Seventeen years. That’s how old Summer is today. Usually, a lot of paragraphs that start this way continue with Remember when…. Why should this one be different? Remember when she was not as tall as the kitchen counter? Oh, yes. Remember when we went to her great-grandparents for Thanksgiving and she kept backing up against her great-grandpa’s legs so he would get the hint and lift her up to put the basketball through the hoop? This IS Indiana, don’tcha know.

Remember when she and her grandpa went and cut down out Christmas tree?

Remember when she was a little adamant about not losing at Scrabble?
Remember when she ran into the garage and hugged her great-grandma around the knees from behind when the latter arrived for a visit?
Remember when she and I went through a car wash pretending we were being eaten by a monster and then when we reached the end of the conveyer belt ride and were rolled out, we realized we hadn’t thought this analogy out?

Well, let’s see what this day will bring . . .

I just came back from a walk and I have decided their should be a Stride Factor numeric for people who have short legs. It is upsetting to have to take so many more steps than most people. I alternate between taking a lot of real fast short comfortable steps and a series of stretched out strides. Of course, it doesn’t matter as far as the benefit to fitness is concerned, but sometimes it’s a bummer.

I have toddler legs or, as some people are wont to say – duck legs. I notice in the summer when people are wearing shorts that many, many women are the same height as I am from head to the bottom of the torso – and then it’s a whole different story. In my case, a short one.

But, it’s not a real complaint; my legs work and have feet attached.

Two Moo, who is one of our bovine friends, one we would never, ever consider tipping, is a little worried about a recently announced threat that she saw on The Drudge Report. You can read about it HERE. Two Moo is getting her tinfoil hat out.

If you’ve forgotten about Two Moo, here is her picture sans tinfoil:

We think it was the fish. After I wrote about “the illness” on Thursday, I slept most of the day and had a sore stomach Friday. Friday also held something unexpected:

So, no thanks for the fish.

Yesterday Rose and I took Mrs. Feller a big bag of candy and cashews. Of course, Rose was the real treat. She sat at the dinner table and watched me play Solitaire, but even her presence could not influence a win for me. I average about one win every three weeks.

Later she sat in Clara’s automatic chair that goes up and down and tilts forward and back and is really, really comfy. I thought she might run out and raid the snack cart of ice cream when it came around, but she controlled herself. It is possible, however, that she had had her head in the candy bag. It seems I did hear munching while I was sitting in Kathryn’s wheelchair with my feet up on the bed reading my Kindle was Kathryn dozed. I just realized I forgot to check her pockets when we left . . .

I didn’t scarf any of the candy bars, but maybe I should have because as the night unfolded I don’t think they would have added calories. You see, we came home and I went to bed and woke up with a burning in the pit of my stomach and diarrhea – or as some people here call it, “THE Diarrhea.” Rose, though, was fine . . . she woke up, looked at me and muttered, “Oh, too bad,” and mowed farther away from me. She said, “I do THE Crazy; I don’t do THE diarrhea.” Probably a wise decision on her part.

This afternoon, this very afternoon, I was informed by the weather people that it is going to rain tomorrow . . .  probably; I also found out it was predicted to be dry for the next six hours. I went to Lagrange County and mowed. It was dark when I pulled into the garage here. But it is mowed up there. I didn’t really feel like doing it so I free-formed it – mow this way, mow that way, go around in a circle, run into a shrub. What can I say, it happens. Berries fell on the seat and I sat on them . . . my shorts have purple spots. I still have not seen a snake, but I did spot a raccoon.  A guy pulled in and wanted to sell me windows – he saw my new metal roof.  Hey, my windows are okay and some have the original glass. That means things are wavy when you look through them. Sometimes that’s okay because imagined monsters in the dark look less scary through wavy windows. Really, it’s true.

Mondays are not necessarily upsetting because you can always think that you have the whole week to get some things done and out of the way. However, often I am not in the mood for Mondays; today is one of those times. I’m ready for a hibernation day – maybe because the weather has done a little fluky thing. It has been cool and overcast, and coming off of some hot and humid days (for us), this change induces a feeling of limpness. I feel I am in Limpo, not to be confused with Limbo, of course.

The problem is if I consider this Monday as sort of like not really there, I will feel that Tuesday is Monday and will think I have five days to get thins done, but I will only have four. You know, I don’t think this really bothers me. So there is no problem. Yes, I can go with that approach.

Lydia, our piano player, went for a week’s visit to The Ohio Redoubt, so we have no motivational ragtime (oops, unintentional pun) to stir up some motivation.

Maybe I do have a problem though. The flat nose accidental utterance is fairly recent and I am on probation and OH NO, HERE COMES SPIFFIE.

That title up there could probably be the whole post. I don’t know what I’m going to do today. It is cool out and I actually plugged in the little space heater to warm my feet. I also turned on the flame effect in the firestove to let me think I was warming up at a camping ground on a chilly morning. It’s kind of working – my feet are getting warmer and my spirits are nudging into the activity mode.

But I am unfocused. I did invest in a trial package of the new Ziploc vacuum storage bags and that may be my adventure for the day. Once, a long time ago, after watching one of the commercials on TV for the send-away vacuum storage bags with the “WAIT! CALL NOW AND GET ANOTHER SET FREE!!!!” offer, I experimented with a trash bag. Boy, you really can suck the stuff down to small flat size, and I assume, help keep things in a good state. The trash bags, of course, leaked, but I knew they would. It was just for the fun of it.

Now, with Ziploc in the business, I am going to give it a try. I’ll let you know.

We watched it. We think we should be wearing stickers like they hand out on election day – the “I Voted” ones. Little badges of the whimsical stupidity of watching over the top SyFy movies. Of course, my brain is now mush.

Well, we at the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse, which is frequented by and pretty much run by those who wear red-striped socks, just feel the outright need to highlight one of the members of our clan.
It is this man:

AP photo

This man wearing these socks:

AP photo

We are proud.