We had a good day – a little more than we planned, but we made it. Straggled off the train at 10:38 p.m and got home a bit after 11. I lay down and the next thing I knew it was light outside. LIGHT!
Here are a couple of pictures, which come to think of it, may indicate the part about getting back was just an illusion.
AJ and Summer sitting over Chicago and Der Bingle looking out at us.
Oh, look . . . they’re getting so much smaller.
Tomorrow at this time, some of us will be on a train – a real life Amtrak train – on the way toward Chicago. We are just going and coming back on one day for the heck of it and for younger eyes to see the big city. We are hoping to go to the Sears skydeck during a non-cloudy period, but given that there is a new GLASS floor, maybe clouds would be better. Some people are envisioning AmeliaJake gluing suction cups to her hands and feet and inching out onto the glass support.
I will never live down the time in West Chester when I froze like a flattened squirrel on the garage roof. Fortunately for me, that was before the day of little digital cameras and cameras in cell phones – heck, even cell phones. The latter is probably good because there were no calls . . .”Hey, I’m out here looking at AJ up on the garage roof . . . Ooooooh, you should see her . . . Sticking to it and shaking at the same time . . . ”
I am surprised no one has thought of paying the folks who live there now to allow filming of a “dramatization” of the actual event
You are not supposed to blog when you are angry; okay, I’m not angry. I am just a frustrated blob hitting her head on a brick wall. I have spoken about this artifact in East Noble scheduling before – first in general, then when the high school only delayed 30 minutes on Wednesday so teachers could discuss students and whatever and the middle school didn’t, and again when both schools had the delay.
I HAVE MY OPINION ABOUT THIS DELAY.
Today was Wednesday but I forgot and then readjusted and then Summer tells me, “Oh, there is no 30 minute delay because we get Friday off.”
Before I got to the part about thumping my head on a brick wall, I hauled off and kicked something on the kitchen floor and SAID A FEW THINGS.
Then, after dropping the kids off – probably late – at school, I took Sydney to the fairgrounds and entered my psychic world where I lurk on hands and knees on the flat roof of the porch at the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse, peering over at the ground below, waiting for some offender to walk by. I then pounce on him/her like a commando – or rabid, flying squirrel.
Maybe some nincompoop . . . ooooooh, getting really close to the edge here . . . felt themselves psychically flattened this morning. Makes me want to do it again. War cry and all.
I have been working in the bedroom/sitting room area, digging my way through my usual “personal memory things I cannot live without” and the accumulation of stuff gathered over the past few months and plopped into those rooms for convenience of knowing where they were – Christmas things, Mother’s papers . . . oh and the sickroom items, including the necessary bottle of Tabasco sauce to make meals brought up palatable. And piles of books, afghans and quilts . . . and a sewing machine.
This has been an ongoing project but Sunday I had a milestone moment: I took two large, green, flexibly expansive trash bags and filled them – filled them to maximum bloat – with things from the walk-in closet in the sitting room. I impressed myself. Even more impressive is that this did not leave the little room looking anywhere near empty.
What is scary is that each piece of stuff is not just a thing; I could tell a story about all of it. Even if there is no story, one would pop into my mind. And when there is a story, well, look out for the emotions. I cannot be like a dog, bending over and sending things flying through my legs. Actually, I think though that is how I got it out of the closet . . . then I sat down and sorted through it, bit by bit.
And when my two bags were filled, I had to pull them out walking backwards, using my leaning weight to keep them moving . . . and humming loudly so I would not hear the little voices of my little things calling to me.
Der Bingle made some chili today and I think it may be modified because it tastes good but then it starts to make your mouth very hot, not to mention the back of your throat. I was sampling some and as usual, I dropped a bit on my shirt. But, I assert that because the chili had a hidden punch I panicked and spilled even more.
I could have changed my shirt, but I decided to wet a paper towel and blot it. It got wetter and wetter and soon a big circle like a target was on my chest – and it was cold. I am aware that putting on another shirt would have been the best choice all the way around, but I opted to wad up some dry paper towels and wedge them underneath the wet spot on my shirt, producing a hump. And that is probably as close as I will ever get to having a bosom of sorts.
Ah, the truth comes out. Der Bingle could not find chili powder so he used red pepper! He confessed. The paper towels are staying in until my shirt dries or ridicule forces me to pull my head out of one turtleneck and put it into another.
But wait, there is more. Der Bingle says he countered the effect by adding honey, a trick LZP learned from his old “Vietnamese buddies”. I will have to try this; good thing I still have the hunchchest shirt on.
This morning before dawn – even though it is a Saturday – I was making myself a foldover using smooth peanut butter and as a I got a big glob on the knife, it fell off and wrapped itself around the handle to the cabinet below. It was still a glob, only a very complex one that looked like a rope that had been knotted on the handle. Some things in life put you in automatic mode or you would lose your mind instantly; some things in life cause an involuntary whimper of your inner puppy. This was in the first group.
I stared at the blob; I put down my knife; I gathered up what I needed to get the clinging alien growth off my cabinet handle; I executed the maneuver. I calmly continued to make my foldover and got my drink and I came out here to my favorite spot. I believe I have begun to come out of my robotic phase – my breathing seems less mechanical and I am making little movements that are not absolutely essential to the moment.
I think I am at that stage where one must decide if one is going to let the incident haunt one into the fetal position or take a deep breath and muster on.
I I do decide to carry on, will there be cameras to record my triumphant return to the kitchen, just as they watched MacArthur come ashore in the Philippines? Somehow I doubt it. Oh, the thankless job of the anonymous general.
Hey, folks, I’m sorry. The freezing stuff went south of us, okay? It’s not that you were cursing or even growling and I appreciate that, but there was gloom. Now I know it took a lot for you to work yourself up to silent gloom and disgust and I hope the trend continues until being left off of the 2 hour delay list is greeted with a shrug.
But I think I am going to allow myself the luxury of pointing out that this grandma did not look at the back of your pants and see a sticker as you stomped across the parking lot and let you go on into school. This grandma opened the door and softly called your name, knowing that you would probably glower as you looked back. And thanks to this grandma you did not go into the building with a new pants sticker reaching all the way from your butt to your knee.
And I am going to give myself a gold star. A BIG one.
Okay, carry on everyone.
Last weekend Der Bingle came back from Scott’s with a container of Jarlsberg cheese dip and I had a taste and now I am addicted to it. I bought another container today and when I put it on a cracker and then in my mouth, I realized it wasn’t as intense as I wanted it to be. So I put some on a cracker and turned the cracker over so the cheese would hit my tongue and that was pretty good. However, I am worried about the coordination required to get the cheese dip on the cracker to my mouth without it falling off first. I am now contemplating taking a bit of the dip on a spoon, dropping it on my tongue and then taking a bite of cracker.
I spend time thinking about such things. I don’t think it is a curse, but I’m not certain it is a blessing. I’d say I’m an outside of the box person.
My mother was told in October- specifically on the day after her birthday – that she had advanced pancreatic cancer and “very little time” left. I think I heard the words “three month” but even I knew that was optimistic. As it was she died on the 17th, a week after she found out the diagnosis. We had prepared for a longer time – prepared by getting things; I don’t know how I was preparing to get through the actually process emotionally – Mother’s and mine.
But she died. And that was that. Only it wasn’t that. It wasn’t a step-by-step powering down; it was a quick brownout and then, like that, it was done. It was not a Tuesdays with Morrie situation. Had she made it three months, she would have passed away this month, this January and I don’t know what we would have gone through or what she would have endured.
I wonder if we had not told her the diagnosis right away – if we had put her on the sofa and told her she just had to sleep and rest and watch DVD movies and the Colts games and plan for when she had built herself back up. Probably she would have pushed it, not rested, tried to hurry building up her strength and caused herself intense discomfort and eventually the emotional agony of knowing we had deceived her.
She was not one to take things lying down; she was so feisty. I wish she could have a had a couple of weeks of comfortable interaction with the world, the saying of things that maybe she wanted to say. But I suppose that was not her nature.
I have showered and washed my hair and guess what? I cannot find my curling iron. I realized this before I got in the shower and so I thought about the problem while the suds were doing their thing. I thought about brushing it carefully while it dried, using my fingers to fluff it out or going to Wal_Mart for an inexpensive curling iron for just the few little turning poof of heat it would need. While I was wet, I started to formulate this idea based on finances and investing in my appearance: The cost of the haircut is quite inexpensive and so what if I had it trimmed up once a week and passed up on a couple of taco splurges? Good for the hair, good for the waist and we could keep tabs on the color needs (ROOTS). These speculations helped to quell my fears of emerging as a really straggly mutt.
And Heavens to Betsey, it seems to be a feasible idea. The freshly-layered hair fell nicely into a lively bob. Soooo – a hair trim a week and a couple of whiffles with a found or purchased curling iron and I will be in business. Well, not “in business” really, but you know what I mean. Now this could all go to the dump if Der Bingle wakes and says something to the effect of doggy hair.
But he should be pleased – I took one of the super vitamins he has been getting for me and later I will take some vitamin D and, wow, did somebody put something in the water . . . like whiskey? Now I just need to go spiff up these regulars at the PBC&R. Maybe get them in the spirit with a few rounds of rousing hymns . . . If I can just find that megaphone now.