We had a little weather this weekend. Weather being rural code for shit happens. Hard freeze? Some part of my 12 year old Toyota will break, if not break off. Heavy rain? The phone line to the house will die. Guaranteed. And sometimes it takes days to get it back. Days until I can get the tech from AT&T to come out and test the line and tell me that is is indeed their problem and they’ll get around to fixing it…soon.

And then there’s snow. Make it heavy, throw in some wind and say goodbye to power for a day or two. Or seven.

It’s all just part of living in the country.

Yesterday Mr. Spouse and I went lumber fetching in the truck-that-shall-not-be-named, formerly known as Big Girl Truck, soon to be known as For Sale. A 22 year old gas guzzling full size Chevy pickup with more scratches and dings than an aging tom cat. Great for hauling stuff around, like my weekly adventures with hay. But not my steady vehicle, even though sitting behind the wheel, feeling all that power VA-ROOM VA-ROOM, is so damn seductive in a cowboy sort of way.

But every time we go somewhere I wonder if we’re coming home together. Or if this is the day he’ll flake out and leave me stranded. Cause he’s a bad boy…and I know it. Clarification: I’m talking about the truck here, not Mr. Spouse.

Let’s just say el trucko misbehaved at the lumberyard. Badly. I will spare you the gory details of lumberyard boys who are not mechanics, of Mr. Spouse who is not a mechanic but who valiantly repeated over and over under his breath a mantra about not getting angry…for which I was most relieved. I will even spare you the details of waiting for AAA. Of the cramped ride in the tow. Of abandoning POS truck at the garage that was closed.

I will spare the details because it was a cold and damp and cranky sort of day. But I took photos, played with the new Grungetastic app on my iPhone.

Grunge makes him look like the bad boy he is. And this truck is definitely a he. For many reasons.

Mostly because a she truck would be a lot prettier. And she wouldn’t be held together with duct tape. And she’d be more responsible about getting me home.

So we got home and I decided I would blog about my adventures in lumber land. Especially since it ate into my studio time and I had no new art to show. No progress on old art either. But there was one problem with that idea….

We had NO internet connection. We had power but the phone was acting up. And we had NO INTERNET!!! So I couldn’t even blog. We watched TV. Even talked to each other…. Imagine that!

And when the news came on we learned that an accident on a rain slicked highway took out phone, internet and cell access for the ENTIRE county. Including 911. Nothing to do but go to bed and stay healthy….

Everything was fixed by the time we got up.

And if I missed a blog post, well that, my dearies, is the high tech version of ‘the dog ate my homework’.