– It’s always an experience – Another Pickup Line!

My Sweet Al and I were having dinner with his brother, David, at a local restaurant. It’s always an experience when we’re with him. The conversation always comes around to women and the women always come around.

An expensive bottle of wine is brought to the table. There’s a friendly exchange with the waitress. His favorite waitress isn’t there, so he’s breaking in another one for the evening.  She’s working on a large tip and David assures her she’ll get one if she gives him good service.

The waitress asked me how I’d like to have my meat cooked. Before I could answer, David answered for me. “She want’s it medium rare.” Then he said, “I’m used to doing that.”

I said to David, “It’s all those Bimbos you date. You have to think for them. That’s why you answer for them.”

Then a super neat lady came up to the table and asked David if his rack of lamb was good. She introduced herself and David introduced himself.

He said, “It’s good. Here, take a bite.” If this isn’t a pickup line, I don’t know what is. The bite of lamb was fed to her across the table on his fork. She took the morsel of meat without her lips touching his fork. They exchanged ooh’s and ah’s on how delicious the lamb was.

Al and I nodded our heads to each other as we watched an instant relationship happen between David, the Master Pickup Artist, and this younger lady, who just wanted to know what was good on the menu. Apparently, there was more going on than what was on the menu. Eventually he brought us into the conversation.

David introduced us to her. She bent down, grabbed my hand and held on. She said, “I’m so happy. I’ve always wanted to meet you. I read your column every week.” That line always wins me over. Then she said, “You’re the only woman in Pagosa I can relate to.”

What a line. I’m busting my buttons. Wow! Someone who reads my column and feels that way, I’ll follow her anywhere. I gave her my card and made plans to have lunch with her.

David brought her back into his conversation. He wanted her to know he just climbed 160 feet into the air for an inspection job on a water tank. He explained his business to her, and how the younger inspectors won’t climb that high, but he does.

Wow, I’m impressed. I guess she was, too. The lady responds to David. Mind you, she is still holding my hand while she is talking to David.  She says, “I was with some eighty-year-old men the other night, they were young and spry, but they can’t hold a candle to you.”

I could visualize in my mind his arms flexing under his shirt as he pulls in his stomach. With that line, David was all into the conversation. The lady went back to her table and ordered the rack of lamb. Before I knew it, He went to his car, got his business card and took it to her table. He invited her and her friend to his restaurant in Albuquerque where he’s financially invested.

Now, she has my business card and David’s. She impressed both of us.

Back at our table, I told David I wouldn’t let My Sweet Al on the ladder, but I needed the cobwebs and windows washed in our home. If he could climb that high, he could help us with our twenty-four foot ceilings. He just laughed and said he had never heard that pickup line before and he had heard a lot.

That was that! I knew I would be climbing the ladder and washing my own windows.

The dinner conversation went from the rack of lamb on his plate to the lamb with the rack on her plate. Then he brought up his first wife. They were in their teens when they married, you can add up the years.  He said he saw his first wife again after sixty years. “She’s old. She wanted to talk to me. Did you see her?”

I said, “Yes, I did see her. She shuffled into the room. She’s your age, David.”

He said, “It’s a good thing she’s not my wife now. What would I do with her?”

I said, “Zip, zero, nothing.”

He laughed and said, “You’re absolutely right.”

It was a beautiful evening sitting out on the restaurant’s patio and having dinner with Al and his brother. After dinner, Al helped me down the steps of the restaurant.  I held onto the railing, carefully taking one step at a time.

David said, “You’d never be able to climb that 160 foot water tank.”

I said, “Well, I could sure use someone climbing 24 feet up and washing my windows and pulling down those cobwebs.”

He ignored me. I knew that would never happen. In the car I told my Sweet Al, “I figured it out. Pickup lines only work when you have something someone else wants. Did you see how that whole action came down tonight?”

Al said, “It happens all the time when I’m with my brother.”

We walked into the house. I said to Al  “I taped a Hallmark movie while we were gone. Do you want to stay up and watch it?” That line gets Al every time.

My Sweet Al said, “I’m in. That’s the best pickup line I’ve heard the whole night.”

Final Brushstroke! I guess pickup lines work when you’re determined to get what you need and what they want. If I’m going to have clean windows, I’m not getting any help from David. He’s got other things on his mind.

Reader’s Comments: Send your comments to betty@bettyslade.com

A Simple Life in a Complexed World

Our children and their friends are still talking about the Pirate Plunge Mud Run and how they could make it better next year.

My daughter and I were looking through the photos for the promo shots for next year, and we were enjoying all the great poses. I was still reminiscing about the two black bottoms with the tutus upside down hanging over the tire wall.

Then, there were the girls wearing tutus from Jesus Christ Superstar. I recognized them immediately. Pirates in tutus seemed to fit the Mud Run. These muddy costumes will never be clean enough for anything again but for next year’s Mud Run.

My daughter said, “There’re a whole lot of pictures of you Mother with this guy. What were you doing hugging on that man?”

“Let me see.” I took a look at the pictures, “Oh, he told me he was one of the Ninja Warriors. I was getting into the party atmosphere. I was making him feel welcome and just being friendly.”

“Brian Arnold was the Ninja Warrior. Do you know who this other guy is?”

“He’s a Ninja Warrior from Aztec.”

“Mother, he’s Mike, the Phone Guy. You’ve got to get a hearing aid.”

One week later my e-mail was down, now I really needed Mike, the Phone Guy. My life revolves around the Internet and the computer.

I called my Phone Guy, Don, who has always been my go-to-guy for my online service. He was in deep mud with the thunder and lightning taking out others’ services, too. It would be a couple of days before he could work on my DSL service. I couldn’t do anything but wait.

Don drove through our own version of a mud run to get to our house on the Blanco. He spent three hours trying to resolve my e-mail problems. He finally said, “We’ve got to call the Help Team at the main office. I think it has to do with Chrome. Chrome and your Mac aren’t compatible.”

“I can relate, at the moment I’m not compatible with either Chrome or Mac or the phone company.”

Don shut his laptop, “I don’t know. It’s beyond me. We’ve done everything.”

“Okay, now what do we do?”

We called the computer expert from the telephone company and spent another hour. He configured another path to the server, but then he got confused and couldn’t figure it out. He said he needed to start another e-mail account.

“What about my e-mail address? I have business cards, books, media packets, everything with my e-mail address on them.”

“No problem, it’s an internal account, but we’ll have to cancel your other accounts and start all over again.”

“Do you mean, I will have another e-mail address? Will my old accounts feed into this new account?”

“I don’t know. You need to pay $19.95 for a service for your computer.”

I said to the tech man. “It’s a new computer, the problem is not on my end. It’s the server and the path. Now, that you’ve worked on it, I can’t even get on my Internet.”

My Phone Guy said, “It’s too complicated for me. I’ll turn your name in and someone in the office will call you.”

A call the next day from the telephone company assured me they didn’t know anything either, but I could get this company they use, but she wasn’t sure if they worked on Macs. She’d find out and call me next week, since we were going into another weekend.

I’m still without service. I’m running around with a flash stick trying to do business. As I was tagging my Final Brushstroke at the bottom of the page, another break in the electricity shut down my computer again. I frantically opened the file to see if I remembered to save it. I didn’t. What a muddled mess.

Help! I need the Ninja Warrior telephone man who I met at the Mud Run. Someone is in deep mud.

Final Brushstroke! Don’t e-mail me at betty@bettyslade.com. You’ll have to keep your comments to yourself unless you have a Facebook account. It’s getting real complicated for this simple life here in Pagosa.

Cruisin’ Espanola – Go figure!

We came out of Sunday service, and our daughter said, “You’ve got to try this restaurant in Espanola. They have the best Mexican food. Let’s go to Espanola.”

Our son-in-law said, “It’s just Mexican food.”

“No, you’re from New York, apparently you don’t know about really good Mexican food. You weren’t raised on it.”

“It’s just like those beans you go on and on about. If it was a steak, I’d understand.”

“You’ll never understand. You had to be raised on pinto beans.” I had to remind him again, “We know when we’ve had good old pinto beans.”

My plan for the day was to study my Greek lesson. Al’s plan was to play with his tractor. Our son-in-law’s knee was killing him from the mud run the day before. He needed to get off his leg and be ready for the big championship softball game on the following Tuesday night. 

The more we talked about good pinto beans, it was settled. We needed a day to rest and to be more adventurous. We all jumped into one car and headed for Espanola and Mexican food.

We laughed and talked all the way and patted ourselves on the back for doing something out of the ordinary, besides work. Wow! A trip to Espanola for nothing more than good Mexican food, we were on an adventure. We weren’t going for a food run to Costco or hair products from Sally’s. We were trying a new restaurant.

The food was good, really good at the restaurant. Our son-in-law opted to have steak, Mashed potatoes and gravy. Who would buy American food when you’ve got good enchiladas, tamales and sopapillas with honey? It’s someone from New York who doesn’t understand the real stuff — red chili, green chili and the old Mexican familys’ recipes.

TCM was on the big screen. “East of Eden” with James Dean was playing. We sat through another black and white film with Glenn Ford when he was a boy —Wow! A dinner and two movies, all on a Sunday afternoon, were we having fun!

After a couple of hours at this great restaurant, we could barely pull out of the parking lot where we joined the other Low Riders cruisin’ the main street of Espanola. I wanted to find a Dollar Tree. We drove the streets from one end to the other. There is no Dollar Tree in Espanola for anyone’s information. But, in our crusin’, we located Wendy’s, Sonic, MacDonald’s and DQ.

My Sweet Al said he wanted a frosty from Wendy’s, I didn’t want to be difficult, but I wanted a chocolate dipped cone and a senior cup of coffee from McDonalds for the trip home. Someone else wanted ice tea from Sonic, because they have the best ice. We went through four drive-through fast-food restaurants before we were all happy. We started our trip home.

Our youngest daughter said, “This was the best day ever. I’m glad I didn’t miss it.”

I thought so, too. Was it about the beans, the family or the adventure?

Our daughter, Allison, said, “You’ve got to get out of your routine. You need to do other things but work. Why don’t you all come over for the NASCAR Race and you can help me hang pictures in Creede’s room. I’m re-decorating.”

Well, so much for getting out of my routine, it’s back to work.

Final Brushstroke! When you’re with family, it’s an adventure. It doesn’t matter if you cruisin’ with Low Riders in Espanola, working or watching the backs of the heads of grown up boys looking at NASCAR. It’s all an adventure and fun when you’re with family.

Reader’ Comments: Send your comments to betty@bettyslade.com

Tractor Talk – Digging The Hole Deeper

Have you noticed when you are thinking of buying something, you see them on every corner. Everywhere I look I see orange Kubotas. Did I not get the memo? Did the government promise an orange Kubota in every yard?

My daughter asked me what we were doing. I said, “We are closing this week on the studio and your Dad is driving me crazy over this tractor.”

“How’s that?”

I told him, “You can’t have the tractor until the money is in the bank. On the north side going through Gem City there’re three blocks of orange. They’re not going to sell all those tractors before you get yours.  I assure you the salesman won’t rest until you have your tractor sitting in your front yard.”

I promised Al years ago when we sold the art studio I’d buy him a Kubota. Call it his bucket list—Have to have one —Can’t live without it—I’ve worked hard, I deserve it—. Call it whatever, but My Sweet Al is determined his life will never be complete without his very own orange dirt mover.

His old 1950 Ford Golden Jubilee Tractor has passed its golden years. It was a beauty at one time. He drove it every day and it did the work of ten men. He lived on it. Now he’s living under it most of the time. Lately, he’s done more work on it than it has done for him.

I have to own up, My Sweet Al painted it a few years back with some left over paint, and since then I have to admit I fell in love with the thunderbird teal. Some days I just look out the window and envision beautiful potted plants arranged on it and green leaves cascading out of the bucket. It would make a beautiful piece of yard art?  It wont be long  since his old teal tractor has no breaks. The last time I saw Al coming down the hill in it, I said to him, “Al, you don’t have breaks on that tractor, why are you going down that hill?”

“I’m clearing the road. Don’t worry. I just put down the bucket to stop.”

I just roll my eyes and send up a prayer  “You’re going to kill yourself one day.”

And he replies, “A new Kubota would solve all our problems!”

Last year he spent $300.00 on chains to clear the snow, then the tractor wouldn’t run. Apparently now it needs a little screw, which he can’t find anywhere. He’s called everyone that deals with Ford tractors and he has bothered everyone about it. I don’t think they are taking his calls anymore. Sigh!

The art studio has sold and he’s holding my feet to the fire. He hasn’t forgotten my promise. Now he’s called every tractor company in a five hundred mile radius, and has driven them up the wall asking questions about which one to get.  Apparently, there’re a thousand ways to go. There are big tractors, middle size and small ones. He can add a backhoe on the back, a snowplow on the front, a bucket that clamps, and a blade that pushes dirt. Every bell and whistle cost more money.

He’s asked all his friends and neighbors what they think he should do. Our son-in-law said, “This sounds bad for me to say, but I’ll probably get the tractor when Dad leaves for the big tractor farm in the sky, at least get hydraulics on the front because I need a snowplow.”

Al said to him, “I don’t need a snowplow, I have my Scout to clear the snow.”

I said to My Sweet Al, “Why are you buying a tractor then?”

“To dig holes! “Just call John, he’s got a backhoe. He’ll come out and dig a hole for you and you can save $30,000.00. In fact, John could live here with his back hoe with room and board permanently” for that price.

Al pouted, “I just wanted a Kubota.”

“My hole is getting deeper.”

Our daughter said, “Why don’t we go in half, we need a tractor, too.”

I said to her, “No. Your dad needs his own tractor. You can borrow it any time, but your dad could dig a hole and fall into it, and then we would owe you for half of a tractor. It just won’t work.”

I told the buyer of my art studio, “Al is so antsy to get a Kubota. Until our closing date and the money is in the bank, I told him he has to wait.”

Apparently I stepped in it, and Al is mad at me. He said, “That sounds terrible to tell the new buyer that I can’t wait for him to buy it so I can run out and spend his money and get a new tractor.”

The buyer is now our new best friend. He called to ask if Al has decided on the tractor yet. I told Al, “You’re the one who talked to the whole Lower Blanco about the tractor, not me. He found out through you. You’ve consulted the whole Lower Blanco.

This week after all the dirt has settled my daughter came by and said, “I have been thinking about things, does Daddy really need a tractor? You just sold all your property where is he going to park it? Well, I’m sure it will be a good family conversation for next Sunday’s dinner….. I don’t know, all I wanted was a good hearing aid. Any ideas?

Final Brushstroke! Well, the Big Orange is here. I won’t see my Sweet Al until dark. Him and the gophers are digging holes all over the place. It will keep him on the property, and it will give me time to write about it. All is well.