15 May 2016
Story #807
R. Linda:
Where to begin? So many stupid things have happened, but keeping count is complicated. I should start with the arrival of the Dragon Lady AGAIN!
She hopped on her broom and flew up for a weekend. I don't know why. I didn't ask; I just knew she was here. While she was here, I got an invitation to Captain Jaack's birthday. I wasn't going to go because Tonya had too much going on at the house, mainly getting her garden ready (which would be a perfect excuse for me to go to Maine and spend a rum-filled day with the Captain), BUT I knew better. But as luck would have it, I had the dates mixed up, and the weekend I worked on that damn garden wasn't the weekend of the party; it was the following one.
Tonya, Mam and meself worked on tilling and then spreading horse manure. We got the garden set for planting when the manure would have baked into the ground and the weather got cooler. I needed to pick up some plastic fencing to keep the deer out of the garden, and our supervisor, Dragon Lady, offered to drive me to a garden centre. I was stunned, she offered, and me wife nudged me to go because she whispered, "She will pay for it; this is her way to show she helped."
Well, okay, so off I go, Dragon at the wheel of me, Saturn and to the garden centre we went. I got what I needed, and yes, she offered to pay. I declined, but then she insisted.
As we were driving, I saw Mam in her mini behind us. She had gone out and got us all subs and drinks. That was all well and good, but as we turned onto the road to our abode, there was what looked like a dark, wet, thick branch in our lane on the small back road. I thought it wasn't there when we left, so someone clearing the brush must have dropped it from their truck. It was too late to swerve, and Dragon hit it with a thump thump against the driver's door. As I looked back, the 'stick' was moving like a hose in the air, squirming until bam! Mam hits it and then it is flaying in the road. I realised that it was no stick, it was a big black snake.
Dragon took it all in stride by hoping IT didn't dent me auto. Gees. This was the topic of discussion when we got out of the car, and Mam was telling Tonya we hit a black mamba crossing the road.
"There are no black mambas in New Hampshire," I informed her, but no, no, it was a black mamba! She carried on about that snake until the boyos made her get in her car and drive back to where the hopefully dead black water snake was. I tell ya! They returned to tell me it was dead, and the crows were at it. I was surprised she didn't run those over, too!
So I had nightmares about that snake. For three nights straight!
Then, that week, Mam got a phone call (since Tonya was working and not at home) to come and get Guido. He called his best friend "an f------- arsehole," and well, he said it not once but six times. She went and got him, asking him where he learned that, and he said from HER. This made her extremely unhappy and somewhat upset with the boyo. She asked both Ton and me if she said that a lot and well, yes, she does.
"I'll put the brakes on dat den." Says she getting very Irish.
We grounded the laddie from all things electronic and play dates and made him sit in his room and read books. I was tempted to stick Mam in there, too, for being the one he got those words from, but we know she is old, and sometimes she isn't cautious about what she says when around young ones.
A week later, and the boyo is reinstated to electronic usage, Mam gets another call from the school. It seems Guido has found a way to curse by using his tablet and saying it electronically. His logic was that it didn't come out of his mouth, so writing it was okay. NOT OK. This time the tablet was taken by the school superintendent no less because Guido also called him a 'f------- arsehole' by flashing it at the man who happened to be visiting Guido's school that day. I tell ya! So now he is grounded again from electronics, the tablet is being donated, and he is writing a hundred times, I SHALL NOT CURSE AT ANYONE EVER AGAIN. Yeah, right, like that's likely to play out.
Having had enough, I needed a break. Since the garden didn't need me, I decided I'd go to the Captain's party just to get away for a day. Tonya didn't want to go; she was mapping out what she would plant and where, so off I went to Maine and the pirate party. No, I did not dress up.
I had never been to the Captain's house, and I was surprised. He lived in a typical house, not a ship. His home overlooks the sea and has excellent views. You can hear the waves slapping against the shore, and he has a long wooden stairway down to a dock where his boat is moored. I had images of me sitting there, enjoying the view and sipping a beer for the day. But no, the Captain had other ideas.
I arrived early as I did not calculate time and mileage very well. He was a keg short and needed to run down to the liquor store. Did I want to go with him? Well, no, but I did. The Captain lives where the roads are small and winding, and he guides the Jaguar around the bends like he could do it blindfolded (which I wouldn't want to be a party to, no matter how talented he is). We get down the hillside, and these two boyos are on bicycles. One saw the license plate and yelled to the other one, and they started peddling like a tornado was behind them to see who was driving the car. I told the Captain about this, so he slowed the Jag down, and as soon as the two boyos caught up, he'd gun it further down the road, and they'd peddle as fast as they could to catch up. He did this five times, the son of a gun. He never did give them a good look at his Johnny Depp self.
We picked up the keg and another birthday cake, this one saying, "Happy Birthday, Marie and Kate." I was curious and asked, thinking it was his birthday we were celebrating. Well, it was, but it was also his wife's birthday and her best friend's the next day. She and her best friend always celebrated their birthdays together, and since it was the weekend, they all celebrated. OK!
"I got Marie a sexy red underwear combination." He laughed. "And I got Kate a bag of daffodil bulbs because she likes those."
Well, we got back, and there were no boyos to be seen on the return trip, but we had everything, and within half an hour, people started to arrive. Most all of them, men and women dressed as pirates. And in true captain form, the captain got into his Captain Jack Sparrow gear, and we were all set for a drunken celebration, which was a good thing.
The present time was unique, if not bizarre. The Captain opened his presents first, an array of all things pirate. Flags, swords, a blunderbuss, ships in bottles, etc., and then the women opened their gifts; the last gifts were those from the Captain. Well, it was a memory that will live on in me mind. Marie opened her husband's gift and discovered a bag of daffodil bulbs. Before the Captain could stop Kate, she had torn open the red undies and was holding them up to herself saying, "WOW GERRY REALLY?"
This is precisely what the Captain's wife said to him, too! Watching him explain the mistake was precious, and the laughter was contagious. I never laughed so hard to see a man backpedal so quickly. He blamed it on the rum he had been in since the start. I tell ya! Could it get any worse? Oh yeah, and it did. The cake for the Captain was a special order. He wanted ganache over buttercream frosting. Well, he didn't get ganache. He got chocolate shell syrup, which cracked when he tried to cut his cake. It didn't cut well, I can tell you that; it was like thin layers of a Hershey bar with white lettering on it. Here, take a look!
And it wasn't over yet. It was me turn to get an experience I won't long forget. The Captain has a treasure hunt each birthday. Each person is given a map, and you must follow the drunken directions, taking you to a bottle of Reserved RUM from Bacardi. OK, count me in! So off I went as the sky turned very cloudy, and I found meself in a sheep pasture trying not to step in sheep dip, which wasn't easy because there were a lot of sheep and a lot of sheep shite. I was looking for an old stone wall attached to a new one. I climbed up and up, and the wind started to get fierce. I was being flown about like a rag doll when I crested the hill, and talking to meself (of which you have the recording), I come upon an old stone wall. Yes, I see the stone wall, and as I get to the top, I see the bottle sticking out of a hole in the wall. Then the heavens opened and pelted me with hail (of which you listened to the result), but I got the freaking bottle as the hail pelted me bare head with golf ball size ice balls. I tell ya, I was a bloody mess by the time I got back down that pasture, BUT I had the rum! And that, me, dear R. Linda, is more important to an Irishman than sudden death by a hail storm.
Gabe
Copyright © 2016 All rights reserved
R. Linda:
Where to begin? So many stupid things have happened, but keeping count is complicated. I should start with the arrival of the Dragon Lady AGAIN!
She hopped on her broom and flew up for a weekend. I don't know why. I didn't ask; I just knew she was here. While she was here, I got an invitation to Captain Jaack's birthday. I wasn't going to go because Tonya had too much going on at the house, mainly getting her garden ready (which would be a perfect excuse for me to go to Maine and spend a rum-filled day with the Captain), BUT I knew better. But as luck would have it, I had the dates mixed up, and the weekend I worked on that damn garden wasn't the weekend of the party; it was the following one.
Tonya, Mam and meself worked on tilling and then spreading horse manure. We got the garden set for planting when the manure would have baked into the ground and the weather got cooler. I needed to pick up some plastic fencing to keep the deer out of the garden, and our supervisor, Dragon Lady, offered to drive me to a garden centre. I was stunned, she offered, and me wife nudged me to go because she whispered, "She will pay for it; this is her way to show she helped."
Well, okay, so off I go, Dragon at the wheel of me, Saturn and to the garden centre we went. I got what I needed, and yes, she offered to pay. I declined, but then she insisted.
As we were driving, I saw Mam in her mini behind us. She had gone out and got us all subs and drinks. That was all well and good, but as we turned onto the road to our abode, there was what looked like a dark, wet, thick branch in our lane on the small back road. I thought it wasn't there when we left, so someone clearing the brush must have dropped it from their truck. It was too late to swerve, and Dragon hit it with a thump thump against the driver's door. As I looked back, the 'stick' was moving like a hose in the air, squirming until bam! Mam hits it and then it is flaying in the road. I realised that it was no stick, it was a big black snake.
Dragon took it all in stride by hoping IT didn't dent me auto. Gees. This was the topic of discussion when we got out of the car, and Mam was telling Tonya we hit a black mamba crossing the road.
"There are no black mambas in New Hampshire," I informed her, but no, no, it was a black mamba! She carried on about that snake until the boyos made her get in her car and drive back to where the hopefully dead black water snake was. I tell ya! They returned to tell me it was dead, and the crows were at it. I was surprised she didn't run those over, too!
So I had nightmares about that snake. For three nights straight!
Then, that week, Mam got a phone call (since Tonya was working and not at home) to come and get Guido. He called his best friend "an f------- arsehole," and well, he said it not once but six times. She went and got him, asking him where he learned that, and he said from HER. This made her extremely unhappy and somewhat upset with the boyo. She asked both Ton and me if she said that a lot and well, yes, she does.
"I'll put the brakes on dat den." Says she getting very Irish.
We grounded the laddie from all things electronic and play dates and made him sit in his room and read books. I was tempted to stick Mam in there, too, for being the one he got those words from, but we know she is old, and sometimes she isn't cautious about what she says when around young ones.
A week later, and the boyo is reinstated to electronic usage, Mam gets another call from the school. It seems Guido has found a way to curse by using his tablet and saying it electronically. His logic was that it didn't come out of his mouth, so writing it was okay. NOT OK. This time the tablet was taken by the school superintendent no less because Guido also called him a 'f------- arsehole' by flashing it at the man who happened to be visiting Guido's school that day. I tell ya! So now he is grounded again from electronics, the tablet is being donated, and he is writing a hundred times, I SHALL NOT CURSE AT ANYONE EVER AGAIN. Yeah, right, like that's likely to play out.
Having had enough, I needed a break. Since the garden didn't need me, I decided I'd go to the Captain's party just to get away for a day. Tonya didn't want to go; she was mapping out what she would plant and where, so off I went to Maine and the pirate party. No, I did not dress up.
I had never been to the Captain's house, and I was surprised. He lived in a typical house, not a ship. His home overlooks the sea and has excellent views. You can hear the waves slapping against the shore, and he has a long wooden stairway down to a dock where his boat is moored. I had images of me sitting there, enjoying the view and sipping a beer for the day. But no, the Captain had other ideas.
I arrived early as I did not calculate time and mileage very well. He was a keg short and needed to run down to the liquor store. Did I want to go with him? Well, no, but I did. The Captain lives where the roads are small and winding, and he guides the Jaguar around the bends like he could do it blindfolded (which I wouldn't want to be a party to, no matter how talented he is). We get down the hillside, and these two boyos are on bicycles. One saw the license plate and yelled to the other one, and they started peddling like a tornado was behind them to see who was driving the car. I told the Captain about this, so he slowed the Jag down, and as soon as the two boyos caught up, he'd gun it further down the road, and they'd peddle as fast as they could to catch up. He did this five times, the son of a gun. He never did give them a good look at his Johnny Depp self.
We picked up the keg and another birthday cake, this one saying, "Happy Birthday, Marie and Kate." I was curious and asked, thinking it was his birthday we were celebrating. Well, it was, but it was also his wife's birthday and her best friend's the next day. She and her best friend always celebrated their birthdays together, and since it was the weekend, they all celebrated. OK!
"I got Marie a sexy red underwear combination." He laughed. "And I got Kate a bag of daffodil bulbs because she likes those."
Well, we got back, and there were no boyos to be seen on the return trip, but we had everything, and within half an hour, people started to arrive. Most all of them, men and women dressed as pirates. And in true captain form, the captain got into his Captain Jack Sparrow gear, and we were all set for a drunken celebration, which was a good thing.
The present time was unique, if not bizarre. The Captain opened his presents first, an array of all things pirate. Flags, swords, a blunderbuss, ships in bottles, etc., and then the women opened their gifts; the last gifts were those from the Captain. Well, it was a memory that will live on in me mind. Marie opened her husband's gift and discovered a bag of daffodil bulbs. Before the Captain could stop Kate, she had torn open the red undies and was holding them up to herself saying, "WOW GERRY REALLY?"
This is precisely what the Captain's wife said to him, too! Watching him explain the mistake was precious, and the laughter was contagious. I never laughed so hard to see a man backpedal so quickly. He blamed it on the rum he had been in since the start. I tell ya! Could it get any worse? Oh yeah, and it did. The cake for the Captain was a special order. He wanted ganache over buttercream frosting. Well, he didn't get ganache. He got chocolate shell syrup, which cracked when he tried to cut his cake. It didn't cut well, I can tell you that; it was like thin layers of a Hershey bar with white lettering on it. Here, take a look!
 |
| Hardshell cake! |
 |
| But most of it was eaten |
Gabe
Copyright © 2016 All rights reserved
