Fixed!

You might remember some time ago - well, actually, August of last year - I wrote about my little firefighter statue that ended up broken.

He had a whole in his head and in his helmet after my husband accidentally knocked him from the shelf.

I had the statue made and painted for my husband in our first year of marriage. A friend of mine who lives in Eagle Rock, Dee Dee, crafted and painted him up for me.

He looked like this:




2013

And then he hurt his head:



Ow! I have a headache!

My pal Dreama Kattenbraker, one of our famous local artists, fixed him up for me. Now he looks like this:

Repaired! 2017

No more hole in my head!

She used some kind of dry clay to fix him up, since he is made of ceramic. I don't know all the steps involved or anything. She was not happy because his hat is a little rough, but my husband said firefighter's hats aren't neat and clean anyway, so it just makes him look a bit more authentic.

She also put him on a base so he wouldn't fall over. Before he stood on his own two feet but I suspect with the change in his head he was a bit off balance.

I brought him home the other night and presented him to my husband, who promptly placed him back on the shelf beside the fireplace.

"Maybe our luck will change, now that he is back where he belongs," he said.

I'm just glad I can look up there and see that big ol' smile and that yellow hat again.

Also I am very grateful to my friend for fixing him up for me.

Our "Eclipse Party"

As I noted in a blog post on Monday, I had serious concerns about my camera equipment and my ability to get the photos I wanted during our 90% eclipse.

I had resigned myself to trying to use my Nikon D3200, which doesn't have a movable monitor. This meant that in order to see the eclipse through the monitor and line things up, I was going to have to turn myself into a pretzel or something, since I needed to use a tripod and the self-timer on the camera.

Inspiration hit when I went to the bathroom. No, not that kind of inspiration! I figured out a way to put the solar film over my Nikon Coolpix P500, which is a point and shoot and truly my favorite camera.

 



I placed the solar film over the toilet paper tube, cut the tub in a few places so it would slide over the extension/zoom on my camera, and viola! I could now use the camera with the moveable monitor and the one with the best zoom on it. All I had to do was take the solar film on and off.

This worked well, as you can see from the photos.

With that all set, and my glasses available (including some that Amazon supposedly recalled and said they would refund me for, but no money has yet fallen into my account), my husband and I, along with my mother-in-law, settled in to watch the totality on TV and the eclipse from our area.

My goofy husband models his eclipse glasses.

We went old school, too, and made viewers out of cereal boxes.

My mother-in-law with her ball cap and dark sunglasses.

During the 90% part, it was this dark. The world seemed more like a burnt orange color, which unfortunately did not show up in the photo. But it did grow rather dark. The rooster down the street crowed the entire time the eclipse was going on.

My husband takes a gander at the sun through his special specs.

My mother-in-law looking through her special specs.

It was fun to take the afternoon off and enjoy a Mother Nature show. For me, the best thing was that for a few minutes there, we were once again a united people, with a lot of us, anyway, enjoying a spectacle that didn't involve death or destruction and nothing but warnings to not look at the sun (which you shouldn't do anyhow). See, we can come together and overcome our differences. We just have to do it in the 2 minutes of darkness during a total eclipse.

Seeing Wonder Woman and the Meaning of Superhero

I do not go to the movies often. The last movie my husband and I saw at the theater was Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which showed in 2015. The last movie I saw alone was Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 which showed in 2004.

But I really wanted to see Wonder Woman. Like I said yesterday in my Thursday Thirteen post, I have always had a thing for strong female heroines. And by "strong" I mean a female character that embodies womanly strength (which I consider to be more pacifistic, circular, and loving instincts) and who is still able to take care of herself without needing intervention from the patriarchy.

In my little band of friends, I seem to be the only fantasy aficionado. If there are others, they haven't spoken up. My brother shares my proclivity for the genre, but we can barely get together for a phone call, much less a movie. My husband watches these movies with me and I think he enjoys them but he doesn't watch them on his own. For example, he can repeat lines from Lord of the Rings because he's walked in to find me watching it 100 times, but it is not a movie he seeks out himself.

Going out by myself has become difficult for me, as a few  of my close friends (and my physical therapist) know. Other people may not realize it, but trying to climb stairs and walk up hills or go any distance on the slightest bit of uneven ground is painful and trying. The movie theater has stairs and no elevator if you want to sit in the middle or up high and not right on top of the screen.

Despite this, I gathered my courage and went alone to the theater. My husband had to work at the fire station today. He has hay down that he will need to work on tomorrow, and another large field that needs to be cut. We are weaning calves. He has a septic tank to install. I have no idea when he might have a free hour, much less time to go to a movie. 

Anyway, I made it to the theater early so I would have plenty of time to settle in. I slowly and carefully walked up 30 stairs to get to where I wanted to sit, which was just above the midpoint of the theater seats. I am paying for it now with a lot of pain but that is okay.

Truly, the stairs were difficult and I ended up asking someone at the theater to help me because I couldn't carry popcorn, a drink, a back support I need because the chairs at the theater are absolutely terrible if you have back problems, and use a cane. I was grateful a theater person helped me. Thumbs up to the theater for having someone available to do that.

After I settled in, I found myself cringing a bit because at the early matinee there were more men there than I anticipated. Just men, in singles and in pairs, and more of them than women. I saw a few fathers with daughters, a few couples, and one or two other people there by themselves. The theater was by no means full; it was maybe one-third filled which apparently is typical for that time of day. Anyway, the abundance of men unsettled me. I wasn't expecting that.

I forgot some of my anxiety when the movie started. It was an amazing film. The picture was better than Star Wars: The Force Awakens by the length of a Death Star ray and then some.

Wonder Woman was full of fun, mischief, and heart. It was cinematic in scope with beautiful scenery and an attention to detail I haven't seen in a movie in a while. Gal Gadot is a good actress and she made a beautiful, enthralling, adorable, and entirely believable character come to life. Chris Pine portrayed a credible Steve Trevor, and I liked the little cadre of assistance Trevor put together to help Diana Prince and himself infiltrate the place where the queen of poison and Ares in the guise of someone else was hiding. I won't spoil anything else; all of that information is available in the movie trailers.

I do urge you to see this movie if you have any interest in coming of age stories, in stories about overcoming the dearth of bad in the hearts of mankind, and in seeing something that offers lessons about humanity, goodness overcoming darkness, and love (not romantic love, but love of humanity).

But truly the most amazing thing, for me personally, happened after the movie. I sat while most everyone left, because I knew it was going to take me a while to get back down the stairs. I tried to catch the eye of the clean-up guy so he could carry my trash for me, but to no avail. So finally I stood and then eased myself carefully down the steps, one at a time - slowly, slowly. I reached the bottom, where a trash can had been placed, and tossed my trash.

I turned toward the door and there, with the light behind him creating a silhouette as he strode down the dark hallway towards me, was my husband in his firefighter's uniform, looking for all the world like a slightly portly superhero in a movie, heading toward a damsel in distress to rescue her.

He had come in with no ticket near the end, to be sure I was okay and able to get out to the car. My hero.

It was extra-special to have him make that small effort because today was his birthday and he was at work. I had thought I might drive to the firehouse to surprise him but instead he surprised me. He helped me to the restroom (the movie is 2.5 hours so don't drink during it), and then out to the car.

We had a long kiss goodbye and he sent me on my way. I shall have to find a superhero name for him, my man with the special power of love.

Happy Birthday to My Hubby

A young firefighter.



Now a Battalion Chief

Unmasked at home.



Always working hard.



Enjoying his motorcycle.



Working the tractor.



Red hat, scraggly face, must be hunting season.



All dressed up.



A bit of down time.



With me when the new fire station opened.



Last year getting ready to ride in a race car.



The day we married.

My favorite shot of him - with his hay and on the farm.

The Man Cannot Sit Still

Thursday Thirteen #495

Today I thought I'd show you my husband's NASCAR model collection. He put these together from about 1993 - 1996, so they're more than 20 years old.

My husband is a big Ford fan so most of these are Fords. There is a Richard Petty Pontiac and a Dale Earnhardt #3 Chevrolet in there somewhere, but I think the rest of them are Fords.

There are 37 of these model cars in this curio cabinet, along with other racing memorabilia (there are 25 more in another cabinet in another part of the house):

He was a big Bill Elliot fan, so he has a couple of shelves dedicated to Bill's cars. These are the #94 McDonald's cars that Elliott drove in the 1990s.

This car is a special edition "Batman Forever" #94 along with the Bill Elliott #9 Coors car.

This is Dale Jarrett's #88 car.

After Bill Elliott stopped driving the #9 car and went to #94, Mark Martin took over the #9 car.

This is the #16 driven by Ted Musgrave and the #75 driven by Rusty Wallace.

This is the #21 McDonald's Ford driven by Jimmy Spencer (1994), and the #2 Miller car driven by Rusty Wallace.

My husband had extra glass shelving made for the cabinet and some of the cars are in these thin shelves. They're a little hard to get to, but they make a colorful display.

This is the car that my husband loved best, Bill Elliott's red #9 Coors car that won him the name "Million Dollar Bill" in the 1980s.

A closer shot of some of the other cars that I am afraid to touch for fear they will fall apart.

This the Dale Jarrett #21 Citgo car.

I wanted to give you a close-up so you can see how detailed these things are.

The #10 Tide car belonged to Ricky Rudd and the #28 belonged to Davy Allison. Allison died young in helicopter crash in 1993.

Around 1996 the model cars became hard to find and more expensive to purchase as manufacturers moved to pre-made die-cast vehicles. Two of the model car manufacturers merged and they stopped putting out the different vehicle color changes for the drivers. So my husband stopped building model cars.

It was a good hobby for him for a while, though.


_______

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 495th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

The Couples Questionnaire

For couples - married, dating or whatever . . .
 
Who's older? He is.

How long have you been together? It will be 33 years of marriage in November, plus 1 year and one month of dating.

Who asked? He did.

Did you go to the same school? Yes, and we rode the same school bus. However, he paid no attention to me and, except for elementary school, we were not in school at the same time. We became a couple after we both graduated high school.

Who is the more sensitive? I am.

Where do you eat out most as a couple? Shakers or Cracker Barrel

Where is the furthest you two have traveled? Together we've gone as far north as the Poconos in Pennsylvania and as far south as Charleston, SC. I have been to California and Paris and he has been to Appleton, Wisconsin and New Orleans.

Who has the worse temper? I do.

Who does the cooking? I do, for the most part.

Who is more social? He is.

Who is the most stubborn? He is.

Who wakes up earlier? He does.

Who has the bigger family? We have the same size immediate families and both have lots of cousins, aunts, and uncles. If we go back far enough, he and I are fifth cousins, so . . .

Do you get flowers often? Very seldom. I am allergic. He did buy mums for outside the house a while back.

How long did it take to get serious? Not very long.

Who eats the most? He does. Although you couldn't tell that from looking at the two of us.

Who does the laundry? I do, although he will occasionally toss a pair of cow-doody covered coveralls into the washing machine.

Who picks where you go to dinner? We both do.

Who is the first one to admit when they’re wrong? I'm never wrong and neither is he.

Who has the craziest exes? We don't really have exes.

Who wears the pants in the relationship? We both wear pants.

Who cries more? I do.

Who hogs the bed? He does.

Pocono Raceway

You may be wondering why we chose to go to the Poconos if we weren't going to spend our time in one of those heart-shaped bathtubs at a resort.

Here's the reason. Pocono Raceway offered a chance for my husband to knock off a couple of items from his bucket list.

The entrance to the Pocono Raceway.



A rock with Richard Petty's
 name and racecar number.

The raceway offered a number of different affordable driving and/or riding experiences. He also was able to visit the race track, plus we were in the infield of a major race track even if the place was empty aside from us and other drivers or riders.
All of this is very thrilling if you have been a NASCAR fan for your entire life.

Wednesday was the day he was scheduled to take a ride in a stock car  at 165 mph around the 2.5 mile track. He decided not to drive because he determined he would get to go faster if a pro was at the wheel (and he was right - the guys who were driving crept along while he whizzed by them).



This is the infield.

 

These were the cars that would be used.

 


I don't know if these were Sprint cars or ARCA or what.

My husband had to put on a racing suit.



Then he waited.



He had a big smile on his face the whole time.

OK, he's not smiling here, but I love this picture of him.



This is my picture of a picture that the stock car people took.



This is the backside of him; I was taking this picture while the (ah hem) professional photograph was taking his picture.

 

Also my picture of their picture. I couldn't get over the infield railing to take a picture of him in the car from this side.
The driver's name was Steve.

This is my picture of him in the car, taken from the infield.



He's getting ready to go!

There he goes around the track at 165 mph. (And didn't I line that picture up well?)

And he's back, and shaking hands with one of the fellows who worked there.

Sometimes you go do things with the guy you love just because you love him. This is one of those major dreams - he's always wanted to ride in a stock car around a race track. I am glad we were able to go to Pocono so he could have this experience. It made the whole trip worth it.

But there was still something in Pennsylvania for me . . .