The Past, the Pleasant, and the Neighbor

First of all, I want to thank Laura from Thoughts of a Career Woman for giving me this Sisterhood award:

She's a sweetheart and the baby sister I never had.  Yeah, I know she looks nothing like me, but work with me here, 'K?

Over at Diane J's blog, Contentedly Neurotic, Diane was responding to a tag that had questions about the past, present, and future.  Evil Twin and I decided to steal the question about the past:

What were you doing five years ago?

Me:  I was working a corporate IT job and was assigned to a project to "re-invent" the company's website. 

Evil Twin:  Yeah, I remember you talking about your boss.  Remember the time she....

Me:  Shhhhh. 

Me:  Hubby and I were working at my mother-in-law's house cleaning and clearing up piles of clutter while she was in a rehab facility after back surgery.

Evil Twin:  Gotta match?

Me:  I was teaching yoga at our corporate fitness center.

Evil Twin:  I can do yoga.  Watch this:

Me:  Whoa!  WHAT happened to your head?  Did you open the door to the cellar?  Remember I told you never to do that!

Me:  Hubby celebrated ten years at his company.

Evil Twin:  I'm speechless.

Me:  Good.

Me:  Hubby and I booked a cruise to Alaska.  We took our moms.

Evil Twin:  Wait.  I don't remember this.

Me:  Yep.  That's right.  You weren't invited.  Hee Hee.

Me:  At the end of 2005, I had my distance vision corrected via LASIK!

Evil Twin:  Yeah.  You were afraid of letting me come with you.  I was wanting to see what they did with the discarded eyeballs.
Me:  Um.....

If you're still awake, let's move on to the latest rendition of "Good Neighbors".

Neighbor: I see you had someone work on your trees.  Why didn't they take that bent limb out of your pine tree?

What I wanted to say: What?  Does the bent arm bother you because you can see it from your yard?   Wait.  How about you get rid of your gigantic rodent-attracting brush pile and numerous compost piles that are visible to us from just about everywhere.

What she probably meant:  That limb is broken and will probably die.  You had other dead wood removed and two dead trees taken down so why not that limb?

What I said: Um,  it's not dead yet.  We will just "let it be".

Sigh.

The photo is our pine tree with the broken arm.  It's hard to tell but our property slopes down.  I'm standing considerably "uphill" from this tree.  Knowing this makes this next exchange make more sense.

Same neighbor:  We are going to do something about this washout area here at the back of our property.  Doesn't the water that washes out my flower bed come from your septic system?

What I wanted to say:  **rolling eyes**  No. We've had this conversation before.  There is an underground spring that starts up the hill from my property, runs down my property and spews water out towards your property after heavy rains.  Why did you build a ##$%#$ flowerbed where the the water rushes out?

What I said:  Um, no.  The lines would not go this far.  There is an underground spring that starts up the hill from my property, runs down my property and spews water out towards your property after heavy rains. Good Luck with whatever you decide to do.

At least this is a neighbor I like.

Sigh.

Photo credits: Headless yogini:  Seven morris on flickr.com, Creative Commons license (see sidebar), broken pine:  Reffie

The Hills and a Dale

Finally, I'm sitting down and writing a new post.  I know you guys have been anticipating this event all week...

Um, yeah.

This Friday finds me singing about hills.  Last week I told you about a hilly running course and some of you turned up your noses and accused Texas of NOT having hills.

Well, I'll show YOU.  There is a song about the Texas hills:

The stars at night are big and bright

Deep in the hills of Texas

The prairie sky is wide and high

Deep in the hills of Texas....

Uh, ReformingGeek?

Yes?

The lyrics are DEEP IN THE HEART not DEEP IN THE HILLs.  Here's the song, you silly geek:

Dale Evans and the Muppet Babies

OK.  That's a cute video but now I have to start all over on my post.

Seriously, folks, I'd like to introduce you to hilly Guadalupe Mountains National Park out in west Texas.  Yes, I said mountains.  Hubby and I visited this park as part of a trip to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. It's about an hour's drive from Carlsbad.

We hiked on a trail through one of the canyons.  It was a hot day so anything to block the sun was welcome.  I thought I had found a photo of the hike but it was a photo from Zion National Park. 

Oops.

I can't leave you without some idea of the beauty of the Texas high desert:

El Capitan. See you at the top!

That's OK.  I didn't make it either.  

Let's just enjoy the view from here.

After the hike, we headed back to Carlsbad.  Evil Twin insisted on a side trip to Roswell to check on her alien friends.   I was concerned.  I wanted to get back before dark because I think she made plans for a moonlight serenade with her favorite Martian.

A few years after our visit, Hubby and I started reading Nevada Barr's mystery novels set in National Parks featuring always-finding-trouble Ranger Anna Pigeon.  Sure enough, Ms. Barr has a story that takes place in GUMO (Guadalupe Mountains National Park).  The book is Track of the Cat.  The "cat" is a mountain lion. Had I known about the mountain lions, I might not have gone on that hike! 

If you haven't read her series and you like mysteries, give them a try.   She will put you right there in the parks with her and you might not want to put it down until you find out what's happening.

Yes, there are hills....and big hearts in Texas.

Have a great weekend and Happy Mother's Day!