Big Yellow Taxi

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot

Do you remember Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi? I was in 7th grade when it hit the charts back in 1970. In 1970, I could find my earrings. That’s proving to be a challenge in 2012.

It’s relatively quiet here on the ranch.  We’re about half way through the drilling process. It’s mostly me and the mud trucks and the tankers and the coyotes and a skunk and a few delivery and service calls from 12 – 5 a.m.

It’s the calm before the storm. Next week, work swings into high gear on a production facility in one direction and another pad is being readied for a second drilling rig in another.

I’ve had Big Yellow Taxi in my head for days. I’m a long way from a taxi, but now I think I know what set my subconscious singing:

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone

I did know what I had, but it’s gone. For some reason (this is a relatively recent quirk), I’ve taken to putting one earring in as I get ready for my day/night and carrying the other one around (often between my lips) while I start doing something else.

I have no idea why. It’s not like I’m running late for work or my hands are busy pulling up nylons. Tonight I found the renegade earring by the baby carrots.

And then there was the night, not long ago, that my knitting needles got hung up on a pearl stitch. Yep.

And, wouldn’t you think that if you live in a small space, it would be nearly impossible to lose things? This should be particularly true since Heidi and I are both borderline OC when it comes to neatness.

However, I have to confess, there’s rarely a day (well, night in my case) that I don’t temporarily misplace something. I blame it on the gate, but that’s weak. I might lose a thought when the bell starts ringing, but my camera (twice tonight already)?

And then there’s the issue of the pen. We have dozens, but they disappear like socks, so Heidi devised a Velcro strip to stick in on the board. When one pen wears out, we just stick on another one.

And I’m forever losing my phone – inside. I turn the volume off when I go to bed since I use it as a clock. I almost never remember to turn it on when I get up, so it’s no good having Heidi call it so I can find it.

After losing my Kindle for an entire month (it was in the magazine rack, opposite the phone in the chair cushion in the above photo), I’ve been relegated to bright colors.

I now have Heidi’s Kindle cover which is bright orange (mine was a nice book brown). I have a bright blue phone, a bright red mouse and a coffee cup with a red hand print, a yellow footprint (very impressive Dan and Elissa) and green letters that say We Love You Grandma. They must have seen this coming before I did! 😀

I fully expect to wake up some afternoon to find my bright orange gate guard vest covered in Velcro with all of my gadgets hanging on it.

In my defense, I never lose my keys. We have a hook for the keys. I would like to think if I would just come up with a designated hook for everything, I’d quit losing things.

But then there is a designated hook (hole) for my earrings, so maybe not…

I’m including Big Yellow Taxi, not as a political statement, but because it’s stuck in my head and I love to share. 😉

(I have no idea what the foreign language words say. Hopefully nothing about New York taxis.)