a visit from the land of Blog

House clean, mostly, by Wednesday evening, still need to do the floors and wipe down the kitchen cabinets which maybe I'll do this weekend. It's so sparkly! So, ready for Joanne's and Laura's visit Thursday when Bill the plumber and Rocky descended on the house yesterday morning. Bill wasn't supposed to get to me til next week at the earliest but Wednesday afternoon Rocky dropped by to say Bill had had a cancellation and slipped me in the open slot. Water off, water on, water off, water on, water off (I'm hoping it's on by the time my guests arrive). Marc asks how long til the water is on again, Bill hollers up to Rocky in the attic...you almost done up there, the man has to take a shit. So water back on and they actually finish up and are gone before Joanne and Laura arrive.

gone are the old galvanized pipes replaced with flexible plastic tubing

And the weather also cooperated, the big rainstorm with attendant lightning and thunder (and a trembling dog) during the night gone by morning leaving us a cooler but nicely warm day with a blue sky and flowers in the yard intact.

I don't remember how long I've been reading Joanne's blog, Cup On The Bus, but it's been years. Joanne is a small feisty woman in her 70s who took on raising three of her grandchildren, rescuing them from certain dismal futures, the last of which is Laura still in residence, the other two having gone on to college and their adult lives. For some unknown reason, Joanne and Laura decided to take a road trip from Ohio to Texas during Laura's spring break to visit Joanne's cousin and a commenter on her blog and me. Her cousin and Rose live outside Dallas which is a near 5 hour drive from here and they arrived around noon.

This is the third meet up I've had with fellow bloggers, people I have read for years and feel like we are good friends but still, you never know how these things are going to go and so I was a little anxious. Silly since the other two meet ups were like seeing old friends after a long absence and meeting Joanne and Laura was exactly the same.

After lunch at the house I showed off my work, we checked out the shop, did a little driving tour of this Podunk town, and then sat out in the big back yard enjoying the weather and talked and talked and talked until it was time for dinner. 

16 year old Laura entertained herself wandering in and out of our conversation 

picking up rocks and looking through the pots of seashells which she was really interested in that sit outside having told her to pick what she wanted to take with her and to pick one of the glass totems scattered about the yard for their garden as well.

I had invited my sister to go to dinner with us so 6ish we went to get her and Laura took pictures of my sister's extensive shell collection acquired during the 5 years she and her husband lived in the family beach house before we sold it. When we dropped her off after dinner she had us wait a moment and came back out with a 4” spiral shell and a shark's tooth for Laura. Joanne told her she made out big time or, as we say down here I said, you made out like a bandit. Bandit?, Laura queries. Yeah, you're making off with all the goods. 

So back to the house, Joanne and Laura headed back to their hotel and off early this morning for their long drive to get home in time for Laura to get to school on Monday and Joanne to go play cards with the Methodists.

Once again I have a good friend who lives very far away. Would that she and I lived closer and could get together regularly.