I Got Some Catching Up to Do

 

I was shocked to re-read my old posts and realize that I’m a week overdue in talking about my Omaha trip – that is, beyond the ill-fated half-marathon v marathon fiasco.  As much as I love my cousin Susan, and her husband Gary, and their three adult sons, Ricky, Kevin and Travis…..OMG….Tucker.  Tucker is the white cockatoo that seems to have made his way into every picture. Jenny, the blue and orange parrot, is more striking, and also very sweet in her own way, but just does not have Tucker’s killer personality.

When we first met him, Tucker talked loudly and nonstop, showing off every trick in his bag.  It was as if he didn’t know us well, and found the silence awkward, so just kept jabbering to fill the void.  Then, as he got to know us better, he’d talk in this very low intimate voice.  “Hello….Tucker’s a good boy….I love you….”  He’d tuck his head low and let us kiss his head. Lynn and I were both in heaven.  Tucker also happens to live with four smokers, and does a hilarious impression of a regular cough, and then a gut-busting-can’t-get-my-breath kind of cough.  And since he also lives with four big dogs, he’s perfected a canine bark.  He’s potty-trained and spends virtually none of his daytime hours in his cage.  He’s either perched atop it, or finds his way down the cage, down the table, strutting across the floor (imperiously expecting the four dogs, including a German Shepard, a Weimaraner and a Lab)  to part like the Red Sea) and then climbs up the couch and starts harassing anyone sitting there.  My favorite trick of all?  He hates being put in his cage at bedtime, and whenever that happens he starts shrieking “Ricky!” imploring the youngest son, and his favorite household member, to save him.

I mentioned that we spent the first night at Susan and Gary's campsite.  Here is is, on the Missouri River.  It was so beautiful.  We built a roaring fire, and I had the best night's sleep I've had in a long time.



In include the photo on the left for one reason.  It was at about the 11.5 mile mark, and though it's hard to tell from this picture, the person ahead of me was about 1/4 mile ahead of me, and there two other walkers about 100 yards back.  I don't know where everyone else was at that point, but do you see what I mean about the impossibility of me trying to walk the rest of the way pretty much by myself? 

 And here are our hosts, our beloved cousin Susan and her long-distance trucker husband Gary.

Well, so much for Nebraska.  After taking my usual Monday off, Banks and I took our new favorite route again tonight -- a perfect 1.5 hours -- head towards St. Ed's but stay off campus, left on East Side, take that all the way through both Staceys, loop back around, take East Side back to my neighborhood, but instead of heading right and going home, head left on Long Bow and go through the woods, come back out on St. Ed's Drive and home from there.  It's cool enough now that Banks can hang with me the whole time; tonight NOT ONCE did he do the drop and roll on someone's lawn.  A major cold front from Canada is supposed to be coming in on Friday, and we are back in business.