This is a picture of my father from the 1920’s; I remember him remarking on the “Old Timers” in town telling stories about fighting Indians on the frontier. Seeing that picture makes me think of that boy listening to old men, just as other boys would one day listen to him. Heaven knows what all they passed on.

It makes me think of just lifespans in general. Well, for instance, there’s mine. My youth that matched the years numbered in the picture above is also long gone. And that’s all right. I like having these links to previous eras. I look back at these pictures and somehow I remember a time before I could possibly remember and blend it into my memories. And, in doing so, I feel the responsibility and desire to be kinder than I by nature want to be.

I was using Firefox for one reason or another and when I clicked on a link, nothing happened. So I clicked again. And I went to system preferences and network and found out my net wasn’t working. Whatever to do? I just decided I would stroll over on the nano pathways to the game Machinarium.  I will not bore anyone with the plot of the game; just let it suffice to say I guide a little robot through a bunch of maneuvers.

This morning I found my robot in a bathroom and if he looked down the toilet, which was in a tower and not unlike a “long drop” outhouse, he saw a bomb fastened to the building. I will skip all the little activity that led to this: his hanging by a roll of toilet paper down by the bomb.

Now I can accept all the other tasks he has performed, but, gollygee, I KNOW that toilet paper is not going to support his weight, let alone take the added strain of his swinging toward the bomb. This bothered me more than disarming the bomb, more than climbing down into a fountain and through a pipe. I believe my robot can stretch his metallic body upward like a telescoping pipe, but I cannot believe toilet paper is that strong. I brooded over it.

Then it hit me. It wasn’t toilet paper; it was a roll of cloth from one of the old-fashioned hand drying devices. It had to be a hand dryer because brown sludge came out of the faucet and you would need to wipe it off your hands. I’ll bet if I go back and capture a screen shot and zoom in, I will not see any perforation marks in paper. It just has to be cloth.

I could put my mind to other endeavors and problems. Imagine a Miss America contestant forgoing “a cure for cancer” or “working for world peace” in order to answer, “I’d like to know for sure if it was cloth or paper.”

While I am here and before I wander over to play a game . . . yes I know I said I had that out of my system, but fate had other ideas.  Actually, while I am here and before I chicken out, I am going to tell you I will be posting about the preparation for and participation in a colonoscopy. You’re thrilled, right? Well, neither am I.

I wnt in on Friday for the introductory appointment. The doctor and his nurses are very nice. He’s from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and plays the piano, the keys of which he probably enjoys tickling more than . . . well, I’ll let it go at that.

I am told the procedure is not a problem because you have a type of sedation where you are aware what is going on but you remember nothing. I asked the nurse if they had ever had some patient not remember the fact that he/she yelled, “Heck, no, get me off of this table.” I am afraid of making a fool of myself, but then, I do believe it would be more foolish not to have it done. Easy talk when the actual appointment time hasn’t even been set yet.

I do have to not eat and drink this unpleasant liquid. I suspect I will be aware of and remember that. I do get to eat all the jell-o I want.

I wonder if for the sake of complete coverage, I should have a little tape recorder running during the part I won’t remember. I will probably spend the day prior convincing myself I am the essence of John Wayne: Little lady, you just go ahead and shove that up  . . .

Oh, I wonder if I will walk like John Wayne after. Now, that’s TWO worries.

Ah. my chickens have come home to roost. I’ve been posting old pictures of people and letters about them and from them and stuff I didn’t even know – like Sherman’s first marriage. As I was typing about the snow and the driveway “stuckings”, Der Bingle found something on the floor under the dining room table. I had put away some tablecloths earlier this week. No, I am not fancy, but I get great tablecloths at Church Rummage Sales – some from the 40″s and 5o’s, some with embroidery.

I don’t know where the corner is of this article – somewhere gone with the dust to dust thing, no doubt.

I also don’t know what the adjective was in front of afterglow – a word that starts with “g”. But I am so betting it was golden because I was probably racing a deadline. Or could it have been glowing?

That reminds me. Once an editor remarked, “This needs an ending sentence. You know, the ones you do that sound so good and mean absolutely nothing.”

I was going to write about the great stuck in the car and the spot where the driveway meets the street. I thought perhaps I would show pictures of  re-enactments. Let me sum up why I am not doing that: We got more snow and the pants I put on this morning are hanging in front of the heater because the legs are soaked from doing it all over again.

This time Der Bingle was at the wheel in the exact same spot. Cameron rushed out to help, not stopping to put on socks because he thought his grandpa might strain and have a heart attack; Summer went out; then they called for me to get behind the wheel while they pushed and dug some more and pushed and whatever. Finally, with Der Bingle behind the wheel and no one pushing, he made it onto the road.

Cameron and Summer worked on smoothing out all bumps and new snow from where the driveway meets the street and I pushed the light snow aside until Cameron insisted I come in. I tried to explain that it took no effort at all to do that but he felt better with me inside. Cripe . . . I’m officially an old lady in his eyes.

No pictures but then we’ve seen so many pictures of snow. This little link from LZP is interesting, though. Oh, the fables that could arise from visions of this.

When I was quite little, my father would tell me bedtime stories that were about things that really happened in our lives – such as “The night Duane broke his arm.” (It was a basketball game and his dad, Glen, and my dad took him to the hospital.) I suppose if  we lived in Iowa and I was little now, he would be telling me the story of “The Giant Snowblower and the giant snow mound.”

Der Bingle and I were on a three-way call with Quentin last night and the conversation turned to winter weather. No, not ours here in Indiana and Ohio. Quentin’s. In the Houston area. Houston, you may know, was once considered hardship assignment for British consuls, ambassadors, whatever . . . and they got extra pay. Last night we talked of freezing rain predicted for the area.

Fortunately, he has good tires because after his grandmother passed away, his mother (I seem to be in a third person mode this morn.) found wet roads to be slippery when driving his grandmother’s car. So she went out and  bought really good tires.

Had Mother (Oh, now I am me, AmeliaJake, again) not been in such declining health, she would have not let the tires get so worn, but in her unexpected last summer, she was still thinking of getting a new car. And being a child of the Depression, why get new tires if you are going to get a new car. But, being a child of the Depression, she just couldn’t rationalize trading in a perfectly good car.

The first time I drove the car with the new tires, I wasn’t so sure I was being fully figurative, when I thought, “Gee, this car is glued to the road.” Then it went to Texas – with a driver, not on its own – and wondered if the tires were the best for that area.

Well, this morning I guess they are. Don’t flaunt it, little burgundy car – pride goeth before a fender bender.

From weather.com: Winter Weather Advisory.

Issued by The National Weather Service
Houston/Galveston, TX
4:05 am CST, Fri., Feb. 4, 2011

… WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL NOON CST TODAY…

A WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL NOON CST TODAY.

AN UPPER LEVEL DISTURBANCE MOVING ACROSS THE STATE WILL PRODUCE LIGHT FREEZING RAIN… SLEET AND SNOW THIS MORNING. THE DISTURBANCE WILL EXIT THE REGION THIS MORNING AND THE MIXED PRECIPITATION WILL END BETWEEN 9 AM AND NOON. TRAVEL IS TREACHEROUS THIS MORNING.

From our weather correspondent in Iowa. LZP is the new Jim Cantore.

Is this baby Nell Drake? To tell you the truth, I don’t really know.

This is a tintype I found and now I am wondering if it is a girl or a boy. Unfortunately, some of these old pictures from both sides of my family were mingled together in a small group of drawers.

Of the subject now: I notice that I write “sort of” a lot – an awful lot. I just deleted it from the above sentence right after typing it because as the words appeared in front of me, I went, “Ack! Another ‘sort of’ situation.” I suppose this happens because I don’t really write here; I transcribe the little narrative going on in my head. Perhaps, if during my life, I had seen my words in cartoon balloons beside my head, I would be able to chat more concisely. As it is, I usually go round the barn in my stories. I also see that I use qualifiers a lot. Well, the heck with it, if I tried to change now, I probably wouldn’t be able to walk and talk at the same time. Come to think of it, I don’t walk and talk at the same time very much. I am a person who goes from point A to point B  – and I guess that’s why I don’t like to go on exercise walks with a buddy. I’m out there to WALK and another person just keeps interrupting my thoughts. Sheesh.

Back on the subject of the picture now – pun noticed but not intended.

Those eyes look familiar. I think I have seen them before. Then, again, maybe my mother scooped this old tintype up at the GoodWill on a whim. Maybe this is Sadie Bergenski from who knows where?

And, while I am on the subject – here’s another lady.

I want to say this is my Great Grandmother Sarah Kline Shimp. I remember some relative mentioning a lady standing in a  flowering garden . . . but I don’t remember what relative it was that said that. I think she looks like my grandpa, but, hey, I am the one who can’t tell if the baby above is a boy or a girl.

Cameron shoveled the entire driveway – and ours goes to the right around a tree and then left toward the garage. And then he shoveled the walk for the postman. I looked at the cuts at the edge of the path and saw he had shoveled a foot of snow. A lot of linear feet of a vertical foot. So we took the car out for a spin – oops, unfortunate choice of words – and traveled around town on the plowed but snow-packed roads.

Just think, we had a blizzard and my driveway was shoveled the next day and I didn’t have to touch a shovel. Woo-Hoo.

We had blizzard conditions yesterday – fine, dense snow going horizontal due to a strong piercing wind. This morning I had to put my shoulder to the screen door to get it open for the dogs to go out. We are not buried, however, and we did not lose power. Guess what? Der Bingle  was without electricity for about six hours during the late evening and into the night. The apartment was plunged, plunged we say, into darkness; but, thanks to us teaching him to appreciate Yankee Candles, he had some light. Now, our point about keeping an oil lamp on hand has been re-enforced as well. He went to bed with his charged Kindle and read for awhile.

Ah, yes, Abe Lincoln and his Kindle light. Oh, I believe I am mixed up.

The base was closed yesterday and today and he says he is getting cabin fever. Gee, I remember someone who spent a couple of Iowa winters in married student housing with a kid from five months to 2+ years. The “student” was a grad assistant and came home for supper and then went back until the late bus brought people back from campus some time between 10 and 11 pm.

Let me say two words: Three channels. Well, I think we had PBS also. Sesame Street came on at 8 am.

We were the first residents in the new housing – 162C. Our rent was $88 per month and the new laundromat was great. It had all glass walls and  scores of washers and dryers and it was not far from 162C. I believe it was open 24 hours a day. While your clothes washed and dried, you could stand at the window/wall and look at the COLD. Yes, on the edge of the Iowa prairie you can see cold.

Now, we had a blizzard there and you could walk up the drift to the 6-foot privacy fence and then flop down into the four feet regular level of snow. The first year we were there, “All in the Family” started its run. Yes, those were the days.

Actually, Der Bingle did have the worst of it yesterday and this morning; Dayton got freezing rain and everything is iced over. Even his tires are covered in ice. LZP was slammed as well and the nurses have not been able to get through. The last time he slept was 5 am yesterday; last night he turned his Christmas lights back on just for the heck of it. I think he will send a picture of them. Jody is 26 years old today . . . We’re just going to pretend the lights are candles on a huge white cake and not let on that her dad is one big lovable nut.