We took a flying trip down to Warner Robins and back today. James' niece Nicki and her fiancè Vincent drove down yesterday from New Jersey to surprise her mother Candy (James' sister, natch). She told everyone on Facebook except Candy and James' mom, and the surprise was successful according to the triumphant followup post. :-)

Anyway, we were up at eight so that Tucker would have a proper airing and I could chat with Snowy, and all of us could have breakfast. We'd planned to leave at 10:30, but after we put the gifts (belated birthday gifts for Mom) and our hats in the car James realized he couldn't find his reader tablet. I knew he had it yesterday at Michael's, but didn't remember if he came out of Lowe's with it. We started for Lowe's and then he remembered that wasn't our last stop; he had it at Publix and that was. Sure enough, some honest person had turned it in. Then we had to feed the car. We didn't get on the road until eleven.

So James had talked to Candy (after Nicki arrived, of course) and got her cell number, as they were planning to go to Fort Valley for peaches this morning. We were supposed to call her as we got on I-475 skirting Macon, but we got voicemail instead. James repeated the action when we got to Watson Boulevard. Voicemail again. He also called the house, but there was no answer.

Well, we had brought a little bouquet of red,white and blue flowers for James' dad's grave, so we just figured they weren't back yet and went to the cemetery. We stood under the tree next to the grave for a while, listening to the gentle jingle of the wind chimes hung from the branches. Then, when we still didn't get an answer, we went back to the Books-a-Million on Watson Boulevard to use the facilities, get a frozen hot chocolate at the Joe Muggs coffee shop, and, of course, check out the books. I found a cross-stitch magazine and bought a copy of David McCullough's The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris for $5.

Since James transferred the phone number into his phone last night at midnight, he had the sneaking suspicion that he might have transposed some digits. Now, he didn't know where his sister Sabra worked, but he knew the company she worked for. So he got his tablet, looked up the company's properties in Warner Robins, and called them one by one. He lucked out on the second one and Sabra herself answered the phone. So we got all the cell phone numbers straightened out. But by that time I'd gotten a Facebook message back from both Nicki and Candy in response to my "We be here. Where be you?" query.

We only had a few hours to socialize, so we chatted and made the most of it. Nicki was helping Mom use her iPad, and Candy cuddled Jenny the fluffy dog. The last time we saw the poor dog, she was mostly hairless from an allergy. Whatever medicine she was put on evidently worked, as she is now thickly furred in white. They were going to go out to dinner, but not until Sabra got out of work and got out of her work clothes; they didn't expect to eat until seven. We didn't want to leave Tucker crated that long, so we left about five, picking up some Firehouse Subs on the way home and listening to an episode of "A Way With Words." We also topped off the car's gas tank as gas is 19 cents a gallon cheaper there than the least expensive station I could find in Atlanta. In fact, if I knew it was so cheap down there, I would have just put six gallons in the car before we left and filled up there!

Tucker's been bouncing off the walls since we got home, of course. We managed to occupy him for a full fifteen minutes by putting a Kong cookie into the other "work the dog's imagination" toy. He didn't get it out; he just got bored. And I don't know what they put in those Greenies' Pill Pockets, but Tucker nearly fell over his feet trying to get to the one we had enclosing the second half of his worm pill. Snowy was evidently bored by Britcoms, but started singing the moment I put the news on. :-)

Labels: birds, dogs, family, pets, travel

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:34:00 PM

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