bad and good surprises...

Good morning, my fine friends! I hope everyone has been enjoying their week! I know I sure have. I just looked at the weather for the next ten days and we are supposed to stay in the 60-70 degree range! I think someone is playing a very dirty trick on us, but I’ll sure take it! The whole town is abuzz with talk of this incredible weather.  No one is getting fooled, though, we all know there’s some dumps of snow in our future yet before we hit summer! Of course, I have moved around all my clothes in anticipation, anyway, but my heavy winter stuff is still within easy reach. In the meantime, I’ve been finding anything and everything to do outside!

Yesterday morning, I went outside town to visit my girlfriend, Sherry, who is suffering from a double ear infection.  Poor girl was just miserable when I got there! She had tried to do a full shift of cleaning at the Senior Center the night before and was really paying for it yesterday.  When I got there, she was all huddled in her recliner under mounds of blankets.  After getting us some coffee and talking for a bit, I turned on some soothing music and did some Reiki energy work on her, ending with a nice session concentrating on her ears.  By the time I left, she was up and feeling a little better.  I just love going out to her house. She lives on the family ranch property about 5 miles south of Buffalo and the view of the mountains from her house is just breathtaking as there’s nothing between her property and the mountains.  We sat out on her porch for a bit and soaked up that delicious sun and watched the horses meander around at the ranch next door.  While I was there, she told me about a friend who had died the day before, I had just happened to be listening to the scanner when the call came in and was very saddened to find out it was Don Vogl.

Don and Lois are dear friends of one of my besties, Pam and her husband, Tom. So, as soon as I left Sherry, I made a beeline for Pam’s office to see if she was doing okay.  Turns out that Tom had left Don just about 20 minutes before Don suffered his massive heart attack the day before.  Poor Lois has no family close by, so Pam and Tom stayed with her for most of the night.  Her son is due in from Cheyenne today, that will be a help.  Gosh, it’s just so awful when someone is there one minute and gone the next.  Pam said they did CPR on Don for over 45 minutes before calling it off. A sad day, indeed.  My heart goes out to Lois, that’s for sure. When Pam and Tom got married several years ago up on the mountain, Don was Tom’s best man and I was Pam’s matron of honor.  I’m really still in shock about the whole thing and I think so are they. Pam says Don was just in her office that morning, fixing something for her, too.

Pam and Tom's wedding, that's Don on the left

That’s one of the reasons I always make sure that people know I care about them all the time.  You just never know when your time is up, do you? We tend to take for granted that we’ll be around forever but we just never know, really. Sometimes, it’s rough living in a small town because you get intimately involved with so many people and at times it seems like people die more frequently.  I really don’t think that’s the case, though, I think it’s just that in a small town you know them or at least have run into them at some point. I swear I’ve never been to so many funerals as I have since I’ve moved here.

Well, that all happened before lunch, if you can believe it! After having a nice lunch with my husband, who I hugged a little tighter than usual when he went back to work, I had to run once again to Sheridan.  Man, the gas prices are starting to really jump, aren’t they? I had to fill up while I was over there and it went up about 20 cents, just in the past few days! I know we have some of the lowest gas prices in the nation, thank goodness, but paying 3.23 for a gallon of gas was not fun! It was 3.35 here in Buffalo, so I’m glad I waited to fill up in Sheridan!  I’m fortunate that I have a very efficient vehicle that I bought back in 2006 that Ford no longer makes. It’s a Freestyle and basically it’s a Volvo with a Ford label. I get almost 35 miles to the gallon with it.  That makes up for Rob’s F250 Super Duty Crew Cab, that gets about 15! I do love his truck, however, it’s like the Cadillac of trucks. We have budgeted extra money for our vacation next month because despite the rising gas prices, we’re taking the truck,  because it’s just so darn comfortable to ride in.

Anyway, I had to stop in and see Dr Quinn’s office staff and get some insurance papers and then run downtown and pick up a new pair of racquetball shoes for Rob.  We had looked at them a couple of weeks ago and he really should have tried them on and bought them then, but we were in a hurry that day.  So, I brought his old pair and the clerk and I figured out which size looked right. Thank goodness, they did fit!  His old pair had seen much better days.  Racquetball is really hard on your feet and shoes with all the fast stopping and starting.

I also stopped in Door 54, one of my favorite little boutiques, and picked up a pretty little satin nightgown and robe for my girlfriend, Becca, whose birthday was yesterday.  I can now tell you that her husband and I pulled off a surprise birthday party for her last night at our local eatery, Up In Smoke. He had told her he was taking her to Winchester’s for dinner and had gotten a babysitter for their four kids.  The babysitter was supposed to be taking the kids to Pizza Hut for dinner and they left right before Ray and Becca did.  In reality, the kids came straight down to Up In Smoke, where there was about 35 people waiting.  Now, the restaurant is only open on the weekends so Ray had to tell Becca that he got a text from Laura, the owner, saying she was down there preparing some food for the weekend and would they mind stopping in on their way to dinner as she had a gift for Becca. Oh, and Ray had me contact everyone to come as he and Becca have their own business and he couldn’t do it on his own.  Not knowing half of her friends, I had to go to her facebook page and private message everyone I saw was from Buffalo and keep my fingers crossed they checked their messages!

Becca, the birthday girl, on another occasion

Anyway, you should have seen the look on her face when she opened the restaurant door and saw all the people and her own kids standing there! It was priceless!  I even talked the Wild Bunch into coming and bringing the noose to hang her.  Up in Smoke, which is a lovely organic restaurant, did a fantastic job with the food and Lanna Wing, one of the professional photographers here, was there to record the whole party in pictures.  Towards the end of the evening, Becca was teasing Ray that their 10^th wedding anniversary is coming up and she can’t wait to see how he’s going to top this!  Ray, all I can say is diamonds….

So, yesterday was quite a full day and I ran the entire gamut of emotions as you can well imagine. Whew!  Life sure is interesting.  So much for small, boring towns, eh?

Today, we have the Chamber of Commerce, State of the Chamber Luncheon.  I’ll tell you all about that tomorrow and hopefully, nothing untoward will pop up in the meantime. It’s hump day and I for one am glad we’re already half way through the week.  I feel like I’ve been through a full week, already!

Existence is a strange bargain. Life owes us little; we owe it everything. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose. ~William Cowper