I just typed that “hello” up there without thinking. I should have thought because the image that popped into my head right afterward was that of the bag lady character in Housesitter with Steve Martin and Goldy Hawn. Martin first sees her digging in a trashcan outside a restaurant in New York; she looks up and sings out a “hellloooo.” Then, when his pretend wife, played by Goldy Hawn, needs parents she recruits this woman for her mother. Martin can’t place her until he sees her outside his house in party dress in his trashcan. She looks up, sings “helllooo” and he, as only Steve Martin can, responds with a drawn out “Oh  . . . . My  . . . .  God.”

I believe I should have just deleted the “hello” title, rather than delve into that paragraph of explanation, but, hey, you know me.

I took a couple of people to Fort Wayne yesterday for appointments and today I am doing the same. So it’s a deja vu day. Today, though, the appointments are long ones so I am going to charge up the macbook and read while waiting. It’s supposed to be fairly cool, so I will probably sit in the backseat with my feet propped up and when anyone goes by the window, I will smile and say, “Hellllloooooo.”

Yesterday was sunny and, oh, maybe 70 degrees. It was the kind of day that does good things to the chemicals in  your brain. I spent it on lawn mowers . . . which, to my mind, was good. All alone out there in the day with the time to think long thoughts. And periods of not thinking.

Of course, my farmer’s tan is getting more pronounced – but then I don’t plan on being in a bikini anytime soon.

This morning Summer was wrapped in a big comforter on the floor – she had fallen asleep during marathon late-night movies. Shane thought the beanbag looked comfy and so we ended up with  BUTTHEAD to BUTT:

Der Bingle drove up last night from the Ohio Redoubt and at a rest stop talked with Quentin thanks to Sprint . . . and they spoke about, according to Quentin, “The Wrath of Mom”.  I guess, when I spoke with him the night before,  I had made an impression on my son by launching into a litany of  grousing remarks about some circumstances – see, I am being circumspect here, but only for that one instance.

Now, I again am open and specific: I talked about becoming a serial killer and I quoted indignant remarks made to other people as I talked with him. It was sort of a a verbal St. Valentine’s Massacre redux. Maybe like an audiobook with the words read with passion; I imagine he was glad we were not video-chatting and so I could not re-enact my arm waving,  scowling faces and authentic AmeliaJake  putting on the Hex curses.

That conversation was Thursday night and last night, after he had warned his dad, we talked again and the conversation wound its way to whether or not my attorney should put me on the stand. At first, Quentin was of the opinion that he should not, believing I would erupt like Jack Nicholson in “A Few Good Men” and that would be disastrous. On the other hand, Q then thought that might not be bad and my attorney could use my crazy time on the stand to bolster an insanity plea. But then I would be Jack Nicholson in “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

So we don’t know.

I sense I should end this post now. Rose certainly has her work cut out for her.

Excavation Journal

From 8 until 11 this morning, work continued in the drawers of the former linen closet. Have managed to avoid booby-traps and have several promising specimens depicting life years ago. It is my hope I have not disturbed any unhealthy dust, nor incurred a curse.

I did it. I got up and put my laptop aside and did housework.

Of course, you only have my word for it, don’t you? It’s not like I took pictures of myself mopping, sweeping, replacing blinds, spraying sticky surfaces with cleaner. Maybe this is all a figment of my imagination . . . God knows I can’t let it become a habit.

Yesterday, after mowing the lawn early to avoid the 90+ degree heat and stomping trash for pick-up day, I entered a period of being bummed.  It happens.

This morning it is raining and the high is supposed to be 79. I don’t think it stormed last night, but then I sleep through storms. Normally, I would make a jokelet about needing GPS the morning after a tornado, but given this year’s season, I’ll pass. (Although, I think I just stuck it in that last sentence.  My secondary consciousness is incorrigible.)

I suppose I should continue on my cleaning binge  . . . my enthusiasm has waned, however, and I am whining. I need super hero cleaning powers – the point and ZAP technique. I couldn’t be trusted with them, of course: I’d ZAP everything and everyone. ZAP!  ZAP! ZAP! ZAP! ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!

Say this is lifting my spirits. Oh, but it’s only pretend. Now that’s a bummer.

16 minutes. 51 seconds.  A lot of people sitting in front of computers today will kind of go “Awwww, almost 17 minutes; I don’t have time for 17 minutes of old man time.”

16 minutes and 51 seconds watching an old B-17 navigator remember. And if 16 minutes and 51 seconds is a long time in techno-today with things waiting to be checked with a finger click, then certainly the early 1940’s were a really long time ago, right?

Well, I have a link to a short film – 16 minutes and 51 seconds – made by Sleeping Dog Productions for The Disabled American Veterans. So many men fought in WWII – almost all of us have a link to one of those now old men . . . or to maybe some man who didn’t come home to get old.

Gary Sinise’s Uncle Jack was one of them and because of the former’s connection with the DAV, he was able to give his uncle a chance to share his thoughts and memories and blend them with the present in a ride in a restored B-17.

It is 16 minutes and 51 seconds . . . I suppose that could seem like a long time when you’re sitting in a bomber crippled over Germany that is losing gas and trying to make it back to England on a couple of engines. I wonder how many segments of 16 minutes and 51 seconds there were in that trip? How many in all the other missions he flew?

We all need to take that quarter of an hour – for all the fliers, soldiers and sailors from a long time ago and . . . and all the time since and to come.

Here’s the LINK.

A week ago when I was on the rider mower, I looked over and saw a rooster; I saw him while I was in my yard and he was too. It’s not as if I looked over the fence or over the hedge or over the road; I just glanced over about six feet from my mower seat and THERE HE WAS.

It was kind of surprising but, hey, once a big pig wandered over from a close farm and my mother had to hop right back into the car she had just gotten out of. I figured someone would round up the rooster guy sooner or later.

He was there today, just hanging around the yard close to the house. When I took an unexpected turn (as far as he was concerned) with the mower, he hopped quickly away with one of his  little chicken feet pulled up  under him. When he slowed down, he put both feet down and limped on slowly.

I just realized that was when I forgot about him. I don’t know if he was hovering in the background of my awareness or not after that. I may have started to take him for granted. Now, what kind of situation is that? Oh, yeah, there’s a rooster in my yard. How’s your rooster? If he is there the next time, I imagine he will become “the rooster”  – one step away from having a name.

I’ll bet Martha Stewart is jealous. Probably not. And come to think of it, she was a cooped up jailbird herself. Auuuugggghhh, that was so petty and mean. But, heck, I never liked her anyway. Well, I have to go chop my foldover into a semblance of a budding rose and put in on parsley.