By the way, there's a misleading picture of this pie-thing on the Old Washington Historic Park Facebook page. Knock yourself out. 

After dinner, we all convened at the courthouse--which I should point out, one does not walk to from the tavern because Historic Washington State is DARK when the sun goes down because electricity wasn't invented in 1856. But, we didn't think about that when we journeyed the 1/2 mile over to walk off our chocolate fricassee.  

During dinner, the jury summons went out and wouldn't you know? I ended up on the mock jury for this mock trial. I was met at the courthouse by the sheriff, donned in his best 1856 attire, who escorted me to the jury bench to be seated with 11 of my closest peers. All the characters in the trial wore appropriate costumes and stayed in character, even when an audience member from Houston-faction needed assistance with the back door.   

The case was interesting. Mr. Finn hand-wrote a will for Mr. Crosby to sign on his deathbed in 1851. Finn selected his two witnesses. Additionally, he scurried out other folks who happened to be at Crosby's house at the time of the signing, ensuring nobody advocated for Crosby. One of the will's "witnesses" testified he didn't actually didn't see Crosby sign. He'd shown up late to the party because he'd been at the tavern. Plus, all those who testified divulged Crosby had been delusional that day, talking about yellow butterflies, green squirrels and leprechauns. As a jury, we were to decide was Cosby in his right mind at the time the will was signed and was the will valid?

Let me just say, everyone is entitled to their opinion. Even on a jury. 

But there's always one %^@*&^*($&@^* attention-seeking Karen. Our jury's Karen asserted a handwriting analysis needed to be done on the will. Oh yes, a doctor needed to certify Crosby was truly delusional because the three witnesses separately saying under oath the guy had imaginary friends and wanted to slide down rainbows didn't constitute a medical diagnosis. Additionally, it wasn't "fair" to the Finn family to lose all that money five years after Crosby died. 

However, the frustrating part for me was that Karen wouldn't go along with the idea that this was a performance. We were part of the show. The first rule of improv is to go along--not that any of this was truly brought up during our sequestering, but come on! Read the room! 

Whatever. 

A juror is allowed to have their own opinion. 

After ten minutes of deliberation, Karen doubled down and we were a hung jury. Yes, I know that in a civil trial only a majority is needed to render a verdict. This fell on deaf ears, as the actors had their own agenda. Incidentally, the real Finn vs. Hempstead case went to the Arkansas Supreme Court. It turns out, 11 of us had a similar opinion as the Supreme Court and didn't really care how "fair" it was for the Finn family. 

Official-ish Jury Summons

Random (Unpleasant) Texarkana

Through a confluence of unfortunate events, I am house-sitting for Tessa this week. She has two aged poodles who make me appreciate the subtle, low-maintenance aspects of Buck's rowdy kittens and Luna. 

I want to go home. 

Yesterday, Tessa had a minor crisis and she needed her outside freezer cleaned out. When I talked to her and explained I had zero room to put her frozen food in her inside freezer, she asked me to take it all to her office. And then she said, "I know that makes you uncomfortable," which was only partially true. First, my anthropophobia* was in high-gear. Second, I had a phone call I was waiting for. But mostly, I'm not "uncomfortable" at her office as much as I don't suffer unpleasant fools. Frankly, my resting-bitch face was already twitching long before I found going to her office was the most reasonable solution to her frozen meat issue. However, I like Tessa. She had a problem. I don't work there. And I can fake it for ten minutes for the sake of this errand. 

_______________________________

My 79 year old mother was rushed to the hospital yesterday afternoon. Her face is drooping and she's having severe headaches. She tells me her tests came back negative for stroke. But they found a mass in her brain. I have zero more information and nobody to really ask. So, I wait. 

Also, this time I'm the conduit for information between my brothers and myself on this particular crisis (Mom changes it up. The last time she only texted my middle brother and bypassed Squirrel and me, nor will she do a group chat). So, I'm feeding them what I know, which is in the form of screen captures of my mother's texts and sending them directly to them so they have the exact wording. We went through this with my father. But at least with Dad, some of us were nearby and we had a better source of data. This time, not so much. 

_______________________________

Last weekend Marty and I found a hiking trail at Millwood Lake (Arkansas), about 30 miles East of here. Sigh... there was a time I'd hike through the desert, with my biggest concerns being stepping on a snake or a cholla cactus spine. Oh yes, one time there was a mountain lion. Another time a sleeping bear. The good old days.  

In this part of the world, hiking is so much more complicated. First, there's poison ivy, poison oak and poison sumac. It's hiding everywhere. My pal Joy is on week two of poison ivy recovery and she sounds miserable. 

And if the plants don't get you, there's always the critters. In addition to the usual suspects--including mountain lions and bears--one needs to know what to do if they happen upon an alligator. Because that's a real concern in these parts. 

Incidentally, the pamphlet on "alligator etiquette" didn't really evoke a sense of peace. According to this work of fiction the ranger handed me, apparently gators are "shy creatures" and are as afraid of me as I am of them. Or some such nonsense. I should also mention nowhere was it documented what I'm supposed to do if run into a situation where I 'm close enough to an alligator to need etiquette. 

*A fancy name for social anxiety.  

The Tale of Two Polite Churches

This past Sunday, Polly sat in a pew next to Sherman* for the second week in a row. Not only was she in the pew, but that meant she wasn't in the choir loft--where everyone she hung out with three days a week could see her. After mass, several women approached Polly, striking up conversations and making a point to introduce themselves to Sherman. By the way, this is considered "polite."

Polly told to me she was surprised at the number of friendly folks. I pointed out that every woman she mentioned has an eligible son and they'd scoped out Polly on their child's behalf. After these women walked away Sunday morning, they immediately rang their single offspring, telling them they just missed their shot at dating Polly and what is wrong with them!? At which point, Polly pointed out that my explanation seemed extreme. I assured her these mothers were using all extreme measures necessary to get their sons married off and it had zero to do with how long she and her fella had been seeing each other (not long) and more to do with their lack of grandchildren. Additionally, the gossip mill prayer circle will be chock-full of requests for their sons to find someone like Polly (and to be fair, I'm also thinking their might be a few uncharitable women who want the freshly-divulged friendship between Polly and Sherman to fail. I haven't met Sherman yet, so I haven't formed an opinion or asked for a prayer request).

Meanwhile, at the same time this was going on Sunday morning, I was saving a seat for Myra at the Church of Christ. I had invited her to join me at the service this past week. Myra was raised Church of Christ, but hasn't gone for her own reasons. When my friend Myra entered, she ran into another acquaintance who recognized her and happily dragged her husband to sit next to us, making sure to introduce Myra to every passing person in the congregation. By the way, this is considered "polite." 

And after the service, the smell of a stranger loomed large. Poor Myra ended up with a receiving line so long that it took me five minutes to get out of the pew because people were swarming. What none of these well-meaning folks understood was Myra's Introvert Face blazed brighter with each handshake and invitation to some other upcoming event. All Myra wanted to do was LEAVE. I wasn't much help because at this point, my face matched hers and I would have jumped over the pews to bolt if Bonus Mom hadn't taught me about decorum. I'm sure the prayer circle gossip mill buzzed for hours about how to get in touch with me or anyone else who might know Myra and invite her to sixteen events this week. (My phone will be off.)**

Anyway, during Sunday lunch with my family I offered to trade churches with Polly next week, just to give us both a break. She declined, figuring she had the better end of the deal. 

*All of my children's special friends end up with unfortunate nicknames. In this case he's a First Lieutenant and Buck--who has met him--says he's built like a tank, hence, Sherman. 

**As I wrote that paragraph, my phone buzzed with . . . you guessed it. 

The Fledglings

Marty and I realized we are starter empty-nesters lately. 

Polly is housesitting out of town right now. I've been able to entice her with home-cooked food. Every few days, she'll arrive, eat a meal, pretend to want to hang out, grab more stuff from her room and dash out the door to visit with friends or go back to New Boston. 

Buck is in school two afternoon/nights a week. Plus, he works. And he has a better social life than any of us. When he arrives home, he plays with his kittens, and then is either studying, on his computer or sleeping. 

I remember being a young adult. This is what life is like. Though I miss them, I'm happy they are happy. 

 

Windshield Wiper Update

 Well now, we've come to another chapter in the Windshield Wiper saga. As you may remember, a couple of weeks ago my wipers stopped working while I was driving on Interstate 49. This caused a bit of an issue because at that moment, I was in the middle of a torrential downpour and visibility with the windshield wipers was low. And without them, impossible. 

Though a bit of research, we discovered the issue wasn't a simple fuse. And today, we brought the car into the mechanic who told us the reason the wipers stopped working was a "varmint's nest" had caused something to jiggle out of place. 

"How does one get a varmint's nest?" I asked Marty. He had no reasonable answers, but promised to put mothballs under my hood to deter future varmints from squatting in my car. "Does that work?" I asked.  Marty didn't know, but thought it sounded reasonable. 

I'd like to tell you my car is back in my possession, but no. You see, when the mechanic put the wiper parts back together, he did it in such a way, that my wipers will no longer go down. No explanation has been given to me as to why this dude thought I'd take the car back with the wipers stuck on top of the window. I stopped asking when I got to someone in the garage's hierarchy who looked as exasperated with the situation as I did. At least that person promised me I'd eventually get my car back without varmints and with windshield wipers which work properly. 

So, the car is still at the mechanic and I'm still waiting for this silly saga to end.