Two Weeks in a Blender

The other day, as Cappy and I (and the dawgs in tow) were driving him out to his boat...a day early again...Grrr...he was feeling kind of down that we hadn't gotten a lot of things done that were on our set-in-pudding 'to do list'. Taking a deep breath here; yeah, we 'lolly-gagged' a lot...not.

Where to begin...where to begin. Well, no doubt you read Cappy's post about having all his innards checked out, with all the dr. visits and waiting room dawdling that goes with it; precious time that we might have spent doing other fun stuff; but oh well, at least now we know he's fine. Poor Cappy; not knowing anything for sure there, for awhile, had him kinda shaken a bit...and me, too. We think the whole 'hullaballoo' was caused by the new 'sugar medicine' he was prescribed. What we call, "The Yellow Toenail Syndrome". You know; if ya take the prescribed pharmaceutical drug to get rid of a slight toenail fungus, you could end up with your liver falling out, your ears ringing like the cracked liberty bell, sarcoma of the sacroiliac, or your whole leg having to be amputated...but my, don't your toenails look nice?(!) (So, we are still pondering as to what we are going to do about that.)

As long as we were over in the Baton Rouge area, we went to visit our friend, Lona, at the hospital, who had just undergone knee-replacement surgery the day before. Yow! This lady is one strong woman. As we got there, she was just walking (!!!) back to her bed from 'the other room'. I was suffering just watching her. It was obvious she was in very much pain, but she said she'd already done some excercises as part of her recovery therapy, and encouraged another lady, who had, had the same procedure, to do the same. I guess the other lady was prolonging the inevitable, like I would. I still shudder to think about it. Lona's a stronger gal than I am, Gunga Din.

From there we wandered around Baton Rouge and had a wonderful supper at TJ Rib's. My mouth is watering again, remembering that luscious buttery steak. I keep promising myself that when son, Dan comes back for a visit, we have got to take him there. He likes sports, and there are a lot of "Shaq"memorabelia on display there. We could put a motor on the back of one of Shaquille O'Neal's shoes and tool on down one of the bayous in it!

We also spent an hour or so in the Whole Food Store; which is way too easy to do, put our healthy purchases in the SUV, then went across the street to Goodwood Hardware, where they have the most incredible cooking things. It's like Cajun heaven in there! Cappy wandered around with his hands in his pockets, and since it was his 'maiden voyage' in that store, when asked by a friendly greeter if he could help us find anything, Cappy tersely said, "No thanks, I'm just looking, that's why we have no shopping cart". Well, that lasted for about two aisles, 'til he told me to run and get one. After jamming our stash in the back of the SUV amongst the environmentally correct grocery bags, brimming over with the health food purchased earlier, we meandered around til we found a West Marine store, where Cappy bought a water-resistant radio, for his Jeep; the new radio which had just been installed when he was last off the boat....had gotten water-logged somehow, during several rainstorms that took place in his absence.

Sooo...on toward home we came. Speaking of rain, he had me pull into a parking lot just a hair's breath ahead of a crashing thunderstorm. He wanted buy me a surprise he'd had in mind for our 6th anniversary. Ok...OKAY!!! But I wanted to run in as fast as I could get in there, because of all the lightening going on; the wind was throwing twigs and flowers off the crepe myrtle trees and candy wrappers and plastic bags had joined in league with the tremendous incoming force of nature, and were rolling on ahead of it, in the charge across the parking lot, threatening everyone to get out of it's way. Cappy had one hand jammed into his pocket and was holding onto my hand with the other, was slowly sauntering along, chin up, humming a tune, and had a look of serenity on his face. I, on the other hand, could almost feel the electricity in the air standing my hair on end (leastways that's how I imagined it), so I tried to pull loose from his grip, wild-eyed, ducking and jumping, and 'bungee-cording' my arm out and back, ahead of him to try to drag him toward the store, but he had an anchor dragging somewhere. We musta looked like an 'interesting' couple viewed from inside the store. As we neared the automatic doors, he told me the same 'joke' he always does, "Do you know what a Cajun does when it rains?" I muttered under my breath. He continued, "He gets wet...know who tole me dat one? Daddy".

Looking back, seeing as how the whole mission to this store, in the first place, was for my benefit, I'm feeling kind of guilty now. He bought me an MP3 player! It seems as though I've wanted one all my life, even before they came up with such a thing. (The last couple of days I've been having more fun putting songs that I like on it, but boy, am I picky!...no Dr. Hook.)

Coming home we were thrilled to be able to drive on the new road that has been in the works for the last twenty years. By the time they got all the 'red tape' and etc. unraveled, the actual work only took a couple of years to be completed. We all thought we'd never live to see ourselves riding on it. One poor ol' boy bewailed, "I'm never going to ride on it, am I?" then passed away a day or two before it opened. As Cappy and I rode along on it, we discovered that this new 'short-cut' warn't all that short after all the intensive waiting and excited nail-biting. Politics, no doubt. 'They' took what, in our opinion, should have only been a couple miles long, and snaked it around in the sugar cane fields so that it's now almost five miles in length. Plus, we hate to be critical, but we are nervous about the train crossing that runs across the middle of it. Perhaps it's that there have been a lot of train crashes in the news lately, but we were very apprehensive when the view along the approach to the tracks was blocked solid by thick trees on both sides of the road. Looking down the length of the tracks while crossing, one is reminded of a dark green tunnel, where an Amtrak could come blazing out at any second and into the side of any car who happened to be on the tracks. There are crossing rails and lights, yes (which are still new, so we hope the 'bugs' are being worked out of 'em) but there are also stop signs. The second time we had to go across it, I kept gawking at the thicket of trees to my left, scanning to see if a fast train might be whizzing along toward where we would intersect. No, no train that I could see. A truck was plowing along behind us, with speed that let me think that he had no intention of stopping, or even slowing down on the rails. Still, I slowed down, rolled down my window to listen....nothing...so I rolled onto the tracks, turned to my right to look down that dark tunnel, but RIGHT THERE on the tracks was the AMTRAK with it's headlights ON!!! I screamed and floored the gas pedal. I think I heard Cappy shriek too!...I looked at him and his eyes were wide, looking directly at me! Then I realized the train was just sitting there on the tracks, lurking in the bushes on the righthand side of the road. He had seen it before I had, but when I screamed, he apparently thought I had lost my mind right then and there in the middle of the train track.

So that was an adventure.

Cappy got to go meet up with a group of fellas from our vicinity, who get together at their camp once a week to share stories and a good meal. One of the guys, Mr. Sam, took Cappy with him as he gathered a truckload of new 2 1/2 gallon chemical containers that he would use to recycle and convert into fish traps, which he would use in the lake near us, and in doing so, drove through one of the most beautiful plantations around our area, called the Evergreen Plantation ( http://www.evergreenplantation.org/ ). Cappy took a few pictures, and intended to take a few more on their next excursion, but sadly, Mr. Sam's dear mother-in-law passed away this week. He's such an exhuberant fellow, with tons of enthusiasm and laughter, and we are heartbroken for his loss and that of his family.

Speaking of the "ol' boys", they are an amazing bunch of folks. From previous posts, you may or may not remember that I absolutely adored William F. Buckley, for his wisdom and intellectual humor. Well, these guys have that. One of them, Mr. Jerry, (who belies his age) who raises the beautiful Serama chickens, among other specimans of God's creatures, invited Cappy and me, along with a few of the other guys in their group to go have supper with them at their home. Oh MY GOODNESS!!! I have a lot of words at my disposal, but they escape me as to describe what a wonderful place he and his wife Fay, have. I should have taken tons more pictures. Their home is sheltered among many live oak trees, replete with the long hanging Spanish moss, beautiful plants, a cozy bayou in back and along the driveway, wooden walkways to...well, we didn't get to visit the farm area, as of yet, but it looked so darned inviting out thataway. Mr. Jerry cooked a Creole jambalaya, beans, had a salad, and a decadent dessert for the group. I'll tell you what...Cappy went home Happy...and so did I!

...and look! As we were talking away, this graceful gentleman came regally gliding by. As I have mentioned, my camera has been fighting me, of late...rats! He is gorgeous...more gorgeous-er than he appears here, that's for sure.
Oh, the two weeks were filled with all kinds of great stuff. Our neighbor, Brad, came home from the hospital in Houston. He's still not overtly responding, YET. He will be. He looks as handsome as ever, and he's got so much love and support. Every time Cappy stepped out the door to go visit, there were a "ton of cars in da driveway...I don't wanna intrude on 'em". That family's strength is awe-inspiring.
During this last two weeks, Fathers' Day was stuck in there, with the kids calling and telling their ol' Pops they love him. SparkyBear and MarkyBear got him three DVD's ("Secondhand Lions" among them, and at the end, he hollared, "DANG! Dat movie made me cry! You are married to a WOOSE!" LOL...it's a great movie and Cappy's not a woose...he's just got a tender heart, and I love him for it.) Then of course the obligatory reading materials. Books, books, books. The man's gotta read! Stories of the high seas, this time; another series.
The second Saturday he was home, Cappy "manned da pit". That's a "gotta do"every time he gets off the boat; "Jammin' to da Blues, smokin' up da neighborhood". YUM-mee!
For our early anniversary, (because he'll be on the boat on the 29th) Cappy declared the day to be "Nekked Day". (shock and horror!! After all this reading, have I got you sitting up straight now? :-) Actually, we parade around in our pj's the entire day if we want, watching movies, eating wings, imbibing, being downright decadently lazy. I gave Cappy his anniversary present...a karaoke machine with lots of Blues CD's to howl along with. As he was unearthing everything from the box, he came across the microphone and said, "I aint singin' with no microphone...don't need it". Well, he gets the thing all hooked up, and as I'm coming out of the other room, he starts it up and begins merrily and loudly singing away. As I round his chair, I notice he's sitting there, head leaning way back, eyes closed, mouth wide open, belting out a very cool version of something or other, holding the mic at an angle and in a manner that I've only seen used by ol' Tom Jones. He looked way too comfortable for this to have been his first time manhandling a microphone, I tell ya. Well, we sang and sang til our singers were sore, until sometime after midnight. Mercifully, no one called the police.
The next day, for our extravagant anniversary dinner out, we went to Gonzales to a restaurant called, "Sno's". (It was 90 degrees outside.)We called Cappy's sister, Maria, so she and her husband, Darryl came to the restaurant to help us celebrate. Before they got there, I understood why they call the place "Sno's"...I was Freezing in there! I went out to the vehicle to try to scrounge up a sweater or something, and met Maria and Darryl in the parking lot, so she turned and found me a black windbreaker and her a sweater in their trunk. Next time I'll remember. At the table next to us, a lady was wearing a coat, and her daughter was wearing a pink winter coat, with fur around the hood, which was pulled up over her head, and around the collar. Again...I don't wanna comPLAIN...but...sheesh. It was cozy tho, once I wasn't freezing, and Maria and Darryl got us caught up on their trip with Darryl's art class to Italy. I can't relate any details here, but they had us laughing so hard we were crying. And they brought us back souvenirs; Cappy a statue of David refrigerator magnet, with 'clothes' to interchange, me a beautiful filigree bracelet, and for each of our dogs, a St. Francis of Asisi dog collar medallion. I think they have no idea about how much that touched my heart. It was a wonderful day, and when we got home we found a plastic bag on our front doorstep, where someone had left us...Bless their heart...(and, I...I...I really mean it now...Bless their heart, for they didn't know...) had left us a ton of cucumbers and tomatoes.
So, that's where it ended, and that's where it begins; Cappy out on dat boat, wishing he could have fit more into his two weeks off, and me, here at home, wishing I could have fit more cucumbers into his seabag.