Last night I wrote that my legs tingled after four hours of raking; well, today, I believe the adjective would be aching, and that would include my arms. And, of course, there are still more leaves on the trees. AUUUUGGGGGHHHHHH.  I believe that was a primordial reaction.

Other than that, I am warm and under a roof and have had a foldover and am drinking a Diet Sam’s. (No way this AJ is paying $7.18 for a 24 pack of Diet Coke.) Since I don’t drink coffee, I depend on my caffeine boost from cola. I’m cutting back, but that morning combination of caffeine and carbonation seems to be a habit of a lifetime, and, as Churchill said, it’s dangerous to fool with those. He happened to be talking about liquor, but it’s in the same category.

The lady who lived across the street from me for many, many years until she was taken to a nursing home, totally against her will, died last Saturday. She was 90, had never been married, been orphaned at nine and  a real social problem for her in her youth was the fact her father was buried in a prison yard.

She worked almost every day of her life and was still folding towels at the YMCA right up to the time she became too mind-muddled to be trusted to live safely at home. She would try to sneak out of the nursing home and realized there was a clothespin device attached to her clothes that electronically signaled her passage out a door. So she would remove it and clip it onto someone else . . .

There were a few pictures of her as a girl and young woman – one showing her leaning up against the taxi she drove for four years. She had spunk.