8 out of 10 days of clouds and rain; one of those two sunny days will have thunderstorms.
I’m working on this bright side thing . . .
UPDATE: Dandelions have regrouped; tomorrow is that half day of predicted sunshine with thunderstorms in the afternoon. Tomorrow morning is W-Day (Weed) so all you folks listening to the Free French Radio Broadcast and hearing the phrase “wounds my heart with monotonous langour’ don’t tell the boche on the lawn.
It is chilly and rainy today after a few days of warmth. On Monday I went out in the sun and sprayed dandelions; I have gone to war with them. I moved along the yard, toting my green canister and bending down low to attack each little offender. I figured I would monitor and follow up with necessary missions . . . but it has been raining. I am thwarted. (It is not that I don’t appreciate the little balls of sun – it is just that the greens are so depressing to look at when the flower is gone.) I had to break into the paragraph of death to explain why I am speaking this way, taking this action.). Of course, pleading ugly greens doesn’t do it. So what does? Something . . . am I bowing to social pressure? Or am I taking my iconoclast-ness undercover? Ah, that AmeliaJake – a mystery.
Der Bingle once said to me that he could not believe I did not have a bookmark for a blog I had. Actually, I bookmark very few things – reference places that have a complicated address or are fairly esoteric in that they relate to a kid’s school project and entailed a Google search. I guess, quite honestly, that I make myself go through address steps just to keep tabs on my memory – a little less costly in terms of gas then waiting until I head out to Shipshewana and wind up in St. Louis. And the police won’t have to call and say, “We think we have your senile mother/wife here.” Of course, they wouldn’t say senile, it would probably be more along the line of “confused” or whatever kind word came to tongue.
Anyway, every now and then when I sit down to type in www.theleaningcow.com, I will have recently been by or seen an and for The Dollar Tree, a store in which everything costs a dollar and where I have found great hardback books that originally sold for in the $25-$30 range, A few times I have typed in – you got it – www.theleaningtree.com. On such occasions, a generic sort page pops up – no one is here but here are some ads and suggested sites.
Well, this morning, I did the tree instead of cow thing and much to my surprise, this picture came up:
This is what I saw at the top of the window: The Leaning Tree Restaurant (Chinese characters) Fulong, Taiwan. There was no other content on the site.
Fulong???? Is this any connection to the Foo Bar here at the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse, not to mention the franchised Foo Bar & Grille in Grover’s room at The Ohio Redoubt of the West Facing Cave? We will have to keep tabs and see if what we can find out.
Just a while ago, Der Bingle returned from the fairgrounds with Sydney, the last trip until next weekend. And he brought with him something he had found on the bleachers by the old Merchants Building. This:
Yesterday, people had gathered for a giant garage sale and I guess this got lost in the commotion. Der Bingle didn’t quite know what it was, but I told him I thought it was from a puzzle for very little people, hence the handle on the piece. I asked, “Is this a sign?” and he said he didn’t know, but he couldn’t leave the little cow over there – that it seemed to be destined to come to the leaning cow. He added, “Especially with the little smile.” Then he said he had left a dollar under a rock where it had been. I doubt anyone will come looking for it; quite possibly it was out of a box filled with this and that of toddler toys. Perhaps the farmyard of its home puzzle has been long gone for some time now.
I don’t know who will find the dollar, and maybe there will be a reward for a lost cow . . . but, right now, she is here and she is leaning.
Yesterday, I mentioned buying an old mallet – with a do-it -yourself repair – at a rummage sale. This morning I found a warm, charming and extremely well-written story in the comment left by Pottermom:
I understand the mallet. As I was helping clean out the upstairs of the family machine shop before the ranch sold I came upon a hoe. It was just a short hand hoe, rusty, kind of wobbly with the name Ted carved in the handle. It had been left and forgotten for years, a remnant from when the ranch was a vegetable farm back in the 1930s. Ted resides in my garage now and helps me on a regular basis in my garden. I like Ted. Old and wobbly, nicked and scarred. He fits me.
I have read it several times, drawn by the rhythm of the words and the smile those words bring forth.
April is a good part over, but this morning it is here – stepping out into the back vestibule, I was met with warm, gentle, moist air. Not one thing harsh about it. When I was 30 – and younger, and some older – I would have been aware of it in the back of my mind. But I would not have felt it like a warm bath. Not that I don’t have worries, but I noticed noticing it. I think it is an age thing.
Oh, yes, I forgot about the Trinity Methodist Rummage Sale yesterday until about four in the afternoon. Today is bag day, but judging from the slim pickings I found at four, I doubt that I will go. I did spend a dollar and donated another one, and came away with these four things:
A book I already have, but one I can stuff in the glove compartment for emergency reading; a mallet that screamed “I’ve been waiting here for you”; a flat thing with a handle and this muffin thing for Mother.
I am particularly pleased with the mallet. Can you see? The head is held on with a rusty nail bent to serve as a cotter pin. How did this treasure go unclaimed? Oh, yes, I guess it is because it is sooooo AmeliaJake. That might scare some people.
Of course we aren’t a vegan eatery or hang-out or whatever you want to call the PBC&R, but we do know a fellow who is green and is not Kermit. Now he is thinking of working around the place , making it jolly, dontcha know. This Green Giant is a reincarnation of the the one that my mother sent away for when my first son was quite little. When she went out to the mailbox, she found a transparent bag on which was written, “Here’s your everloving Green Giant.” She said she wondered what the postman had thought. We never found out.
Time went by and the everloving GG got a little threadbare, so I sort of cloned him – a bit of seam cell research. I am no longer the person who sat there making a pattern and cutting out leaves for his little Tarzan suit and his hat. I don’t know if I have changed or just grown tired, but the idea of making one does not appeal. Perhaps that is because I have already made one and see no need to do it again. That would mean I haven’t changed that much since I usually enjoy only the first figuring out process and not mass production.
I once made a Raggedy Andy – Jake – because the first one had a material fatigue problem and his head was ripped 90% off. It was impressive. The original donated his shiny black eyes and his heart to the project. I mean he literally donated his heart; I cut out the “I love you” heart and stitched it on the new one.
I have made more than one “raggedy” – some pieced together in a Frankensteinish process and others fitted with new legs and arms. To this day, I can still be surprised while rummaging around in some box by a red and white stockinged leg, or an arm . . . an unfinished wig, salvaged eyes.
I have no real way to end this bit of rambling, so I think I’ll just sit here and chat about old times with his nibs . . .
Today, for the first time this year, I parked facing the west because of the brightness of the sun. And, from time to time, the glare on the big flat windows of noseless school buses travelling east on the highway to the north would cause me to blink and avert my eyes. The air outside was soft and with the sun behind me, the colors of spring were brighter. Sydney and I stayed a long time. Soon enough, we will be seeking shady spots, ones on rises so we can catch the breeze of morning. Soon enough we will have to share our fairgrounds with Bluegrass festivals, and 4-H and little leaguers and the fair and people out for a stroll. We will compensate by going earlier and earlier. Fortunately, I like the early dawns with the day lying fresh before you – not in the way gung-ho, productive people do – more in the personal quirk sort of way.
Now, I am going to look up some rules of punctuation, not because I intend to heed them, but I am curious about the technicalities regarding the inside/outside of quotation marks. Sometimes what is right looks so wrong and you just have to bite the bullet and do it, even though you know some folks are thinking, “Poor dear, she doesn’t understand that point . . . “
The weather. I had to come home and look it up. At the fairgrounds the sky was cloudless and the sun glanced on the grass at an angle that caused the morning dew to shimmer silvery. Silvery? That is a word? I am not getting the dotted redline so I guess it is. I think I normally say silverish, but, then, I probably don’t say it that much at all. Oh, wait, nevermind . . . It seems I leaned on my tangent button.
So, the weather. The prediction is for a day of sun and then two windy days of almost hot weather that will dry out the lingering dampness of recent rains – and maybe take the moss off the south side of the trees. Yes, it’s true; there really is moss on the south side of the trunks. I turned into the drive yesterday and was thankful I was not my pioneering Indiana forebears or I might have become lost.
Well, this is the next three days . . . I hope.
