Oh, it’s going to be a jungle. Time to be a Boy Scout and prepare:

Gas cans
Gas
Funnel
Jumpstarter
Water
Tea packets
Mosquito repellent
After Bite
Citronella bucket
Aspirin
A lot of hours

Shale will stay here because he insists on walking right along with me and I think it could be too tiring for him – now if I hooked up the wagon and let him ride . . .

The furnace is on and I have a space heater aimed at my legs, because it is 38 degrees here. May 16th and it is 38. I am quite possibly going to go out and get flowers and greenery to pot for my father’s grave today, but I think I’ll wait until it warms up . . . to the predicted 53.

After the winter we have had, I really can’t complain about 53 degrees, or even 38; I will remark, however, that the temperature is making it difficult to get into the swing of late spring and early summer. I am beginning to think that rare day in June may turn out to be a raw day this year.

I just finished reading Out Stealing Horses by an author with a very Norwegian names – so Norwegian it escapes me at the moment. Of course, I have just sighed and will go look. Hold on.

Ah, yes, I have information:
Out Stealing Horses: A Novel Paperback
by Per Petterson (Author), Anne Born (Translator)

and from the NY Times Sunday Book Review.

The review has a good number of literary references; it is a “learned” review. I am always amazed that sometimes the ruminations of a mind can be so dissected and analyzed. It was the type of book that is a “come along with me while I think about my life” endeavor. And the book, like life, went along step by step and left questions unanswered in the end.

Often, when I read, I prefer my introspective essays to be fairly short; when I sit down to delve into something, I like to come away with more than the narrator’s thoughts – I like the treat of answers slipped in when the character is not looking. He may suspect, but I, by virtue of being outside the novel, know.

The reviewer of this book writes that the character makes peace with something in his past; well, when you get to be a certain age and have retired to a cabin in the woods seeking solitude, I would assume that one way or another, you have come to terms with what has been your life. The lead character does not ask someone sitting across the table from him who knows what happened to tell him; he remains silent. Maybe he feels it is better not to know. However, since this fellow has himself left questions for his own family, perhaps he feels if he had no answers for them, maybe he should have no answer to his question.

As I turned the page, only to find out it had been the last one, I almost said aloud, “What!?” Perhaps the curiosity in me is the AmeliaJake in me, or maybe it is the American in me, or maybe the generic busybody in me. More than likely, it is the low-brow that nestles in me.

I went to see Monument Men at the movies last night, but the theater had switched to Godzilla.

As I pushed my cart around Wal-Mart, it seemed as if people were looking at me oddly; usually, I don’t notice such things. They all looked sour and totally unapproving. As I was passing the aisle where the restrooms are, I thought, “Oh, why not?” and went inside. As I walked to the sinks to wash my hands, I looked in the mirror.

WHOA!

My Dorfman Pacific hat (outdoor design – crushable with mesh in the crown) was sitting half way down my head with the brim going straight out around my head. My hair had responded by flaring out and drawing attention to my mouth which is on the large size. I actually uttered “Oh!” and stepped back from the mirror. I reminded myself of some traditionally crazy little old lady.

I suppose I should be glad no one had a camera and I will not see my picture on People of Wal-Mart. Heck, I should have taken my own picture – maybe it would have gone viral and wound up on T-shirts. Now, would that be public domain or would I get royalties?

Actually, this was written and published yesterday; it just didn’t “take”

I am phone now in LaGrange County pretty much for the purpose of being here. I can’t mow because it is raining on and off today, but that’s okay. The grass will be mowed sometime.

The mosquitoes are going to be bad this year; we’ve had other years like that. I drove the oil-burning Volvo up here because of the window on the Buick, dontchaknow. Unfortunately, the guy is coming to fix that tomorrow afternoon so we will have to be back by then. Actually, I don’t really mean unfortunately; I’m just thinking that the timing could have been better, but it’s better than a sharp stick in the tire.

It’s really Cameron’s Volvo and this little week of Grandma in driver’s may spur him on to get his license. We had it out on I-69 this morning and I think the engine appreciated it. Cameron May have been more worried–like maybe the engine might go KABOOM. Well, that’s why I got this sturdy old Volvo body for him.

It is becoming very dark in the west and that grass is just going to be encouraged to grow more. I’m not arguing with Mother Nature; I am just glad for the metal roof over my head.

Ack. It is getting very dark and ominous here . . . And it is RAINING. Gosh darn, that grass is lush.

Property taxes have been paid on the LaGrange House, painful, but necessary. What makes it a pain in the neck, besides coughing up the chunk of money, is the fact that this one smallish piece of property is cut up into seven parcels. It’s not a big deal, but if I miss one, I don’t want it to be the one that the house is on . . . but, then I would probably notice the much lower cash outflow.

I was afraid there would be a long line, but it appears few are as tight-fisted with tax money as I am. A couple of Amish fellows ambled in, along with about three other people but I didn’t have to wait a bit. They had three windows: Checks, Checks and Cash, and Checks and Credit Cards. They were picky about it – one Amishman was told he couldn’t pay “here”. The staff has been beefed up for the past week and while I watched the clerk tally up my bill, I also looked over her shoulder to a lady cha-chinging one check after another into the county’s account.

There’s nothing noteworthy about that and I don’t know why I mentioned it, unless I was just fascinated to see tax dollars going off to work – and they weren’t whistling.

Okay, fellow former snow shovellers, yesterday we mowed the dandelion-infested overgrown yard, trailing 200 feet of cord behind us. Going around trees is so much fun . . . And then the dog biting at the wheels. Hey, I haven’t run over a Wubba in I don’t know how long. The yard was overgrown because when I went out to mow a week ago, a wheel fell off.

I sweat through my underwear, didn’t realize it and then sat inside wondering why I felt chilled. The day was okay – I was a little less so, not thinking really wisely. I read a book, rather than showering, which would have warmed me up and, gee, made me less smelly. The book was okay, just a 99 cent baby written a long time ago and revived for epublishing. I imagine the author could have edited the TV and movie references to some time later than the “70’s, but, hey, maybe it’s his estate that is publishing it. Yes, it made me feel old, but if the truth requires sensible shoes, so be it.

I mentioned dandelions; I have been going on about them for years. I understand that they have many uses and, yes, yellow is cheerful, but it’s become a tradition and that means I must at least refer to the rants of the past.

THE BOY

THE BOY AND DOG

THE BOND

Yesterday, Shane and I went up to the LaGrange House and we mowed, for the first time this season. He herded me on the mower, barking when I paused to move an obstacle or just determine what area I was going to attack next. He would nip at the tires. He also did not trust me to do the job without his supervision; he refused to go and lay down lie down and just watch. (See, I was so rattled I myself made one of my pet peeve goofs.)

We felt like we had achieved something when we finished what we were going to do that day. I put the mower in the shed and walked up beside the car to the deck and out of the corner of my eye, I saw this: my front passenger window.

I had not mowed anywhere near the car. I don’t know where the zapping came from, but I was certainly zapped, or is that smited?

I am up although it is still dark out, and I am awake – up to a point. I am contemplating peanut butter, and maybe a couple of aspirin for morning stiffness. About 16 years ago, I used to get up in the summer at 4 am in order to go swimming at the YMCA by 4:30. We were on Standard Time all year round then and it would get light around five. The Y had not yet been remodeled and the front wall of the pool area contained very large east-facing windows; I really enjoyed watching the dawn.

I am thinking about that this morning because if it were then, I would be in water. As it is, I am thinking about stretching out and doing the “sofa float” and wondering how much water would get in a yawning mouth.

One thing about that summer, though . . . I was very CLEAN and my scent was Eau de Chlorine.