Category Archives: Special Memories

Well, I am committed . . . to be here – mainly for Glenda (and anyone else who wants to read).

I have had this site for many years and for a number of them I wrote daily, sometimes well, sometimes mundanely, often redundantly and sometimes a waste of my and the reader’s time.

I have made comebacks and each one lasted one or two posts.

Now, I am here to stay because I want so often to email people, especially Glenda with whom I share grandparents and who emails me with lots of news of my father’s family and the surrounding where he grew up. She and I and her sister Susie and our cousin Lana  often would sleep on flannel sheets beneath a portrait of our great-grandfather in his Civil War uniform (Blue). Lana and I once shared a bed and she sat on Roy, but that is a whole different story and if you are really interested, you might find it my typing “Roy” in the search bar.

You see, although I often intend to email Glenda or even start to, I frequently get distracted and don ‘t do so. And I guess we aren’t much for phone yakking. I would have written “talking” but “yak” was a recent answer in a crossword puzzle and it was in the forefront of what is left of my 75 year-old -brain. Of course, now I am stuck with an image of me as a talking yak which will give you a glimpse into my not so mainstream personality.

This way, I can share my thoughts when the urge strikes me –  although some of my darker ones may be only in an actual email, because I don’t need  to publicize other folks personal business and because I don’t want to stir up in this election year any repercussions. (Although I may have an “Eyes Only” post to be very “M” about it.

I will readily admit, however, mainly because I have written it many times, that although I am not a fan of Trump, “AMELIAJAKE CANNOT STAND JOE BIDEN.” I have felt this way since 1988 before there was an internet and I wrote in 2016 when Obama and he left office, “Thank God, AmeliaJake doesn’t have to worry about Joe Biden anymore.”  But, as Dr. Phil would ask, “How did that work out for you.?”

So, what was I going to write to Glenda?  Well, pretty much the basics: arthritic knees, extremely cold weather, more whining about a scumbag robbing my mother’s house, finding a child-size baseball uniform of my dad’s that my grandmother had saved.

And, of course, I would have commented on her grandkids and the three great-grandsons, the oldest of which is a hoot – a brilliant hoot who looks just like his grandpa in my opinion. The other two GGsons are age one and kind of newborn so stories are still to come.

I don’t write much about my family because we do things like dropping a turkey right through the cooking bag  unto the floor. As Julia Child once commented, “Who’s to know?” and we put it in another bag and stuffed it into the oven. People might have suspected something had happened when screams of dismay and shouts of “Never mind, nothing’s going on out here” echoed out the kitchen door.

We are cold here, negative numbers and double negative digits in wind chill. We also have a situation where we parked a car on a soggy grass spot when the temperature was 34 degrees and a wet snow was falling. The car sank into the soil, the temperature plunged and now it is almost imprisoned there. It could be worse.

Taking down Christmas decorations and ornaments is one thing; organizing them for storage is another. I am of the opinion that next year we will have to open boxes to discover what is in there. This year I found a necklace I had been searching for for a year. It was a butterfly I had in a moment of whimsy hung on a branch last year.

I am not making any New Year’s Resolutions because I fear outcome of fiddling with the habits of a lifetime. So I will still be a procrastinator; I will still be making up Rube Goldberg solutions to problems; I will still not keep clutter off the kitchen counters; I will still haunt the aisles of the grocery in the morning for major markdowns on deli items, bakery stuff and meat I can freeze. I will still not  be concerned with house decor trends and I will still rant when someone looks at a perfectly nice house on “Househunters” and declare it “dated” and in need “of some work.” Heck, lose a loved one or be diagnosed with a disease and see how much that “dated” look matters. I imagine some folks might even bargain to get back Harvest Gold appliances and formica in exchange for the opposite situation.  Guess that gives you an idea of my twitchy personality. I should probably reveal these twitches sparingly; the shock could be like watching a horror movie.

So, that’s it for now. But if I’m not here tomorrow that means I am a big fat liar or I am deathly ill or dead.

Cows and Skittles Trump Trump in our news

Yes, we watched the Inauguration of Donald Trump and listened to all the opinions about this and that and his speech, which I will admit, took me somewhat aback. I remembered that I always liked and respected Bob Schieffer a great deal. I rolled my eyes at some of the commentators. I thought I should be doing something, but didn’t persuade myself.

Then I got a text from Der Bingle, who told me to look at The Drudge Report, second item from the bottom of the second column. I clicked on the link and found myself so amazed by the first paragraph, he had to nudge me to read the last one.

The roadkill in Wisconsin got our leaning cow standing straight up; she is not contented to be in Indiana. So . . . we ordered some Gummy Worms and I’ll probably be at the trough as well. Kind of envy the four stomachs when this stuff is involved.

Maybe is British TV series withdrawal . . .

Maybe it is not laziness that is keeping me from going out walking in the humidity; perhaps I am languishing in withdrawal from the British TV I watch when I go to Der Bingle’s West Facing Cave, Ohio Redoubt apartment. I got in the habit of going on Friday and having Cousin Vinny’s pizza and City Barbeque and visiting Good Will and then it got so perfect for grass-growing which leads to more mowing and . . . rats.

Back in time for vacuum crisis

I am the “go to” lady when it comes to the vacuum, and I got the 911 call this morning. It was clogged; that sucked – well, no it didn’t, but it was an excuse for a bad pun. I have discovered the marvelous extra purpose for the leaf blower. Quite frankly, I am thinking of packing up all the little sit-around-pieces-of-memorbilia and just opening the door and turning on the leaf blower. That could be taking it a bit too far, however, and I think I’ll need to work on Modification One. This wasn’t much of a post, but it may turn out to be the spark (or clog) that started some dubious experiments and perhaps embarrassing future posts.

Dumpster filling

For the next to weeks, we will be filling a large dumpster with trash, unnecessary clutter in out house. It is intimidating and challenging; I don’t want to waste one cubic foot with an uneven loading job. We started today. If I turn up missing, I might have a suggestion where someone might look – if they are interested.

Grass in Kendallville

I’ve mowed the grass twice now and it needs it again. Actually, it needs a master gardener, but I’ve put a sign up by my hedge that says DELIBERATE WILDERNESS in that color.  I stuck a shepherd’s hook in close to it and hung a basket of yellow flowers as sort of a peace offering to those who like everything neat, but it probably just aggravates them more.

You see, the hedge is just on the property line and I like it tall. Unfortunately a wire runs right along that same line, so I am trying to get the hedge to spread to the north. It’s working, but the wildflower seeds I threw down in the area are looking like weeds. It is an unruly hedge, not unlike this AmeliaJake.

When I go on walks I see hedges that are neatly trimmed to a certain level. I have noticed, though, that clipping a hedge at a consistent level must often be a challenge because sometimes it comes out wavy. I think if I were to trim a hedge, I’d tie a string across the length, but I would no doubt clip it. But, of course, I am not going to trim a hedge. So it is a moot point, and if I were talking instead of typing it would be a mute point . . . HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA

Back to the grass. No, not tonight.

Well, where is Lassie when you need her?

I’ve stayed away from this blog for a couple of days because we had some treachery happen and I really don’t want to write about it on this public forum. (The Hell I don’t; I want to let my let my razor tongue extend its essence into my fingers. Might be hard on the keyboard, come to think of it.) Anyway, no one is dying,  And I don’t think it’s so bad I need Lassie to pull us out of a well; however, if Lassie could just come and push a certain person of interest down the well, I might call 911 because it is the – oh, how sometimes this gets on my nerves – the SIGH right thing to do.

I feel awful

Yes, I know I am sort of ignoring the power of positive thinking here – big time. No qualifying adjectives, just straight to the complaint. And it’s a declarative sentence, not a drawn-out whine.

I’m not sick. I’m just psychologically and physically pooped and just awake from a short little morning nap. I am minutes away from that groggy wandering back into consciousness that practically requires a compass  – or GPS – to orient yourself to the time of day. I’m going for the “Grandma Shower” therapy – get wet, get soaped, get rinsed and get out.

All right. Now I feel Oh, not so bad. Faced with a developing storm system outside, I ran, RAN, the moment I finished that last sentence in the above paragraph and followed the procedure, adding the step I had forgotten to mention: take off clothes. I have now put clean clothes on, including socks and shoes, actually used anti-perspirant and have my hair combed.

The fact that I am writing such stuff instead of something along the line of getting ready for a power meeting involving millions of dollars or my work on  Nobel Prize winning scientific research is a little telling, but it’s better than the absolute pits. Perhaps not by much, but I’m not going to dwell on that.

I have de-grogged myself, and in the process, believe I may have set a new record for the “Grandma Shower.”

It is threatening to storm outside, but I think it is going to just threaten for a couple of hours and then, finally, maybe, possibly come on to thunder and rain. Fortunately, I mowed the front lawn last night. Yes! That is done . . . for a few days. Summer and I planted some tomatoes and hostas and Shane, who loves to dig holes, dig not help, but managed to get in the way and wound up covered with dirt. Summer and Shane had a little spray fest while watering the plantlings and he had to be rubbed down with a bathrobe before coming back in. She did it and they ended up stretched out on the porch floor in a position that Shane interpreted as hugging and getting attention and Summer saw as mummifying the dog that is forever a puppy.

I should have taken a picture, but there’s one in my memory now and I think I’m lucky to have so many such memories that I don’t need a camera to document them as unusual occurrences in my life.

 

Chow mein and What About Bob?

While Quentin was here, we watched What About Bob? because it is one of our favorite movies when it comes to comedy. In that movie, Dr. Marvin writes a prescription for Bob: “Take a vacation from your problems.” And, of course, we know where that led for Dr. Marvin and Boob, er, Bob.

Today, the day after the Q left, I woke up thinking, Oh, rats, I have to take Cameron to an appointment in Fort Wayne and Alison and Cameron have appointments with someone else in the afternoon, so we’ll be staying a good part of the day there. Oh, at 4pm, he had a dental x-ray. Errand, errand, errand, errand. After the first appointment, we went to the mall – first to the food court and then to Barnes & Noble. At the food court, I had a side of chow mein from Panda Express and a raspberry iced tea from Sbarro’s, the pizza place. The drink came with a straw; the chow mein came with a fortune cookie, which I saved for last.

This is what it advised:

panda express

I decided to let myself feel so crazily carefree that my nutcase began to pinch. (Sometimes I wonder about myself.)