Win Some, Lose Some

Poker games here are few and far between, but that doesn't dull the competitive spirit.  Running ahead of time or behind, the first thing I do when sitting down to milk is check the shadow on the door.  The game is to see if I can get all five girls on and off the stand before the shadow slides down and hits the floor.  There are no prizes, but that doesn't stop a little happy dance when I win.  Sometimes I award points for length of procrastination.  Just how long can I go without dusting?  Ah, one whole week!  Two points.  Whatever it might be, I am an honest competitor and no cheating is allowed.  Every morning, after checking Facebook and writing the blog, I play three games of solitaire on the computer.  First is plain Solitaire, then Spider Solitaire, and lastly Free Cell.  The point is that I cannot move on to the next game until the current one is won.  Like an omen, I know it's going to be a good day if I win on the first hand.  Some days it takes quite awhile before I can shut the computer down.  Sigh.

I'd like to say it was a burst of ambition fueled by success with the leaf blower, but the truth is that I jumped into a house-cleaning race (uninvited and unbeknownst to them) with Cam and Linda.  Linda has been working like a dog to get her house in Seattle ready to sell (it did!).  Cam has been working fingers to the bone to get a house ready for Linda to rent.  Linda will be settling here in the foothills within the week and needs a place to stay while looking for a permanent home.  My job so far has been to act as the cheering squad for both of these worker bees.  That alone wore me out.  I got points for procrastination, but finally took up the gauntlet yesterday.  Camille had said that one of her tasks was to wash windows and screens.  I told her about a great product, Windex Outdoor, that would cut that time to nothing with no effort involved.  The windows on my round room are about fifteen feet from the ground and years ago I was wondering how in the world I was going to clean them without endangering life and limb.  My sister told me about Windex Outdoor and I've used it ever since.  (This is not a commercial.)  The spray bottle fits on the water hose and has a switch for cleaning and rinsing and it works like a charm.  No streaks, no need to remove the screens.  Cam called the next day to thank me for the info; it had worked exactly as I'd said and saved her hours of hard work.  Okay, I couldn't stand it any longer.  Pulling out my own supply, I leaped into action yesterday and washed thirteen windows and glass-pane doors before the half-bottle of solution I had ran out.  That's got to be worth some points right there.  An added benefit is that the spray thingy, when on rinse, worked like a mini-power washer to clean the siding.  Who knew a house gets dusty on the outside, too?  I got a bonus star because I'd really meant to go to town yesterday, and cleaning windows was a ploy to put that off another day.

One race no one wants to be in is bigger or worse wildfires.  Temps were close to 100 yesterday and grass and underbrush crackle like tinder.  Going out last evening, an appalling cloud of smoke from the south made my heart sink.  My first thought was fear for my friend Tinka in Fiddletown.  A local FB page is a font of information and as soon as the kids were tucked in, I checked it out.  This pall of smoke is from a fire probably thirty miles away down near Jackson.  While still rural, it is in a more densely populated area and residents and firefighters are surely in my thoughts.  I hope they win this fight soon.