Roadized

We picked up Gram from Toledo today. She had a nice time in Florida and wished she could have stayed longer. Too bad my aunt had to go back to work or Gram can’t run around on her own, picking up little old men with hip replacements. It was hard to tell if Gram or her dog missed one another more; both of them were wagging their tails and were all “pitertated” when we got back. Molly (Gram’s dog) is overjoyed to be back at her house. As an only dog who hates pretty much everybody (especially me and my dogs), she’s never happy to stay over with us. We’re too busy for a fuddy-duddy dog like her.

The weekend was good. Joe and I went to a mixed martial arts thing; he knew the guy fighting in the championship fight. I’d never been to anything like it, so it was interesting. It was all local talent, which was cool, but unless the fighters were really good, I couldn’t appreciate it. The good ones were awesome and the guys who wrestled just confused me, since I’ve never wrestled. I can’t appreciate an ankle hold I guess. Dad summed it up pretty well. He wrestled in high school, he said, until he realized he’d rather wrestle with girls than boys. That’s Dad, always the pragmatist.

We boiled maple syrup over the weekend. That was really interesting. I got to help and spend a day in the woods with the guys. They started boiling at 5 a.m., but I didn’t make that. I followed Dad down after lunch, after wrestling with a frozen water hydrant. They started with 200 plus gallons and made about 5 gallons of syrup. Talk about labor intensive! And it takes a lot of beer to boil down that much sap. Maxine went to help gather sap buckets the other day and she decided the water that came out of the trees tasted pretty good. She fueled up on sap and raced around the woods like a mad dervish. Hey, she be Dad’s dog.

It’s sunny today, but bitter cold. About 12 below, Dad said this morning, with the wind chill. Since there’s no humidity, it seems that much sharper. It’s a north wind and that’s always bitter. Better than an eastern wind though, that usually means watery, frozen shit. Never good weather from an east wind.

Well, if I’m gonna get anything done today, I better get to it. For some reason a five hour drive to the Ohio border and back really cuts into the day.