Today I got up, took Cameron to school, puttered around with some laundry, went and had my blood drawn, came home and mowed, gathered up extension cords outside (while I was mowing), made barbeque with real roast, went to Wal-Mart and bought mulch, opened and emptied mulch bags, did more laundry . . . and read a couple of blogs and news articles.

Now I need a shower but I am sofa-ing it for awhile until I get up the ambition to do that. Right now it is lying around on the floor – an “a” here, an “m” there and the rest of the letters scattered between the here and the there.

I found four letters in my pocket: o,f,a,l. I am certain they are to line up as loaf. Maybe an exclamation point is caught in my cuff, making it imperative: LOAF! Who am I to argue?

You don’t know it but there was a spell of time between that last paragraph and this one because I was savoring the essence of the loaf. Yes, loaf is a good verb, but sometimes it is definitely nounish. Ah, life. Ah, loaf. It is probably not a coincidence that all it takes is a “t” to make float. (Yes, I know oaf is in there, as well – it’s some alphabetical illusion or whatever.)

Say, why do they always chant “There’s no “I” in team”? There’s a great big ME in it. See, you’ve got to think these slogan things through.

Aha, the temperature started to fall with the raindrops, so we moved our impromptu cookout from the backyard to the ancient garage – and besides it is good practice for when we paint the decklets and have to stay off during the painting layers stages. (I made up that term.)

AmeliaJake – me, dontcha know – found some Christmas lights and a tiki torch:

Then I caught Cameron smiling. (Grandpa had scored manager special steaks!)

Of course, Summer had an opinion to express to Grandpa.

And Grandpa is maybe listening.

But his expression caused these guys to get diabolical.

Meanwhile Shane ignored everything and kept his eye on the beef.

That’s a long post title, but I forgot to put one on the last one, so it will even out.  It, the last one, is listed as 5327; it’s a sign, I just know it. My birthday is August 27 and 5+3=8 and 27 = 27. Der Bingle would be groaning now because my memory tricks drive him  – I was going to say crazy –  and I’m sticking to it.  We are the generation of the “wild and crazy guy” – Steve Martin.

I popped open the computer to share my regret that Troy Landry of Pierre Part is going to be covered with water from the Morganza Spillway. I believe his family lived there since way before the spillway was built in 1937. He piqued my interest and I do what I always do – I researched. Turns out they say the same thing about him that they do about Regis Philbin: He’s a genuine nice person. Philbin was the subject of a New Yorker article some years past and the author remarked several times how he did all he could to help her. The writer of a piece on Landry said the same thing.

There are people all over the country like this, but until the advent of reality shows almost none of them were recognized by a cross-section of the populace. Oh, maybe a newspaper article here and there, but you never got to appreciate the day-to-day kindness and decency.

Once when we lived in Cincinnati, I ventured into Southern Indiana for the heck of it and got lost. There was an angular, older man in overalls walking down a deserted road. I pulled up to him and asked how to reach the main highway. He softly gave me some directions and then gave a slow smile and said, “Well, that will get you near there anyways.” He reminded my of my grandfather who would sit every night with a neighbor who was dying of cancer. I wasn’t alive then, but I heard that story told more than once . . . and always out of his earshot.

My husband’s grandfather –  W. A. to folks of his generation – was like that too. We have in our house a little chair that came from the Sunday School room in a small church in Harmony Twp, Hamilton County, Illinois. W. A. and Great-Grandma Lydia painted it for Robert William when he was a wee boy. I remember the day they brought it over.

I also remember one time I was there for lunch and he came in and hung his straw hat up next to Grandma’s, grinned and asked if I thought they’d fight. Ah, here’s a picture of the Old Timers’ Game – he’s in the back row, far right. I’ll have to have Der Bingle or LZP date this.

Well, I started talking about a flood and I fell into a flood of memories.

I woke up this morning thinking about what a counselor had said some years ago about a college in the area: “They had the first peace program.”  In addition,  a whole lot of colleges were giving military recruiters  grief for having booths on campus. Along with that, I remembered reading about graduates from some colleges announcing that they would not work for businesses  that they considered exploitive and other negative adjectives.

I talked with Quentin and remarked that some jobs required tough decisions; did these people with an alleged conscience and top-college intellectual prowess expect second-raters to make the best decisions in a non-Pollyanna world. Sort of an ‘I’m too moral to associate myself with reality’ so we’ll just let the weasels really take advantage’ mindset?

Seriously, I’m not just grumbling around here. Think about it.

Actually, I was sweaty up until about 30 minutes ago when I showered and was mortified to learn that I had used a shower gel called SNAKE PEEL. I don’t know; it was there and it was orange and without my glasses on I thought it said SHAKE WELL.

But then it is Friday the 13th and I did see a real snake today when Summer and I mowed at Mother’s. We had totally forgotten the date, though, and so the snake nor the incident of the belt coming off the Wheel Horse didn’t seem preordained. The grass had grown more than I expected and so we mowed more than we had intended – the ‘old mow the front and east part’ strategy gave way to ‘mow until your butt hurts soooo bad’ plan. We didn’t know this was the strategy at the time but it turned out to be a determining factor. And, of course, rain was in the prediction so we decided we had better hurry and get the mowers  put away. (snicker)

I thought about the comments I received regarding Pioneer Woman and Chef Ramsay while I was mowing.  It would be an interesting encounter. Ramsay does have a bit of an accent so I suppose for clarity’s sake, his voice will be P-Dubbed in.

Why look there, Mildred. His lips don’t seem to match the words. Odd, isn’t it, how excited and red his face was when he said, “My, my, this is certainly a lovely risotto.”

But on with the day . . . we stopped by the cemetery and a black squirrel crossed our path and then we turned up Fawn River Road but had to turn around because a big wreck had just happened. That’s when we realized it was Friday the 13th.

Summer pointed out that we had been lucky: The belt went back on; we had taken extra gas; the snake was a little garter one; black squirrels are all over the Sturgis Cemetery; we weren’t in the spot of the wreck a few seconds earlier when it occurred. I told her to knock on wood because we still had to get home. We should carry wood in our Buick because I did get home but I took a shower with SNAKE PEEL.

You don’t suppose it could be some sort of retribution for the spark plug do-da-doo-da-dooing, do you?

A scenario popped in my head. Pioneer Woman meets Chef Ramsay in her Tasty Kitchen.

D0o-da-doo-doo-da-doo.  We have a back story I am going to tell right up front. Actually, I didn’t really tell it back or front to Cameron, who pushed the scooter all the way back from the far side of Bixler Lake Park.  You see, it had power, but the engine wouldn’t catch.

He leaned against the car as I looked it over and thought, “Oh, but why? It ran well when I took it around the block.”

Then my mind clicked and I just made mindless doo-da-doo noises to keep myself from blurting out some crucial information.

It quit running because after Summer and I replaced the battery, the motor wouldn’t start and so we checked the air filter and the spark plug. It still didn’t start until Summer realized a lock was engaged to help deter theft. We flipped that gadget and varooom. Now, notice the only reason we looked at the spark plug is because we had forgotten the lock thingie.

And, do-da-doo-da -doodle, apparently I didn’t put the spark plug cap on really, really tight and it vibrated off.

That is the  little back story to Cameron’s marathon push home . . . on one of our warmest days.

I said the little spark plug cap had vibrated off and he muttered a curse word in a tiny little voice: one word – one whimpered word. I didn’t tell him why the cap vibrated off. I figured while fate might get a squeaked response, my carelessness might result in the evil stare of death.

I figure he had a good story to tell at school – all that pushing. I have learned sometimes your conscience can stand a little weight. Anyway, it was good exercise.

doo-da-doo-doo-da-do

I have not posted an update on Sydney. I should have but even now I am finding myself confused as to what to say. He seems to be very tired and yesterday he didn’t want to eat until Shane sniffed his food. Today, though, he wolfed down his 2 o’clock meal. But now, I am not so sure that he isn’t hunching his back a little as he walks.

He’s 14.

He was the last person – furry and non-furry – to whom my father spoke  coherently before he died. He came out to see Mother when she was diagnosed with advanced cancer and she smiles and asked, “So, you came out to see me, Sydney?”

Quentin and I got him when he was six months old. That was a long time ago. I am beginning to think it was a lifetime ago.

My intuition tells me I’m being too downbeat.

Flowers from Robert, Alison, Cameron, Colin and Summer.

I didn’t say anything because Sydney seemed to come around after acting sick on Friday evening; I took him to the vet on Saturday and his temperature was normal, but we did the usual blood draw and he has pancreatitis again with some liver involvement.

Well, darn, darn, darn and darn.

WE will be running over at 4 pm for a pain shot and an antibiotic shot. I am wearing my green T-shirt with the yellow tipping cow logo from Ohio.. Maybe I’ll change . . . into my pastel blue one with the white logo that LZP sent. It’s a bit more dignified, don’tcha know.

Sydney is beside me now, not on his sickbed, but on the sick-sofa-corner. I brought him my pillow and an afghan.