Update: I just checked the weather and we have patchy dense fog this morning, so this post is on a two-hour delay.

I think it is Shane who has the loose stools*. Great way to begin a post, huh? Well, that is how I began my day.  Shane doesn’t bark when he has to go out; he goes to the door, period. He doesn’t come and get you when he has to go out; he goes to the door, period.

Well, I glanced around to see him walking back from the direction of the door and went to open it for him. Too late, as I opened the door . . . don’t continue if squeamish . . . it brushed through a large amount of loose stool and squashed it into the rug and up into the bottom metal thing on the door.

About the size of a large dinner plate, if you are wondering. Odd that I should use dinner plate as a comparison, now that I think about it.

Yesterday, Sydney was very irritable and seemed sort of scrunched up in his posture, so we went off the the vet for a visit. The usual routine: blood drawn, antibiotic shot and pain shot and pills for both in the coming days. That is if it is a flare-up of pancreatitis.  After his night of pain some years ago, we don’t gamble with the “maybe it isn’t” question.

But back to Shane. I can’t help but wonder why it is that he will nag you to death to throw the wubba, but won’t raise a paw to get your attention about the needing to go out thing.

Okay, enough of a little break for me – I’m off to get the deep cleaning “pet odor” shampoo.

*Loose stools: Not a term I normally use; it has the cringe factor for me . . . like bowel movement. I don’t know why – maybe because when I was little, they were words preceded by a throat clearing and a hushed tone? Terms I learned to brace myself for. Come to think of it, when I was little, adult voices when addressing some subjects sounded like grown-ups in Charlie Brown.  I believe if the kids wanted to tease me unmercifully, they would chase me around the house, ominously saying “bowel movement” and then guffaw uncontrollably. I’m certain they would choose to do so . . . if I were more open about my perspective on this personal language. I keep them off-balance by  inventing something they think embarrasses me. Oh, something like manure.

I was going to write in the post-title box: No weather for old women. I couldn’t do it. Not yet. I am not an old woman yet, although I will be hot this week as the temperature heads toward 90 degrees and the humidity climbs. I am using the heat and exposure to it as a toughening up and getting fitter method. I think it is working to some degree – well to about 85 of them. That was the temperature yesterday when I finished up a bit of the tiny front yard  after Cameron had mowed most of it . . . and my face got really red. But then it always does. I don’t really know it, but people exclaim, “Your face is so RED.”

I  am only drinking coke/diet coke in the morning when I first get up to stave off withdrawal and, ironically, to facilitate my body’s withdrawal from bed.  I have become a fan of the little pouches of Crystal Clear’s tea powder. It is far more refreshing than a cola in sweating situations. Also, I think it makes me pee more, which is probably good for my kidneys  . . . although for Der Bingle, I ‘m sure it is too much information.

Now that Summer is taller than I and approaching her freshman year in high school, I find he is leaning toward my dad’s position that ladies are supposed to be, well, ladies. My father would remark on occasion that he didn’t think a “lady would say that”.  Now, Der Bingle says to me he expects me to be a role model for Summer. Don’t forget this is the person who is known as “Cave Girl” on my speed dial.

I have tried to give her the “I see some of my obnoxious traits in you so learn from my mistakes” talk and it doesn’t go in one ear and out the other. No, it is more like the arrow on Steve Martin’s head – it goes up to her ear, then detours along the perimeter of her head to the spot above her other ear and moves on. You can sort of watch the airflow movement if you look closely.

Well, I’d better clean up . . . got to set an example for Alley Oops, dontcha know.

Right now I could use a shower . . . and I will get one pretty soon. But right now I am just sitting here with my traveling bags in front of me. Going back and forth between here and Mother’s has evolved into “bag living”. I started by throwing a few necessities into the big Land’s End monogrammed tote bag I gave her one year for Christmas. Then that it got so full it was impenetrable. So I divided stuff into two bags. Then I progressed to two bags and small plastic compartmentalized organizer with a handle. It seemed like a good idea so I got another one to but all my cords and batteries for cameras and computers and phones.

This, of course, involves more than one trip from car to house and back again. So, I prioritized as to what needed to come in first  and what could wait in the car. Oh, I forgot to mention I usually bring a cooler with ice in it. Of course, that needs to come into the cooler house – to not sit in a hot car. And the electronics . . . that has to come in.

The crucial contents are my medicine and the small Estee Lauder cosmetic bag adapted to carry every key Mother had.  Never, never, forget the key bag – which is supposed to stay at all times in the Land’s End bag.

By the way, I keep a suitcase in my trunk and often gas cans to be filled in route.

I am a vagabond.

But what really gets me is when I am trapped into the “feeling in the bottom of the bag” maneuver. Yes, some things inevitably filter to the bottom and I have to fish for them . . . hoping I won’t have to turn the bag upside down. This morning I popped a pill out of it’s foil and bubble container and it hopped down into the depths. I heard it.  It took a lot of effort and tilting to retrieve that little pill from bottom of that big bag. Guess what it is for? Yeah, blood pressure.

I have dripped for two days in a row with the sweat of humidity. My hair has at times looked frightful. I use a common cliche because I have made a point of not looking in the mirror, but from the way it has fought going under a hat even though the roots were soaked with sweat, I know it is more than just bed hair. It is more likely witch hair.

This morning when I was working with the vacuum on the back porch at Mother’s – the regular one, not the wer.dry vac – I discovered it was not sucking. That sucked. Turns out someone vacuumed up TWO pencils and they were stuck and holding back a huge clot of lint, dirt and hair.  I would have sucked them out with the wet/dry vac, but the reason I had the regular one out was because I was sucking out the filter on the wet/dry one. So I dug for them with a fork. Screens on three sides of me and the sweat was running down my face. I could feel it pop out drop by drop, just the way I have watched chickenpox develop – one by one.

I mopped my face with my shirt because the paper towels were tooooo far to reach. I felt very down home and it didn’t feel bad. However, the Irish Spring body wash did feel better.

Are you still back on the chickenpox remark? Yes, I know it is an unexpected thing to hear. When Robert William was five, he got the chickenpox in kindergarten when we were at Wright-Patterson AFB.  He lay on his stomach without a shirt on on our bed and Der Bingle and I realized we could actually seen the individual pox form. A reddening, a widening, an upthrust . . . right out of little pale skin.

We were ooohing and ahhhing and Robert William was crying that he couldn’t stand it. It was like time-lapse photography in real time. We probably got bored, though, because he was covered with them. I don’t think our personalities were evolved enough that we thought to call him “pox boy” at the time. But it came to me now.

You know, I don’t think Quentin’s pox developed in front of our eyes; I think his came at night and he got up looking like a polka dot boy. We didn’t call him that, either, even though he was also covered head to toe with them. (And between toes)

I don’t know when we started designating people with an adjective, but we do it all the time now. Not that we’re nasty . . . each and every time . . . and sometimes we aren’t too creative, just blunt. And I don’t know if I want to devote any time to figure out when the watershed moment was.

I have gone off on a tangent; I was talking humidity and sweat. Quite possibly, I will meet with those two tomorrow because there are still lots of willow branches, and oh yes, the new chestnut limb – not to mention limbs on pine trees that need to be chopped off and roses that need to be cut back.

We need a good refreshing breeze to come through and dry out the air, but then again another branch might come down. You know, it just occurred to me, that willow could have come down with ice on it and that would have been fine fix to be in.

I dropped Alison off at the hospital and went  started to mow at Mother’s; I hoped to beat the rain. Well, I got part of it done, was sprinkled on for about 45 minutes and then experienced a further rise in humidity.

Oh, did I forget to mention that when I drove up in the car, I thought, “Gee, I don’t remember the willow being over there.” Of course, it had not been. This was a new really big limb – one from the chestnut tree. I hope the Smithy wasn’t standing under it. After digging a squirrel’s  out of one of the mower engines, I headed on home and arrived as the first sprinkles of an incoming storm began. It got very dark here in Kendallville and I can’t help but wonder if there is a new limb and/or tree down at Mother’s.

I will say this: my face must be really clean because perspiration that poured off me washed every pore clean – still, then I did wipe my face with my shirt tail that had grease on it.

Funny how things link together – all the sprinkles and storms and now I am watching Claude Rains in a 1947 movie.

I have people in my family who will take a piece of chicken, put it on a plate, come out and sit beside me watching some show on the porch TV and when I look over I will see a plate of BONES. Other people in my family do the same thing, minus the stuff following “put it on a plate”. I find plates of bones in the chicken.

It is beyond me how anyone can suck on a chicken bone, gnaw at it until there is not a shred of anything but bone left. My mother could eat a nicely-cooked chicken  piece like that, but even she was no match for some in a younger generation. One good thing, Cameron mentioned sucking the marrow out of it, so I am hoping he was making a reference to Thoreau. Please, let it me that.

I can eat chicken in tiny bits but it has to have no grease and be nice and fluffy. This is what some have called overdone; I call it fluffy. But if it had a bone in it, then it would be no go – fluffy or not.

Somewhere along the line, I lost the chicken-eating, finger-licking good gene. Personally, I think that is a positive step on the evolutionary path, but as I indicated, I keep that opinion fairly personal – only expressed with family.

Still, when rotisserie chickens are on sale, I buy them because it makes so many people here feel happy and their stuffed mouths are quiet. As for me, I just listen to the quiet and don’t look at the plates. Of course, when they start on the bone sucking thing, I have to give them the look or leave.

Last night, in the kitchen, Cameron and Summer were teasing me by pretending to chase me as if they were zombies with their awful greasy fingers. Cameron inadvertently touched a strand of my hair . . . and I went ballistic with panic. I HAVE CHICKEN GREASE ON MY HAIR!!!!!!! and running around type of ballistic. It was terrible. They much have gotten the idea I had gone off the deep end because they stopped . . . but they kept laughing.

And, do you know what? Alison remembered that my mother had her own rotisserie and, gee, we could just roast out own big chickens. Auuuuuggggghhhhh. Maye I can convince her Mother had taken it out in the yard to clean and it rusted during the winter and was crushed by the tree. Probably not.

I can honestly say I don’t know where it is . . . exactly. I imagine the heat we are having will further cloud my memory.

Frankly, I think they need a chicken-eating designated spot or I need a padded room. They would probably pipe in a continuous loop of recorded bone-sucking and finger-licking.

I looked and looked for this picture of Quentin and his Grandma Sarah standing in the west part of the yard in Scott together and I can’t find it. I have seen it recently so I am thinking of whamming my head against a brick wall. Fortunately, Mother once gave me a section of foam bricks to hang on the basement door.

This picture is not particularly amazing in terms of pictures: Quentin is wearing one of his flannel shirts with a tee shirt underneath. Mother is standing there beside him. There is a resemblance and a couple of weeks ago I exclaimed to Quentin, “You have a lot of your Grandma Sarah in you.” That is not bad at all, except now and then the eccentricities that drove me crazy about Mother look back at me from him. It’s not that that is bad either; actually, there is a humor to it.

But I can’t find that picture, so it is not seen here. Bummer.

I could write a lot, but he knows. So  . . .  Happy Birthday, Quentin.

We are facing three days of 90+ weather; that is hot for us, or at least me. I know, I am a wimp. Actually, the good thing about the higher temperatures is that this year I have been out sort of working in them at Mother’s. Oh, God, how I love iced tea. It has been a cleansing reminder for my body – sweat out the toxins, suck in the water and, of course, you don’t feel like eating much.

It would put hair on my chest – might as well be something there since I don’t have a bosom. I have renewed my respect for hats and when a cool front moves in with invigorating breezes I will  revel in it. Revel? Me? I am a dull reveler; I can’t seem to build up to a rollicking revel, probably a genetic trait from strait-laced ancestors. (Obviously I am not counting the great-great grandfather who took off for CALIFORNIA after his first wife died – my great-great grandmother – and didn’t take our part of the family to the beach!)

More fireworks last night – more time spent with one dog barking maniacally and the other quivering on top of me. More hamburgers, more hot dogs.

Tomorrow is Quentin’s birthday. We keep asking him what he wants and he keeps putting us off . . . so I guess we’ll go with the pink flamingo for the front yard.

(Quentin, this is Rose – Get a paper bag and breathe into it . . . Your mother is just kidding.)

You are bored with the willow tree. I know it. I kind of am as well . . . but it is still in the backyard.  A lot of it is piled up like an horizontal stockade wall, but somehow it seems everywhere. Look:

Okay, this is what I call “the west zone” and it is over south of the Wheel Horse Stable. I really don’t call it “the west zone” – that just came to me as I was exporting the photos from iphoto. But, yes, for you purists, it is the westerly portion of the area in which the tree fell.

I swiveled to my left and here is the “zone” that reaches up to the drive to the old diesel garage.

Here, I just tilted the camera to look right in front of my feet.

And this is the smoke of the beginning bonfire which consists of the branches we gathered on Saturday. We were hunter/gatherers. We hunted for branches (which was easy), gathered them into a pile by using the little tractor to pull bundles, and then, by this time, the almost 90 degree weather fried our brains and we got all mixed up about hunting and gathering and cooking our food and just set the whole blasted thing on fire. We have a lot left.

It is amazing how the idea of making stools and souvenirs out of carved-up logs and branches is just vanishing from my brain. The trunk is still there, you know. It’s, oh, about 10 feet tall with two sharp bunny ears. The horizontal stockade is east of it. It’s intimidating.

After we called it a day because two of us are 61, we hotdogged and hamburgered ourselves and then waited for it to get dark for fireworks. Sort of. Of the four of us, the younger 61 person stretched out on a patio loveseat on the porch; the other sixty-oner watched part of a movie with the two under 20 and then the latter got antsy and started shooting off noise things.

The porch oldie got up and managed to take part in a plot to set off a smoke bomb right below the porch window where The Der Bingle 61-er was sitting. And then to light a batch of fire crackers. I have forgotten the dogs – they were upset with the noise and barked and ran and hid over and over again.

Then it got dark and we heard other booms from people more patient than we; I lay down on the loveseat again . . . and Sydney lay on top of me. It was cozy. Then he got off and I got chilled and got a blanket – but, not to fear, the morning sun soon came and zoomed the temperature back up.

I filled a wheelbarrow with little sticks this morning and then said to heck with it and Cameron pushed it over by the shed.

I think I am going to read up on willow bark usage and just periodically chew the trunk next time.

You can see me standing there, can’t you, in my shorts with big pockets and shirts with vents and more pockets and just pulling pieces of bark off nonchalantly. Or perhaps I will go native and gnaw.

Der Bingle bought a machete to deal with the tree; he loves it. He has a sharpener for it and everything and today was drawn to Rural King to gaze at other cutting tools. I think he needs a planter’s hat and we all should sip cocktails on the veranda.

That would be if we had a veranda; we have a half-collapsed deck. I guess we lack the ambiance. Of course, if we took the half collapsed part and collapsed it entirely, maybe we could call it a veranda. Little lights strung from pole to pole, music drifting out through the window. Oh, yeah, I’m supposed to download “A Boy Named Sue.” Ah, we can’t get away from ourselves.

Summer picked up the camera; Sydney and  Shane were here and, so,  here are a few shots:

Sydney started out napping on a blanket on the floor with an orange towel behind him . . . I don’t know why the towel was there; it’s laissez-faire housekeeping.

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She really liked the cute tongue factor.

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Then Shane  got a little excited.

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Quite possibly not enough sleep?

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Uh . . . Is there a full moon?