They Have Those?

We were watching an episode of the most recent season of Shetland the other night. I've written before about the crime procedural drama and how it always inspires us to start planning our trip to those islands in the middle of the North Sea, somewhere between Scotland and Norway. "Your dad is on the road to Aith," one character reported to another, "where the Cake Fridge is."

"Did she just say 'Cake Fridge?'" I asked Heidi incredulously.

The answer was yes. When the main character came to collect his aging father, the old man was eating cupcakes out of a reach-in refrigerator on the side of the road, surrounded by rolling heaths with a spit of the North Sea behind him. "Look at all these free cakes," he told his son.

"You have to pay for them," he was informed. "There's an honesty box."

A quick web search confirmed the existence of cake fridges and honesty boxes for not only cakes, but all sorts of local products on the Island. There are egg stands, seasonal fruit and vegetables, sauces, pickles, and woolen textiles.

As if we needed more reason to book our travel!

Respite

The drive to Buffalo today was long, but nothing  compared to the trip to and from Maine. Traffic was light, and the weather was good. 

There was a scary moment when the winding mountain road we were on opened to a passing lane and as I accelerated to go around the driver in front of me, he slowed to a stop. A mother deer and her fawn were crossing just ahead, and we stopped too. No traffic could pass as they made their way tenuously to the other side, though my heart thumped as I measured the progress of the tanker truck barreling toward us in the other lane. And when the deer paused on the shoulder and seemed to consider retracing their steps back into the road, I almost cried, but they finally leapt lightly into the trees and disappeared. 

After that, I confess to being a little spooked: everything in my peripheral sight seemed like  a deer ready to jump in front of me. But the rest of the drive was uneventful, and we made it here just at 5. Heidi's brother helped carry our stuff in; her dad greeted us from the recliner in front of the TV; her mom waived off any offers of help as she put the finishing touches on dinner, so we took the dogs for a walk and then relaxed on the back patio under the awning until supper was served. 

It was a throwback to earlier days when we were all younger, but there was definitely something kind of nice about not being in charge of anything. I could just be still for a little while. 

Prophylaxis

"I might get some walking sticks," I told my brother when we were in Maine. "Not to walk with!" I added quickly.

"Why would you get them then?" he asked.

"To have in my pack in case someone needed them," I explained. 

I was trying to be proactive, but there were so many walking sticks to choose from in the shops, that I decided it would be best to do some research before I bought anything. "Look on Wirecutter," my sister suggested when I mentioned it to her, and that seemed like very good advice.

"Do you ever use walking sticks?" my friend Ruth asked me at the end of that week.

"That's so funny you should ask," I said, and recounted my earlier conversations. "Do you ever use them?"

"No," she laughed, "I'm too clumsy. I'm afraid if I had anything in my hands to think about I might kill myself! But my sister uses them all the time because she has bad knees."

I nodded and tried to picture myself hiking with one or more of the sticks, but I just couldn't see it. 

Even so, I did look on Wirecutter when I got home, and I found a pair that were not only well-rated, they could also be used as poles for the expensive lightweight tent the company also sells. 

I am now the proud owner of a couple of high-end walking sticks, and who knows? 

I might even use them for something!

Isn't it Entertainment *and* Sports?

I was at the gym trying to jog away my rainy day blues when I saw the dogs on TV. Some ESPN station was airing all sorts of competitions, and although I completed my workout with my own playlist, I did tell Heidi all about it when I came home. Turns out, watching dogs dock dive and run agility is another good way to spend a rainy day. 

The commercials, though? Not so much! It was all auto parts, dudes who need extra testosterone, and bros with portable smoothie blenders at the gym. Not even Petco or Chewy could crack that members only line-up. 

I wonder who ESPN thought was watching?

Cat Walk

"I guess the whole stroller thing didn't work out?" our friend Sarah asked yesterday when we were talking about whether or not to travel with our cats.

"I'm still trying to teach Lucy to push it without tipping it over," Heidi shook her head. "It isn't easy."

"I meant with Tracey," Sarah corrected her. "I thought that was the idea when she got it-- walking the cats in it."

She was right. I had asked for and received the stroller 4 years ago for my birthday, and after an initial flurry of cat walking, the stroller became nothing more than an elevated cat bed. The cats loved sleeping in it, but rolling around outside? They weren't so sure. Even so, I felt a tinge of regret for not doing more to make cat walking a thing.

That's why I proposed taking the cats along on Lucy's evening walk yesterday. I dug the stroller out of the upstairs closet, and once I placed it next to the dining room bench, bot Tibby and Milo eagerly jumped in. They stiffened a bit when I zipped the mesh closed, and their pupils widened. There was a bit of pathetic mewing as we bumped them out the front door and down the stoop, but they both sat up tall and craned their necks around like periscopes. 

"Let's just walk around the complex," Heidi suggested, and at first I agreed. Then I remembered that it was the boring process of walking the little loop around our neighborhood to acclimate the cats to their stroller that contributed to my loss of interest in cat-walking. 

"I want to take them out of here!" I said, after we had visited with several neighbors who were enjoying the mild summer evening. "We are going down the driveway, past 7-11, and up the big 28th Street hill!" And I don't think it was my imagination that the yowling died down and the cats kind of perked up as we ventured into new territory.

They may become traveling kitties yet!

High Alert

Heidi knew right away. "It smells funny in here," she said the minute we walked in the door from Maine.

My nose is la little less sensitive, and my temperament is a little less dire. "Maybe it's just a little stuffy since we've been gone so long," I suggested, dropping my load and returning to the van for another.

"I don't think it's up here," Heidi reported from the landing, "but I did scoop the litter box."

"That should take care of it," I nodded as we both headed out the door.

"I think it's down here," Heidi said when we re-entered the house. After a cursory inspection, she shook her head and went upstairs to unpack, while I stayed downstairs to put away all the things that belonged and to start dinner.

In the kitchen, I thought I'd found the culprit when I opened the recycling and found an un-rinsed cat food container. "That was me," Josh confessed when I pointed it out. "It's only been in there a couple hours."

As I continued to unpack and cook, I noticed a fair swarm of fruit flies over by the potato bin. The unmistakable stench of rotten potatoes rose to my nose as I approached, and upon further inspection I discovered several blackened potatoes collapsed into their own disgusting goo. "I found it!" I called up to Heidi and then dumped the lot of them into the trash, tied off the bag, and handed it to Josh to take up to the trash enclosure. 

"She knew there was something wrong," he said.

"Yep," I shook my head, "she sure did."

Too Many Choices

"What do you want to watch tonight?" Heidi asked me a little while ago.

I considered her question and thought about how times have changed since I was a kid. Back then, we had three channels and I pretty much memorized the TV Guide once I read it on Sunday with the comics. In early July, the choices were always between reruns or summer replacement shows, the latter of which were usually variety hours starring some newly popular musician. Although there had to be a consensus among all five of us in the family, we usually chose the new over the known. I can remember sitting on the living room floor in my summer pajamas, box fans in the window, and the TV tuned and turned up to the Carpenters, Mac Davis, Tony Orlando and Dawn, or the Hudson Brothers. 

Today, as I sat in my comfortably air-conditioned house with access to hundreds, if not thousands, of shows and movies, I sighed. "I don't know," I answered Heidi. "There's nothing good on."