I was at the LaGrange house, looking around for something and I noticed – after heaven knows how many years – that this wall mounted cookbook-based bookcase had a row of  little drawers along the top of it.  (I’m betting it was the cookbook thing that had me shying away from that piece of furniture.)

Anyway, I opened them, And found recipes . . . of course. In my mother’s handwriting and numerous clippings from newspapers. No wonder I like restaurants with honky-tonk or roadhouse themes – eating in a nice dining room with four star food is, I whine, like eating at home at Mother’s . . . every day of the week.

I believe I was dreadfully spoiled and did not appreciate my mother in this area for a long, long time.

But, on with the drawers: Not only were there recipes, but an Erma Bombeck (remember her) article on too much cleanliness, as in housekeeping. I also found two snapshots from 1949 of Daddy, Great Aunt Sara and me and one of someone who I think is in my family but from a long, long time ago and with an indiscernible background. Come to think of it, the 1949 pics are from a long, long time ago. I am going to scan some of the recipes and maybe I’ll post them here. There’s one for Homemade ice cream, but I’m not sure if it’s Mother’s usual one or another one she thought she might try. I’m thinking she had the usual one memorized, but then again maybe she wrote it down for someone else.

UPDATED*

Well, not really. I think I’m going to LaGrange County . . . after the dryer man comes, Now there’s a thrill; I have yet to go peek into the laundry room and see if there are dirty clothes I have to haul out and that knowledge underscores my sarcasm in “thrill”.

Gosh, I’m in a crabby mood today. Really crabby. If I could draw a crab, I would; but I can’t, so visualize it . . . big old claws smeared with peanut butter.

*UPDATE RIGHT BELOW.

Yes, down here. I think I’m not so crabby now, maybe it was the peanut butter – or perhaps the aspirin and Vitamin D and these other pills. It is possible that I thought, “Crabby is no way to do your first official Senior year, dear.” It’s amazing, I am going to go to my grave with some sort of word association thingie: I just thought that as I reached senior status, the country was getting more senor strata. And, of course, what is the difference between the two? Could it be my narcissistic “I”?

Oops, maybe the crabbiness is not abating, just slipping into the shadows. Well, whatever the reason, I was able to deal with the dog throwing up and my almost stepping in it with concern about Shane and not with a loud “What now?”

Actually, the now is the “Now he is six,”reality. M it’s time to get a lot more cautious about what he is fed and to ease into the rice diet. On the other hand, I find it difficult for him to have trouble with a Laura Lean drained ground beef meal with dry dog food and a bit of shredded cheese. It could be the silver polish on his bowl is upsetting his stomach. Oh, that was a little snippy; I  think I would rather be snippy right now than brood over Shane getting older. I just have to accept it and be prudent in our spoiling of him.

Because I definitely feel chatty, I am making myself close this post.

It dawned on me a while ago that when you are in pain or horribly worried about something and then the situation is eased, relief is not just the absence of the former, it is a euphoria. For instance, when I am really procrastinating doing a project or meeting a writing deadline and am just up against it with tension and clock-watching and vowing I will never ever do it again if only, just this one last time, I can manage to get it done, then, then when it is finally done, I am HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY. It feels so good; yes, apparently this is related to the stopping hitting your head phenomenon.

On the rare occasions I have maintained a nice little pace and finished with no stress at all, I maybe think, Oh, good, I don’t have to worry. It’s not anywhere near the WOO HOO feeling I got when I typed the last period at 3 in the morning and then pushed send.

I felt too good to go to bed; I felt great. I would think YES, YES, YES as I practically skipped out to the kitchen for a little snackie.

You know what the problem is: You can’t get that relief thrill without putting yourself through the tension-packed, terror-filled hours of working against the clock. Sooner or later, you see the error of your ways. I’d say it took me 65 years. So, now I have to figure out a way to rewire my brain to get a big lift from the process of doing. Frankly, I am a little nervous about going near my brain’s wiring. It’s probably not what you’d find in your textbook.

This is going to take some thought, but maybe if I finally figure out how to feel gleeful while working, I will experience an absolute euphoria at having figured it out. And I think that would put me back where I started, sort of.

I can tell this is going to take some double-double reverse psychology. Perhaps I can find a mad scientist who will just implant an electrode in my brain and with the push of a button I can experience the thrill of finishing without the agony of the feat.

Did I hear a groan?

I was looking for something on the web and one of the sites that popped up was one I had put together and then decided to leave. I have no idea why. Anyway, I clicked on it for the pure heck of it and found this little piece talking about when I would cover festivals for a paper when we lived in a Cincinnati suburbs. I don’t know where Earl came from, only that it is safe to say I didn’t know one in the area or I wouldn’t have used the name.

I was looking at the morning paper and saw just how many festivals are going on this weekend alone, including Avilla Freedom Days. I don’t remember there being that much of this sort of thing 20 years ago, but perhaps I simply was not paying attention.

Having parents who lived near Shipshewana while I was in Chicago and Cincinnati kept me up-to-date on what was going on there, but I didn’t realize more and more small towns were getting together a food fest, parade, rides, etc.

I remember when we were in Cincinnati, our suburb of West Chester had a parade that went down the historic road that evolved from a Indian trail. Liberty Township had a Fourth of July parade and festival with tubs filled with ice and soda pop. The little enclave of Gano, where Mr. Scripps used to live before he went to California, had a get together that I think was centered at the Presbyterian Church in town. There was one way in and out of this village by car and it was via the railroad underpass.

I remember I found Gano by hiking down the creek that ran at the side of our property – this would have been in my examining Ohio Valley River geology and fossil rocks period – and coming upon an abandoned railway trestle. I followed it and wound up in what appeared to be a town from the past. I admit to having a Twilight Zone moment, and I think I decided I had explored enough for the day.

Of course, my favorite town doings was Something Days in Mason. It seems odd that I can’t remember the name because that is where the editor thought I might wind up in trouble. I wrote sort of a tongue-in-cheek piece about the pressed chicken sandwiches at The Grange. She thought the ladies would be upset, but they chased her down and told her they had sold out of all their pressed chicken in record time.

I do remember those pressed chicken sandwiches, however. They were pretty dry and did tend to stick to the inside of my cheeks.

I am rambling here, so I will sign off . . . after I wonder about one more thing. I see signs about some fundraisers that say, “From 10 am to 2 pm or until porkburgers are gone.” Now, I guess they mean if they sell out of the porkburgers, they will close before two, but I sometimes think of them staying there for days . . . until that last darn porkburger is sold.

“Hey, Frank, let’s call old Bud . . . maybe, he’ll come over and buy it.”

“Nah, Earl, he had that spell with his stomach last March and the doctor won’t let him eat anything spicier than Melba toast.”

“Is that so? Boy, I’ll bet he’s fit to be tied. Say, maybe he’d buy it and give it to his dog?”

“Well, that’s a thought”

“So, Frank, you gonna call him?”

“Well, I might. There’s Lou, though, he won that porkburger eating contest down at St Howard’s Church. He’d probably be able to put this last one away. Whatya think, Earl?”

“Maybe.”

“Yep, maybe.”

“Uh, Frank.”

“Yep?”

“You know it’s been two days since the ice melted in the cooler . . . Think it’s still all right?”

“Come to think of it we could just throw it to the squirrels and tell everyone it was a donation to some homeless folk.”

“Well, Frank, I think those squirrels have a home right there in that tree….”

“Don’t fight me on this, Earl . . . “

I am reading Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs. Oscar Wilde and I am finding it quite informative, truly realizing how while my great- grandparents and grandparents were living and being born and doing things like raising food in Indiana and being basic Presbyterians and Methodists, much more complex activities were going on in certain segments of English/European society. I don’t my Indiana folks had too much time for the Rational Dress Society and Occult Religions.

I am about halfway through and we are getting to the – ahem – juicier parts and the fallout from them. Apart from Oscar and his wife, the changing social, moral, philosophical activities of the time are drawing me into more research. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, for one. Oh, yeah.

Ah, yesterday I wrote about stacking and mowing and painting  – a change from my recent days of dudding on the sofa or in a chair somewhere with my feet propped up. Last night I noticed I was a little  . . . okay, STIFF. Stiff in the feet, the ankles, knees and hips. I was also achy in some of my larger muscles – just visualize someone stretching their legs out and moving their feet up and down to somehow work the kinks out of the butt apparatus.

I was in marching band when you had to raise your knees so your thighs were parallel to the ground – none of this little walking/shuffling along. (I’m not going to apologize; bands just don’t high step the way we did way back then.) Doing that today and coming off the field would be problematic – I imagine the EMS would be called about 20 seconds after the loudspeaker boomed: Preeeeeesenting: The 1965 XXXX High School Marching Band.

I have a vague memory of Memorial Day Parades: The road past the cemetery was left in bricks and I think when we “hit the bricks” the drums were to go to rims and the rest of us were to assume a lower step. Looking forward to the bricks sticks in my mind.

What I do not remember after any Friday at school followed by practice and then showing up for the pre-game and half-time show was being the least bit stiff and sore on Saturday. I guess it’s better than being a complete stiff, as Mr. Capone would say.

Today, I cooked a roast, made macaroni and cheese, painted more of the fence, mowed the back yard, mulching dry leaves as I went and started moving the second woodpile. With the exception of the first two things, every activity was accompanied by wubba-throwing. Hey, I was a Dude. Oh, yeah, I also got gas in the car . . . while covered in fence paint and peppered with shredded leaves. See, I knew a Dude like me could carry it off, and I even remembered to put the gas cap back on.

I had nightmares last night; they slid one into another in a disjointed manner, sometimes looping back to cross over each other. They were very involved.

This is just a snippit from one of them:

Man lying with a heavy medical plastic mask over his face on a bed that transformed into a ledge along a sidewalk :

No, I didn’t get burned; this isn’t burns. I was having my fourth heart transplant when gang members came into the operating room and my mom had to keep me under the anesthesia so long that my face swelled up so much   . . .

You don’t want to read anymore.