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Archive for the ‘Captain Cavedweller’ Category

Happy Birthday!

Posted in Captain Cavedweller, Family, Musings, tagged , , , on October 9, 2012| 2 Comments »

Yesterday was my birthday.

According to Captain Cavedweller I’m somewhere between “over the hill and not quite as old as dirt.”

Whatever…

Between email messages, facebook posts, cards, calls and gifts  – you all made me feel very loved! Thank you!

Despite his teasing about my age, CC did do a great job making me feel special.

First he sent me these at work:

Then when I got home, he gave me several gifts.

He knows I have a thing for antique dishes and roses. The  combination of the two is nearly lethal to my system:

Aren’t these gorgeous!

And this…

I think part of my heart is still melted in a puddle on the living room carpet.

I absolutely love this watch! The silver pattern on the band is barbed wire and then there are the stars around the watch face. Love!

Thanks to all who made my birthday so wonderful and amazing. You are so appreciated!

She Who Feels Very, Very Blessed

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The Septic Saga

Posted in Captain Cavedweller, Home and Garden, Musings, tagged , , , , on October 3, 2012| 3 Comments »

Before mass destruction…

Way back in December 2009, I was spending a marathon baking day when disaster struck.

Taking a minute while cookies were in the oven, I ran to the laundry room to throw another load of clothes in the washer. Only when I ran past our bathroom door, I stepped on water-soaked carpet and discovered the bathroom was flooded.

Not sure what to think of it and so annoyed at the mess, I cleaned it up, put fans and heaters on the carpet outside the bathroom door and went on with my baking.

Randomly, we’d have the same problem for the next year. We thought it was the septic tank and had it pumped. We tried dumping junk down the drain to improve the drain field, assuming all was fine.

In December 2010, just days before I was hosting a house full of company we had the same problem, only this time the shower backed up, the sinks wouldn’t drain and things at my house came to a screeching halt. Calling the plumber in a panic, he came out, argued about where the septic tank was located and proceeded to run a snake the wrong direction and back up everything worse than it was.

The second plumber I called spent hours cleaning out the lines, and we thought our problems were miraculously solved. We had no more trouble until July when I found myself standing in a shower stall full of water one morning. Captain Cavedweller dug up the septic tank, found a plug and all was right one again. Until December when once again my bathroom flooded, the sinks backed up and we finally admitted we had a problem. A big problem.

Having a plumber came take a look, we  were told we had a failed drain system. I’m pretty sure that is right up there with being told your foundation needs replaced or your house has termites. Replacing your entire septic system is a huge, expensive, most unpleasant experience. To make matters even better, our backyard, where the system had to stay contained, wasn’t big enough for a traditional drainage system and too close to the neighbor’s wells.

So, we ended up with some fancy-schmancy system that I’ve been told should last us twenty to thirty years. Fabulous. I hope I’m living in a different zip code before I have to go through the replacement process again.

To start with, we couldn’t find anyone in January who wanted to take on the project. It was March before we got someone fully committed. Then we had to go through the paperwork process, followed by test holes, the loss of our storage shed, the decimation of our lawn and the destruction of any hope I had of seeing anything but dirt out my back door. They broke ground in May when the tulips were just blooming. After ripping up anything that remotely looked like a living plant, and digging dirt from one edge of our property line to the other, they dug a hole large enough to park a truck in and buried the new septic tank. We got to be homeless during this part of the project since no water could come out of the house into the backyard. So we spent three days at a hotel.
The digging process also broke most of our underground sprinklers, terrorized our cats and the neighbor’s dogs and filled my house with so much dirt, you could have planted an indoor garden in any room of the house.

After the septic tank was installed, they buried drain lines. Then another humungous hole consumed the rest of what used to be the back yard where the sand-filtration system was installed. I’m fairly certain it looked like we were installing an underground pool at one point.
When the pumps were in place and the lines all connected, we had to wait for an inspection and then another inspection and then another. By mid-July, we’d finally had the last inspection. A few weeks ago, I got the last of the paperwork from the DEQ.
The guys who installed the system were nice and knowledgeable and did a great job, although I really, really hope I never have a need to do business with them again. Ever.
Doing this once in a lifetime is more than plenty for me!
For the cost of a system like this, you could take an extended luxury vacation, purchase a pretty nice brand-new vehicle or … I try not to think about it too much. Captain Cavedweller keeps reminding me how grateful I should be that I can flush the toilet, take a shower and run the washer without worrying about what is going to happen.

The storage shed before it had to be taken down. Which resulted in hastily piled treasures and a big yard sale.

Broken sprinkler pipe – all the white pipes sticking up.

 

 

 

 

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Goodbye, ol’ Red

Posted in Captain Cavedweller, Musings, tagged , , , on September 24, 2012| 1 Comment »

A few weeks ago I blogged about a distracted teen driver running into Captain Cavedweller and smashing our little red pickup.

The insurance company declared it totalled (no surprise) and the other day the salvage company showed up at our house to haul ol’ Red away.

Yes, the pickup was getting old (1992) and yes, it had a ton of miles on it (196,000), but it ran fine, was paid for, and came in handy to have.

The thing that is really getting to me is the loss of something that was really a big, rolling item of great sentimental value.

Fresh out of college, I’d been employed at my first “real” job for about a month when I scraped together enough money for a down payment on a vehicle. My dad went with me to two dealerships and made me do all the talking. I struck a deal with the salesman for a 1992 bright red Chevy S-10. It had all of 148 miles on it when I drove it off the lot.

I loved that little truck. It zipped all over creation and could take a corner on two wheels like nobody’s business (not that I tried that out, or anything). The job I was working then required me to do a lot of driving and I gladly went wherever was necessary, happily driving ol’ Red.

A few months later, I met Captain Cavedweller.

We often drove Red since I didn’t like riding in CC’s car, which was full of disgusting boy stuff like pop cans, burrito wrappers and unidentifiable objects that appeared to be mutating under the back seats.

Red was full of memories of the year we fell in love, reminders of all the places we went and the things we did. Like the three-hour drive we took to a museum when we were both suffering from hay fever and went through an entire box of Kleenex. There was the trip we took to Jackpot that had both our mothers convinced we were eloping (which we weren’t). And I can’t forget the day CC proposed, because I was leaning against the side of ol’ Red when it happened.

Once we wed, we had a lot of adventures in the pickup. At one point in my career, I did a weekly travel page for the newspaper I was working for at the time. CC and I would drive somewhere on his day off in ol’ Red and I’d write about it, take a ton of photos, and we’d enjoy the day together. We saw everything from petroglyphs to a war plane museum,  ghost towns to bustling downtowns.

Thinking back, there are so many memories wrapped up in that old pickup. Like the time it was pouring torrential sheets of rain and CC and I were getting home late from a date night. We’d only been married a few months at the time and lived a few blocks from CC’s mom and dad. Barely able to see out the windshield, somehow we missed the turn and the pickup ended up high-centered on the post of a stop sign. CC, not wanting to ruin his suit jacket, took it off and ran through the freezing rain to our house to call his dad to come help us and ran all the way back. I thought he and his dad would both rupture something before they got the pickup off the post, but they managed and the pickup was no worse for wear.  Although I can’t say the same about my father-in-law who was so nice to get out of his warm bed to rescue his dumb kids who weren’t smart enough to not strand themselves out in the rain on a cold February night.

It’s not the pickup I’m going to miss nearly as much as all the fun times it represents.  All I had to do was look at it to call up warm, wonderful memories.

I’ve still got the memories, even if ol’ Red is no more.

Rest in peace, my faithful friend.

She Who is Way Too Sentimental

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Things I Learned at the Round-Up

Posted in Captain Cavedweller, Musings, tagged , , , , on September 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Captain Cavedweller and I spent the weekend taking in the Pendleton Round-Up.

It was wonderful, fun, exciting and awesome.

Friday we watched the Westward Ho Parade, wandered through booths selling everything from boots, buckles and hats to home decor and artwork. After all that, we entered the Round-Up grounds, ate some of the most delicious lamb I’ve ever had in my life then spent the next several hours watching the rodeo, which was one of the best I’ve been to. (I was a lazy slug and didn’t download the hundreds of photos I took yet, I’ll post a few later this week.)

Saturday we got up bright and early and headed to Hamley & Co. where I stood outside for a book signing and watched approximately 9,367 people go by before the rodeo commenced.

There were a few things I noticed as I watched the masses go by that seemed noteworthy.

1. Although I grew up around cowboys and rodeos, I learned something new – apparently as long as you are wearing a pair of cowboy boots, you can automatically assume it makes you a cowboy. I saw boots worn with …insert any piece of clothing here and I saw it. Seriously. My favorites were sweat pants, capris and what appeared to quite possibly be someone’s pajamas. I couldn’t help but think of the Bill Engvall video of  “I’m a Cowboy.”

2. The theory that wearing boots makes you a cowboy apparently also applies to cowboy hats (or hats that vaguely resemble a cowboy hat). My absolute favorite was a man not that much older than me (so he can’t use the excuse of senility for his fashion choices) wearing khaki shorts, gray socks, tan sandals, a lavender T-shirt and a cowboy hat. He had the swagger down pat as he made multiple trips to the beer garden from his seat across the aisle from us.

3. I had no idea that there must be a line of unisex skinny western jeans available because one guy was wearing a pair that I saw about 1,352 cute skinny girls wearing. They were skin tight, dark-wash jeans with white top stitching down the sides and rhinestones on the back pockets. Oh, yeah. The dinner-plate sized belt buckle he was wearing went great with his neon shirt, vintage 1992.

His long flowing hair finished off the ensemble. Captain Cavedweller came back from a run to get me a bottle of water shaking his head. When I asked what was up, he pointed to the guy, who also happened to be sitting a few rows down from us in next section over.

“Did you see that guy?” he asked.

“Yep. Hard to miss,” I said.

“At first I thought it was one ugly woman, but when he turned around, the mustache gave it away,” CC said, grinning. “What guy wears jeans like that?”

Good question.

4. When smiling and saying good morning to people anytime before 11 a.m. after a night of too much liquid fun, men seem much more inclined to be polite than women, which was completely mind-boggling to me. Normally women are the chatty, friendly ones who stop by my table and visit during a book signing. Complete role reversal Saturday. There were a bunch of cowboys walking around with bookmarks stating “Hopeless Romantic – Sarcasm No Extra Charge” sticking out of their Wrangler pockets Saturday morning.

5. The people of Pendleton are friendly, welcoming, warm and wonderful as thousands of strangers converge on their city. I was thoroughly impressed with how well-kept and clean the Round-Up grounds were, how nice everyone was and the general feeling of goodwill.

She Who Can’t Wait for Next Year…

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