One view.
Another view.
Of course, we need some more cows to come on board and you know when we stand it up, it will have to be leaning.
Monthly Archives: November 2010
I still am surprised
It is hard getting used to – this being the old one in the Scott House. I came to that house as a baby in 1948 and it wasn’t bad. I didn’t realize it but the war was over and won and the country’s mood was pretty good out here in rural Indiana. The background of the land was the same – small town general store, big old brick school house just north of us, a big garden with a patch of strawberries running right down the middle, the smells of woodsmoke and Grandma’s and Mother’s cooking.
My grandmother was almost 45 when Mother was born and her dad five years older. I came into a world that was a modernized turn of the century place with stories of sleigh rides and horses and buggies and sicknesses without antibiotics.Eisenhower wasn’t president yet and there were no interstates.
I had an aunt who was 18 years older than mother and an uncle who was 15 years older and cousins who were older.
It stayed that way for a long time. Then my uncle died and a couple of years later it was 1998 and I was 50. My aunt died around Christmas that year. My father became ill just after the next Christmas and died in four weeks. For a decade there was a lull; things were different but we didn’t talk about it. Last year Mother died.
It’s just me now. Every now and then it sneaks up on me and goes “Boo.” I think it goes Boo because the effect is that it’s scary.
Well, soon, daylight will come and I guess I’ll do what my grandparents and parents did – keep on living my life until I too am somebody’s ghost.
Could this be an overread post?
Sometimes people overhear me. I guess it happens to everyone. But now I am wondering if someone just happened to read something I was posting on the QT. You know, overread what I was writing.
I was writing about the book Anglo Files that I saw reviewed in a blog called Rechelle Unplugged. It used to be called My Sister’s Farmhouse for some reason she changed it. God only knows. Oh, smack my hand on my forehead, Rechelle, I forgot there for a moment. Anyway, it was a figure of speech.
I was writing that I really wished Der Bingle would order this book from Amazon.com for me for Christmas – just sort of a one item list.
Then I got to thinking . . . I wonder if he overread that little private notation. Then, of course, it wouldn’t be a surprise. I could deal with that.
The cow tree
I have one of those alpine trees. You know the kind – skinny with scraggly little branches. This one is about four feet high and you can put them around the house in different places at different seasons. About a year ago, I put one of my plant stakes in the branches; this one was a stick with a coil at the top so the cow head would bob around. Yes, cow head. I’ll provide a picture later.
I thought I should decorate this tree with white lights and crystal bells, but the Alien Tree, which is most probably controlling my brain, led me to use LED colored lights and hang some golden and silver ball-shaped bells.
I suppose I am not done; more instructions are probably in the pipeline. So far the cow is looking somewhat perplexed. She may tip the tree.
School morning after holiday
I don’t think they are up yet, but soon . . . soon. It will be tense. Last Monday, Summer remarked to me that the afternoon of the next day, Tuesday the 23rd, would be the best time of Thanksgiving break. You know, when you walk out of school and vacation looms before you. And we mentioned how each day would bring people closer to the looming Monday.
Well, it’s here.
It is too bad we are the type of personality that just can’t enjoy the here and now. No, the moment that we start something we like we see the end coming at us. I would step off the plane at San Diego and the second I started walking toward the main terminal I would be thinking how sad I would be when it was time to walk the other way.
But back to this morning . . . no, no . . . let’s wait a few more minutes.
This is the heroine speaking
I, tremendously wonderful AmeliaJake – yes, THAT AmeliaJake – woke up way before dawn today and thought, “I’ll bet those bozos (Yes, calling folks bozos is not that tremendously wonderful, but it just I am in a position of being the tremendously honest AmeliaJake.) didn’t take out the trash last night.
Let me shorten that: The bozos didn’t take the trash to the curb.
Usually it goes out Wednesday night, but when on holiday weeks, it is a day later. That, of course, was last night . . . and included the increased Thanksgiving debris, dontcha know.
In the cold of Indiana, outlined against what will probably be a blue, gray sky, AmeliaJake got the trash to the curb.
And just a few minutes ago, I heard the trash truck come.
Other people are up . . . and I must spread the news of the epic feat.
And she’s off
No, not my rocker. Well, maybe I am but that is not what I was thinking. I’m thinking turkey into the roaster. I decided to forgo the Sarah Grismore “get up at 4 am method” and started prepping myself with a Cure and some Alka-Seltzer (cold variety – Orange Zest -) at 6:03. I’ll be taking my morning medicine and then I’ll put on my pants and shoes and hit the kitchen.
***
And she’s stopped; the clock says 3:56 pm. The dishes, pots, pans, roaster are washed. The food is packed away and I’ve decided this is possibly the last Thanksgiving I am celebrating in this fashion. I think it is time to evolve. We pretty much feast every day; the people we eat Thanksgiving with are our immediate family. I almost think we should eat very humble food on Thanksgiving so we realize what we are missing is that for which we are thankful. I don’t think that idea would prove popular here, but it’s a thought.
With the festivities of Christmas encroaching on Thanksgiving (See post below), I also think to have a day of quiet activity would make us aware of how much we take the basics for granted.
Oatmeal, tea, a book, a fire, a comfortable chair and plans for the year to come would be something I would look forward to. (Yes, yes, yes. I know it should be “something to which” but the heck with it. The way I type it out of the gate is how it stays – because that’s how I’m thinking.)
Pushing the season
We know it isn’t even Thanksgiving yet, but we are just enjoying making some decorations. Summer and I made this tree, which is dubbed “The Alien Tree’ because of the alien angel on the top. Today we discovered it may be controlling our actions so we are considering wearing tinfoil hats.
Then there was the matter of the garland on the stairs. Cameron and Summer and I did the first part of it and bit by bit we will had special ornaments to mark it as uniquely 2010. Do I have veto power over some choices? Well, I don’t know.
Here is a helper.
Summer in jail-like position.
Cameron practicing for a visit to the jailbird.
Well
The anniversary of Mother’s death, the news that Colin is returning, Thanksgiving planning, sorting through estate stuff . . . and I am progressing like an Etch-a-Sketch line produced by using my toes while blindfolded. It, like the image I just created, is not pretty.
But I am here and I have my cocktail shrimp in the freezer ready to thaw and my turkey in the refrigerator actually thawing. I have eggs to be deviled and a special yam dish for Der Bingle. I know where the ricer is for the mashed potatoes. I have corn to fry and the roaster is clean and ready to go.
This is one of my least favorite things, dontcha know – cooking.
I will talk to Rose and Sophie and hope they will hypnotize me into believing I am reading a book while I deal with those things you find in the turkey’s cavities. Oh, yuck, that was not something I wanted to pre-think.
I don’t know . . . Summer and I talked about getting an oil fryer and dropping the turkey (still frozen) in it from an upstairs window. The fireworks would really highlight the day.
Our glittering floor
Last night in preparation for Der Bingle’s week-end arrival, Summer made a welcoming ornament to hang in the vestibule. Nooooo, it is not as nice a gesture as you think. She and I were wandering around The Dollar Tree and came upon these three red balls hanging together for, yes, a dollar. They were covered with overlapping petals that reflected light in a chaotic rhythmic way. Summer and I looked at each other and said in unison, “There’s a seizure waiting to happen.”
This is when I got the idea we should make an ornament to say “HI” to Der Bingle . . . well, I got part of the idea. The whole full-fledged thing formed in my head and pounded for a way out when I spotted the skinny tin Santa with green-striped pants.
I have no pictures at this time, but later watch out.
Then we bought bells and red and silver pipe cleaners and, at Summer’s insistence, glitter. I told her to do what she wanted when we got home; after all, she’s been an apprentice for quite a while now. She had me add the last bells and one ball so I could have a participation factor.
I think it was while I was doing that she glittered the dogs. And in that process, glittered the floor.
The ornamental hanging Santa in transit.