Yesterday, I cleaned, got cleaned up myself, considered going to the Mall for something . . . anything . . . watched hamburgers being grilled, ate one of the latter and then had an interesting scooter ride.

Later I got the urge to mow the lawn. It needed to be done because even though we had received little rain, the buckhorns were quite noticeable and the whole area was shabby. It doesn’t take long to do this little lawn; it is not like the one in West Chester that was a hill stretching some 200+ feet from the driveway to the creek on the curved road side and a good number of feet from that road UP to the house. Now that was an undertaking.

Last night’s little mow was adventurous, however. I heard a mighty clang and saw a white ball shoot out – one about the size of a softball. The mower kept running and took a few steps and saw the other part of the explosive collision: the scalp, ears and legs of a bluish grey  furry bunny Wubba.

I was sitting, looking at Robert while he cooked hamburgers, and my eyes wandered and settled on the white scooter. Sitting there with a breeze blowing, I thought, “Hey, I’m going to ride that thing.” And I did. First I had to manhandle it out of the garage past all the paraphernalia of the cafe & roadhouse and then I turned on the key and pushed the start while holding the brake and . . . nothing, nothing at all.

Well, there was more than nothing; I exaggerated. There was a bit of a rumble. What I was not doing was revving up enough to make the scooter move, because if it moved, I might crash – in my own driveway, into my own car.

Then I got the courage and ZOOM I was outta there; I had forgotten the feel of the throttle and when I went for it, I really went. You know how when you want to stop in a car, you push your foot away from you. There is a reason they say throttle back on a scooter.

Yes, I was going to stop and I went FASTER and then I did what I had learned, not what was instinct. I think the panic of a “what the hell is happening” situation helped me cultivate the instinct to rotate my hand back on a scooter.

Car: push brake.

Scooter: pull back on throttle.

The breeze caught my hat and it blew off. Yes, I had forgotten the helmet. Well, at the beginning I was just going to see if it started and maybe putter down the driveway.

This would be the part in my story where someone can cue the ZOOM effect.

Summer greeted my return with, “What do you think you were doing, riding without a helmet?” I said, “I lost my hat.” I believe that started a non sequitur  ping ponging effect in her brain and bought me some time. I was already going in the house when I heard, “Hey, wait a minute.”

It’s true, though, I did lose my hat because I figured after my ZOOM, I wasn’t going to fool around thinking hat when I needed to think throttle.

Now I need to clean the grilling grease off the white scooter, because my one thought not dealing with scooter survival was, “Gosh, this thing looks tacky.”

I am here, clean again. That says it well enough, although some would be tempted to use an imagery of adjectives and references to Ivory-soaped babies, spotted with talcum powder and lying on a fluffy white blanket in a pool of sunshine that dances through the window much like the sailboat beyond the panes glides across the waves.
TAKE A BREATH.
TAKE TWO.
Today, now that I am clean, I want to do something; thanks to the clean factor, I find it prudent to rule out things involving dirt and sweating. That leaves me in a quandary. Napping is clean, but it is on the shaky side of “doing something.” Going out and buying something for me, me, me, me, would be clean enough, but not prudent. Especially, if I manhandled myself into my car and went to Jefferson Mall, rather than Wal-Mart.

Did you ever wonder why Wal-Mart doesn’t have a pianist at a grand piano in the atrium formed by the escalators? Oh yeah, they don’t have escalators. So how about an automatic keyboard with an associate pretending. It would just be cheerful, dontcha think?

I hear they have strict rules at Wal-Mart, such as you have to call Arkansas if you are sick or you must pass a customer off on to another associate if it is your time to break, lunch, or clock out. I don’t know for certain about this and am going to have to look it up.

And then I will probably tell Wal-Mart just how to run their business.

Okay, this isn’t about us here, but I didn’t want to put Pioneer Woman in the post title. She’s a controversial figure in the world of personal blogging. For any male readers: just believe me about this. Actually, she has moved way beyond personal blogging to being a brand blogger and is going to be on the Food Network.

What has prompted me to write this morning is two-fold.

She posted a “recipe” that consists of putting Kristy Kreme doughnuts in a an over set at 300 degrees for 10 minutes, placing them in a bowl and serving them. People have tried to replicate this and disaster has resulted – big time. So much disaster that the bowl part and serving them should not even be considered. Although the Pioneer Woman often posts of embarrassing situations in her past, she has not once updated the Krispy Kreme post to even hint that there might be a problem – that perhaps, just perhaps – she was wrong. Not even a disclaimer: I am a trained professional; do not try this at home.

One of the mantras of the Pioneer Woman is “keeping it real” and I find it insulting that she cannot or will not acknowledge that something might have gone wrong. Mistakes happen. I don’t mind her doughnut post; I don’t like the fact that she has not acknowledged the failed attempts at duplication. (In fact, come to think of it, I have not seen any posts from her millions of fans that show pictures of successfully duplicating it.)

What would be wrong with saying, “Oops, let’s look at that again.” She could get a funny story out of it.

The second factor prompting this post is that she has featured her dog Charlie in countless posts and countless photographs. She even wrote a kids’ book about him. Then the family ran over him in an SUV – not on purpose, of course. I know about this from reading another blogger’s post. I went to the Pioneer Woman site and did see that she had a short post about having done so in the recent past. She said she wouldn’t bother the reader with any details and Charlie recovered.

I would think “The Running Over of Charlie” should feature prominently in her blog. She has followed his life in detail and endeared him to her fans . . . but Charlie being run over is a footnote. A “never mind, moving on” post?

Well, that’s it.