No morning banter today

They both cut out of here early today. Bill was headed off to Post Falls for the second day of computer training dealing with GIS systems---that's maps. Willie had to leave early because of his regular Thursday "new teacher" orientation with Dr. Penny Tenudo aka Barfuss.

Willie has a full day ahead. He'll teach until 1, then leave for the airport, fly to Boise and have another two-hour class this evening. He's part of the PTE program. That's tech and vocational, much of which is supported by Federal funds.

So, tonight's session in Boise is for new teachers in the PTE program. He'll sit through classes there all day tomorrow too.

So, both the guys in this house are learning things for the next two days. In the meantime, Annie's flying out of Seattle tomorrow, bound for a geocaching event in Salt Lake City. It lasts the weekend and includes a hike. She's looking forward to it because the area around Salt Lake is so beautiful.

As for me, I guess I'll be learning too when I take Lefty to the clinic at my sisters' indoor arena this weekend. With luck and good teaching from Monte, maybe Lefty will be either a full-fledged or a fledgling cart horse by the end of the weekend.

Speaking of Monte and banter. Monte's one of my favorite "banter" people, next to my husband and son. Actually, I've got a lot of "banter" friends, some with whom I commiserate more often than others. I'll get to that after getting to Monte's most recent urge to call me.

Last night when he called, I thought he was going to pose an argument for all the good reasons why we shouldn't work with Lefty this weekend. Monte has made it very clear to me that teaching horses to pull carts is NOT one of his favorite disciplines. I think it has to do with some past disasters.

Our track record is good, though, cuz after a mere two hours of work with my beloved Casey, the whole family got to go for a cart ride. And, since Lefty is even sweeter than Casey, I think Monte may feel good when he finishes up with the two of us this weekend.

No, Monte did not say a word about Lefty. Instead, he had a "usage" question. He called it "grammar," but I'll call it usage. Monte's a stickler for detail, so I know he'll appreciate his old English teacher getting a bit more precise.

Here's the usage question. If Monte knows that there are more Collisons in Spokane, does he use the apostrophe on the name followed by an s, or does he not?

I told him probably not, but then I did the old English teacher cop-out of noting that various style guides may vary. I also told him I'd ask my superior among "grammar cops." She knows who she is, so I'll see how many answers I get.

Then, I'll tell Monte, and we'll banter.

This morning I suffered a void in the banter department. With both guys from this house leaving early, they didn't get a chance to read their allotted sections of the newspapers.

I call them "allotted" because as a ravenous newspaper addict, I'm still like Lily when she gets her grain. Lily hovers over her grain bucket, dancing around and offering to kick the stuffing out of any critter that dares to come close.

I'm a lot like that with my morning newspapers, so I allot the guys their sections after skimming through to see that nobody sees important news before I do. Once Willie gets his Spokesman sports section and Bill gets the already read Daily Bee, the banter usually begins.

We have opinions on things we read in the newspaper, and we discuss them while reading further stories. Bill often likes to read parts of stories I've already read back to me, even though he knows I've already devoured them much like Lily with her grain.

I'm pretty kind to him because I know some good one-liners (not often appropriate for public consumption) are gonna come out of our interchange.

So, I'm feeling a bit empty this morning with the guys gone and no banter for later Thursday chuckles. Maybe I'll call up one of my other banter friends, Helen. As a City Council person for Sandpoint, she surely has something to throw in the chuckle pot!

In the meantime, all you grammar cops out there, tell Monte whether or not he needs an apostrophe when he goes looking for all those potential relatives.