WDM, IA - Ring Around the Rosie

This is a story about how ditsy I am. If you have some cockamamie idea that I’ve always got my act together, then, don’t read this blog entry. It will only knock me down off of the pedestal. On the other hand, if you know that I am ditsy, this will merely give you more ammunition for your beliefs. It’s a lose-lose situation for me.

I have 2 diamond rings: one is a diamond from my grandfather and the other is my mother’s diamond ring and engagement rings fused together. Many years ago, before my mother died and was still in the nursing home with Alzheimer's, Gary and I cleaned out her home prior to selling it. One of our goals was to find her wedding rings which seemed to have disappeared. Now, with Alzheimer's, she might have put these rings anywhere, in the trash, buried with a tulip bulb in her garden or down the garbage disposal. Who knows. We never found them. Several years late I got a call at work from a local Fort Dodge jeweler that they had a package of my mother’s rings that they had fused together, put on a desk and then lost. Whew, what a relief. I picked them up and began wearing them.

So, I’ve been wearing these two diamond rings for many years. 2 years ago, I decided that maybe I shouldn’t wear these two rings while we were hiking, took them off, put them in a plastic baggie and put them in our RV wardrobe under some other things to conceal them. That was in spring of 2011. In fall of 2011, before we started our winter travels, I decided that there seemed to be no point in bringing the rings since I wasn’t going to wear them anyway, so I left them at home in my closet. Spring of 2012 I arrived home, found the rings, tried them on but it was a hot day and the rings were going on tightly, I knew I wouldn’t take them on our next winter sojourn so I decided to ‘hide’ them in the house.

This spring, we were pretty discombobulated since we were rotating between staying in Fort Dodge at Gary’s father’s home and staying in West Des Moines at our own home. Sometimes I didn’t know whether my old sweat shirt was in FD or WDM or whether we need to shop for milk in WDM or in FD. I was confused and certainly not thinking about the rings.

Finally we were in West Des Moines for good and could get our lives back into order. I looked for the rings but - couldn’t find them NOR remember where I had ‘hidden’ them for safety. I looked all over, I emptied every drawer, I looked in an old jewelry drawer I had, I even looked under my chest of drawers, I checked every pocket I had in all the clothes in my closet. Nada, nothing, I couldn’t find them. I even took to looking at every thing in the house to see if it would jog a memory. 3 months I spent looking and thinking and kicking myself for losing my mother’s wedding rings. Gary (after I reluctantly told him) told me that we would find them when we began to empty our home. He had confidence, I had my doubts.

Yesterday I decided that our home silverware was nicer than our RV silverware and was exchanging them. I took the silverware tray out of the drawer where we had it in our kitchen to clean it and VOILA - there was a plastic baggie with two gold rings in it. Now, why in the world would I put them in the kitchen, under the silverware tray? Who, in their right mind would do that? And there, is the clue - I am not always in my right mind. Yes, I am ditsy. Next time I’ll write my ‘hiding’ place down. Next time I’ll tell Gary so there will be two to remember. And, there will be a next time since i do not want to wear these rings out hiking in the desert.

WDM, IA - What's in Your Fridge?

Here’s an ordinary white double door refrigerator just like any other white double door refrigerator. It sits in our kitchen.

Here’s our refrigerator with the door open. What in the world are we keeping in here?

        A large beer cooler? In our refrigerator? Guess again.

        A large fish well from a boat? Nope, one last try.

        Gary’s Darth Vader costume from last Halloween? Nah, he went as a pirate.

Well, it’s a brake. A brake? Huh?

It’s the supplemental brake we use on the Jeep. When we drive down the highway, and especially when we drive in the mountains, we want to make sure that the Jeep also has a brake and we’re not relying on the RV brake alone to stop all 35,000 lbs. Before we roll down the road, while Gary hitches the Jeep up to the RV, I install the supplemental brake into the Jeep. There are many RV’s who do not have this supplemental brake but many do. Gary and I want to be as safe as possible rolling on down the road and we install our brake every time we hitch up. We noticed several years ago as we were traveling that it wouldn’t start up when the temperatures got below 40 degrees. In this situation, we put it in the Jeep, drive for a while and then try it again. Not safe and we’re not happy campers.

Today, Gary called the factory to explain this and the tech told Gary to start it up. Of course it worked. Don’t things always work when the tech is on the line? And, in our experience, it really only fails when it’s cold. So Gary’s brilliant idea was to make the brake cold and the refrigerator is the best place to do this. Here we are, making our brake cold enough to fail. We left it there over night and Gary hitched it up to run in the morning.

Guess what - it worked perfectly in the morning. Of course, what did we expect? Oh, well, we’ll try again when we’re on the road with the RV.

Tomorrow we are heading on up to Eagan, a suburb of Minneapolis, to attend a funeral for one of Gary’s cousins, only 63 when he died of ALS. His father, Johnny, is still living at the age of 96. This is the second child of 4 that he’s survived.