It Was A Beautiful Warm & Sunny Afternoon For October

......and having a load of trash piling up, I decided it was time for another trip to the county recycling center. Either I'm shopping too much, or pixies are coming into my house when I'm asleep, and leaving empty cardboard boxes. Anyway, I loaded up the pickup with broken down cardboard boxes, and bagged trash, and headed out of the subdivision. Our mailboxes are the big black rural type, you can stuff fairly large packages into. You know, those big black mailboxes with the rounded tops, and a red flag on the side, to raise and let the mail carrier know there is outgoing mail to be picked up. They are all mounted on a rail at the subdivision's entrance, so on the way out, I stopped to see what might be inside of mine. I opened the door..........hmmm.......not much today.......an Appleseed's catalog, an appeal from an insurance company to drop the company I'm with, and give my money to them instead, and a curious little yellow envelope. I don't know if you remember or not, but a few blogs back, I mentioned that a wonderful woman who also blogs here, was doing something very sweet for me, and that in a week or so, I might just show you. Well, turns out that the little yellow envelope, was from her, and it contained a pretty little bracelet she made for me! You can see it on my wrist, in the picture below.
The fall colors are reaching their peak around here, so I took my camera with me and took a bunch of pictures of the countryside, on the way to the recycling center. Unfortunately, when I got home, I got a low battery indication, so I plugged the camera into the charger, but when the charge was over, the memory had been wiped out, and all of those pictures were lost. Drat!

Normally when I go to the recycling center between 4 and 5 PM on a weekday, hardly anyone is there, and the attendants are either in their shed, or sitting out in front of it, having a smoke. Today there was more activity. When I pulled up to the recycling dumpsters, there was another woman there, unloading her pickup (seems like almost everyone drives pickups out here in the county). She looked at me for a second as I pulled up behind her, but showed no alarm at all, and just as quickly went back about her business. There were two pickup trucks backed up to the bagged trash dumpster, and one of the attendants was heading up there from the his shed. As I got out and began to unload my cardboard, the other attendant started walking up to the bagged trash dumpster as well. It took several trips back and forth from my truck to the recycling dumpsters, to unload my cardboard and newspapers, and by then the two pickups had departed the ramp at the bagged trash dumpster, but the two attendants remained there. One inspecting the contents of the dumpster, then engaging the hydraulic compacting ram, and the other one sweeping the ramp above the dumpster.

I was dressed exactly as you see me in the picture above, with the addition of a pair of denim capris and a pair of black patent loafers. Because one of the attendants was still sweeping the ramp, I couldn't back my truck up to the dock, so I parallel parked at the bottom of the ramp, and got out. I had four bags of trash to deposit in the dumpster, so it required two trips up and down the ramp, passed the two men. I was no more than six feet away from the guy sweeping and no more than ten feet from the guy inspecting the contents of the dumpster. They paid absolutely no attention to me whatsover! I didn't know whether to feel relieved, or insulted, but as I turned to go back to my truck, a black pickup with two rednecks in it, pulled up behind my truck. The passenger had his window rolled down, and he definitely gawked at me. I don't think he necessarily made me as a male. I think he was just surprised to see a six foot two inch, 200+ lb woman walking towards him. We made eye contact for a brief second or two, then I just did what any respectable woman would do in that situation. I totally ignored him, and walked back to my truck. The more I do this, the less I care what people think.

Melissa XX