Dealing with Awkward Social Situations

The weekend here was pleasantly packed with activity, and a good time was had by all. For the second week in a row, we got to watch a hot air balloon rally! We watched the balloons launch early Saturday and Sunday mornings from a hill near the local community college. It was a good time, but the kiddos are a bit worn down from lack of sleep.

Saturday night, there was a decent local band playing at the balloon launch site, and after they finished there was to be a balloon glow (they light the propane burners of the balloons around dusk, producing a pleasant glow.)

The mother of one of my brother's best friends is a balloonist, and we ran into her at the balloon glow. We had a nice visit, but she asked about my sister. It's difficult to explain to people that I haven't spoken to her in over a year, that my parents can't even get hold of her, and that we have no idea how she is or what she's doing for a living. I guess there's never going to be an easy, non-awkward way to tell people this when they ask, but I'm considering making up stories.

- She was abducted by aliens in the late nineties and we haven't heard from her since.
- Sister? What sister? (would work best if followed by a Peter Lorre laugh: "Ah-HEH! Ah-HEH!")
- She became a born-again Christian and has run off with a preacher named Roy.
- She had herself cryogenically frozen until the world is free from both Spam luncheon meat and the letter Q.
- *cluck tongue, shake head* She just hasn't been the same since that gopher attack.
- She fell through a wormhole that appeared in her pantry and is now hurtling toward the planet Zweeenbloy.
- She took her Harry Potter obsession just a bit too far - she just up and apparated.


I dunno.

Too Many Doin's A-Transpirin'

I took Tuesday off to watch C run a 5k roadrace. They have a race just prior to the annual fair and rodeo parade here (hey, it's bigtime excitement.) She ran extraordinarily well - a 33:22 for 3.1 miles. That's less than 10:30 mile pace, which is pretty well flying for a 7 year old kid. I'm awfully proud of her. It's neat enough that she's doing this kind of stuff, but she genuinely enjoys it.
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That afternoon, I went to retrieve something from the back of my pickup and saw our neighbor to the south going out to get his mail. I gave him the standard guy-greeting nod and he returned the same. I thought at the time that he was looking pretty rough - hey, it happens.

Last night, we looked out the window and saw 2 police cars and at least 7 other vehicles parked right in front of their house. More cars were pulling in all the time, some practically parking in our yard. Okay, that's a little strange. We went out to the garage to snoop, and there were a LOT of people standing in their driveway. hiccup snuck across the street to visit with some other neighbors and pump them for info.

Turns out, the neighbor guy had been having a REALLY rough time. I had felt for some time that he was really outspending his income. Then, there was the strange "wife moves out one day, girlfriend moves in the next day" weekend. He had a couple of his vehicles repossessed last month, and lost his partnership in the business he started 2 years ago.

He committed suicide at his shop sometime late Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning. I don't know much more than that, but things are really complicated.

We didn't really know him all that well. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but he had no money sense whatsoever and definitely had an affinity for weird relationship situations. He had a 7 or 8 year old son.

It's been a weird month, and Friday the 13th approaches. Be afraid.

Miscellaneous

Conversation from Saturday afternoon:

me: Did Weightlifterguy get rid of his hot tub?
hiccup: Yeah, I saw the guys from the spa store loading it on a truck yesterday.
me: *looks out window* Holy crap - he's moving or something!
hiccup: Maybe he's just getting rid of some junk.
me: No, he just drove by with his barbecue grill in the back of the truck!
hiccup: Oh, yeah - that's serious!


We're still not sure what's going on next door, but things have been conspicuously quiet over there for the last week. We've seen Weightlifterguy taking his snowmobile trailer back and forth, and he's only got one vehicle sitting in the street (a significant reduction from the 6 (!) he's had parked there in the past). The barbecue grill being gone is a big flag, though. This dude named his dogs Sirloin and Porterhouse.

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We've started the fall preparation early this year. We managed to get a BLM firewood permit for one of the wilderness areas about 25 miles from here. This is the first year we've been able to score one of these permits. We went up to get a truckload yesterday, and had some major technical difficulties with my chainsaw. We have to have our 2 cords cut and loaded by the 18th, so I'll be back at it later this week.
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We had a fairly good thunderstorm yesterday afternoon. We got about .6" of rain in about an hour, and the new roof didn't leak. So - YAY US!