Got Mother to the doctor and her tests are all pretty good, but he is concerned about an irregular heartbeat; first she agree to see a cardiologist and then waffled, so we are going back to the original doctor on the 24th. She’s feeling more like her feisty self again, now that the lump she felt below her ribcage turned out to be something that is supposed to be there. She’d lost weight so now she could feel it.

Her question is “Why should I take medicine to help me get old and lose my mind?” I said, “Mother, just take it until you lose your mind.” Sometimes she is a challenge.

Wednesdays are horrible in the East Noble School System BECAUSE on Wednesdays the day starts about 20 minutes  –  or maybe a half hour –  later.  This throws schedules completely off . . . for people getting kids to school. And that would include me. Get up times, drop off times and,  for Sydney, Fairground Times. This is not my favorite part of the day to start with – getting up in the dark . . . in the dark that is darkest because it is right before the dawn.

Out of habit, I come awake about the same time on school mornings, but, then either someone reminds me and I slap my forehead or I remember myself and slap my forehead and it dawns on me (darkly) that it is the dreaded Wednesday schedule.  At such times I would like to go  mano a mano with the person who came up with this scheduling idea.

I think I have captured this feeling before; you can find more sputtering HERE.

That’s what we’ve been doing here – painting the fence in the back. Up and down and scrunched into corners and dabbed on the sides of the boards that make up the dreaded shadowbox fence. Of course, it is okay to drip on grass, but I have a rose-colored shirt that is mostly grey now. Well, it had a hole in it anyway.

Not that painting has kept me all that busy at all. And even the small bit of junk I’ve hauled to the place from which we’ll be loading trash on Saturday hasn’t taken that much time. Oh, I mowed, but that went fairly well also.

So what have I been doing? I’d say probably not much. The dog’s happy with that. He likes to lie in one spot and dream his dreams.

Walmart is filling up with Halloween stuff – the displays have moved into the garden area this year; previously, the garden area went directly from mowers and grass seed and fertilizer to Christmas stuff, but not this year. I think in the past couple of years, ad men have decided to push Halloween as a decorating holiday. I think they noticed that some people were hot to start getting the decorating spirit of Christmas  and would  hurry it along by purchasing lights and whatnot early. Then, of course, they didn’t buy them later – they already had them.  Since the store would have a hard time selling decorations to people who already had them, I think they calved a holiday out of the anticipation of Christmas. Purple and orange lights, coffins, tombstones, eerie music, battery lights for pumpkins, pumpkin carving kits, giant spider webs, strobe lights. I mean who doesn’t NEED a giant ghost for Halloween. And special bags for the loot – not to mention the costume? And doorbells that laugh maniacally.

I have to confess; I bought a string of bats last year with purple lights on as an outline. Each little bat had two green lights for sinister eyes.

My mother’s house has the occasionally bat visitor now and then and she chases them down with a badminton racket. Guess we’ll have to watch out if she sleeps over here this Halloween. But, then again, perhaps I have outgrown bats . . . maybe it’s the year of the zombie. Or maybe it’s : Ha, Ha to you Walmart – I’m only spending money on a pumpkin to carve and some candy to hand out.

Having just posted about a couple married for 70 years, I am so tempted to post the pictures LZP sent that I am going to do it.

These are divorce cakes:

Flowers, cards and a great-grandson

Little red flowers and big yellow ones.

Kathryn and more flowers.

AND now here is the verse and the signature from the card she gave Emory:

MB 300D

The link above will expire, so this is what I am talking about:

It’s in California. So in my wildest dreams – considering the story listed above about the ole 300D resting in peace – I see myself teleporting to California, forking over money from my newly -acquired fortune and driving back to in a new little greenie. Driving back? Hmmmm. Well, I’ll tell myself it’s a road trip.

I’ve been here, not feeling bad, just feeling cold-y. Thing is, though, I’ve not had too many ideas; I find that boring, but there it is. I’ve worked on the pattern for the bathroom floor and run people to appointments and such and eaten peanut butter foldovers and had my share of doses of “the cure”  . . .  and just let thinking nanos drain out of me. And, now, I think I am getting refreshed thinking nanos back; I don’t know but perhaps they went to a spa. I’m thinking of it as a transfusion from myself, sort of like when you have surgery and they collect the blood you’re bleeding and pump it back in. Or, perhaps, this is more a dialysis process: the little nanos (and yes, I suppose adding that adjective is redundant) come out, get scrubbed, massaged, a pep talk from Lou Holtz, aromatic therapy, some counseling and then go back into my brain.

So . . . maybe I’ll have a thought soon. Don’t want to rush it, though.

Or perhaps none of this happens.

Literally,  the keys were locked in the trunk. The car keys . . . in the car trunk. Yesterday my daughter-in-law asked me to drive her to Wal-Mart, and so I did. I dropped her off at the door and then parked way over on the east side that faces a rolling field, dotted with the remnants of hedgerows. Far enough away that you can’t make out details, stands – somewhat unsteadily – a barn.  It is peaceful. Well, it looks peaceful; for all I know, someone could be operating a meth lab in it.  Crushed that moment of bucolic bliss, didn’t I?  Sometimes I feel like a shark circling in the paragraphs I write.

The keys. Alison came out with her cart and I handed her the keys so she could put her stuff in the trunk; this car does not have a remote trunk opening device. In the rear view mirror, I saw her coming up the passenger side of the car . . . with nothing in her hands, just her purse over her wrist.

She got in and I, although I knew what her response would be, put out my hand for the keys. “I was looking right at them; I told myself not to forget the keys.” In her mind she heard a replay of the very definite closing of the trunk.

I tell her it’s all right, and, actually, I’m thinking that this is something in the bank for me: Perhaps I can get many withdrawals of favors from the “Locked the keys in the trunk” account. When I take out my phone to call Der Bingle, I was surprised and confused to see the speed dial list was different. Lon was there and I was there. Why would I be on my phone? Where was Cave Girl and Mother and Der Bingle himself? Slowly, bit by bit, neuron by neuron, it dawned on me. I had picked up Der Bingle’s phone. Same phone, same case – couldn’t see the wee bit of copper on the edge that distinguishes his from mine.

I call myself, but Der Bingle does not answer. He does not realize his phone is gone. Then I call the house, my son, Cave Girl and no call will go through. Again I have a stretched- out bit of understanding; he has a different area code. Finally, I get my son’s cell and say, “Walk the phone in your hand out to your dad and give it to him.” I was that specific; I had the idea this might be an episode out of “Anything Can Go Awry” – a yet to be conceived and produced BBC comedy.

So, Sydney and Der Bingle came to our rescue. I went up to the sitting room to clean up – read make a stab at – the piles of clothes and papers and found the shredder was clogged. So I spent two hours working on it, but it was a cheap one and I think the papers bent the little chewing up gears. It was somehow calming – I suppose like basket-weaving at the you know where place.