Tuesdays with Buddy the Dog (and toad skin)

Because Roberta has a class that meets on the fourth Monday of the month, I worked yesterday for her and she is working for me today. One nice thing about this is that I get two days in a row off from work -- a sort of midweek weekend.

Last night I went to the library to pick up four items they had on hold for me. I had forgotten what I had ordered, but now I have the following things checked out: Mordred, Bastard Son -- a novel based on the Arthurian legends; and four audio books: Beowulf -- translated from the Old English and read by the Irish poet, Seamus Heaney; Shakespeare: His Life and Work -- read by biographers Richard Hampton and David Weston with selections from the plays performed by Judi Dench and Timothy West; Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson; and Dry -- a memoir by Augusten Burroughs about his treatment for alcoholism and the aftermath.

Incidentally, I find his account very interesting, but he goes against one of the most basic principles of Alcoholics Anonymous by violating anonymity. Maybe later on in the recording he will explain why. I do assume that all the details and names he uses -- other than his own -- are changed to protect the innocent and guilty.

After taking Buddy the Dog for a short walk (his official morning walk on a leash), I went to the bank to deposit a couple of checks, and then by Wal-Mart to pick up a prescription. The pharmacist neglected to punch some button and I wound up having to pay for everything else at the register, then return to the pharmacy to have that cleared and pay for the prescription there. This is the second time in the last month that there has been a glitch of some kind with a prescription, and I told Colleen that the pharmacy and I seem to be having "issues." She said they just wanted to see me more often, and then suggested I get my prescriptions for three months at a time. This would save me two bucks over a three month period for each prescription, or about thirty-two dollars a year. So I guess I won't complain too much. It's like getting one prescription free for three-quarters of the year.

Today was the day Joe and Evelyn took their grandkids to the train. Since I wasn't there, Joe gave me a call to see how I am doing. He also told me that they were able to hire a new office assistant who seems to be working out very well. I am glad to hear that, and it was nice of him to check up on me.

Tom is the volunteer conductor all day, so it is one of my days to cook. It is a hot and muggy day, so I have opted for an elaborate southwestern salad -- layers of lettuce, carrot strips, red onion, black beans, kernels of corn, avocado, strips of grilled chicken, salsa, shredded cheese, black olives, walnuts, dried cranberries and crumbled tortilla chips. For dessert I got something called a piel de sapo melon. This unfortunate name means "toad skin" in Spanish, but the melon itself looks like a small watermelon on the outside and a honeydew on the inside. It may be common, but I think it will be the first time I am having it.

Hope I don't get warts.

Very misterioso

This evening after work, the volunteers and staff gathered for a celebration. I am still not sure what exactly was being celebrated. One version of the story was that a couple of the volunteers were celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. They had renewed their vows and had a lot of food left over from the reception. We were supposed to help consume the leftovers.

The other version is that they had been married, got a divorce and had just remarried. The food bit was the same, and we were supposed to help eat the leftovers.

Supposedly they were arriving about 3:00 and we would all eat around 5:30 after the last train had returned from its run and been put away. We closed up shop, the last train returned. There had been no sign yet of the folks with the food, although there was a lot of peripheral activity focused on drinks. Actually, the happy couple arrived around 6:00 and began to reheat the food. We had all been sitting around the picnic tables for a while, wondering what was going on.

Beverages appeared.

Followed by a lull.

Bread, honeydew melon slices, some sort of relish and green pepper strips appeared. Some people were getting restless and sneaking anxious glances towards where the food was being heated.

This went on during yet another lull.

It was getting on towards seven, and having had only a meal bar for lunch, I finally stood up and got a roll to sustain me. A bunch of others followed suit. A box of wine was broached but only one person wanted any. Two bottles of champagne appeared and were set next to the boxes of plastic forks and bags of paper plates. Also four bottles of salad dressing. A sheet cake was put out.

We had another lull during which time people munched on bread and wondered what the relishes might be.

A pan of pasta appeared, accompanied by ambrosia salad, tossed salad and some sort of whipped strawberry gelatin. People delicately dug in, unsure if other options were coming and whether this would possibly stretch to feed the crowd that was pretty hungry by now.

During the next lull people nibbled and began to look hungrily at the sheet cake.

A bucket (literally) of margaritas appeared. Neither Tom nor I drink, but it seems not many of the others were drinking liquor either.

Another lull.

About 7:15 the bulk of the food appeared -- mashed potatoes, a half dozen Italian sausages, a pan of fried chicken, some Italian beef, chunks of cantaloupe and a bag of chocolate-covered strawberries. Also a large fragment of an elaborate marble cake to supplement the sheet cake. The bride (?) likes chocolate, but the Wal-Mart bakery did not have a chocolate sheet cake and had been unwilling to frost one at the last minute. The sheet cake said, "Happy Anniversary" but whether it was an anniversary was still not clear. An ambiguously worded toast to twenty-five years of marriage also left me uncertain. Were those twenty-five years behind or ahead?

At least three trains drove by during this time and honked at us as we all waved to them. Some guy slowly rode his bicycle along County N and looked over curiously. I have no idea what he thought was going on, and I am not sure I knew any more. And I was at the party.

Anyway, Buddy the Dog was there and got to eat some of the leftovers, and he was happy as a lark. He didn't seem to worry about what the celebration was for. He just really liked the Italian sauce in the pans he got to lick.

When I got home about 8:00, I realized that I had stripped everything off my bed when I left this morning, intending to do the laundry when I got home. Now the evening was advancing and I had four loads of laundry to do.

Oh joy!

Stolen!

No, the train was not stolen. I stole this account of the arrival of Number 128 from Tom's blog. As he mentions, she arrived back in pieces, so it will be a while before she looks as good as she did in this old photograph.

Number 128 came home to the railroad yesterday, after a long absence, arriving on a truck, in pieces. It will take several years, and many thousands of dollars in donations, to restore the engine and tender to operating condition.

Number 128 was built in 1948, and ran at the Sandley facility until 1981, when it went to Knoxville for the World's Fair Railway. It was rolled, rebuilt, and then went to the Knoxville Zoo. Number 128 was eventually acquired by Ron Krawczak, a member of the preservation society, and it was donated to the museum by his widow.

Number 128's homecoming brings to five the number of Sandley engines owned by the RGN, which is a not-for-profit living museum dedicated to preservation of the facilities, locomotives and rolling stock made by the Sandley Light Railway Equipment Company between 1947 and 1980.

Each of the five locomotives -- an electric work engine, Number 1 (a Tom Thumb, built in the 1947), Number 98 (an American 4-4-0 built in 1957), Number 82 (an American 4-4-0, virtually the twin of Number 98, built in 1958), and Number 128 (a 4-4-2 built in 1948) -- was hand built by the Sandley works, and each is, in its own right, a work of art.

Number 128's homecoming brought back memories to many of the members who witnessed her arrival yesterday. Many of us had ridden behind her when we were younger, from the 1950's to the 1980's, when the Sandley works was in operation. Gary, one of the men who traveled to Milwaukee to bring her home, rode her on his honeymoon with his wife Bev. Jim, who was instrumental in working out the details of the donation with Mrs. Krawczak, had worked on Number 128 when he was a teenager.

We were all glad to see her come home.

When Tom says it will take many thousands of dollars to restore Number 128, he is talking about $50,000. That is no small change for this little non-profit volunteer operation. And as is so often the case with non-profits, it would be great if a major donor would step in and help, but it will probably be the pennies the kids drop into the donation jars that ultimately will make it possible for children who are yet to be born to have a chance to ride behind Number 128 the way Tom did when he was a boy.

Buddy the Dog

Buddy the Dog is a nice dog, but he has some ... I hesitate to call them character defects, because they are unrelated to character, I think.

For instance, he is a bundle of hair and likes to deposit clumps of hair all over the house. I do not mean the occasional individual hair. I mean clumps. And he doesn't seem to paw them out. He just sits down, gets up and walks away from a pile of hair.

No sooner had Tom brought the newly cleaned and shampooed rugs back in than Buddy the Dog began lying on them to leave little wads of fine black hair. That's what he is doing in the photo. I got a pet comb at Wal-Mart, and Tom combed out enough hair to stuff a small mattress, but it is basically a never-ending process. I remember Helen combing him once and the pile of hair she got was almost as big as Buddy the Dog himself.

We try to pick up the larger clumps because Tom says they burned out a vacuum cleaner once when all the hair got tangled up in its mechanisms.

He also pads around the house, but he doesn't pad so much as click. His nails on our wood floors go click clack click clack click clack into the wee hours of the night as he roams from one room to another.

He also seems to think that any activity in the kitchen is somehow related to him. The cats will come running at the sound of a can opener, but Buddy the Dog trots over as soon as he notices anyone has gone into the kitchen. He is used to getting some human food to supplement his dog food, and I notice that the bag Jay brought us is for weight control. We don't give people food to the animals, but that doesn't stop Buddy the Dog from looking expectant.

He is, on the other hand, a quiet dog and very friendly without being all over you. He and the cats know one another from of old, and after a couple of exploratory sniffs, they settle down to share the domain. I realize, of course, that this means the cats have deigned to let him remain in their domain, probably remembering that he doesn't stay around all that long when he visits.

The trick now is for us to figure out who gets to come home in the middle of the day to let Buddy the Dog out to answer the call of nature. He could probably last all day, but why risk it? And Tom doesn't want to leave him outside all day with no one here.