One thing about a digital camera – before you blur things and do whatever, the image coming out is downright unforgiving. This morning I made a wreath for Thanksgiving because I wanted to. When I began I thought I’d take some pictures to show Quentin that’s his mother’s project making hasn’t changed – it is seat of the pants.

YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING IN A DIGITAL PHOTO. And there is no doubt about it, I am a clutter-person.

Let’s both brace ourselves.

Old Roy dog treats, an empty bottle of bottled water, a book, a box of old pictures . . . That yellow thing to the lower right? It’s the label on a lamp oil bottle. There’s an empty magazine rack leaning on the firestove and you can see the back half of an upside down shoe.

What you can’t see is that down at the bottom there’s a good-sized Pilgrim and what you don’t know is that I eventually hung a wooden turkey so it would be in the center area of the wreath. This turkey is so ugly I have not thrown it out because it is just that ugly. Someone picked it up at GoodWill or a rummage sale and it got into the house and it is like the man who came to dinner.

It was either some craft project or a handmade toy for a kid. I’m betting it was a “how to use scrap wood and not cut your fingers off project”.

So here it is:

Bet you want one, right? Green with envy, right? You know once when we had a fire roaring, I thought, “Oh, I could just toss the turkey in there.” I’m thinking I must subconsciously believe that turkey has something on me – that if he turns up missing, the authorities will be sent to a safety deposit box where they will find incriminating pictures of me with a defeathered and beheaded turkey. Probably some crime scene evidence also.

There has to be some reason for my homegrown grapevines adorned with raffia, subdued fruit and embroidered Pilgrims to also sport a wooden, clunky turkey.

Soon I will have to look for Bob the Turkey whose tail opens up like a fan and hangs on the chandelier at Thanksgiving. That would the Bob the Turkey who hangs there through Christmas because I feel sorry him missing the festivities. Didn’t I even hang some ornament on him last year?

The tornado sirens went off yesterday – this late in October!! I was sitting here working on something and  over the noise of a train, I thought I heard a high pitched whine. It was extremely windy and I figured it was that wind funneling between something and making a whistle. Well, I was close with the funnel part.

At the time, I just sat here listening and thought, “Is that the tornado siren?” Then, for some reason, I had this irresistible urge to think “si-reen”, as in, “Was that the tornado si-reen?”

And I sat here for longer, looking at the weather.com page to see what was going on. Well, there was a lot of red around our town. Bright red – weather map bright red. Then, again, there was that si-reen.  You know how you think it will never happen to you? Well, it didn’t. The si-reen stopped.

By this time, I’m thinking I’m fairly stupid because the last time I begrudgingly went to the basement for the kids’ sake, I did come up to find a tree down across the street and later found out about a huge tree down at Mother’s.

I then landed on the idea that if someone were to yell “Tornado” in a movie theater crowded with AmeliaJakes, there probably would not be a stampede. I believe I am going to have to start hearing the call of “SNAKE” in my mind when the siren goes off. That will get me moving.

The dude part of the post title? Well, you see, in the evening, a run of “Billy the Exterminator” shows began and, after a while, I realized Billy and his brother, Rick, call each other “Dude” all the time.

“Look out, Dude. There’s a snake, wasp, skunk, beaver, whaterver!”

“Whoa, Dude, you are right.”

“Dude, that was intense.”

“Right, Dude.”

So, of course, I had to point this out to Summer and we called each other Dude for the rest of the night.

I feel about average today and I’m thinking about  how tremendously big emotions can seem because I was looking on the weather site and glanced at the category “Feels Like”.

I started thinking about sadness and how incredibly crushing it can feel; exuberance to the point of possible explosion . . . that sort of thing. It comes from some tiny sparks jumping between teeny gaps in my brain. It is amazing to think about . . . and amazing that a couple of those little sparking gaps just caused a wince because I ended a clause with a preposition.

What a scientific experiment it would be if I could guide little nano guys around tweeting this and that to see what would happen. Of course, I would first need a reset button in case we wound up with thas and thit . . .

Friday, I ambled into Kroger’s just after they had moved a lot of steaks over to the “Reduced for Quick Sale” section and, so, I took advantage of the situation and planned a weekend cookout with Der Bingle and the clowns – er, Summer and Cameron.

Saturday  looked like rain all day and, in fact, it did sprinkle in the late afternoon. We decided to put the grill in the entrance to the garage and have our semi-circular of chairs under the roof. And because we were in the garage, I brought out my ipod player and turned on my infamous AmeliaJake July Playlist: Chattanooga Choo Choo, The Stein Song, Buckle Down, Winsocki, Sweet Gypsy Rose, Scotland the Brave . . .

Well, Summer and I decided we liked singing along to Sweet Gypsy Rose and so we did; we put it on repeat until some people threatened to leave. Then we had to satisfy ourselves with joining in when it came around again in the queue.

Robert wanted to bring out Frank Sinatra but I can’t stand him and everyone knows that. Cameron and Summer were not aware of the extent of my distaste for the man until Der Bingle told them the story that condenses itself into this sentence. Your grandmother was looking at houses to buy in Chicago and went in one that was decorated with Sinatra stuff and walked right out.

Anyway, Der Bingle grilled and the steaks were delicious; I ate my right off of a two-pronged carving fork. (It’s this quirky little rut I seem to have fallen into.)  So we are planning a winter garage grill out when Quentin comes – assuming it’s not 20 below.

Then we dumped the coals into the firepit and started a large fire with actual flames. That was when we remarked that we had noticed the people in the house south of us and beyond the hedge walking back and forth between their back door and the far side of their garage. Back and forth; forth and back. Kids and an adult every now and then.

By the time I went in, it had been dark for quite awhile and they had a fire going too. And the back and forth continued. Eventually, I heard music coming from the gathering I could only imagine on that far side of their garage. I heard snips of words and one clear phrase: “going to the graveyard”.

Alison said she got up at night and heard them still out there. Der Bingle and I are guessing it was some sort of  Day of the Dead thing. I am so glad I did not realize it last night when it would have been fodder for nightmares.

Der Bingle sent me an incense burner shaped like a teepee; it was from him and my good friend NaPoo.

And here is a picture of the teepee:

Along with this, they sent some scented wood samples:

Now, look inside the box and see how things are packaged and labeled.

Because this is an open package, the little logs are not so tightly squeezed together that they appear as one big rectangle. I was on the phone with Der Bingle, reading off the samples and  said, “Holder wood, alder, mesquite . . .”

Later when I slit the plastic, I realized the holder wood was actually a holder for the incense made out of terra cotta.

As my good friend Grover would say, “I am soooooo embarrassed.”