I jumped out of bed as soon as the wife left the house, washing, shaving and dressing in less than five minutes.

And then I waited. The masked heeler at my feet, 'cause she knew something was up.

A few minutes before eight o'clock the phone made its expected jingle. "I may need a ride to work," she had said as she got out of bed this morning. The Explorer is finally going in for the body repairs left from her godson's afternoon, and sometimes the body shop will give you a ride where you need to go when you drop off your vehicle, sometimes they won't.

The call isn't her. A warden, wanting to fly elk, wanting to know if we have enough money.

Yep, but I can't talk now, gotta keep the phone free. But I do ask, why fly the desert now? We've had no snow for a week or more, and the chinook winds have settled a lot that we did have. The masked heeler is having trouble finding snow to bite when she makes her mad dashes out the door. Although, I did hear the desert is socked in deeper than the Divide.

Yeah, he thinks there's enough snow for a good count. And we gotta make preliminary recommendations on this fall's hunter quotas in just a week or so, so yeah, an idea of how many elk we've got might be nice.

I try not to think about how the area he's planning on flying for elk happens to be the exact same area where the two miscreant wolves have been hanging about. (A company man at the auction on Saturday mentioned a well tender spotted the two wolves resting peacefully next to a gas well, where they stayed as he did his business. Mentioned that to another oil & gas man today at lunch, and he moaned. "Now you're gonna blame us for the wolves, too, huh?")

So, after reminding the warden to contact Homeland Security (Really!) about his flight, I rudely hung up on him.

Less than 20 seconds later, the phone rings again. Wife. Needs a ride to work.

Delayed because I had to scrape the frost off all the Dodge windows. And then had to scrape them again just a block down the road. Don't recall ever having to do that before. Assume our humidity and air temperature must have been just above condensation point, and the glass was just a degree or two cooler.

But wife understood the delay. Same happened to her. Her boss and co-worker, however, were less understanding, teasing me for having trouble cleaning a windshield when I picked the wife up for lunch.

Yeah, I had lunch with the wife, a rarity. Not all to myself, however. The monthly luncheon meeting of one of the community groups she is involved in, so she needed a ride again. But we had a table to ourselves, and two drives across town, so the time together was nice.

Picked her up after work, too. Using youngest son's feisty little red car instead of the old, clunky Dodge. And went... grocery shopping. Together.

Another good, pleasant time.

Really.

But not as nice as the tippin' in the evening.

And in less than nine hours, a half-dozen roses will arrive at her office.

Because I will be gone all day tomorrow, and maybe Wednesday, too.