Stuck in Kudzu Country, Dreaming of Lei Country

This morning found Badger and me trucking it over to the school. 
We figured they’d hold the yard sale in the little gym or maybe the cafeteria—but nope, they had it in the big gym. 
That meant a longer walk we hadn’t planned on, and a bit more traffic than we wanted to deal with.

It’s not connected to the main school, so we had to hike up the hill to get there. 
The building sits right on the main highway.
They had a lot of stuff, sure, but Badger took one look and said forget it.
It was mostly kids’ clothes and toys, and she didn’t even want to bother digging through it.

Going home, we sneaked behind the PTO crew’s backs to go down the steps to the main building and avoid the hill and traffic.

I get home, Cowboy is awake with phone in hand. 
I walk in the door, and he says, “You walk too slow,” then spouts off a number. He said I was walking something like 20 steps a minute—slow as molasses.
The tables turned—he was tracking me with my own app. 
I’d put it on our phones to keep track of Cowboy, just to make sure he didn’t drive off the road and hit the river some night.
With his age, his vision, and him sometimes pulling a 14-, 15-, even 24-hour shift, I worry about his driving—and that darn river.
The stretch of road he drives at night is very dark, shaded by kudzu-covered trees. 
The river runs from where you turn off for home all the way to the abandoned house you reach by crossing a tiny bridge. 
That’s where the street lights finally kick on.

Badger retreated to her room. I plopped on my computer—of course.
Cowboy ate his breakfast, got the battery charging for his weed trimmer, and fell asleep.

The morning dragged on, slow as a slug.

It was interrupted only by Badger rushing out of her room with her arms full of bedding. 
Then slinging the crate back up and plopping a very confused Smudge back into prison.
Smudgey is still oozing. 
Right now it’s not concerning—it’s not red and fresh. 
It’s a slow ooze, mostly saliva mixed with a bit of blood, so nothing major—yet.
They had to dig one of the teeth out of her gums.
I don’t expect her to stop oozing for a bit. 
She’s not like a human—you can’t put gauze in her mouth, tell her to bite down, and keep it in for a day or so.
We’ll keep her crated for another week and hope the oozing lets up.

Badger is using her experience dealing with my dental extractions to take care of Smudge.
I’m not sure if I should be proud I gave her experience—or offended she applies it equally to humans and cats.

Cowboy eventually snorted awake, grabbed the new mailbox, and moseyed to the car.
I walked to the porch and asked if he was leaving. 
He muttered some snarky comment, and I told him that without me and the receipt, him and the mailbox were no good.

I yelled to Badger that we were gone, and we headed back to Lowe’s.
The new mailbox was too long and stuck too far out into the road.
We had no trouble returning it, and then he found a smaller one.
It’s just a hair larger than what we already had—but maybe the books won’t get crammed in so badly.
We did remember our stencil and paint this time.
Our last stop was Walmart for worms.

I’m assuming, since tomorrow is Cowboy’s church homecoming and there won’t be an evening service, he’ll be heading to the river.

We got home, and Cowboy carefully unpacked the new mailbox, carried it to the road, and made sure it fit.
Then he meticulously covered it with newspaper, precisely taped down the letters, and carefully carried it to the carport driveway, where he spray-painted it.
When Cowboy does a job, it looks like a professional got a hold of it.
Of course, he’s probably been doing the same thing at the plant for the last 40 years.

We bought orange spray paint.
 I told Cowboy I was tired of the numbers falling off when we use stick-ons—and I’m tired of fighting the post office.
If my address is in neon orange, with my last name in neon orange and a foot high, don’t tell me it’s not your fault my mail gets delivered to the wrong house.

I went out after he got it up and noticed he’d replaced the duck.
We’ve never figured out where those ducks came from or why.
They just showed up one day, and we’re the only set of mailboxes that got them.
Badger’s theory is that I’m the one always yelling at the post office for getting our mail wrong—so they’ve branded us.

They’re getting better at delivering our mail.
I think they just got tired of me calling every other day to complain.
It is absolutely ridiculous to deliver a letter meant for Judy Jones at Cedar Street to Jane Doe’s address on Maple Street—and then keep delivering that same letter all week, no matter how many times you’ve been told it’s the wrong address.
Or to keep delivering Jane Doe’s mail to a very obviously abandoned house, with an address nowhere near hers.
What really sent me calling to yell was them delivering a box of medical supplies—and me taking that box back to the post office four times. 
Then they delivered it yet again.
That time, I just walked it to the darn person myself. 
Luckily, Cowboy goes to church with them, and they were only three streets over.
So if those ducks are a warning to the post carriers—well, duck on.

Once he finished with the mailbox, he carefully applied the stencil to the carport—and now the carport has our address back on it. 
The stickers had fallen off.
The only problem is that orange doesn’t show up well on a rust-red, barn-red carport.
Eh, if you look close enough, it’s there.

One of the post office’s excuses was that our address wasn’t clear.
Well, don’t get an old country boy mad.
We did have—and still do—our address on the house and the mailbox.
But Cowboy went out, made a giant metal sign, and in humongous letters put our name and address. 
Then he slapped it on the house above the porch.
Clearly visible from the road.

Now we’ve added bright orange to our arsenal.
At this point, if they don’t know which house is ours, they’re either blind, illiterate, or just being ornery.

Once that job was finished, Cowboy put up the new motion detector light.
He didn’t put it on the she shed—he mounted it on Heron’s RV.
Well, technically, on the post that holds up the roof over the RV.
Badger and I went out after dark to check it out.
Heron’s at work, and of course, he won’t know about it until he stumbles home after midnight.
He’s in for a surprise. 
It makes this clicking noise, a red light blinks, and then—several seconds later—you get blinded by an intensely bright white light.
It lights up the whole little area between my she shed and Cowboy’s old tool shed.

Badger and I are still wondering what Cowboy ran into out there around 2 a.m.
I’ve always been afraid of something slithering out of that dark tool shed myself.
Then again, for all we know, Cowboy can’t see well at night anymore—he may have just run into the RV.

Badger braved the mosquitoes, took the dogs, and stayed outside with her dad until dark.
We need to either sell the stock tank pool or flip it over so it won’t hold water.
That thing is breeding mosquitoes.
We didn’t use it at all this year, and barely used it last year—so I say sell it before it rusts out.

Me? Go outside? Are you nuts?
I stayed in with a book, the TV, and the computer.
Badger says my freckles are good bullseyes for those mosquitoes.

I think we’re all settled back in the house now, and I’m heading back to my Hawaii real estate.
Look, I’ll never leave the state of Tennessee.
I may as well experience paradise through HGTV.
I can pretend I feel the waves lapping at my toes and smell plumeria blossoms.