Late For Mass!

Ever since our favorite priest, Father Oliver retired, from a church near to us in Nevada, we've followed him around like puppies, since we haven't found anyone who comes close to bringing us the message of Jesus. If you're a retired priest, you don't just sit around on your laurels. There aren't enough of the younger priests to go around to all of the parishes, so the retired ones take care of the shortage. Father Oliver really loves to say a mass when he's asked, so we've followed him down to Gardnerville, Nevada, and more recently to a small chapel in Coleville, CA, which is about an hour and fifteen minutes from our place in South Lake Tahoe. It's worth it to us to go to listen to him preach. He has a different way of presenting mass that makes you feel as if you're sitting around a campfire listening to Jesus. Every Sunday, he gives an explanation of each reading before it's read, along with personal stories, some from his life growing up in a big family in Ireland, that link in with each reading from scripture. When the reading is finally read, we all understand it more since it wasn't just recited by one of the layity. Everything is tied together neatly for us. He may say, "Thank you for listening to me. I know I do run on!" And we all look at each other and smile, saying with our eyes, that, "that's why we come!" The last couple of months, we've asked him if we could stop by his home to pick him up on our way to Coleville. It's become a regular thing now. He enjoys being able to look around on the beautiful scenery between Nevada and California along the way down Hwy 395, and afterward, 6 or 8 of the parishoners usually meet together at a nearby restaurant. Then we bring him home. I usually set several alarms to make sure we get up in time. He likes to leave home by 9 am in order to make it to Our Lady of the Valley in Coleville in plenty of time, so we figure that we should at least give ourselves about 40 minutes to get to his place, plus, time to make breakfast, get ready, etc. This morning didn't work out quite as expected. For some reason, I neglected to set all my alarms the night before. One alarm always goes off anyway on my phone, at 8 am, belting out "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", and it jolted me awake. I dreamily watched the pine trees out the bedroom windows as I relaxed back into the pillow, until, I sat up straight, like the mother in "Home Alone" when she realized the family had almost overslept for their flight to Europe. "It's Sunday!", I told Doug, "and it's already 10 after 8, and we'll be late to pick up Father!" That woke him up quickly too, and he said, "Oh no! We'd better get a move on!". "Let's just jump into our clothes and pick up something to eat at MacDonald's" "No time! There will be a line", I said. "I'm going to call the bakery down the street and have them fix us something we can pick up when we get there. We can eat it in the car." While I pulled up my pants and put on my shoes, I called and ordered a ham and cheese croissant, heated and cut in half and one large coffee, via speaker phone, that we would share in the car as I drove. "Smart cookie", Doug said as we walked out the door. I locked the door from the inside and we were on our way.....until I got to the car and the door wouldn't unlock. I felt for my keys, and found I didn't have them or even my iphone. I didn't even have the wrist pocket I use for a purse, holding my ID! Doug was almost to the car, so I said, "Could I get your keys from you? I left mine inside!" He felt for his keys and said, "Uh-oh! I don't have mine either!" "No? Gosh! It's a good thing we have a housekey in our outside storage!", I said, trotting down the path to our porch. I reminded myself of our younger neighbor who always walks so fast. But, when I opened the closet, the key wasn't where it was supposed to be! What now? I called out to Doug to tell him it wasn't there, and he started walking back to the house. Since we rent out our place sometime, I thought, all is not lost, there's a lock box with a key in it. I have the code on my phone.... but I don't have my phone! "Sweetheart! Hand me your phone so I can get the lockbox code from it." "Um. I don't have my phone either!" "Oh no!", I said. "I haven't used the code very much, but maybe I can remember it. I wracked my brain. "I think it's something like 1,2, something something." I started to frantically punch in several options, to no avail. "You do know that there might be as many as 9,999 possibilities, right?", he offered. "Now Stop that!", I snapped, "Don't be negative. We have to pray. What else are we going to do?" "Maybe the window is unlocked", Doug offered. "No. We Never leave them unlocked because of bears, right?", I answered. I was starting to lose hope. People were depending on us to pick him up, and we couldn't even call Father Oliver to tell them the situation and that maybe he should start driving himself to Coleville. 1,2, 6,7..1,2 5,8... Then I see Doug walking from the storage room with a screwdriver saying, "I was just thinking..." "What are you doing?", I whined. "It's worth a try", he says as he works at the screen on the window. "What are you going to do? Break open the window?", I say. But the next thing he does is slide open the window! "Remember? our neighbors said that the renters had the windows wide open with the heat up high?" "Genius!" I said. Thankfully, the window sill was low enough for me to climb right in, stepping only on some reuseable shopping bags that we had ready by the door. I ran over to the counter for my keys and wrist pocket and Doug's keys and his phone. I forgot my phone, but it didn't matter. We locked up again, and strode out to the car. "We'd better skip the breakfast we ordered", I said. "No! I'm hungry! And you might get a bad reputation at the Sugarpine Bakery if we don't pick it up.", he said. That was a thought. I drove down the street and tried to turn in to the exit driveway, and almost ran into someone coming out. I pulled sharply into another parking place and walked quickly into the bakery. "I'm the one who ordered...." "These?" she said as she placed them on the counter,"One ham and cheese croissant, heated and cut in half and a large coffee?" I started to tell her all that we had been through, but thought better of it, and brought it to the car. I took my half and started munching ravenously without even thinking, but I had to start thinking about driving. We hit all of the green lights along Hwy 50 toward the casinos, and then finally hit a red light, and took advantge of stopping so I could have a sip of coffee. I was shaking. "Try to calm down and concentrate on getting there safely", said Doug. "We're only going to be about 10 minutes late. We'll be fine." He tried to call Father Oliver, but he didn't answer. We tried once more as we came over Daggett Pass on Kingsbury Grade, but no answer. Then, at 8:59, we received a call from him as we were almost to his place. "We're running a little late, Father, but we'll be there in about 5 minutes! We'll explain later." He was waiting out in front as we drove up, and I tried to calm myself and drive, but as we recounted our last hour, I got all excited again. He was very forgiving of us, as we drove along. He even tried to distract me with comments about the lovely rock formations that he never noticed as much when he drove himself. By the time we drove by Topaz Lake, I knew we were almost there. "Good girl!", said Father Oliver. "You made good time, but you did drive pretty fast". "I'm sorry", I said as we pulled into the driveway to the chapel with 10 minutes to spare. "I bet you were saying your prayers there in the back seat!" "To be sure", he said. P.S. Three days later, just to show you that my mind was still thinking about Sunday morning, I awoke to realize that I had had my fairly new and unexplored iWatch on my wrist the whole time. I checked, and, sure enough, I could have looked up the list I had on my phone to see the combination for the lock box.

The Little Creep!

We've been up at South Lake Tahoe since the beginning of May, and I've been having a grand time gardening for the whole condo complex, with the larger stipend of $750. they've given me for plants. I DO like to find the best deals I can, and it's even better when I'm spending someone else's money.
My new saying is "I work for compliments", since I don't get paid for the digging, but I consider gardening my main form of exercise. Besides, one of the owners said that whenever she spots a new flower, she says to herself, "The gardening fairy must have been here!" That's my new moniker, and I like it.

My routine in the morning, after we do a short meditation and prayer, is to go out and feed the birds, squirrels and chipmunks. I fill their water bowl and toss a mixture of birdseed, and peanuts and sunflower seeds without the shell on the ground like I'm feeding chickens. It's delightful for me to watch their movements out the window, but for the last two mornings, I've gone out to find the two most recent plants I've planted in our own little plot, with holes dug next to them. Whenever that happens, I just figure that one of the critters must think that there's a new squirrel in town that has buried a nice juicy nut, so I use the toe of my slipper to fill in the hole, forgiving them.

.

Once again, right next to the Milkweed I planted to provide Monarch butterflies a place to set up housekeeping, and my nice, red Coral Bells plant that I got for Doug for Father's Day, big holes, and the red-leafed one had had it's roots chewed on! Now this morning, everything was fine, until after I fed the little darlings their treats. We dished up breakfast, and then I glanced out the window to find the Coral Bells completely uprooted and lying on its side! Oh no!
"What the.....! Don't you guys know that I'm the one that provides for you every day?" This means war!

Leaving my coffee and turkey bacon and toast with honey and peanut butter on it to get cold, I ran back in to the kitchen to rummage through the spice cupboard to find my stash of hot red peppers like you put on pizza. These were left over from the arsenal I had used to fight off the voles 2 years ago. Doug watched as I whizzed by him to defend my territory. I plopped the poor plant back in to it's hole, filled it in, and sprinkled the hot peppers thickly around it. Take that, you little creep! Then I went in to eat my breakfast.

About an hour later, we were dressed up to finally go to mass, (we had to make reservations), and Doug saw through the window that there was a big fat squirrel standing up holding the Coral Bells and chewing on the roots! Perhaps he enjoyed the extra spicy seasoning! I opened the door and he ran off, leaving the plant looking wilted and missing half of it's roots. I only had time to toss it back in it's hole and give it some water and wish it well.

When we came home, it looked like it needed artificial respiration. I decided to give it more water and then cover it with a big glass bowl, sort of like a terrarium. Then it got overheated in the sun, and the glass was coated in moisture, so I set two ice cubes on top of the bowl. Desperate measures.....

That worked for a little while, but then when I took off the bowl, even though it looked a little perkier, I worried about the plant being attacked again over night, so I put the bowl on again.
After being exposed again in the morning though, some of the leaves were feeling as crispy as potato chips, and I decided to dig it up and put it in a pot, (no less, a ceramic pot I made myself back in the 80's).

The next day, I sat in my zero-gravity lounge chair and read a book, while glancing up intermittently to gaze lovingly at my group of critters as they grazed on their morning buffet. One of the chipmunks, not realizing I was there sat near me on the ground chewing on seeds. A robin skitters to and fro, and I notice that she keeps her head down and forward as she runs along, and then stops, more upright, and looks and listens.

But then I notice a big squirrel that is sniffing around and pawing at the ground across the way, digging little holes, and then stopping to scratch himself. Maybe he has a flea. "This is the guy!", I'm thinking. He repeats the process a few times, and by now I'm calling him "Itchy". Then he comes right over to where the red plant had been, and sniffed around. "Aha!" I wish I had a squirt gun to surprise him with.

Oh well. At least my little plant is safe up on the table. Hmm. Perhaps I should bring it in to the dining room at night.
I know there are other folks who might get out a BB gun at this point....and I AM considering a trip to the Dollar Store later to shop for a Super Soaker, but in this time of self isolating, at least I have some cheap entertainment.