October 10th, later...
As promised, I fixed breakfast this morning for my neighbor Christian and his brother-in-law from Florida. Christian is a good cook, but had said yesterday he didn’t want to. I did fry up a mess of bacon, but am incapable of making eggs edible, so he did that part. I did remember to put in whomp biscuits, though.
Christian then fixed my crummy old computer. He said that I was turning the computer on while the printer was connected, and the computer would get confused and not work. (Kinda like me these days.) I hardly ever use the printer, so it will remain unplugged until my “new” computer arrives on Monday, thanks to my nephew Paul, who came up from Edisto Island with supplies after Helene hit, and mentioned his late dad had a computer he doesn’t need. YAY!
Also arriving on Monday is a StarLink, which is a gadget that basically gives you your very own connection to a satellite so if your wifi is down you can still communicate from your computer. At least, that’s what I think it does. I ordered it when we lost wifi in Burnsville, and now that my wifi is back, I plan to take it over to Jim’s, as he is still incommunicado. Right now, he can get local radio news, but I think that’s it.
“Chainsaw” Jim moved from my neighbors’ guest house to my guest room, along with his dog, Raven. She’s as black as a raven (of course) and young. Nice dog. I believe he is teaching her commands in both English and Russian. Because we’re both dog people, last night I’d put in the DVD “Best in Show,” directed by Christopher Guest, and starring him and his usual repertory group. I hadn’t seen it in a while, and it’s as funny as I kind of remembered. We were both too tired to watch the whole thing, so I paused it.
Speaking of dogs…ARGHH! Otter, a regular boarder, escaped today. Not once, but twice. I’m not sure if it’s because the fencing has open places or if she jumped on the trunk of a downed tree and leapt over the fence. Fortunately, she always, always goes to the same place, in a roundabout way: up the street to the 2nd house, down their hill, and then cuts back to my back acre. I grab a leash and go down my driveway to get to the back-back, calling, “OtterOtterOtter” - and she comes. I clip a leash to her collar and we walk back up to the house. Simple, usually, but Helene had knocked the neighbors’ chestnut tree across their back fence where I’d normally come up, and other fallen trees on my property meant I couldn’t walk the other mown paths. And so we tramped over downed trees and through the poison ivy-studded field.
After the 2nd Otter retrieval, I crated her (something I never had to do before), thinking I could mend the fences when I came back from transporting Nala (aka Lana) to Jim’s.
HA! I’d picked up at the vet clinic, which had a huge pile of dog food and supplies, a free collar for Nala. Turns out it was too large for her, and as I was leading her to the car, she pulled free. And took off.
Knowing that I couldn’t presume she’d follow Otter’s regular route, I grabbed the new blaze-orange leash I’d bought for her, and got a bratwurst out of the fridge before I began the pursuit. Unfortunately, raw bratwurst hasn’t got that meaty aroma that attracts dogs like raw hamburger does, so - though she did end up in the back field, she ran around to avoid me and the leash. I pulled pieces of brat out of the casing and tried throwing them close to her so her pea brain would say, “Hey! That human is trying to feed me! I should probably stop running around and just go to it and gulp that meat down all at once!”
Just when I thought I was going to run out of brat pieces and have to call the police to show up with a tranquilizer dart gun (I don’t know if they even have those), I looped the leash into itself so I could slip it over her head if I got close enough. And holding the last glob of bratwurst with my right hand, I stuck it through the loop. It worked. She came to me, started to grab the brat, and before she could gulp it down, I pulled the loop over her head with my left hand. She tried to get away, but the loop got tighter with every attempt. And then, for the third time today, I walked a dog over downed trees and through a field of poison ivy.
Jim was in town, doing his Thursday volunteer stint at the Chamber of Commerce, so I drove over and begged him to take in this dog. He said okay, and I started the drive out there, but his flood-damaged road was under construction and the National Guard guys (or whoever they were) said I’d have to turn back and try again after 5:00 p.m. It was the first time during this whole Helene thing that I thought I would cry, but I turned back. I phoned Jim to tell him what had happened, and he said to try again and just give them his address and say I was just trying to get home.
I washed the “HELENE DOG HELP” markings from my car windows, and went back. The guard wasn’t paying attention - spoke to the two hurricane relief trucks in front of me, then stepped back. I didn’t put my window down or slow down; just blew through the checkpoint. I got to Jim’s. He fixed me lunch, and offered me a hot shower - first one in 5 days. Then I had a 3-hour nap, which I needed since I woke up at 4:30 this morning. When I woke up, I put on a shirt and some boxer shorts from Jim’s bureau, and asked if he had any kind of footwear I could use. I didn’t want to wear my poison ivy/dog chasing clothes back on. Thankfully, the drive home was eventless and no one saw me.
Chainsaw Jim got home right after I did. I put on jeans, and we fixed drinks - cheap brandy with Cheerwine (don’t laugh; it’s good!) and watched the rest of “Best in Show.”
If something else interesting happened today, I can’t recall. I took laundry to the mobile laundromat a while ago, but there was a waiting line. I’m going back now; it’s almost midnight, and chances are better…
Zzzzzzzz =snork=
Lucy