Today I am more lazy than usual, having things to do, but thinking I’ll just sit here instead. I am kind of stiff from climbing around on chairs, pulling (gasp) expired spices out of cabinets yesterday and then walking. We also cleaned drawers, which entailed my dumping all contents into a box and then sticking a magnet that looks like a golf club in the mess. Yes, I thought it would give a little fun aspect to the project, but the novelty did not last long.

Of course, there was the little surprise this morning when Summer turned the light on in my face and told me we had to make use of the early morning quiet at the fairgrounds so she could do her running for the online PE class. Yes, we all find that class a little odd. It wasn’t so much that she woke me early, but that I was in the middle of a deep sleep cycle; I felt like a zombie. It went downhill from there.

Shane couldn’t go with us because he would probably chase her  . . . and she didn’t want to run that fast. The humidity was in the 90’s but the temperature was only 71, so she got by without collapsing. He was not a happy camper, not at all.

I am beginning to wonder about my walking shoes; I think they may not be designed for fast walking, but more like the sturdy plodding on uneven ground. They are heavy and I am being bothered by the lack of give at the top of my foot. However, I walk on concrete and I appreciate the sturdy sole. Lately, my walks often leave me with legs that want to function like L’s. It is awkward.

Oh, did I mention I am trying to improve my walking posture? I pretend a giant fishhook is embedded in my breastbone and I am being reeled in. I would not suggest that you imagine it, just leave me to my pretending and look away.

One of our friends with the red striped stockings had a foot accident and I was going to to surgery. It soon became apparent that the fabric was threadbare and so I have decided to give Summer a sewing lesson ON THE MACHINE as we make two new legs and feet in boots.

I could get her interested in making tote bags, but then I think we did that before video games were available. I remember once my friend Suzy Wolff came when I was in college and we made sun dresses, with Mother’s guidance. Mine was green with big pink flowers. Yes, it was the 60’s. I loved that dress. Wore it for years – probably long after it went out of style.

Mother was an excellent seamstress, and I picked up some of the basics, but didn’t do enough of it to get really good at the zipper thing. Fortunately, our friend does not need zippers in her legs. I do have the sewing machine my great uncle gave my grandmother when she graduated from high school in 1900. He owned a business in Northern Michigan and was known as “The Potato King.” Anyway, he gave his youngest sister, Sara, one when she graduated and his niece, his namesake and my grandmother, one when her turn came. (Sara and Grandma were only 3-4 years apart in age.)

Nattering. That’s what I’m doing. I’d natter some more but I might open a door with a long convoluted story behind it and find I had bitten off too big a job for my natterer.

I did a repeat performance of walking in hot, humid weather after having applied a cleansing cream that foams when wet. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to do that with sweat. It just mixes with the perspiration and gets down in my pores. I  think it makes me look slimy, but I don’t think about it any more than to make that supposition. Right now my face feels super clean, which is more than I can say for my yet to be showered body.

People are starting to shoot off fire crackers now and then and Shane feels it is his duty to run out and bark. Then I have to yell his name; I think he should have a name for use in public when he is misbehaving. Something like Ralph, maybe. It would be a Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde thing.

Oh, speaking of the Hyde personality, Summer and I had an iffy few minutes this morning. I had an urge to watch a couple of YouTube videos of Tickle Me Elmo and we took it a little further and watched Elmo being blown up while laughing his head off – in one video, quite literally. We had to do penance by watching the original cute, adorable Elmo do his laughing routine as it was intended. Gosh darn, that fellow is cute.

Last night, after Der Bingle arrived  – and Shane had his fairground trip, Summer decided it was time for a party. Tongue in cheek, she talked of quality bonding time with her grandparents, by which she meant watching a movie while she interjected “remarks”.

Choosing a movie when the watchers are AmeliaJake, Der Bingle and Summer is the first obstacle to a fun-filled evening. We started off with a prolonged checking of what was on TV; that led to the viewing of the ending of at least two movies, one of which was Thelma & Louise and a somewhat prolonged period of her calling out the titles of DVD’s. We couldn’t agree on one, so we watched Tommy Lee Jones in, brace yourself, Volcano.

That would not have been my choice had I been alone, but agreeing to it ended the Chinese torture of titles of movies bouncing off my head with the rhythm of dripping water. She had not seen it before and we didn’t realize she did not know it was L.A. from the get-go. L.A., which she pointed out, does not have a volcano.

I announced I needed Taco Therapy and Der Bingle said he wouldn’t mind having a bean burrito, so eventually there I sat on the sofa, munching tacos, watching Tommy Lee Jones and fielding questions about the movie we were currently watching  . . . and comments about the last part of Thelma & Louise and the off the cliff into the Grand Canyon scene. Summer felt that by ending the shot in mid-air, T & L might have survived and concluded it left too much to your imagination. Okay. Any remarks about iconic movie moments fell smack on the floor of a virtual Grand Canyon.  Gravity and imagination – I guess it has a personal variable.

So, I sit this morning, sated with tacos and a little sleepy,  When Quentin and Robert William were little, we made a point of introducing them to classic movies. Cameron, too, has become a fan of them, but this one . . . can I bear a long monologue about Ilsa getting on the plane or not getting on the plane?

Soon I will have to make myself start winding cord on the weed eater spools. One was empty yesterday and the other was full and then, hello, the spool flew off and Cameron and I hunted for a long time for the actual spool and its cover in a large bed of myrtle. We found them finally; we also found a tangled mess that had been smoothly wound cord. It was not pretty.

I decided to mow since I had the long cord out. It was okay, not too hot and I got to meet Rufus, the 11-week-old bulldog puppy who has come to live next door. I don’t believe Shane knows what to think about Rufus, but I imagine he will be guarding his Wubbas.

That’s why I’m here – because I’m talking to myself, in the sense of telling things to the air. I think I’ve been doing it about my entire life; I thought everyone did and maybe they do; I don’t know. But, once, over two decades ago an editor remarked about a column I was writing, “You just sit down and write these things out, don’t you?”

She intended it as a compliment and she said she was envious, that when she wrote a non-news piece, she agonized over just how she wanted to phrase her thoughts and feelings.

Maybe because I can not hear music as others do, I tended to gravitate toward the rhythm of words in poetry and the parts of speeches that were intended to move people and not just inform. There are lines of poems that replay in my mind’s ear the way people seem to hum popular songs.

Ah, this actually is beginning to read like something I should not “just sit down and write” – hmmm. Well, the hell with thinking about it. And, I guess, the hell with writing right now. When I sat down I was upset, mentally telling the air a tale of perceived woe like a monologue. It was more than my usual upset; I felt the need to write and I figured I’d just not publish anything I typed.

Now, it seems to be out of my system and if I need to post anything, it’s a sigh and a “Well, let’s get to it.”

I look normal (ignore the Guido-ized photo below) and I am still bopping around, but yesterday I was freezing at the nursing home, while hugging a sweatshirt close to me. I came home and sat in front of a space heater. I went to bed early and my ears hurt deep inside and my throat is a little scratchy. It looks like I’m coming down with a cold.

These are the times when you say maybe you are not feeling so good and people roll their eyes at you. No sympathy.

Ironically, when the symptoms pop out with germ sneezing and the coughing that annoys people, I usually feel much better over all. I get some sympathy then, but I also I get avoidance, which does have its own benefits.

I am back in Kendallville; yesterday I was sitting on a balcony, being chauffeured around, treated to HHB and CV, placed in the comfortable corner of a leather sofa with an Apple remote and more episodes of House of Cards. As I pulled into the driveway, I spotted with freshened eyes CHORES to be done outside. I found some more inside. But enough of that for now; we will see what happens now that SHE* is back.

*SHE: Something AmeliaJake is often called by some people who I believe are sleeping in right upstairs as I type this.

There was talk last night after the posting of the picture below that it be replaced because, oh, let’s just quote Der Bingle, “It looks like Guido (the bat) took it.” Or maybe he said it made me look like a Guido wannabe.

Well, the heck with it; I can take a little tittering, but, please, no guffaws.

Yankee Candle had a 6 for $60 sale and since there is a store close to Der Bingle’s apartment I took him over to sniff candles. We walked by a kiosk that had free ear-piercing offered with purchase. Well, I had my ears pierced in the 60’s in a dorm at IU with ice and a hat pin. The holes were a little low; we wore bigger earrings that occasionally caught on something and eventually one hole worked its way down to the edge.

Years later I had it repaired, but the holes were just too low and my earrings looked downward, so I was tempted to stop at the kiosk. But I did not. As we walked out of the mall, I passed Claire’s and saw a lady doing ear piercing through the window. Free. I thought surely it must be a signal.

So:

I’m making a quick trip with my husband down to his apartment – situated between Wright State University and Area B of the air force base – in Fairborn, Ohio. Cousin Vinny’s and Hot Head Burrito are close by, but, of course, I am paying attention to what I eat, but think I may have temporary amnesia while I am there.