Today I went to four different towns to finish up all my errands. It's a good thing I had this extra week because I don't think I would have crammed all this into last Friday, mostly because it took me all this week to decide what all I needed to do.

1. Berthoud: pick up family photos of my dad's family taken when he was 3 years old (1927) that I loaned to the historic house tour in June. The people put them on their screened porch so I could pick them up.

Bank: put stuff in the safe deposit box. It's a huge box and has some coin collection in it plus insurance policies, deeds, computer backup disks, birth certificates. Our very old birth certificates are there, plus Gary's new 'official' one. I can't imagine where my new official one could be. I know where I kept them in our old house and mine should be with his. I got two copies of each, so maybe mine is with his second copy, wherever that is. I'll be looking in Las Vegas first. We get our bank box free because my great-grandfather founded that bank.

There is one woman left at the bank whom I know. She is the customer service lady, and is crusty fat gal counting the days until she retires. I told her about the Wii and she told me she weighs almost 300 pounds. I think I talked her into getting one because we agreed that working out at home is so much better early on in a person's quest for fitness.

2. Loveland:
Topped off the gas tank in the pickup. $2.40 a gallon. I haven't paid attention to gas prices so don't know if that's good or bad. I always fill it when I go to Loveland in case we need to do a lot of driving when it's not convenient to gas up. Also, it's a lot pricier at our nearby resort town, maybe as much as $.50 or $1.00 a gallon more.

I went to lunch with my accountant and her husband, and then she and I talked a long time about our sisters and all kinds of things. It was nice to get caught up. Her husband retired this summer, so I don't know how long she is going to keep working as an accountant. I hope by the time she does some of our finances will be simpler.

I went to see my friend who has the corgis. She claims I don't need to hire a handyman to check my house this winter because she and her husband would do it for free, but they are going to be gone a lot, including all of February and March. I told it was just easier to get someone who lives near here and will be around all winter. For once she sat and let me talk, and I finally ran out of things to say.

3. Johnstown: I drove past where the farmhouse was. The track hoe is still there, maybe waiting for the mud from the last storm to dry up. The yard looks really good, all cleaned up.

I dropped my bag of trash in the farmer's dumpster. I got his permission ahead of time because I had already stopped my trash pickup a week ago. The accountant said I could put it in her dumpster, but I told he was already expecting it, so I'd better stick with the plan. Of note is that I had asked my friend with the corgis if I could stick it in their trash and she ignored my question. That's a good way to know who is a true friend.

I had the trash bag in the cab of my truck all day because I didn't want it blowing out, so it was kind of stinky. It was already kind of stinky in there because the last time I bought milk it spilled in the truck. I couldn't figure out what that smell was - propane or dead mouse. But it didn't make sense that it would be propane. Finally I remembered the spilled milk, and sure enough there was a little pool of it under the floor mat and the underside of the floor mat was green with mold. So I put straight Odo-Ban on it. It's supposed to be diluted and used on pet stains. Then the truck smelled soapy and not necessarily great, especially mixed with the trash bag smell. There isn't much garbage in our trash because we put all the food scraps outside, but it still had a smell.

Then I went over to the farmer's son's house and wrote checks for this year's crop expenses. Last week he gave me invoices that covered several farms and I had to sort out the expenses for the farms I manage - my cousins' 160 acres and the 80 acres that I own 1/2 with those same cousins (where the house no longer is). This is the first year I've had the invoices, but he's really terrible at math, so this summer I decided not to take his word for it again without seeing the source data.

I stopped at the supermarket and bought food for the next couple of days here and for the road trip to Las Vegas. I have a homemade pie crust here so am going to make a pie to celebrate seeing Mr. Troutbend for the first time since August. I wanted to use up pennies so gave the kid cashier $25.07 for a $24.67 bill, and he had to use pen and paper to figure out my change. I thought it would have printed out on the receipt, and he didn't want to take my word for it.

4. Drake: I stopped at the local post office to mail some letters. The shit-ass (yes, I said it) post master ran out of address forwarding cards so last week told me to put our personal name and one of my company names on one card, but the post office didn't accept the personal one, so he informed me yesterday that he has been returning all my personal mail 'To Sender.' SOB. He knew I had to go to another town to get one of those cards, I can't do it online, and just because it took a while for that information to reach him, he screws me. I filled out three other cards with our Las Vegas address, and he knows what it is, but he's sticking to the letter of the rules (as he sees them) instead of acting like a human being. I'm not going to say it again, but I'm thinking it. What the heck: Shit-ass. Sometime I'll tell you why that is a family joke.

Tomorrow I'll wash the mud off the truck and get ready for Mr. Troutbend to pull into the garage around 4 or 5 p.m, and bake that pie in the morning. Saturday we will finish up the chores around here. He has to look at the septic he dug out in August and see if he wants to install the new lid I bought or leave the old one. I will shovel the dirt into the hole for him so he won't re-injure his bowling arm.



Sunday we will get up at 4 am and drive 850 miles to Las Vegas. Correction: he will drive and I will read/sleep/knit and hand him snacks. It will take about 14 hours, with two stops, one in Utah whether we need it or not because gas is cheaper there than in Nevada. The minimal number of stops makes it important to not drink a lot of liquids. There isn't a lot of talking and no music, it's just grim silence and blurry scenery.

No, I'm not energetic, I put all today's tasks off until the last minute and spent a lot of time beforehand deciding what I needed to get done and preparing for it. I think of it as being efficient.