Adventure of the day

We just finished a dinner of nothing but mushrooms.  I had good intentions of making a square meal and having mushrooms as a side, but we got side-tracked by a trip to a granddaughter's house.  Since I'm doing everything I can to keep my stomach agreeable, I don't drink coffee now, but Cliff does.  We've bought coffee beans at Costco for years, and now we can't stand pre-ground coffee.  It's still possible, I'm sure, to buy coffee beans at the big grocery stores and Walmart, but we aren't going there while this virus is around.  Family members will shop for us, but how do you know what kind of coffee to tell others to buy for you, when you don't even know the choices?  I attempted to order our coffee on Costco online, but like most everything else, it wasn't available.  Searching on Amazon a while back, I found some Columbian coffee beans and ordered them.  For the amount that was in the bag it was more costly than our Costco brand, but not outrageously so.  Both of us liked it.  When we'd used about 2/3 of that coffee,  I re-ordered it and was notified it would be at least two weeks before we'd get it, but they did let me order it.  I finally got notice a couple of days ago it has been sent, and will arrive Monday.  I crossed my fingers in hopes our almost empty bag of beans would last till then, but it didn't.  

I remembered a conversation I had with granddaughter Monica a few weeks ago, when she told me they had gotten a Costco card and then showed me the coffee beans they bought there, the same ones we buy.  So this morning I instant messaged her and asked if we could have a cup of her coffee beans to get Cliff by till ours came; of course she said we could.  I made some snickerdoodles, we bagged half a dozen of them for Monica and Gerald, and off we went.  

I asked Cliff if he was OK with Gabe riding along:  Like all dogs, he always wants to go.  But we never take him if we'd be leaving him alone in the car.  Cliff said Gabe could go, and away we went, fifteen miles to Oak Grove.  Now, Oak Grove is not a large city.  It's big enough to have a small Super Walmart and several fast-food places, but it still has a small-town feel.  We lived south of Oak Grove for seven years, although it wasn't nearly as big then; but I thought we were fairly familiar with the town.  

We had only been to visit Monica and Gerald once, when they first brought their baby home from the hospital, but neither of us were quite sure how to get there again; so I had asked Monica for the address to put in the GPS.  Wouldn't you know, that particular address was one of those peculiar ones that the GPS got wrong  That usually only happens in the country; our trailer house, in fact, has an address that the GPS thinks is west of here in somebody else's pasture.  If we have to direct anyone here, we use the grandson's address at the old house.

So there we were, two geezers and a shaggy Schnauzer, driving around first one city block and then another after the GPS told us we had already arrived.  Cliff does not take this sort of fiasco lightly, so I called Monica before things got too serious.  She talked us the rest of the way to their house, and we got out of the car, leaving Gabe in there alone... but we weren't going in the house, just chatting with them outside.  We traded six cookies for a cup of coffee beans, and Monica brought the baby out so we could see her in the flesh again; this brightened up our day, even though we couldn't hold her.  I think Cliff forgot all about getting lost.  BUT...

As Cliff was getting in the car, he forgot Gabe was with us and stood talking to the kids with his car door open.  Gabe bolted, and Monica's dog Suzy came running out to kill him.  OK, she wouldn't have killed him, but she doesn't cozy up to other dogs easily and she seemed to think he was a threat.  Gabe wasn't a bit worried about Suzy, because for the first time in his life he was a long way from home in a brand new environment with no restraints:  He had to explore!

He went trotting briskly through the parking area where they live, stricken with a case of sudden deafness.  I tried calling nicely, then began threatening him loudly as I hurried limping after him the best I could, with Cliff in the background letting anybody within a city block what he'd like to do to my dog.  Gabe would stop to mark a spot in that uncharted territory,  I'd draw nearer, and he'd head off again.  He really wasn't running from me, he was just excited to see and smell all the new things, and never gave me so much as a glance over his shoulder.  And he trots faster than I can run.  Finally he stopped to mark a particularly intriguing clump of grass and I pounced, grabbed his collar, and ended his adventure.

 He is now demoted, and won't get to ride with us anywhere unless one or the other of us will be staying in the car at all times.  He does seem to understand that Cliff is mad at him, because he's sticking right by my side, which he hadn't been doing so much lately.

That's all the excitement I want for one day, and as Cliff naps beside me on the couch and with Gabe asleep against my leg, I realize it doesn't take much to wear these three musketeers out; I'm ready for a nap myself.