Usually during election season, Early Sam, an early morning regular at the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse, takes his hearing aids out before he even comes through the door. This morning he forgot, but thought it was all right because I have been reticent about saying much this election, other than my usual, “I can’t stand Joe Biden.”

BUT, Sam had not been around when I discovered that my online-renewed Driver’s License for the State of Indiana had been lost in the mail. They can’t mail you another; you have to go to the BMV and get a new one – and today I am doing that. Putting on a nice blouse and scrubbing my face and going to stand in line. I have been grousing. I had accepted the fact that my former license picture, crappy as it was, was going to be with me for more years.

Now I have to go and stand there and “Do not smile” – they tell you that – and then look at an older crappy picture. Plus, like I really want to go down there.

I think Early Sam was upset because he has trouble getting his hearing aids out quickly with his arthritis. I took pity; I helped him. He didn’t look at me because he has learned how to read lips . . .

Drat having to go to the bureau and, yes, I can’t stand that buffoon, Joe Biden! As a lot of people say, he’s the best bodyguard Obama has.

Sunny, high 70’s, but colder tomorrow and rain. Obviously, I should paint a bit and rake leaves or wash windows. I really don’t want to do those things. Really, really, really. I am ready for someone else to do all those things, while I do a little dilettantish raking.

On the other hand, it might be fun to experiment with painting – trying out a method somewhere between the brush and the spray method. Oh, let’s call it the “Pour Method” or perhaps the word splash could better capture the essence. I notice the riding lawn mowers are getting bigger and bigger blade swaths as retired gentlemen say, “Oh, I’ll just mow that field.” So maybe I need to think in terms of big paintbrushes. Yes, with a support arm operated by a joystick.

UPDATE: Well, I used the leaf blower on the back yard and Summer and I painted the little back decks – with brushes. Woo Hoo.  Oh, yeah, I painted my thumb gray accidentally and Summer has paint in her long hair. She remarked on it and then said, “Why Grandma, how did you get your hair in the paint?  Oh, never mind, you have gray hair to start with.” She has to sleep sometime . . .

I received a call from my cousin last evening and she and her husband are in the area; we are going to meet tomorrow for lunch or whatever . . . we’re playing it by ear. Everyone knows I’m tone deaf so maybe I should be opt for the “seat of the pants” guidance. Perhaps I should wear one of my LL Bean outdoor pants that have the double seat.*

*I was going to include a link to LL Bean, but it seems they are no longer advertising double seat pants. The pants are almost exactly the same, but now the rear extra layer is forming “back pockets” and they no longer make them for women.

The other day a woman who used to live in Missouri said that people had told her there were bears in Indiana.  I didn’t think there were, but saw no need to say anything in the situation. However, working on the premise that “AmeliaJake doesn’t know everything”, I did a Google search.

The bears are gone, according to the powers that be. One man thought he saw one and called the DNR, but they didn’t believe him. He was quoted as saying, “I know a bear when I see one.” Apparently, the DNR person said, “No, you don’t.”

There was a surprise for me in Google, though; there are Air Bears in Indiana. The Air Bears are a jump rope club and even offer to provide unique entertainment.  It was surprising to me, but I can see how coordinated young (or fit older) women could enjoy working out the routines.

I am not coordinated – clapping along with the beat is hard for me – and I envisioned me holding one end of the rope while and causing one person after another to face plant themselves as they attempted maneuvers inside the erratically rotating rope.

Then I envisioned the person at the other end of the rope walking toward me and tying me up, assisted by all the bruised face planters.

It’s raining and supposed to be cloudy all day and I think it is going to be so. Yesterday I started off with that same impression but shortly after I had expressed that opinion, the sky turned blue for a while. I was in my cloudy mode, however, and had to debate if I would change gears. And yesterday that annoyed me, revealing that my mood that day was actually “snitty with grimaces”.

I could go either way this morning – and I’m thinking about it.

UPDATE (And it is UP): Scanning the little headlines can be productive and today, out of nowhere, I got a psychological lift from Reader’s Digest. No, it was not an inspirational story or one of the contributor-soliticited anecdotes.  It’s tempting to consider joking about it being  a temporary Snake Oil Salesman boost in attitude  . . . because it is about WD-40 – uses for the product that is. Thirteen of them, actually, and the headline says “amazing”.  Frankly, it is informative – bring on those tea-stained counters and cockroaches. What? Well, check out the article or not; but I have to say, there is no way I am spraying oil on my windows – unless I’m going to be dropping paint.

I just remembered today is Fast Day, not to be confused with Fast Time and Slow Time, which people of younger generations are not familiar with anyway. Fast Day goes slow because I have to start a 15 hour non-eating stint for blood test tomorrow. Now, of course, I can eat through most of the day, but it hangs over my head, this ban on food. It’s not hard to do physically at all; it’s just that knowing you can’t have even a bite of peanut butter is psychologically upsetting. Maybe I’ll get PTS Syndrome.

Fasting is easier on a hot day, but now that it is a damp, cool and cloudy day in the fall, I know I will be thinking of comfort food. I guess I’ll think of it as a cleansing day because I can have all the water I want . . . better not load up with salt before the fast begins or I may bounce into the testing place.

Obviously, I am at nervous loose ends today – writing about the dark and fasting and absolutely refusing to knuckle down and get anything accomplished and compelled to share this condition. You know, quite probably it isn’t the rain or gloom or dark or fasting; I think it is dread of starting the battening down of the hatches chores preparing for winter and the cold air that can sneak in everywhere. (Not to mention raking leaves.)

I will need to use psychological tricks, But I will be manipulating myself – the irony of it is amazing . . . and incredibly amusing to my usual (victims) patrons of the PBC & Roadhouse.

Typing seems to be a lifeline keeping my fingers from window film and double stick tape. Yikes! I’ve got it bad today – the incredible lazies, which I’m certain is a credible medical condition totally out of my control. Yes, that has to be it.

It was dark last night with rain when I got home and it is that way at 7:30 this morning – and I mean dark. When I paused to think for awhile, the computer screen dimmed and hinted at scary movies. But the wind is not howling and the rain is not pelting down; it was splatting down, however,  when I stuck my head out the back vestibule for a can of Diet Sam’s.

Ninety minutes later:

It was unsettling this morning, all that big DARK, so I did the sensible thing. I curled up on the sofa and pulled an afghan over me, including my head because shutting my eyes wasn’t enough. I peeked out a couple of times and it was still very dark and then I dozed. When my eyes popped open and I peeked out again, I found myself in daylight filtered through thick white clouds.

And that brings us to now. But I am still as potentially boring as I was when I talked of Diet Sam’s and the back vestibule.  I have considered that I was so fresh from befuddling sleep when I heard the “splats” of fat raindrops that my brain began to feel like a big splat itself. Whatever. One way or another, I am boring myself again.

I am stopping typing . . . but I think I’ll be back. HAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

I have been in a cycle of not really writing about personal things; I mean the personal things that cause one to feel sad or choke up or feel the weight of regret and guilt. Lately, I have been having dreams about my Mother – dreams in which I am very angry with her. It is not a good thing to wake-up to, and, in fact, Der Bingle has had to waken me from some of the nightmares.

I think I am actually angry at myself and that Mother is not really haunting my dreams . . . because if it is the latter, a post-AmeliaJake-death  meeting of the two of us could be ghastly and not just ghostly. My father told me when I was young that he and Mother did not expect to be repaid for anything they had done for me – that I was to pass it on to my children. I’m trying, Daddy; I am trying.

Well, heeheeheee, a box is packed for LZP’s birthday and it is ready to be taped up and taken to be sent out.  The price of one of the items is still on it because, yes, it was a Sign from God purchase from GoodWill.  I was driving on Dupont and a voice kept nagging me to go to GoodWill . . . for the Fun of the Hunt. (Hint: hidden unintentional pun)

It is silly, not much, but oh, so appropriate. I mean who would expect a _____ (to be filled in after LZP receives it) to be sitting there on a shelf, waiting for me.

Oh, by the way, more folks here at the PBC & R took off for the Ohio Redoubt . . . are they tired of our peanut butter? Tempted by the land of Cousin Vinny’s Pizza and Hot-Headed Burrito? Or could it be my personality? Oh, of course not, AmeliaJake; you are the nicest, most wonderful, sweetest person in the whole wide world.

Ack, the keyboard is in spasms!!!!!!!Rtuy;jn] CALMING TOUCH ON KEYS . . . Uh, yes, I may have exaggerated my magnificentude; I’ll try to be more humble.