Greetings again my fellow lovers of Baseball, God and Tacos, and those of you perhaps tuning in for the first time. Hope you are having a tremendous start to your week.
Well, we had an interesting day in the Sullivan household (Alabama edition) yesterday. It had such wonderful potential.
I had an 8 a.m. appointment at Long-Lewis Ford, to get the oil changed. I was in position at Bay #3 at 7.56 a.m. and they waved me in. I had the oil changed with six quarts of 5w-30 and had all four tires rotated on Blackie (our Black Ford Edge, the other Edge is "Red", well, because it is red. Don't you name your cars?). I was in and out of LLF in less than 30 minutes. Good job guys!
I headed east on Avalon passing FAME Studios, Muscle Shoals High School, DQ, Papa Wok (we love that place) and other points of interest to Wilson Dam Road. I pulled into Tidal Wave Car Wash (No, I am not receiving compensation for mentioning businesses, but maybe I should) because frankly, Blackie needed a bath. I was talking to my brother Barry, who lives in Virginia on my cell as I rode through the automatic wash, and I am pleased to say my Samsung S23/AT&T connection held the call nicely. We hung up as I parked Blackie. Using the complimentary towels, (a very nice touch) I wiped Blackie down, making her (him?) sparkle in the mid-morning sun. Hey, don't you sparkle if your spouse rubs you down? I thought so. I emptied the trash from the car and off we went to our next adventure.
Heading south on Wilson Dam Road, I turned right on Sixth Street heading west. Passing at least one Dollar General and Cypress Lakes Golf Course, I pulled into the parking lot at Publix, at the intersection with Woodward. I parked Blackie, still sparkling, and went into Great Clips for my semi-annual shearing. Look, I will freely admit, if I wasn't bald, I would grow my hair long. Not down to my waist long, but certainly shoulder length or a bit longer. But if I do that, I look like Ben Franklin, and he's 300 years old.
Two gals were on duty, so there was no waiting. An African-American gal cut my hair, and in the 15 minutes or so it took to for her to cut my hair, we discussed music, our ages (68 and 38) why she was working on her day off, and how she thought grey hair was her favorite. Her hair was jet black, and she said she wished she had a grey streak in it, you know, just something different. I told her about a good friend (Allison Blair), who is in her late 40's and has long blondish hair, and was contemplating getting purple tips to her hair and that I had encouraged her to do so. My stylist immediately was in favor of it as well and asked me in all seriousness if I would like to have purple tips. I said I'll pass today, but thanks for asking.
As she was finishing the bush-hogging of my hair, she started talking about how much she loved red hair as well. At this point, I felt obligated to show her pictures of my Eleanor and Isaac, my two red-headed grandkids. She was so excited, I thought she was going to stroke out. She was beside herself. "I love red-headed kids, they are so cute." I think at that point her tip just went up. I was two pounds lighter when she finished. I paid my bill (love that senior discount), left a generous tip for her as she prepared to bale the hair she had cut off my head.
On the way home I called M. She was at Sherrod as she is most Monday mornings, sewing with Susan May, Tina Riner and Joy Bell. This morning, it was just her and Susan. She reminded me Cook's Pest Control would be coming by about 11 to check for termites.
The termite dude actually arrived about 40 minutes early. I was sitting in my rocker on the back deck listening to birds and Sirius Classic Vinyl when he arrived. He did his thing checking traps and making a lap or two around the house before heading into the crawl space under the house inspecting for evidence of the wood-eating critters (fortunately, he found none). When he crawled out, his first words were, "has your water-bill been high? You've got a pretty good leak."
Flashback! The night before, which would have been Sunday, I was sitting where I am now, at the laptop in the library, bemoaning my four baseball rotisserie teams, all of which have losing records. But that is another blog for another day.
I was sitting here and M calls from the hall bathroom, "Can you come here?" She said it in such a way that I wasn't really sure I wanted to go back there and see what she wanted. So I responded with, "where are you?" The response was a shocker, "in the hall bathroom."
I walk back there and she says, "Do you hear that?" Honestly, I didn't hear a thing, so she opened the door to where the hot water is. "Hear it now?" I did, very faintly. She thought it sounded like a water leak, I thought it sounded like a gas leak, but I didn't smell gas. (I didn't realize until yesterday our hot water heater is electric, not gas. Really?)
So at about 11 p.m. Sunday night, M, dressed in her swimsuit cover up, takes her phone and heads outside to look for a water leak. I look inside. We both come up empty and head to bed.
But now, approaching noon on Monday, the culprit has been found. The termite dude said it didn't look like it had been leaking very long, which would make sense since super ears (not me) hadn't heard anything. He was also sure a leak in the copper line was not caused by a termite.
M gets home from sewing, with a stop at Aldi, and I share the news. She immediately calls Fuller, and much to our delight, they had two workers in Tuscumbia, and they would send over the first one available. He was there within an hour and confirmed the leak. It was a hot-water line and was not at a joint or connection, which surprised me. He had it fixed in 30-40 minutes or so and left us with the bill and no leaks.
An hour or two later, I was taking a nap, because a) I had gotten up early, and was a little tired, and b) that's what old, retired men do in the afternoon. While I was sleeping, M decided to get on the 46-inch Husqvarna and do some mowing. She finished most of the back yard and dumped the grass collected in the compost pile. When she got back on the orange tractor (which could really use a trip to Tidal Wave), the blades would not engage. At all. A child of seven can tell you if the blades aren't spinning, the grass isn't getting cut. So another crisis arises that we will need to deal with.
But let's briefly fast-forward to this morning. M has a 7.45a appointment for blood work at Medical Associates of the Shoals in Sheffield, followed by an appointment to see Dr. Vacik, our regular physician. Nothing wrong, we both do these every six months. But after giving several vials of blood and before her appointment with the doc, she is sitting in the waiting room and strikes up a conversation with a gentleman. Fairly quickly they start talking about lawn mowers. M mentions the Husqvarna and its struggles the day before. He suggests a belt or chain may be loose or off completely. Makes sense to me, we will check it out. Stay tuned
It's an amazing thing really. Only in the rural south can the termite dude tell you about your water leak, and a stranger at the doctor's office offer advice on fixing your lawn mower. Is this a great country or what.
After the full day of highs and lows, I would be remiss if I didn't mention my Cardinals. After blowing a lead over the Pirates in the top of the ninth, my favorite player, Alec "Biscuits" Burleson, hits a two-out, walk-off home run and the Cardinals won 7-6. I went to bed happy.
All in all, as Mr. Rogers would say, it was a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
Thanks for stopping by. Be good to each other. See you down the road
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