On the way home from Fort Wayne, I drove down Main Street to see what was playing at the Strand and one of the movies was Gravity. I decided I’d go and I did, even bought popcorn and a drink. Before I turned my cell phone off, I took pictures of my popcorn, my drink and the blank screen (with one lady’s head shadowed against it) to prove that I was there.

I don’t believe there was any point in that.

Sandra Bullock was very good; I just don’t know if the movie was. I definitely liked the popcorn and raspberry tea, though.

Okay, I was just resting here and staring at my lower leg and for some reason I thought about the old lament: Oh, if we could only see ourselves as others see us.

Yesterday my phone produced nothing but garble for those listening on the other end. So, alarmed, I went to the Sprint store and they tested it and looked at each other, went and got their own iphones and called from them and people heard garble.  They believed the network was overwhelmed by the tens of thousands of people who did come to Apple Festival. I had noticed that traffic was extremely heavy on the main route I normally take and came home a back way that looks like you’re going into an abandoned factory area, but at the last minute the road turns and there you are, a block away from the bubbing hub- or the hubbing bub. Whatever.

By the time I got out of the store, I could tell the temperature had climbed as the fog dissipated and I decided I would wait until Sunday to go over to the Apple Festival. You see, being just 5′ tall is not too nifty when you are in a winding, massive crowd that is hemmed in by permanent buildings and temporary vendors’ kiosks. If you are in the middle, you see nothing and if the temperature is above 70, you pretty much feel as if you are in a winter mitten. If you are on the outside, you risk being knocked into hay stacks, poles, buildings and people trying to stand to the side to eat their food that they stood in line 30 minutes for.

It’s not that it’s intolerable if you are alone and have a couple of destinations in mind, but if you have someone with you, it is necessary to have physical contact. One year I negotiated such a setting with Summer attached to my shirt tail, which had started out tucked in.

So today: cooler with maybe a shower. I can do showers. I got myself ready to go – even if I could not find a companion – and opened the door. It was pouring down rain. I still thought, maybe . . . in a rain slicker with a hood.  Then I heard that hint of a wheeze in my chest that is just now starting to clear after a week of antibiotics and I thought of wet feet and how crummy it was coughing through the night. I hesitated; I believe my mind was scurrying around for still another excuse, because after all, adventures are really fun and provide great stories, and I felt my knee throb. I suspect I usually ignore it, but wimpdom was hovering over me and I watched the puddles form and decided to sit down. I looked at weather.com and rain is to be on and off, but mostly on.

Now I am feeling guilt and  this urge to go in these conditions is pushing me. My father would exclaim, “Well, if you want to just go out there and get sick . . .  Nobody could ever tell you anything.” Actually, he only said the last part once, but, boy, it has stuck with me and I feel bad about being dumb and arrogant and my daddy having to see it all those years. Reminds me of the time I talked about a convertible . . . “Well, if you want to go out there and ask to be killed . . .”

I’m off topic – it seems; but, of course, in my heart I’m not.

Damn. The more miserable it seems out there, the more I am drawn to going over and standing 5 feet tall in a massive huddle of wet people seeking shelter in the swine barn. Maybe I can entice Summer into going. Kind of use the backdoor way of persuasion – “Oh, you’d have to be stupid to do that. Imagine getting dripping wet for a Bayou Billy CherryWine! Dumbies.” You see, I once told her, “You remind me of what my father said about me once: Nobody could ever tell you anything. I was trying to help her learn from my mistakes . . . but, well,  she’s young, a cold won’t stop her . . . and her knees are fine.

Oh, dear, I feel the presence of THIS LOOK coming down on me. The look that I know translates into the constantly repeated, “Use  your own good judgement and don’t let anyone talk you into doing anything you know you shouldn’t do.” But, then, again, nobody could ever tell me anything . . .

I am typing this at 4;49 am, having treated my Chinese Sinus Torture with medicine and vertical therapy.  I don’t know whether to lie back down and see if I snooze or not. When this hits the scheduled publishing time – which I set because I was playing around with the options, being sort of bored – I will know if I did or not. I am beginning to suspect that sinus in the night and subsequent remedies can lead to mild zaniness. I may decide to try more inventive drainage head positions; a couple of times I have been so successful at this that I have had to twist kleenex into little pipe cleaner shaped things and stick them up my nostrils. That does have its social drawbacks but then who the heck is up at this time but me.

Were I of a younger generation, I might refer to the altered kleenex as nose tampons, but being my age, that is embarrassing – not as embarrassing as my idea to use straws taped to baggies as nose catheters, however. Mexican food and horseradish is an option . . .

Sometimes when I get like this, I wonder if my nutcase is starting to pinch me.

People (not me) worked  very hard getting the Apple Festival ready for this year, just as they have been doing for the past 25 years. And it is in the 70’s and foggy, with the weather.com predicting the fog conditions will remain until 3 pm. It is, by nature of being foggy, also humid. The sky is one shade of grey. It is not a cheerful day.

However, I have had some of my best times at the Apple Festival when the weather has not been optimal; for one thing, there is a great sense of authenticity – in the real life/real time sort of way.  The phenomenon is that you feel more cheerful and alive and participating when you aren’t nagged by a blasted “perfect” day that is demanding you match it and threatening  you with guilt feelings if you just automatically don’t.

In fact, I’m wondering if I can’t get someone here to go with me on this little adventure. A short hike over, a trip through the Swine Barn – God, I love that name – and maybe a mug of Bayou Billy CherryWine and a pretzel with cheese smothering it. This could be as good as the time it snowed and my feet were soooo cold through my leather soles as I munched my apple burger. Oh, by the way, we’ll be making a bunch at home, not to mention beef and noodles. The Brimfield Methodist folks sell it for a pretty penny a cupful – but, hey, my grandmother was a Methodist cook for 50+ years. Yes, AmeliaJake knows beef and noodles.

I woke to go to the bathroom around 1;30 this morning; I had guzzled lots of liquid and eaten no salty food to tell my body retain it. I guess that’s my story, but I don’t know if I’m sticking to it.

That’s not the story anyway; the real one – and it is short because it is only about 3:30 am now –  is that when I lay back down, I became aware of a slight throb behind the bridge of my nose. It wasn’t bad and it didn’t slowly start to pound; it just kept steadily throbbing. I have come to think of it as  Chinese Sinus Torture. So I got up and made myself some Cold Alka-Seltzer and drank it down . . . and then I took a little more medicine and am pushing the whole lot along with some caffeine, laced with sugar. (That would be The Cure, dontcha know?)

And I am sitting up to encourage what drainage their may be. My tear ducts are also feeling the pressure and it has occurred to me that crying would probably help, but of all things after writing a troubled post just a couple of days ago, I can’t conjure up any tears right now. Of course, I don’t want to fool around too much with the sad thought sinus therapy; I doubt it would be wise.

So, I wait to drain and for the analgesics to start acting – and I hope the play will be light-hearted and not some Tennessee Williams burden of drama. I don’t know, though, yelling Stella! might bring some atavistic relief.

I half-tripped over a pillow that had fallen off the love seat tonight and immediately thought, “Oh, wow, I’m lucky I didn’t  plant my knee on the floor again.” Then I sat down, stretched out my legs and started to work a Sudoku . . . but I felt a little pressure and then a little pressing pain that had a throbbing aspect to it. I looked down at my knee and it was swelling a little on top again. It stopped, though, before it reached the baseball appendage size it did last Friday.  I think I tugged a little on the blood vessel that I ruptured in my bursa sac (doesn’t that sound cool) when I took the BIG SMACK and it leaked a bit.

But I needed comfort, so I went into the kitchen and put a half of a foldover in my mouth and a baggie of ice on my knee. It might have been a half a foldover, but I was liberal with the peanut butter and it has lingered. Back on the sofa, I can still taste it on my teeth and it is not unlike the comforting effect of a thumb in my mouth and the satin edge (the feeler) of a blanket in my hand.

It occurred to me that I could duct tape Raggedy Ann volunteers to my kneecaps . . . but I think it’s best just to let that idea go unheeded.

I overheard someone speaking of Thanksgiving this year being right on the heels of December, and so this morning I checked. Yes, this year we have a late Thanksgiving, which means the merchants will have a late Black Friday. It occurs to me that there may be a lobby develop to change the law so that Thanksgiving is not the fourth Thursday in November, but so many Thursdays prior to Christmas.

I imagine retailers are busy trying to arrange to have pre-Black Friday sales without taking all the bang out of this newly sprung tradition.  I imagine, though, for the young, athletic set, it will remain a festive time of lining up in the cold, camping out, arranging football like pass plays of items to people stationed at cash registers and so forth. Actually, I can see people my age coordinating teams of “foot men” out in stores, texting in code, maybe hacking into surveillance cameras to monitor progress. Maybe you could have one person dress up as a BIG store security person who assists your team members.

I know . . . an action movie of Black Friday Shopping, not unlike The Italian Job.

Well, at least I have something to keep my mind busy today.