One scarecrow... one flat tire.

First, the happy part.... friend C came by this morning for a minute to say hello (or so I thought) and minutes after she got into the house, she looked out the back door and said "Who's that in the courtyard over there?"  I wasn't expecting anyone, so I didn't know who on earth was outside.... and when I looked....... there was a painted scarecrow standing there.  I'm familiar with C's artwork now, so I knew she had made the scarecrow and brought it over as a surprise.  C had the scarecrow secured in a tin can with some sort of weight inside the can.... and it was so cute that I couldn't bear to put it out in the garden to be blasted by the sun, so it's sitting up on my porch near the back door. (The scarecrow is actually a she, not a he, and certainly not an 'it.')

C is a very creative artist, one whose sense of whimsy is just beyond anything I could imagine doing myself.  This isn't the first time she's surprised me with a piece of her artwork, but being that Halloween is just around the corner, this adorable scarecrow made me laugh out loud. It's so cute that calling it a 'scarecrow' is an injustice to the prettiness of it.  The head is made of a dried gourd, which C has long used for a lot of her art... the arms are made of jointed wood so they can be moved in different positions, the hands have polished fingernails... she's wearing a black wig, her expression is smiling and welcoming... and before C went home, she told me to "Dress her up and bling her out!" and that's what I did before this afternoon's tea party.

My scarecrow lady (who really does need a name) is now wearing a black witch's hat, a gold and orange beaded bracelet, a gold Mardi-Gras necklace, and she's holding a small black cat (stuffed toy) in one hand. I will look for plastic rings in the thrift store to complete her blinged-out jewelry wardrobe.  

I'm also thinking that the scarecrow lady could be kept out there and dressed up for different holidays and seasons... once Halloween is over, I can dress her up for Christmas. The possibilities are endless. That surprise was the best one I had all day.  The other 'surprise' --- not such a good one.

On my way home from town this morning, as I got nearly up to the bottom of our hill, I felt my car wobbling a bit and just not driving the way it always does. When you drive one car and get used to how it rides and feels, you just know when something is wrong. 

Being that I was so close to home, I just kept driving up the hill and pulled into our driveway and then into the garage. When I got out of the car, I walked around it... and there it was... the back passenger-side tire, flat as the proverbial pancake. And looking at it closely... there was either a nail or a screw embedded in that blasted tire.  Give me a blessed break.

No one needs a flat tire, but at least my car was on our property, in our garage, and not out on the road or in the parking lot of one of the shopping centers. Oh well. What to do... and of course my husband was in his office at work, not in his office right here at home. Oh well... it always happens that way.

I decided to call our latest handyman. (And now I do indeed use that term loosely.)  My thought was that handyman R could come out here today, take off the flat tire, put on the spare, and I could drive to the repair shop and either have the tire repaired or just buy a new one.   So  I called R.... told him about the tire... told him that I would pay for his time to come out here... and he said "No problem. I can be there within an hour and a half."

Silly me. I believed the man. Shoot me now.

My husband happened to call from his office to ask me how the day was going... I told him about the tire... told him I had called R... told him that R said he'd be here...

My husband said "And you believed him?"

Silly me. Shoot me now.

Husband suggested that I call neighbor J up the road.... and I did... and he was here within 5 minutes and fixed the tire within 20 minutes. Done. Truly, no problem.

When the spare tire was on my car and  J went back home up the road, I got my phone and sent a text message to handyman R which said  "The tire is fixed. Thanks anyway."

The response from R:  "Oh. Sorry."  (Probable translation:  "Oh. I forgot.")

I am done. Done. With. That. Handyman. Finished. Period. End of story. 

Handymen come, handymen go.  My husband and I had such great hopes for this one. Silly me. Shoot me now.