A1A South

My hair hurts, my eyes hurt, my gums hurt, my throat hurts…..I spent last night quite wakefully, waking up alternately freezing and sweating. We took the granddaughter to a Mexican restaurant for tacos Friday night (her favorite food fetish), and the owner was laughing at my lack of voice and started gesticulating at me in faux sign language. Heh. Well, at least I didn’t lose my sense of humor!

As soon as Papa went to bed, granddaughter was all excited. “Let’s MAKE something, Grammaw!” She wanted to spin, or weave, bake, paint…….she wants to create when she’s at Grammaw’s house because if there’s one thing Grammaw encourages, it is creativity! Some of the questions that she had when she was teeny were things like “What do brownies taste like in a pie shell?” Let’s find out! “What do different colors make when mixed together?” Let’s take out the paints and see! “Is there Buried Treasure in your yard?” Hmmmmmm. Better get a shovel and see! “How about dinosaur bones?” Hmmmmm. Shovel time!

As she gets older, her creative projects are getting much more difficult (and fun). Grammaw is going to have to scramble to keep up. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel like scrambling. I felt more like vegetating. Or maybe dying. My eyes kept closing of their own accord while she was talking. I turned on the television for the poor child and went to sleep.

The next day, I still didn’t feel so much as a creative nerve twitch. I had planned to paint and paper the bathroom to teach her some paint finishes but noooooo. Instead, I gave her a grooming brush and turned her loose on Breeze the appaloosa mare. Breeze was in heaven, turning her body this way and that so that every inch the granddaughter could reach was brushed thoroughly. She put her head down all the way to the ground so that granddaughter could brush her head and neck.

Then I had Papa put granddaughter up on Breeze’s back with no saddle, a great way to let the younguns learn how to balance themselves on a horse. I explained about turning her toes in and gripping with her thighs, and holding on to Breeze’s mane until she got her balance. Breeze walked very slowly and carefully, then at a little brisker pace as granddaughter felt more confidence. At the end of the first “lesson”, she was doing exercises per my instruction on horseback as those shown on YouTube below, but without saddle.

At the end of her first riding lesson (sadly much overdue!), she informed me that both her daddy AND her momma had forbidden her to ever attempt to ride Breeze because that horse was waaaaaaaay too wild. Heh. Guess that’s why she had always previously refused because she’s mostly an obedient little girl. Well, neither of them had told ME such a thing, and granddaughter waited until the END of the lesson to enlighten me, so I suppose she really wanted to ride.

Maybe her time here this weekend wasn’t too boring after all.

After a solid 12 hours of sleep and ingesting some ramen noodles, I feel almost human again, though still mute. Gonna be hard to read books to the children at school tomorrow!

I was going to go to daughter’s baby shower this afternoon. Her coworkers were throwing it at a BBQ place, and I would have loved to have gone. Former DIL was there, along with darling granddaughter, who informed me that she was anxiously waiting to see me.

I haven’t had BBQ for awhile. Maybe I’ve been feeling a little down and depressed because of the lack of BBQ in my diet. On the other hand, I might be feeling a little down and depressed because I’m broke and have approximately zero chance of finding a better job right now, and it could have absolutely nothing to do with low blood levels of BBQ. (Shrug) I can fix low blood levels of BBQ for under $10, something that even a fairly brokeass person can afford. The broke and unhireable part? Not so much. Better work with something I can fix.

I had been watching the grandsons all day. SwampMan had been feeling under the weather, so we were doing our best to be quiet all morning while SwampMan napped. He ALWAYS seems to be feeling under the weather when the grandsons are here! We watched cartoons. We went to Burger King and their playground. I had awakened this morning with a headache, probably weather related, and hearing SpongeBob’s high pitched inane laughter all day didn’t do a THING for it.

Daddy picked up the boys about 4 p.m., the time the shower started. I still needed to feed the livestock, water livestock, gather eggs, turn off the outside water to the uninsulated PVC lines, drain those lines, feed the dogs, feed the cat…..by the time I finished, it was after 6 p.m. I needed a shower (of the hot soapy kind). And I was STILL @ 45 minutes away from the shower (of the baby kind) that had started at 4!

As you may have guessed, I didn’t go. I figured it was probably over or had wound waaaaaay down by that point.

So, here I am, just me and the computer. I cooked chicken-fried steak with rice, peas, and gravy for SwampMan and me for dinner. SwampMan has headed back to bed. The dishwasher is washing. My ironing is lurking on my ironing board waiting to be ironed, reproducing while my back is turned. How many pairs of khakis do I own anyway? I hate ironing. A person of good character and industrious habits would jump on that wrinkled pile immediately so that it would be done and out of the way and not impinging on my peripheral vision. Sad to say, it appears that my character isn’t good at all!

I suppose I could vacuum the floors, but I don’t want to disturb SwampMan. I am VERY solicitous of SwampMan, particularly when it comes to not disturbing him by doing things that I don’t really want to do anyway.

Okay, fine. I’ll do some of the damn ironing.

I hope daughter’s baby shower was fun.

SwampMan was driving down A1A, me riding shotgun, when our attention was drawn to a smashed up large dead critter on the side of the road and a large bird on the ground speculatively eyeballing it from a safe distance.

SwampMan did a double take. “Holy shit! That’s a bald eagle!”

“Yep. A mature eagle at that.” It was in full adult plumage of white head and white tail.

“I’ve never seen one around here before!” The location was between Callahan and about a mile before I95. He turned around and went back to make sure Bald Eagle was okay because he was sure it must be wounded/injured. Why else would it be hanging around near Yulee? How he intended to transport that bigass bird if it WAS indeed wounded/injured, I have no idea, but something tells me that I would figure heavily into the catching and carrying part, because he would have to drive.

We turned around and Big Bird was still there. SwampMan slowed and Bald Eagle took to the air, swooping across the road to light on a fence post, then flapping up into the misting sky.

“I still think it was hurt!” SwampMan said.

I was just glad that I wasn’t going to have to catch and carry a pissed off Bald Eagle to the vet.

I checked the internet, and there are nine bald eagle nests within 20 miles of Yulee. Maybe there will be more and more bald eagle sightings in the area!