Category Archives: The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse

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.

My Grandmother’s Bible

A lot of people scoff at religion these days, and then a lot of people worship anger as well. I was a very little girl in the early 50’s and the first song I learned to sing (horribly off-key) was “Jesus Loves Me.” My grandmother was a very intelligent woman who went to college in 1900; she believed in God and went to church every Sunday. She taught Sunday School until she had a stroke.

And, in 1953, when a burgundy edition of the Bible was made available to her, she ordered two and gave one to me and left a handwritten inscription on the flyleaf. (Her  “p’s” all had an upward stroke because that’s how they were taught when she was little.)

When she died, my aunt started using her Bible and when my aunt died and then my mother died, I found myself in possession of it. My aunt had a habit of noting certain thoughts in her Bible. One of then was this quote: “It is not the burdens you carry; it is how you carry them.”

It is early in September

I think I am ready to admit I need to be here, at home. Here, where things are rustic and doors are solid wood and the key for the front door is an old-fashioned thing, the doorknob black and taking a little extra push to secure the latch. To go upstairs and sort through all the old things, the ancient postcards, the stuff stored away. I look at the photos I took of the rooms so I could plan what I would keep and what I would not. It seemed a good organizational idea then. Now it seems more a daunting task. But there is a peace in the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse – and a piece of me.

So . . . what is going on here?

Well, I believe since I started playing Words with Friends on two sites – one of which is linked to Facebook – some people have happened on a Facebook site I created when I was just fooling around. It may be that anything written on this long neglected Leaning  Cow homestead at the the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse is transferred to that page. Or not. I will find out when I go over to it and check.

I truly miss the PBJ & Cafe and its denizens and ambiance and I think I need to go back there. Why not? I am old and I might as well say what I want. Of course, when I mentioned that to someone who has known me for decades, he asked, “And how would that be any different from how you have always been?” Good point, that. So, just to be clear: AmeliaJake cannot stand Joe Biden.

A benefit

There is a nice side to blogs being passe and ones like this not read. I need to write I want to cry. I’m sad. I’m sad about my family. I’m sad about myself and the decisions I made and the fears I had. And I’m sad because I think if I had another chance, I’d mess it up just as much.

Did I mention I have a mini chainsaw?

We have a lot of bushes – big, overgrown bushes, and the pruning saw was becoming not as fun as it was when the branches were thin. But now I have a mini chainsaw with TWO batteries and I can cut through four inch branches easily. (Oh, please don’t that sentence be a jinx,) You do have to be careful to not chainsaw yourself, but also not to become so enthralled with the easy cutting that you wind up with stumps.

I almost feel like posting a sign: Have mini-chainsaw. Will travel.

Depilling – an excuse for sitting and watching documentaries

I have several sweaters that I ordered from Ireland; my husband has a like number.  I would buy them off-season when I could get 25-40% off. They were still more costly than a cotton blend sweater on sale from a department store, but the warmth can’t be beat.

They are made from high quality wool which pills; little downy hairs reach up and pill in many spots and in others, those fiber hairs just float on the surface like a fog.  The sweater color looks a couple of shades lighter. And there is nothing for it but to buy a depiller, which is basically a delicate shaver, and slowly and repeatedly go over the surface of the sweater. It’s not like taking a paper towel and wiping up a spill; no, it is more like picking up grains of salt by hand.

It takes time but the effect is gratifying, but it could be tedious. That is why I sitting here watching the history of the Greeks in Alexandria and using a “wax on, wax off” motion on the fuzzy thing on my lap.

Not a new car for me

I saw that a friend whom I have never meant face-to-face is the owner of a new SUV that is shiny and actually gets good highway mileage.  My car was once shiny, but it seems that I cannot drive a car without a dent in it. And that is one reason I would never lease a car.  I almost think the pressure would be so great if I had a new car, I would have to hit it with a tire iron to relieve the anxiety.

One telling fact about my little incidents is that I have been gifted more than once with an little emergency hammer to break the glass in case I have to get out of car that has somehow wound up under water.