F F F Friday

 I have never been to Memphis

    But I have the feeling I will end up there one day after I leave the house to drive to town for milk.

    I swear.  Literally.

    I had a flat bike tire.  I took the tire in to get a new tube.  Figured I would go to the place in DeKalb, then continue on my way to Cortland for some downspouts.

    It is Cornfest Weekend in DeKalb, which means Il 38 is blocked and you have to navigate around the fest.

    I did that.  Ended up at the bike shop, as planned.  But they were closed today because of Cornfest.

    No problem, I headed to Sycamore to a bike shop I usually visit..  They replaced the tube and I was on my way.

    Cortland is due east of DeKalb on Il. 38.  All I had to do from the DeKalb bikeshop was to go straight.

    So I left the Sycamore bike shop and headed straight east.  On Il. 64.

    I don't know how far I got when I looked out the window and saw a bike trail on my left.  

    Huh....I thought to myself.  The bike trail is along 64.  I AM ON THE WRONG ROAD!!!

    I turned onto what I thought was a road, but was actually a driveway, where I had to wait for traffic to clear before I backed out and went back to Sycamore.

    I went to Cortland and found the gutter place.  The reason I went there was I was posiitve they put the gutters on our house 10 years ago and could match the color for the downspouts.

    I was wrong.  They did not do the gutters on our house and they don't use 2 x 4 gutters anymore.

    But, they had some that were close in color to mine so they sold me those.

    In case you are wondering, my gutters are called willow, or canebreak, I don't remember.

    But for sure they are not tan or almond.

    Anyway, I asked the man if he was a family member of the business;  He said yes.

    I asked if he knew Abby.  

    He said yes.  She was his daughter.

    I told him I was her fifth grade teacher before they moved to Sugar Grove.  He sort of remembered me, and our house on Skare Court where he did do the gutters.  Abby is now 45 with 4 children.  I told him I remembered her great personality, her smile and her face full of freckles.

    We talked about construction and Abby for about 15 minutes.  He asked about Jackie, remembering she was a teacher too.  It was a nice remembrance.  I told him to please say hello to Abby for me.

    Doing the math, she was in my class 35 years ago.  How come I remember her?

    Picked up pizza in DeKalb and when I got home I put the oven on keep warm and put the pizzas in because it was still early.

    Ten minutes later the house was filled with smoke.  I opened the oven and smoke came poring out.  I opened the back door, turned on some fans, then opened the front door.

    Julia came up from work because she smelled smoke.

    When we cook anything in the oven, the smoke detectors always go off.  Always.  Today the kitchen is full of smoke and .....nothing.  Not a beep.  Go figure.

    It was good pizza......even smoked.

Peace and Love

Damn near set the pizza box on fire!

I have no idea why the Starbuck's in DeKalb has had a skeleton at a table for the past year.

Can someone tell me what kind of tree/bush this might be?

I have these for sale...only $20!   You could win up to $1,000!  Tell me how many you want....I can even mail them!