Kendallville K-9 officer dogs me

Okay, here I am on a county road in the country part of the county with no other cars on the road when I realize that the white car parked in the church parking lot was a police car and that it is flashing its lights behind me now. Yes, I was speeding. And the officer gave me a ticket – not a warning. The dog let him. Do you believe that, the dog let him give AmeliaJake the, dog-lover, a ticket. The dog let the man give AmeliaJake who was on her way to the nursing home to see an elderly woman a ticket – not a warning bark.

Well, rats.

It upset me. I turned around to come home, then thought I needed to go on to the nursing home and turned around again and then I started to really cry and turned around again.

The last day of the month.

A police car in a church parking lot.

An empty county road in the country.

A slam bam thank you ma’am ticket.

The dog let him.

So I fell into a well of despair while Lassie watched.

Oh, rats.

But maybe I’m being catty.

Uh, Shane and Anya . . . this is my post.

Okay, Quentin, I had AJ (otherwise known as your mom) take some pictures of me and our old stomping grounds . . . just so you wouldn’t forget me. (I’m good, aren’t I? AJ taught me.)

Here I am at the corral.

The sky in front of the house.

More grounds de la fair.

At the tree you planted. It’s grown.

The tree de la tulip.

Zee big tall spruce. Jake, he has been giving me the Frenchie lessons . . . heh, heh.

Gaze upon my handsomeness, you little cute babyface.

Happy Halloween to you . . . I will zend you more pictures zoon, my little Q.

voicemail

“I’m all right, but call me when you get a chance.” Mother, on the phone while I showered. It could have been anything from the cat being run over to a meteorite landing in the yard. It was: Her cousin who is one year younger died this morning. She had severe stomach pains, was operated on and died following surgery. I believe it was an anuerysm. Mother said she had just talked with her last week. Then she said that it seemed like all the cousins were turning 80 and dying and not living into their 90’s as their parents had done.

I don’t even want to speculate about the coming days . . .

Frost on the windshield

So it is here – frost, the kind you have to scape off your windshield if you have not garaged it. Summer and I discovered it this morning and while I got the defroster going, she ran for a scraper. She couldn’t find one, so she improvised. Soon we were looking at each other through a little cleared spot in the windshield. Tomorrow I will go out early to start the car. I hope I remember.

I didn’t have frost on the pumpkin because I have not yet carved one. Perhaps on the day of Halloween I will buy discounted ones and make a pumpkin totem pole. No, I did that when I was a teenager and it was more work than than I had anticipated. Those were the days, though, when I would just push on through a project until it was completed. I don’t like to do that anymore. Once I built a Christmas fantasy castle out of tiny marshmellows and little candies; Mother and I have been looking for the pattern of it for years and can’t find it. (We think some mice in the attic ate the original.) I enjoyed making that castle, on the big oak table that was my grandfather’s in the room of the house where the morris chair sits – the chair in which they lay my mother on the day she was born.

There was the smell of the house in the air – woodsmoke and sun-dried quilts.

Ruins? 68?

I remember watching the made-for-tv movie, Love Among the Ruins with Katherine Hepburn and Laurence Olivier. I really liked that movie; I think I even quoted lines from it. But now I can’t remember what it was I quoted so I started to research on Google. I haven’t found much yet but I did learn one startling fact. Hepburn and Olivier were 68 when they made the film. 68. Eight years older than I am now. I think I watched the movie in 1975 and, uh, thought the pair was old. Now, I must utter ACK quietly so no one will ask me what has taken me aback and back to my perceptions when I was 27.

Oh, the hell with it: ACK! ACK!! ACK!!!

Hotti

The last chili someone – who shall remain nameless – made was extremely good. This batch has my lips and mouth burning 10 minutes after I ate it . . . and my spoon is greasy. I will know when someone reads this because I will get the cold shoulder and chilly reception. Right now I am going to see if they need a “Hot Lips” for the local MASH revival.