Light night I talked about signs of cold congestion NOT getting the best of me today. HA! That was just TALK. My hypochondriac genes are in full force this morning and while Der Bingle was sick over the week-end, I am languishing on my death bed.

Quentin’s sinus surgery a couple of weeks ago – a procedure; my throbbing snot-filled nose – a catastrophe.

Perhaps I exaggerate; but it appears to help to splat the screen of this laptop with whining. Splat may not have been the best word, but somehow it just popped right to my fingers. But,of course, improvement may also have something to do with gravity since I am now in an upright position, physically, if not morally.

In all truth I have long suspected the Jews have had the right idea with the Wailing Wall; it helps to get emotion out. I know that a cold is not worthy of wailing emotion; neither is Abraham Lincoln’s stubbed toe. So I believe I am going to designate a place – and it probably should be mobile – as a Whimpering Wall. I doubt it will actually be a wall – more likely a symbolic one . . . I’m thinking two big Kleenex stretched out in front of my face.

Oh, I’m not splayed out on a bed, moaning my head off; I’m not even sitting somewhere with my head in my hands. What I am is sore-throated and coughing stuff halfway up that feels like when it makes it all the way it will be green. I’ve been giving myself the Alka-Seltzer Zesty Orange Cold treatment, along with lots of liquids and wrapping up in puffy throws to discourage the goosebumply chills. By the way, if you bunch up part of a puffy throw it makes a great pillow substitute and props your head at just the right angle for Kindle reading.

For the past hour, I’ve been feeling really depressed, harboring-rather than actually thinking-worrisome thoughts about who is going to keep things going if I just decide to lie here forever. My spirits seem to be better now – I think I’ll be up in the morning and take a stab at the day – maybe making a big list of necessary duties . . . not the least of which is making sure that the dog has fresh water.

I believe Kendallville is setting off fireworks tonight to celebrate 150 years of existence; I hear booms through my earphones and Shane is barking. He barked last night at the thunder storms. I have not been in a celebratory frame of mind of late when it comes to public gatherings. I think I felt more connected to the settling of this country when I carefully mowed around the rose bushes that were transported from New York about 150 years ago and replanted in the newly-cleared soil around a house in LaGrange County. They bloom a deep crimson rose and fade in stages to white. I suppose it would behoove me to add some rose food to the soil around them – see, I got ceremonial with the behoove thingie.

And now I am going to shut up and just let my mind wander wherever it wants to go and take whatever forks in the road it may find; and yet, I suspect that it will sooner or later wind up right back here.

Well, I’m here for no good reason, other than to say “YO,” John Wayne style. And the only reason I’m thinking about John Wayne is because I just finished a walk and it was humid and I could hear this voice saying, “Well, Sister, there’s no reason to be thinkn’ about slowing down. – Just lace those shoes up; lace ’em up tight.”

So I was walking and grinning and I think more than a couple of porch-sitters watched me approach and pass by and thought, “That one’s got a crazy side to her.” I considered unzipping each leg of my convertible pants half off to provide some cooling ventilation, but figured maybe I’d better let folks have some time to get used to thinking of me as harmlessly crazy. I didn’t want them right off the bat calling the men in the white coats.

Then when I turned in the driveway and entered the kitchen via the vestibule, I am certain a shadowy figure in a trench coat handed me a glass of raspberry lemonade and said with a nod, “Here’s looking at you, kid.”

There was a chance of rain today – rain and maybe thunderstorms. It looked like rain often. I figured I’d take a stab at mowing until the rain ended the endeavor. Well, while I was mowing in Kendallville, it did not rain; although I drove through rain to reach the LaGrange County House, it did not rain there. Oh, it clouded up a couple of times, but it was just toying with me. I was going to pull into the shed when the rain started, but I wound up going into the shed when I was finished mowing.

I suppose it is a good thing – two chores are done, but I was kind of hoping for the adult version of a school closing day.

If it rains tomorrow, I am sitting down with a book.

My father used to put out the flags on graves in his LaGrange County area on Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day. He was 81 when he died in early 2000. I remember reading in that time period about a parade that was cancelled in a little east coast town because they didn’t have anyone strong enough to carry the flag anymore.  Yesterday, I heard Der Bingle tell LZP that a veteran’s group wasn’t marching in a parade because they didn’t think they could walk that far anymore.

When I was in high school, the WWII veterans swelled the ranks of the American Legion halls and I didn’t think about it, other than to assume it would go on forever. But they got old – these men who once had the youth and vitality of Matt Damon in “Saving Private Ryan. There are times when I see young people grow impatient with aged gentlemen fumbling with a cell phone or asking for something to be repeated more loudly; they can’t see the soldier/sailor/airman behind the grey hair and stooping posture.

At such times, I wish for a minute of time travel, in which the young person finds himself slogging through mud or hunkering down in a foxhole under fire and turning to see the young version of the now old man scowling and growling, “Well, come on, kid, buck up.” (There is probably more appropriate G.I. slang, but I’ll leave it to your imagination.)

It is tempting to say time has rained on Memorial Day Parades, but that is not really so; it is more my perception from my era. The last Civil War vet, the last WWI vet . . .and now dwindling WWII vets.  It’s a good thing that there have not been more huge wars . . . I think we need, though, to keep actively  honoring those who served.

We need to do what Memorial Day suggests by it’s name: we need to remember. And be thankful our generation and the younger generations are not filled with those of actual wartime memories and filled with hundreds of thousands who rest in early graves.

Gee, I hope I can get off my soapbox without tripping.

I received an image of this portrait of LZP and his daughter, Jody, on my phone. It took me a bit to manage to get it moved over to iphoto. (For awhile the phone server wasn’t emailing pictures.)

For the sake of accuracy, I’ll leave it for LZP to identify the artist in the comments.

I went on a walk just a little while ago, and coming from the opposite direction on Diamond Street were three teenagers – two girls and a boy. The boy had reached up and plucked a couple of blooms from a tree along the way and as I passed by, he handed them to me. The girl said, “Don’t give them to her!” I guess sometimes a friendly grin can win out over youth.

Rose is going scuba diving.

I should probably put my orange pants on today because I am feeling somewhat foggy. Wednesday I went to Kingman and came back the next morning . . . and then, when it was 54 degrees, rainy and windy, I went up to Michigan and put out four cemetery pots in two cemeteries. Fortunately, one was near a Taco Bell because I really appreciated the warmth of a five-layer burrito.

Then I got sort of achy and tired.

The next morning was Friday and Der Bingle came and we went out to a nursery and brought home bushes and perennials. Summer planted ferns and hostas and I dug three holes – one for sage and the other two for some already anonymous purple plants. Der Bingle and Cameron pulled out dead trees, put in replacement bushes; then there was the watering and the resultant wet dog. In the evening, Der Bingle and I took a pot up to Mr. Feller’s grave at Lakeside Cemetery.

The next day Alison and I went to the nursing home. I played my usual solitaire games with the ladies at the table watching while we waited for their lunch and continued my week-long losing streak. I gave those cards to Sharon; I am getting new ones. Mrs. Feller said she couldn’t remember anyone going so long without winning. She’s 96.

We ate grilled-out food.

I went to bed early.

I got up today and took two aspirin and a vitamin. I may go for the third aspirin. We’ll see.

A BIT LATER: I AM wearing my orange pants, but I’m still debating on the third aspirin. Maybe I should add a Tylenol instead. Or go for broke with an Aleve.