The kids in Cameron’s English Lit class are studying Shakespeare – Romeo and Juliet to be specific – and the teacher has broken the class up into twos and threes to read scenes. Or, you can rewrite the scene. Cameron is doing that because his scene has Capulet, the nurse and Juliet. He changed the nurse into a male servant, but, as he says, “I couldn’t do anything about Juliet.”

He has worked very, very hard on this venture, turning our dining room into the setting for the scene – I am to film it.

Since he re-wrote the scene somewhat already he decided to move the action to Vienna and to a more recent time. Then he told me he thought he would include the “Winter of Our Discontent” speech from Richard III and have Juliet speak it to end the scene. He likes that scene, it seems. I said I thought it would be better to just go watch the movie again.

Personally, I would have had Juliet say, “I want to elope . . . someone’s kingdom for a horse.”

I don’t know why I got up at four, other than because I woke up and thought it was Monday and I couldn’t dread it any longer, I might as well jump into it. I think there is something not quite right about that logic, but I’m not going to delve into it any further, other to say that I am certain I had the intestinal fortitude to pull the covers over my head and dread it some more.

I got up; I did some work on the computer and then I got a Diet Coke and a half a peanut butter sandwich. I put the DC in a glass with ice, even though it was already cold and then, because I felt an overwhelming need for sugar, I put in a few ounces of actual Coke. Then I worked a little more on the computer.

I have now been up four hours and I would really like to nap – because my eyes are tired and because it is a gray sky out there. It is also damp and chilly. Oh, what would be the word for that? Do you remember the incredibly hard time Billy Crystal had trying to sum up hot and humid and moist for the book he was writing in the movie Throw Momma Off the Train? (Sultry – Momma thought of it.)

The dog is sleepy. He needs company on the sofa. It is a long sofa – the two of us could curl up on each end, sort of butt to butt. And then someone could take a picture . . . Bum to Bum and Butt to Butt. Of course, if we were to assume this pose often, that someone could paint us. It might become a famous painting, maybe hang in the Lourvre. In the remake of The Da Vinci Code, there might be a message on the painting . . . probably on my butt – it’s the bigger of the two.

Oh, my gosh and catch my breath. The news story was talking about gum people, not Wrigley Field. Lordy. Then for a quick second I wondered if it were Jimmy Buffet who was buying Wrigley Field and it would become Margarita Field and everyone would wear tropical shirts and Panama hats.

But it was Warren Buffet and gum and candy. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, I have an image in my mind of Warren Buffet in a tropical shirt and Panama hat. ACK.

And I guess news guys wear topical shirts . . . ?

The picture is from this site.

About a month ago, I started buying red rubber mulch made out of old tires at Wal-Mart. I went in last week and they had none. I went in yesterday and they had none. So, I sighed and said to the employee, “Well, I suppose you won’t be getting anymore in.” He said he didn’t know, but that I was the fifth person who had asked him about it that day.

So, Wal-Mart, it’s not just my voice out in the wilderness here. Other are calling out, “Old tire mulch . . . Old tire mulch . . . ” Can’t you hear us, Wal-Mart? Am I going to have to go someplace else? Am I going to have to beg you?

My husband was watching the news in Georgia – it was Fox News, he says – and called me to say the newsreaders are sometimes the best entertainment on TV. The topic was putting stuff into Coke in bottles and seeing the Coke surge up to the sky. She said that the people set off about 300 geezers. Yes, can you visualize 300 old folks running around all “set off” and agitated? About three minutes later, she heard something in her earphone, looked upset and said that it was 300 geysers.

Well, I guess she has her nickname now.

As it turns out, trouble with a drain kept me away from Bag Day at Trinity Methodist. I think it is resolved now. I don’t want to have to do that again, not as bad as snaking the sink, but up there.

However, I did get something from the rummage sale this morning via Alison; she brought me a water globe containing a lighthouse and and a brown lodge-like house that stands on two sides – if the lighthouse had sides.

Of course, the house is just an lump of ceramic etched to look like a domicile on the outside, but I know what is inside – sort of. I can see the wooden floors and the area rugs, the fireplace and the upstairs hall, the kitchen and the breakfast/lunch nook, and the vestibule for coats and boots.

I know that is where I live with my laptop and I guess satellite connected Internet. But something has happened and I am too large, not to mention I don’t breathe well under water. I suppose the song it plays fits my situation: Impossible Dream.

In, ACK, now 26 minutes, I will go take a shower. I like being clean, but fine showering a chore: get your clothes off, adjust the water temperature, hop in, shampoo you hair, wash you body, rinse you hair, shampoo your hair again, rinse again and get out. I have a reputation for being FAST. Nature made me a water conservationist.

I suppose it might be more useful to take a bath and use then use the soapy water for other things – soaking the dusty blinds? Oh, that is such a pain. Inviting others in to gather round on little stools and soak their feet? Even if I found a daily purpose for the bath water, it probably wouldn’t negate the feeling I always have to “get this water thing” over with.

The best part of the shower/bath experience for me is the robe made out of toweling. Then there’s the time it takes to get dressed.

But, today, like every other day for the most part, I am going to do it. And, I guess, then we will be heading out to bag day at Trinity Methodist. The absolute last thing of little consequence that I need to do is bring more stuff into this place. You can only have so many old wooden meat tenderizers; I don’t use them, I just look at them piled in a big pot with a rounded bottom and remember my grandmother and how I loved her.

Grandma introduced me to embroidery, homemade comforters and quilts, hooked rugs and those little salt dishes that people dipped their onions in. Not that I ever did that. She loved tomatoes and as I grew older so do I. That is probably a good thing because if I kept the tomatoes around to remind me of grandma, that would be a little messy. it is better that i like to eat them.

Oh, heck, I ‘m not going to drag this out; I ‘m going to get it over with – shower, here I come.

A couple of us were sitting in the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse the other day when the sheriff went roaring by with sirens wailing. Turns out he was headed up to a local meeting of dairy farmers where a fellow from the university’s extension office was giving a talk. As I understand it, deputies approached on other roads to make certain none of the persons of interest got away.

They didn’t, not a one of them. The sheriff walked into the meeting room and heard Tom Pasteur talking about giving cows vitamins to keep them strong. Right there, the sheriff had his evidence and arrested Tom and every farmer in the room, including 83 year old Elsie Vernon who still hand-milked five cows every morning.

By the time this was known, a lot more of us were gathered down at the PB Cafe. it was getting on toward suppertime and the sheriff himself stopped in. We starred at him as he walked up to the shelf to get his personal jar of PB. He turned, saw us looking and said, “I take it you’ve heard. Yep. We saw the agenda ahead of time and right there on that piece of paper, it said, ‘Tips for Cows’. Yessirree, Bob, we had them cold. Just a big old room of cow tippers. In the slammer now.”

Agnes suggested that maybe the discussion was about how much a diner should give his cow waitress . . . and the sheriff actually thought about it. Bert voiced the idea that perhaps they had been discussing the new experimental cow feed made from asparagus tips. The sheriff chewed his crunchy foldover and said, “Nah, you folks are pulling my leg . . . You better watch out; one day that leaning cow is going to go over and I’ll be out for you too.”

We watched him walk up the road to stretch his legs after eating and when he came to our leaning cow, he tipped his hat to her. We allowed it wouldn’t be wise to make a citizen’s arrest.

I was going to try and break my tradition of the rummage sale habit; I don’t know why – I guess I thought it was just time. So last night, I did not remind myself that it was rummage sale day in the morning; in fact, I re-enforced the idea that I was not going.

And I got up this morning and did not go. It got close to 8:45 and I still knew I wasn’t going to go; I went at 9 am. They had opened earlier so at least I had that going for me. I was no longer an official linestander who waited for the chosen worker to open the doors.

I sauntered in and passed by the linen table – found a nice linen tablecloth. Yellow checks and it should be good for a summer get together. I spied on the other side of the table a packet of linen plaid summer napkins and went around to get them, nodding at an elderly man who was perched on a chair for sale. “How ya doing,” he asked me and I replied, “OK . . . I think.” He grinned and said, “You think . . .” Then I turned to pick up the napkin packet and right in front of me another hand snatched them.

That hand was not my other hand – but belonged to another lady who was with still another lady. They debated and finally the second lady said, “Well, if you don’t want them, I will buy them.”

RATS!!!!!

So I wandered over to the kitchen table, looking for any retro utensils and did find an old ice bucket from about the “50’s, good for keeping fresh ice cubes near by this summer.

Slowly I turned . . . step by step, I walked over to the row of Methodist sofas and found myself standing in front of a blue loveseat. Next to it was a matching three cushion sleeper sofa. $50 for the set. FIFTY.

There was a reason it was only fifty – some little child had apparently knifed the top of the back. But I am the queen of afghans and thought this would be good for the kids. (I sit on leather in Georgia – and a futon when I’m working a puzzle in the sunroom.) So I said, “I’ll make a $50 donation if you deliver it”  . . . and they agreed. Woo-Hoo.

Got it in and got it set up. Threw an afghan on the back. So Summer comes home and I tell her to go look. She comes back and says, “What?” We look together and she wails that I can’t get rid of her favorite sofa, the one she has known and loved and been sick on since she was three and moved here.

She claims the one I have provided for her now hurts her back, doesn’t allow her to sink deeply and is ugly. This is typical Summer. And, pretty much, typical me. We are both full of complaints about everything. It occurs to me to put the old stuff on the curb . . . and her too. Would I do that?

Quite possibly.

Tomorrow is bag day . . .