I’ve written about blogging before – the why of my doing it – but I was thinking about it again yesterday while driving down to Avilla and back to get a prescription renewal.  I had some pretty good sentences come into my head, if I do say so myself; sentences that got right to the core of the matter.

I don’t know what they were now exactly, but I know the reason I blog is clear-cut: I enjoy fooling around with putting down in writing some of the funny stories I’ve encountered, some of the sad and some of the made-up fantasy places I’ve put together in my imagination.

I like it, and I like that because someone else may see it, I sometimes strive to be a little more accurate in what I say. It helps me to remember parts of my life as well, and it is where my life goes on when people are far away. They can come here and see AmeliaJake is still AmeliaJake and there are ongoing tales to go with the ones they may remember from the past . . . like the day I fiddled with the toilet tank mechanism and water shot all the way to the ceiling.

It’s a place where sometimes I can talk with them in ways that don’t work well on a phone – a place where they can pause for awhile  before going on  . . . because that is how we do it in real right-next-to-you life.

It’s pretty obvious I blog for some people because I am so desperate not to lose them.

And, yes, I blog because people have told me I have a gift for putting some feelings into words. I thought for years that everyone could; I have been told repeatedly many cannot and that they appreciate the lyrics to the melody.

All in all, I enjoy it – especially the goings-on with those raggedy regulars at the Peanut Butter Café & Roadhouse. They’ve signed the waivers and I’m going to be sharing more of their antics . . . although they might not have signed if I had phrased it like that to them.

Oh, in case you didn’t read the post from last night – which is under this one now – missed the warning . . .

I will be taking a picture tomorrow; it will be of a special squash. I will be taking this picture at the request of a member of my household. You should be aware that the subject of this photograph is a conjoined twin squash.

I will not be doing anything with this squash and therefore do not expect to be featured on The Discovery Health Channel in a precedent-making vegetable operation.

This is basically a non-announcement.

My Kindle protector came today from Waterfield (sfbags) and it looks like this:

My MacBook sleeve looks like this:

And then there’s my ipod case that looks like this:

I suppose you see a pattern there. The Kindle and MacBook cases are different sizes – although you can’t tell if from the picture.
This is not my usual M.O. – the having matching things bit – but I liked the first one I got (MacBook) and decided to stay with a winning team.
The Waterfield people also send nice emails and add Thank You’s with your delivery.
Today is one of my appreciate my things days.

Yes, it has turned out to be an extended affair – Zee washer, she needed another switch, because the broken part which caused the THWACKING was not the also the cause of the non-rinsing, non-spinning problem. Apparently, if the latter switch had not failed, I could have pushed the THWACK part back up and just the potential for future THWACKING would have remained.

Of course, the switch failing saved me from one of my idiosyncratic “fixes” and now I should be able to wash without any hitting of a certain spot or standing a certain way or sticking a piece of “something” “somewhere” to get it to work.

Now, they just have to get here . . . Excuse me, I am going to do an Indian Washer Man Dance to hurry them along.

Last week I decided I would take one hour early every morning – when it is cool – to straighten up the garage. Not going to happen. HOT – that’s why. Hot in the morning, hot in the day, hot at night.

Yesterday it was 91 degrees and felt like 102; those of us in Northern Indiana are not used to such linebacker humidity. Sets you right on your rear – sends you scurrying for the AC.

Oh, gosh, the spectre of a power outage is the new monster under my bed.

Some time ago I wrote a post about transcribing – Okay, I have written more than one over the years –  but this one Karolina found and sent me an email telling me she was in the throes of it today.

I sent “touch the screen” good vibes to her, but maybe she thinks I just said it – so here’s a picture.(Now, those aren’t real age spots; they are my vitiligo. Really. Honest to God.

I really like digital cameras; I like the way you don’t have to worry about film usage – rationing out shots. I think it’s great for instructional uses and a tremendous tool when you are dissembling something you really would like to put back together correctly.

I think it’s great.

Yet, I have this box of old photos – black and white, early color ones, Polaroids. My grandma,  my folks, a couple of shots of my elusive-to-a-camera grandpa, my aunt, me little, me teen-aged, my dad with Robert William in front of the house in Kingman when he was just two, Quentin with his grandpa and Miss Alice. I can see these pictures in my head almost as well as I can see them in my hand.

What if I had hundreds – thousands – of shots of all these people? With Photoshop Actions?  I don’t know. In a way I think they might crowd out the memories of the heart.

I used to wonder about the families of  movie stars – watching someone look so alive and yet be so dead and gone. Now everyone is edging closer to that possibility as videos go way beyond the holiday get-togethers

I do like all the pictures – but I think I like them to share with others here and now. But I cherish the old ones – one snip in time – sometimes creased and folded at the edges.

A moment caught in a locket around my neck – a small frame sitting on the end table where I always sit – a face in special wooden box along with a keepsake or so.

When my mother died I slipped a picture of her mother, her father and a snapshot of her, my daddy and me in her casket. They were ones we had all looked at many times . . . ones that linked us together.

I figured with the little thing of the washer being on the blink and the tiny laundry room with which I had to deal, I’d be stopping and updating often. No. I just kept at it  – I think for the heck of it. I moved the dryer out by myself – there’s a certain trick to it that I only partially remember each time so there is a period of time when I am studying the wedged-in-the-door-dryer. But eventually it emerges. And now it is sitting in the kitchen.

I talked to the repairman and they are coming on Monday between 11 am and 1 pm. I will use the time until then to admire the fuzz-less floor of the laundry room and the cleaned and re-organized shelves. I told the repair guy right up front that I wanted him to move the dryer back in, mentioning that I was almost 63 so he would be determined to do it and not be shown up by an old woman. He is going to make a tight attachment for the dryer hose because it keeps popping off and in the small space, it is so hard to get back into place. That is undoubtedly why the floor is a fuzzy fur of lint.

I hope he can fix the washer – it is a Maytag and only a couple of years old. My first Maytag lasted about 27 years. Sigh. This new one came close to having a grand mal seizure last night. THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! Oh, it was a powerful thing – I thought perhaps it was transmorphing into a werewasher. It would not drain or spin, but I found out it would let more water in. I lunged for the control when that happened.

I suppose now I will search the internet for possible washer phenomena and if it’s bad, I will write Maytag a letter. You’re laughing, aren’t you? It will be a letter akin to the Egyptian tomb curses. I will feel better.

Der Bingle came early; I knew he was here because Shane was desperate to get the door open to come in so he could run around to the other door and meet him. His little whimpers were heart-wrenching: Oh, Oh, he’s here. He’s here. HE’S here. It’s Little Ann syndrome – she jumped chest high when Der Bingle returned from San Diego.