Today

November 11 is Veteran’s Day; it’s the day WWI ended. Tomorrow, the twelfth, is my father’s birthday. His middle name is Pershing, after General John J. (Blackjack) Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces. I don’t know if he would have been given that middle name if he had been born a little earlier or later; actually, I’ve never thought about it. Frankly, I think it is a better middle name than the one his father had – Oscar. Then again, Byron Oscar had a brother named Guey – pronounced gooey. I thought that was funny when I was little, and I still chuckle at it, to tell the truth. I think it was Guey who died (drowned) in the Wabash River way back when; I know it was Roy who was sat on.

So . . .

Yesterday I was alone with my thoughts in the early morning and, then, later in the evening. Both times I stared at the New Post page at blog administration and found my fingers still. The election’s over and it is very hard not to feel that, overall, “It’s over.”

And, just by clicking to a new paragraph, I am not going to be able to dismiss that feeling of mourning. However, there is nothing to be served by being a broken record . . . uh, a glitched-up mp3 player in today’s terms.

We have been moving furniture around here at the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse – not a lot, but giving the place a warmer, cozier atmosphere as the cold weather sets in. Ironically, it’s going to be 70 degrees and close to it tomorrow, but, hey, I’m pretty certain the overall trend is leaning toward “freeze your nose (or other body part) off.”

We have welcomed the days when the back vestibule can serve as a soda pop and bottled water cooler. Some of us, however, (that granddaughter) welcome the cool beverages but are wont to ask someone else to actually go out into the vestibule. Almost makes one want to shake up her Mountain Dew . . .

Voting – before and after

This is the pre-voting part; it’s sensible to do it this way. After all the is the chronological order of the day. I don’t know what atmosphere I’ll find at the polling place; the last election for President, it was terse. People gave civil looks to each other, but that was about it. I anticipate today will be even more strained.

I’ll head over in the lull of mid-morning.

The AFTER part: They were carefully checking ID’s; I hope they are doing that everywhere. People didn’t say anything to each other. Oh, the poll  workers had McDonald’s brought in.

Guess who’s still on Fast Time

I awoke at 5am, or as it would have been a few days ago, SIX. Because those of us here at the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse have been opposed to Daylight Savings Time in Indiana, this is a bit . . . well, sort of treasonous to the cause.

However, I am the only one awake; no one knows I am up. Could this be like the tree falling in the forest thing? Perhaps I just need to turn off the light and fake it for another hour or so.

It’s probably because it’s Election Day. Tomorrow morning I may just feel like pulling the covers over my head, but I dearly hope not.

Thinking about not knowing

Yesterday I shut my computer down around 9:30 in the morning to prepare for a last minute trip to Fort Wayne to take my daughter-in-law to a doctor. I suppose we got back about 3 pm and I puttered around and then went off to the nursing home. When I got home, I turned the computer back on and not very carefully looked at my email. I didn’t see the message my cousin Glenda had sent at 10 am that her sister (the cousin I had just seen last week – the one who had bought me lunch at the Blue Gate Restaurant in Shipshewana) had suffered a recurrence of a medical condition.

I didn’t see that message until this morning. So all day yesterday this was going on and I was totally unaware. I had even thought about Susie last night – but never in the terms of illness. I was thinking of the upcoming play Glenda is directing at the college where she teaches.

Then, BAM, this morning I am no longer in the dark. Yet all that time – almost all of yesterday – the news was in my mailbox. It existed – this potential for knowing what was going on – but I was oblivious. It seems odd to me, maybe a little eerie . . . unsettling.