Front row: William A. Vance Jr., Ronald Vance, John Vance, Donald Vance

Back row: Thomas Vance, William A. Vance Sr., Sherman Vance

Mighty paws of the mighty snowman monster.

I have been sick with the respiratory flu, I think. At any rate, I have had a fever and some actual shake me around chills the past couple of days. Last night I was stretched out under afghans and blankets when I heard people talking in the house that there are many police cars outside. I didn’t feel like getting up. What a bummer; just how many times do you think lots of police cars will park across the street from my house? And the piece de resistance? A K-9 unit. I could be posting pictures here of a dog on duty; I guess I should have had them hoist me off my sickbed and lash me to a telephone pole so I could provided live-blogging.

I decided no more, no more total disarray in the bedroom and sitting room; so this afternoon I started.  I pulled out bins from the closet and went through them, separating into keep, Goodwill and trash piles. I was brutal; not so much trash, but a lot of Goodwill. That left me with several empty bins so I went into the sitting room and starting filling them with all the things resting on horizontal surfaces. Then I opened drawers and emptied them out – turned them upside down.  I did not sort through them today because today was “move the furniture so I can best access the scanner, the printer, the TV and the VHS/DVD player” day. Move out the stand-alone, long ago kid’s school desk and slide over the coffee table. Add a wooden thing (scavenged from a redecorating company in another city) about two feet tall with close-set shelves for paper separating. Put the scanner on one end of the coffee table, the printer next to it and on the far end another wooden scavenged thing.

Organize plugs and cords and connectors . . . and vacuum, vacuum, vacuum. The dog, by the way does not like it when I move from place to place. He will not trust me to be right back from the adjoining room. So he was up and down, going this way, coming back and making me feel guilty. I gave him dog treats – my answer for everything.

There was one box in the closet that did not have clothes, but papers and pictures and a jumble of stuff that had hastily been gathered up from a dining room cabinet. I was good and did not go through the photos – but I saw a few from long, long ago and I discovered I am now at that age when those times seemed a different life and somehow I was a different me. The one in the pictures was someone never to be again.

As I said, I did not tarry and go through them, staring for long minutes at a time; but something had been triggered and I got to thinking that perhaps there was a door that needed shutting. Things are never going to go back to what they were, ever. So, I guess you go on, starting from this minute, this very minute and do the best you can . But, damn it, you look out the window and down the road and you still hope to see that past come walking up.

I walked down the truncated book aisle at our Wal-Mart and saw this book by Jodi  Picoult, who wrote  My Sister’s Keeper,  dontcha know.  I took it down from the shelf and saw that it was about a young mother and motherhood and I thought, “Oh, not for me.” Still, I opened it and starting reading a passage on page 234:

My father stood up and walked to the window. “When I was very little and we were livin’ in Ireland, my own father used to cut the fields three time each summer for haying. He had an old tractor, and he’d start on one edge of the field, circlin’ tighter and tighter in a spiral until he almost got dead center. Then my sisters and I would run into the grass that still stood and we’d chase out the cottontails that had been pushed to the middle by the tractor. They’d come out in a flurry, the lot of them, jumpin’ faster than we could run. Once – I think it was the summer before we came over here – I caught one by the tail. I told my da I was going to keep it like a pet, and he got very serious and told me that wouldn’t be fair to the rabbit, since God hadn’t made it for that purpose. But I built a hutch and gave it hay and water and carrots. The next day it was dead, lyin’ on its side. My father came up beside me and said some things were just meant to stay free.” He turned around and faced me, his eyes brilliant and dark. “That,” he said, “is why I never went lookin’ for your mother.”

I swallowed. I wondered what it would be like to hold a butterfly in your hands, something bejewelled and treasured and know that despite your devotion it was dying by degrees.  “Twenty years,” I whispered. “You must hate her so much.”

“Aye.” My father stood and grasped my hands. “At least as much as I love her.”

There in the aisle of store of life’s details, part of me – the part that I know best – could slip into what the words had said, as if there were not billions of other people on the planet.  My feelings were big, like they took up all the space everywhere, as if they were everything.

I didn’t want to put the book back and get it from the library. I wanted to have those words where I could just rest my hands on the cover when I walked by a table and saw it. Where it would be a touchstone for that which I feel deeply.

And so I bought it.

I have been fooling around with this little blog just for the heck of it, but I have noticed when I wonder in print about the Pioneer Woman, some folks actually stop by. I feel they must be disappointed; I have nothing more to add to her mystique other than to echo the musings of others. She is very good at what she does and I suspect the rule of imitation being the sincerest form of flattery is already proving itself to be true.

Here, at The Leaning Cow, formerly known as the Peanut Butter Cafe and Roadhouse, people come in, sit and chat and, quite often, mosey over to the computer niche in the corner and look at what she has to say or what photo she has to show. But we don’t know anything about her, really. If you have found yourself here because you looked for Ree Drummond or the Pioneer Woman, I’m sorry we have nothing to offer. But if you want to visit a site that is dear to our hearts – although it will tug at your heartstrings big time – see Thomas Bickle and send him and his folks good wishes.

The interview was a week ago and it was an interesting one, but now I cannot put it off any longer – I must transcribe, not just for the words but for a reminder of the inflection with which they were spoken and punctuated with chuckles or groans. So I started . . . just barely. I can see that the tape has only gone around the spool a tiny, tiny bit, but you couldn’t measure the depth without precise scientific instruments. Ack, I dread this.

But must keep on. Hope to be done by noon. Well, here’s a groan – aughhhhhhhhhh. Actually, what came out was beyond groan – it was more of a fall down in the fetal position and uttering a grinding bellow of a non-verbalized expression of “this can’t be; I can’t do this; oh, my God, oh my God; I hate to do this.”

Okay, back to it for just a few minutes. (few minutes) Okay, I’m up to about 1/16th inch on the receiving spool. Such a long way to go, but now I have to feed the dog.

I got the urge to put American Gangster in the DVD player and I watched it while transcribing (some) and then had to get ready to go to an appointment. Anyway, I’m not done with the irritating t work, but I’m going to buy AG.

I didn’t know how much I would enjoy Michael Clayton, or if I would or not – but I liked it. Yes, I did. It just shows you can be smart, potentially well-off and still get yourself mired in gunky forlorn despair. Will I watch it again? Yes, I will. Oh, gee, I did the ask yourself a question and then answer it thingie instead of just stating it outright.

I could feel impeding skids and slide-arounds this morning, even coming out of the driveway, and I think today is one of those mornings when a two-hour-BigD would have been appropriate. It just looks like a skiff of snow out there, but the tires don’t want to take a quick bite while starting up again from a stop light, nor do they grip real fast when approaching a red light.

There is a semi wreck on the interstate and and a car wreck at a busy intersection. Maybe dawn and salt trucks will help.

I don’t know much about Urban Exploring, other than to look at the pictures other have taken of abandoned sites. I think one of my first vicarious forays was into a mental hospital in Connecticut – ironic, huh? Anyway, here is a site I found today and you can see Fort Ord and a lot of other interesting places.