RUNNING WATER!!!!

Eight days later and LOTS of hand sanitizer, bottled water and borrowing of neighbor's shower, we have running water at last. Of course, this situation was fraught with more problems than just a plain ole lightning strike late on a Friday night. First the well pump had to be extracted....190 feet of pipe and a funny-looking silver thing that was the fried pump. When that got replaced (four days) and reattached, it was clear there was a further problem. So what was it? Apparently the wiring from the pump to the house (underground, of course) was also fried. That took another two days. Then came the realization that the newly installed pump had come loose from its housing and had to be extracted AGAIN and reattached (two more days, doesn't that make eight???).

Saturday morning we have running water and can flush toilets once again in a modern manner. Thank goodness the pool had lots of chlorinated H2O available. The dogs drank that with no problem intestinally and we used 5-gallon buckets of it to make the toilets flush when we couldn't stand it any longer.

What a nightmare....once again, NEVER NEVER NEVER ask what can happen next!!!

On the way to pick up a cutie of a red Labrador female originally from Gregg Tonkin, she being transported by dear Kay to me and meeting me at Newnan, well, wouldn't you know....the Chrysler overheated. Yep, the only car I have since the Subaru was in at Bethea's Auto Repair for a NEW TRANSMISSION. So I limped back from Newnan, "Poppy" aboard behaving herself beautifully, and went to Bethea the next day to trade cars.

Here's the NEXT "happen next": When I got thru transferring all the folderol from the Chrysler to the Subaru and charged proudly off with my new transmission, THE DARNED THING WAS MAKING THE SAME SCRAPING NOISE IT WAS MAKING WHEN THEY DECLARED IT WAS THE TRANSMISSION THAT NEEDED TO BE REPLACED. Go figure...better yet, go to BED.

I left the Chrysler there, drove the Subaru as if nothing was wrong, and will exchange cars once again tomorrow. The worst part of this is the exchanging of stuff like the XM radio gear, etc. I'm thinking of putting it all in a single box and just hoisting it from one vehicle to the other with a big smile instead of the laborious method now employed. Tempting but it won't work b/c everything has to be plugged in and set in properly.....ARRGGHHH......

The GOOD thing that occurred was that Lori called to say that our Simba granddaughter was finally in season and did I want to breed her? YEP, you betcha.....want to get some of that old stuff back into this line if possible. So yesterday after a long and involved drive around the Atlanta airport trying to find Continental's version of cargo, I met dear Lori and her boys and left with "Peaches" to get her to Dr. Ana's for a progesterone test.

Needless to say further complications ensued: Peaches may need to be bred on Tuesday. This necessitates getting a proper transport kit to Pam in Memphis so she can send chilled semen from Justin to arrive on the right day. Okay, call the doc who invented this method of procreation to see whether the two kits I ordered on line the night before had indeed been sent. Nope, just a recorded message. He did indeed call me back and left ME a message, and after about four of those, I spoke with him. NOPE, he's at a conference and won't be back in time to even READ his email orders until Monday....oooops...what to do now? CALL the ever-reliable MiniTube folks. Of course, it costs about $125 more to have the kit sent overnight tonight for delivery tomorrow so Pam can get it collected and sent out Monday. BUT what we do for puppies? We spend it, of course.

Keeping all appendages crossed that this plan will work out for black and yellow pups in about 65 days. She's a lovely bitch, sort of a cross between the field and the show looks--reminds me of my old Porsche in a more "English" way--lots of bone and substance and great angles with an old-fashioned head and gorgeous pecan brown eyes. Her temperament is FABULOUS. Reminds me of Old Simba himself. And she's a big girl, so I hope that means she can hold a BIG litter since these pups should be ready to go out sometime around the holidays. All I want is a nice yellow girl whose lineage goes back to my beloved Simba with improvements in some of the places that he lacked conformationally. He didn't lack ANYTHING in temperament or smarts. I miss that old fellow every single day of my life. What a good fortune for him to have been the first real Champion in my Labrador life!

In re-reading this tome, I am reminded that my mother's good friend, Betty, who lived in Miami before it became a foreign country, used to send a Christmas card along with a typed sheet listing all the gruesome things that happened to her and Elmer during the previous year. We used to sit and guffaw at what Betty thought was interesting. We thought it was totally off the wall that someone would want to read about how she survived a whole year of troubles sent along with a cheery card during the holiday season. Guess I'm sounding a LOT like Betty these days!

Okay, enough....gonna go brush my teeth in running water instead of a little glass of spring water for a change...heck, I might even take a shower instead of dousing in hand sanitizer!
More later....MsP