The Mysterious Voice

I rarely have plans for the day when I finish my second cup of coffee. I basically fly by the seat of my pants on everything, where some days I don't get further than my backyard and other days I am all over town and the local area. It just depends what my scatterbrain wants to do, after all, it is also in retirement. Yesterday reminded me of days back in "the tropics" where I would be mowing the yard, glance at my car and decided it needed washed after the yard mowing. Then while washing one car I would decide I had to do the other one too. Yesterday was a lot like that.

The '59 Single Cab needed a drive. I like to head south on Hwy 92 at least to the by-pass but yesterday I followed a road that I ride my bike on. I wanted to see if anyone was riding in the cooler 53° weather with bright sunshine. I guess I had to justify my lack of bike riding this winter outdoors. I saw ONE rider and by that time the winds had picked up and the short glance over to him on the bike path showed he was not having a lot of fun.

I head back north, turned left on the bypass and headed to Fry Blvd. I wanted to stop in at one of the three gun shops in town to check on some things. The parking lot is not as full as it was this summer. Inventory is stocked but with a lack of ammo due to the high demand which happens to be nationwide. After that it was off to the bike shop on the west side of town. Passing by the donut shop on the way was extremely hard to do.

After a short visit at the bike shop it was time to head home. When I arrived the two hounds and a dog were standing at the door welcoming me home. With the great weather now they spend their time outside whenever I am gone. The weather is perfect for them and if they do happen to get too hot, there is shade from the fence and they have plenty of water. ALL THREE of them dig in some form and that is a habit I cannot seem to stop.

Stella had tried digging out her corner of the patio/house bypassing that large planter I bought last winter to prevent her from digging in that spot. Henry had found new areas where he can smell the mesquit root under the rock, and under the plastic (weed prevention) exposed in the hard Arizona dirt. I am not sure what Walter digs for but I know he digs a little by the way his nose looks.

When I saw the digging around the flower pot which holds a cactus my brain cells activated "I will stop that once and for all !!!!!". I will take those 1' square pavers and move them from the edge of the driveway back to the patio and make my small patio a little bigger plus stop the digging in that corner. I'm glad I stacked them just inside the garage where the door could close because by the end of the afternoon I was in no mood to move the pavers to the backyard. Why??? ... I got distracted along the way to doing a different project.

I know they have a purpose but I didn't order them and didn't want them. Door guards. I knew they would peel off pretty easy with the hot sunshine heating up that side of the car. I used the sun in this project on both sides of the car by turning my car around when I did each side. All the pavers were stacked so it was time to get this project done. How did I decide to do this at the time I did it???? Each time I bent over by the car to pick up those 1' square pavers along the driveway, I saw those door guards. The more I saw them the more I knew they had to come off right now, today, not tomorrow. As soon as I was finished with the pavers I started on the door guards.

As expected I knew the guards would leave some residue that I could scrape off with a thumbnail, preventing any scratches to the paint. What I had not planned on was how hard it was to remove the glue underneath that foam that was left or where the guard peeled off the door completely. I tried all the home remedies I have used in the past to remove glue. They were not working on this stuff. I had to make a run to Home Depot to buy some Goof Off, the #1 glue remover.

That's a funny story in itself. I never have a smooth shopping experience in Home Depot but I chose that over Lowes because it is close to my house, just behind the shopping mall. Lowes is a couple of miles away with many stop lights to wait on and more time than I wanted to take to get a small can of glue remover. To make it easy on me, I looked for the store location of the glue before I got out of my car. Isle 12 Bay 12. Seemed pretty simple, a fast in and out, with self checkout and I would be on my way.

Things never go that smooth for me in any kind of home improvement shopping. As I walk down Isle 12, I see that Bay 12 is gated off with yellow collapsible gate and red letters telling me to stay out. BUT I NEED THIS GLUE REMOVER AND I AM NOT GOING ANYWHERE ELSE !!!!!

I move over to the next isle where I can walk the full length of the isle, turn the corner and that would put me right at the back of Bay 12 where the glue was located. THAT was also gated off at the end of the isle. The Goof Off is right there in front of me within arms reach on the other side of the gate. Out of all the different sizes, the smallest size I want is out of reach. That is unless I unhook the gate, open it just enough to step closer to the small can of glue remover. It would require stepping only one foot inside the restricted zone.  Ha Ha..

With the gate open just enough to step in, just as I am reaching for the smallest can of Goof Off I hear a voice, not from heaven, not from my shoulder but from somewhere in the restricted zone ... "you can't come in here". I had just touched the can of Goof Off that I wanted and replied to the mysterious voice "what I am buying is just right here and I'll close the gate when I am finished" ... No ... he wanted to argue with me. I basically pulled the small can off the shelf, stepped back with the only foot that had stepped barely inside the restricted zone, hooked the gate back up and walked away with the mysterious voice talking to himself.

The employee that went with that voice was on the floor under the lowest shelf, hidden!!!! Cleaning something but what???? Luckily the Home Depot Police didn't chase me to the self checkout isle and I was able to get through that without any issues. As you can see the remover worked as advertised and all the hard glue residue is gone as are the door guards. I will sell them on Facebook Marketplace once I find out how much they are worth.

I was telling my friend in Phoenix that I love my car decision I made last Saturday. Yes the vehicles I had were great, were cool to look at, but things change and requirements are different. She had just traded her RAV4 Hybrid in last winter for a new Tacoma. She loves Tacomas like I love FJ's but told me after seeing photos of my new RAV4 in the same color as hers, she was having regrets about making her trade. We both seem to have the same "disease" when it comes to cars and trucks.

With the door guards taken off and the 1' pavers stacked neatly in the garage waiting for their next move, it was time to end the day with a cold beer in a frosted glass and enjoy the warm 65° out on the patio. It felt much warmer than that but with high winds and snow still on the mountain tops, it is cool late in the afternoon.

Walter is my "clinger dog" and is rarely very far of away from me. He has separation anxiety. He is not destructive in his anxiety like Stella use to be but starts panting and pacing even when I change into clothes in the morning. He can tell later in the day when I am getting ready to go somewhere and pants while following me around the house. Where did that come from ??? They all had the backyard all afternoon while I worked on the car doors. The younger puppies chased each other at top speed in the yard, they tried to get Stella to play based on what I heard from her howling and barking. So by late afternoon they were all pretty tired.

I believe that license plate is appropriate for today's times. Excuse the dust. The #5 ???? Well there were other California drivers that had the same idea that I had with using the word BOHICA for their personalized plate so I had to add a number. Some of those numbers between 1-9 were already taken so #5 was available. It was good to see I was just as smart as the other drivers with the same plate. It was assigned to my 1967 VW bus I was driving at the time. Shocking to some, it was my only vehicle.

Not sure what today will bring. I have a small dolly that I brought with me when I moved in June 2019 that I use to move the square pavers to the backyard. The thing is with me, those pavers don't match my patio, will I want that difference in color just to make my patio bigger? If I don't use them there, what will I do with them? I moved them along the side of the driveway so I could roll my garbage can to the street easier than going through yard rocks. Two cars in the driveway prevented me using the drive for that. Now I can use the driveway with only one car parked there. I originally bought that many pavers to make a parking pad for my Mini Cooper beside the driveway last year. 

Well after looking at a lot of houses for sale, in northern Arizona and in towns in other states that I researched in 2018, I have decide to stick right where I am. I love where I live. I love the view I have from the house and the location. This town is full of friendly people.  The house is also perfect for the two hounds and the dog. There is really nowhere else I really want to live. I am not moving. I just didn't decide that, I had all my research going on the past few weeks and previously months ago. I look at every angle just like when I trade cars or trucks.

Things are good this week in the "Wild West".