Der Bingle called this morning with some alarming news heard on the radio; I found the story HERE. Yes, there is a peanut shortage this year due to crop failures.

Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh!

I hyperventilated and I didn’t have a paper bag; I had to grab a small amazon.com box and manhandle the box flaps to circle my mouth and nose. If Summer hadn’t ordered a Nintendo game and left the little box by me, I’d be on the floor passed out now.

This is The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse, Jack. What are we going to do if we can’t get peanut butter? Does Betty Ford have a clinic for us? Probably not- that Carter fellow, dontcha know.

We are going to have to plan and, as Der Bingle says, keep the good stuff under the bar. Maybe become a  private club with a small little door to speak easy through in our screen door.  Screen door? Well, there goes that ambiance. Oh, well, cold weather’s coming on. Guess we may get a big wooden door with a small face level opening.

Just say Rose sent me.

Up and ready for the day – my day; let me be clearer – MY DAY. I would say I am going to do whatever I want, but I’d better qualify that and add the word legal. I don’t know, though, I might include misdemeanor.
First I have to get Summer to school, then it’s up for grabs; I’ll tell you one thing: I ain’t mowing no lawn today.
I do know what is just around the corner, though; that would be raking leaves. This year I think I am going for the “rake some on a tarp every day and pull it to the street” method. The marathon of raking and towing tarps to the curb is just not appealing this year. Then, again, maybe God’s Rake will come along and whoosh them away. Sometimes God’s Rake brings me leaves then from other lawns.
Sigh.
I will worry about that tomorrow. Or the next day.
You know, I live in a brick house. What if the Big Bad Wolf came along and huffed and puffed and blew my leaves away? That would be traitorous of me to use his services, though, since I was so upset with the grandma being eaten all up in the 50’s version of Little Red Riding Hood that my parents had to give it away.
Yes, Grandma was a different kind of grandma than I am. I wouldn’t be surprised if some people here don’t have the BBW on speed dial.

Yesterday was not my day? Well, I’m not going into detail but today . . BUT coming back from Fort Wayne, I was detoured onto 1-69 because of a wreck on the overpass at Coldwater, and then shunted onto the 1-469 ramp because of the traffic jam with all the cars originally diverted to 69. Finally got to Dupont only to have the lane narrow IMMEDIATELY and have to turn into a subdivision. After turning around in a driveway where the open garage door revealed a space so neat psychos had to live there, I went past a wreck involving school bus and blue SUV at Dupont and Lima.
When we stopped for a drink at Ricker’s north of Dupont, it was temporarily shut down and “fuel service” trucks were parked at the pumps . . . but no one was around.
Actually, it was a good day because I was lucky to get shunted onto I-469 instead of winding up ramming a car and being rammed in turn by the one behind me.
This is boring me, maybe because I just recounted it to Quentin. The clock chimed slowly while we were talking and I told him about having to wind up three mechanisms and, being us, we started talking about sundials. And I mentioned vandals who probably went out and slightly turned the pedestal at night – maybe for fun, maybe for an alibi for a crime.

Oh, yes, constable, I saw him at high noon right here yesterday . . . although it did seem like a strange high noon.

Oh, I was in Fort Wayne to take someone to a doctor’s appointment and I forgot my Kindle. But, not to fear, I found a book under the seat (along with a lot of other stuff) and settled down to read in the shady parking lot. It turned out to be a short appointment and I saw them in my rearview mirror 15 minutes later. I wanted to shout, “NO! Go back, go back,” but held my tongue – inside my pursed little lips.
Rats, I’m hankering for a snack; well, I distract myself with a sudoku.
Chow.

I’m surprised; I’m not angry. No venom is dripping from my little fanglet teeth. This is very unusual. Almost scary.
I have not looked at any site on the internet today. Nada. Zilcho. I have been busy . . . and things happened.
I thought I would blog soon after I got home and showered; however, there is this advice to not blog angry. Maybe that has stayed my outburst; maybe I am just building up for mega-outburst later tonight.
I have not had a good day. First thing in the morning one person two generations down from me makes a very unwise decision – a serious one. I don’t have to much time to brood over it because I have to go do ALL THIS MOWING and so I get ready. The car trip leaves time for stewing, however; rats, I should have remembered my ipod. Nothing like a rousing chorus of The Stein Song.
Okay, that part is over; the mowers are backed out and I start to fill them with gas. Guess what? I didn’t put the funnel in the car and I ran over the one that was already there a couple of months ago. (It was impressive.)
But, I have a steady hand for once and only a teeny bit of gas splashes – on me. I mow and mow and mow and mow and then BACKFIRE, QUIT. I’m way out to the north and look at the hike in and look at the mower and try to restart it. No. It’s not going to work. I hike.
On the other mower now, I take my time because it is the really good mower and even has a drink holder, out of which my drink fell, by the way.
Finally, I am almost done and drive the good mower into the shed and go on out to the mower which had a little problem that has happened before. It has always restarted after sitting for awhile. Not this time. And not the 20 times after my first try.
If I thought hiking in was a pain, I won’t go into detail about what I thought pushing it in was.
I think it out and plan my route and things work okay until I am almost there and I almost run into a tree because I am pushing it with my butt and legs.
I realign the wheels and resume pushing . . . only I am on a slight downward incline and I suddenly realize something on the mower has hooked onto the belt loop of my shorts. The mower starts moving faster.
I see myself slipping down and getting painfully and embarrassingly stuck. But I keep up and the mower slows as it scrapes a bush. Looking around quickly for witnesses, I unhook myself and nonchalantly push the mower into the shed. I lock it in. I leave.
Eventually I pull into the driveway and am met at the door by Someone bemoaning the fact that the game she ordered will not play with her new 3-D nintendo.
I am carrying groceries when I am met and I am still carrying all of them when I get to the counter because Someonecan’t lament and help at the same time.
I sigh.
The phone rings.
I get yelled at and hung up on.
I stay calm and put everything away, start a wash and shower.
Which brings me to this post here . . . but not quite yet. After I turned the laptop on, I read this message: None of your networks are available.
Then one came up and here I sit relaying my experience and wondering if I will now read or cut out voodoo dolls.

The other day I told Der Bingle he was going to have to get blunt with LZP about what he wanted for his birthday. Oh, I’m planning gag things and thinking of even mailing cookies . . . remember, I don’t have kitchen experience. They would probably be a gag reflex gift. However, we wanted to get him something that he would be able to enjoy.
So Der Bingle calls and LZP says, well, actually, he has been having a lot of fires out in his fire pit and he’d really appreciate some firewood.
I imagine he is thinking, adjusting, and coming to terms the best he can with the world since Jody passed away. I hope I’m not upsetting him by writing this here, but I think it’s important for family and friends to remember that the death of someone you have loved and cared for for 26 years is not an event. It is not a date on the calendar. It is harder than I can imagine.
I think of him watching the fire in Iowa And my daydream follows: I think about him, Der Bingle and me founding a gathering spot in LaGrange County: using the pot-belly stove in the kitchen, replanting a garden where Grandma’s used to be, fooling around with well water, cursing when we go to make a renovation and realize we have to cut through an 8 by 8 oak or walnut beam.
A place where his sons and our sons can visit and stay as long as they want.
Maybe try our hand at canning – my mother tried making ketchup and some blew up. Might need to re-think that. I know, freezing; we could freeze strawberries.
Get a couple of shotguns and guard the sweet corn patch from coons.

Well, no matter what shows up down the road, we want him to know there’s a light on in the window for him . . . always.

JOHN’S GROCERY HAT
Complete with dog hair on it and red Wubba in the background to right

I sat here just letting my mind wander long enough for my screen to darken as if flipped into its conserving power mode. I don’t think that is what I am doing – conserving power; in fact, my power usage may go up and down as I think about irritating things, puzzling things, the inability to understand some things. It is so hard to always realize that people are different and are going to react to the world differently.
AND THEY GET ME TANGLED UP IN THEIR REACTIONS. Just as I have caused other people to be entangled in my shortcomings in my lifetime, now that I think of it.

You know, I believe webs get tangled just by life’s breezes, not necessarily deceit. Though maybe we do make our own wind . . .(Oh, rats, I laid myself open to a pun.)
It is really great to be able to know about the past and all the scientific things we cannot see for ourselves. Believe me, I would never have conceived of an atom splitting on my own – or an atom for that matter. Not knowing how minds and personalities are determined is frustrating.
I would like to have a simulation of myself on a computer where I could make a synapse shorter or longer and see what would happen. Maybe grab a random chunk of cells and see if could still remember Paris.
Oh, wait, that was Bogart and Bergman.
Well, time to shower. Or maybe I could take a bath and soak my head.

When I was taking a picture of my cow birthday basket from LZP, I decided to also grab a shot of the piggy bank which Alison gave me. It is obviously a cow – like anyone would be surprised. But it is also, nevertheless, a piggy bank.
Quiet snapshot:

And when you feed it, it talks:

I wonder if I could get it to say other things? Hands up and give me your dough? Nah, that wouldn’t work – the coin slot would get all gummed up. And even if a diligent stuffer got all the dough in, it could rise and expand and the cow would explode.
So I guess it’s another back to the drawing board situation.

A long time ago Der Bingle went to Sweden; he made some friends. I have a lovely handmade table runner that the wife of one of those friends sent to me. We have Swedish Christmas ornaments and red wooden horses and I developed a real fondness for nice glassware.
Apparently, he didn’t tell me at the time about “apple season” parties . . .but he has sent me now a picture/story about Ol’ Ardidh. (His name comes from the Old Norse Arnviðr, meaning “eagle tree.)

Here’s the link. I fouled up this link originally and so Old Kook corrected it in comments. I have now added his correction here.

Well, you could see my new “sit-yourself-down-places” if I had not put afghans on them. But, trust me on this please: I think the afghans are better because you don’t feel as if you are sitting on  very large chocolate bar.

Jeez . . . couldn’t keep stuff off of it even for a picture. This is not a real afghan; I am not sure what it is. It is homemade and looks like a combo of needlepoint, crocheting and knitting and it is very thick. I have at time considered using it as a rug.
Does it have a story? Of course it does. The day after I returned from burying my father in Kingman Fraternal Cemetery in February of 2000, I woke up just wanting to do something – anything. While catching up on some old newspapers, I saw an ad for an auction later that morning. On the spur of the moment, I went. My feet were getting cold through my leather soles on the concrete floor and then
the auctioneer’s assistant brought this out and my winning bid was eight dollars. E-I-G-H-T.
I hot-footed it out of there and came home with my treasure and now I’m stretched out on it.
Now for the loveseat:

These are GoodWill afghans – two to three dollars a piece. They make it nice for Shane, and I like the harvest colors – cozy hues for days that are getting shorter.