Friday, I ambled into Kroger’s just after they had moved a lot of steaks over to the “Reduced for Quick Sale” section and, so, I took advantage of the situation and planned a weekend cookout with Der Bingle and the clowns – er, Summer and Cameron.

Saturday  looked like rain all day and, in fact, it did sprinkle in the late afternoon. We decided to put the grill in the entrance to the garage and have our semi-circular of chairs under the roof. And because we were in the garage, I brought out my ipod player and turned on my infamous AmeliaJake July Playlist: Chattanooga Choo Choo, The Stein Song, Buckle Down, Winsocki, Sweet Gypsy Rose, Scotland the Brave . . .

Well, Summer and I decided we liked singing along to Sweet Gypsy Rose and so we did; we put it on repeat until some people threatened to leave. Then we had to satisfy ourselves with joining in when it came around again in the queue.

Robert wanted to bring out Frank Sinatra but I can’t stand him and everyone knows that. Cameron and Summer were not aware of the extent of my distaste for the man until Der Bingle told them the story that condenses itself into this sentence. Your grandmother was looking at houses to buy in Chicago and went in one that was decorated with Sinatra stuff and walked right out.

Anyway, Der Bingle grilled and the steaks were delicious; I ate my right off of a two-pronged carving fork. (It’s this quirky little rut I seem to have fallen into.)  So we are planning a winter garage grill out when Quentin comes – assuming it’s not 20 below.

Then we dumped the coals into the firepit and started a large fire with actual flames. That was when we remarked that we had noticed the people in the house south of us and beyond the hedge walking back and forth between their back door and the far side of their garage. Back and forth; forth and back. Kids and an adult every now and then.

By the time I went in, it had been dark for quite awhile and they had a fire going too. And the back and forth continued. Eventually, I heard music coming from the gathering I could only imagine on that far side of their garage. I heard snips of words and one clear phrase: “going to the graveyard”.

Alison said she got up at night and heard them still out there. Der Bingle and I are guessing it was some sort of  Day of the Dead thing. I am so glad I did not realize it last night when it would have been fodder for nightmares.

Der Bingle sent me an incense burner shaped like a teepee; it was from him and my good friend NaPoo.

And here is a picture of the teepee:

Along with this, they sent some scented wood samples:

Now, look inside the box and see how things are packaged and labeled.

Because this is an open package, the little logs are not so tightly squeezed together that they appear as one big rectangle. I was on the phone with Der Bingle, reading off the samples and  said, “Holder wood, alder, mesquite . . .”

Later when I slit the plastic, I realized the holder wood was actually a holder for the incense made out of terra cotta.

As my good friend Grover would say, “I am soooooo embarrassed.”

I did more cleaning yesterday – in an uncharacteristic rut, I guess. Or maybe I didn’t clean and when people come over and gasp, “I thought you were cleaning,” I will say that I had but the dogs and kids went wild and oh, well, this is what it is back to.

Then I went to the store and got a call that Alison, who was working her shift at the hospital, had succumbed to low potassium again and was in the ER. Of course, this day was the one that Colin had come back for a fall break visit.

It occurred to me to walk over to the walk-in freezer area and tell them I needed an emergency suspended animation . . . but I went home instead.

And this morning Summer has just come over to say, “I need socks.”

Shoot, I can’t let the sleeping like the dead be at the forefront. I have better things to share, such as the teepee incense burner and the different wood-scented incense logs Der Bingle sent me. And the embarrassing part about the “holder” wood.

But I need to take pictures and do some other stuff first. Actually, I need to pull everything off my old computer onto an external drive first; yes, I’ve been procrastinating. But, by God, this morning I am going to do it . . . assuming I can find the cables now.

Well, later.

Last night I could not get to sleep. I mean I really couldn’t get to anything even involving relaxed. I was as tight as a spring and my mind was running in circles. Do you remember Peter Finch in Network? “I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” Yes, that Peter Finch. I was probably beyond that.

So I decided to get up and walk into the kitchen. I guess I figured it was a good place to go since I was stewing and at the point of boiling over, only to return to a simmer to keep the cycle going. I got something to drink and some aspirin and came back and lay down.

I lay in a fetal-contracted near ball – my legs pulled up as far as they could go. When you are 62 years from fetalism, you are more an oval.

And it dawned at me at 2:30 in this early morning that this probably wasn’t going to work. So I rolled over and stretched out flat on my back with my hands on my midriff. I probably looked like a mummy. I lay there breathing slowly and telling all my muscles to just feel gravity. I felt better; enough better that I started to wonder about the hands on the midriff position.

“Do I want to be in a coffin with my hands like that? Would down at my side feel more comfortable?” I tried it and I wasn’t sure. So I went from on position to the other, asking myself  optometrist-like questions:  Number one or number two?  Want to try it again?

I was experimenting with a third modification – arms by my sides with the forearms elevated slightly on something soft when I did drop off to sleep.  That’s what I like about puzzles – you start focusing on all the variables and “poof”  your mind eases.

I guess the sleep was in the details.

I have gotten in my head that I want some balsam incense and so I looked on the internet and, of course, there was Amazon.com offering some from Paine’s. I wanted to check it out so I went to Paine’s site. It turned out to be minimal and didn’t have a “contact us” link, so I guess you can’t get there from here. Did I mention they were located in Maine?

To tell the truth, I was headed back to order from Amazon or another site when I saw listed in products – the dog, not for sale.

I looked HERE and decided to order from Paine’s. Chalk one up for Josie.

Photo from Paine’s website.

It’s a basement; it’s not really a cellar. You go down the stairs and reach a landing: Go right and you are into the paneled section with the fireplace and TV and other stuff; Go left and you enter The Bunker, which used to be known as The Cement Room. Mother got creative down there, you see. The Bunker has a definite Scott House ambiance. Gee, I just remembered – when I was very little, I used to say, “Up to the Scott House.” Well, that was a long time ago. But now it is in my mind again. We’ll see for how long.

But, back to The Bunker part of the basement. One of the rooms on that side is paneled and carpeted and has a drop ceiling. Fitting around the boundaries of this room is a space the shape of Oklahoma. Coming off of what would be the east side of Oklahoma if you were looking at a map are the furnace room and the fruit cellar. I know, I don’t know why we don’t call it the fruit basement. I like the fruit cellar, probably because it has floor to ceiling beadboard cabinet doors. The furnace room isn’t half-bad either; it’s square and the furnace is fairly small these days. Oklahoma and the furnace room are painted in sage with light peach here and there; we have a puzzle-working table next to the furnace and chairs, old cabinets, a TV, an old upright radio, a table, a refrigerator, a freezer and a footstool that has a Raggedy Ann face on it (GoodWill) in the Oklahoma section.

Well, yesterday I cleaned some down there. And I emptied out the chest freezer that is over by the panhandle of Oklahoma. When I get near the bottom, I have to climb up on a step stool and then lean over. Actually, that lets me just barely reach stuff and I wound up straddling the front wall of the freezer this time. I felt a little more comfortable that way; one time when I was leaning over, I teetered on the wall, like an upside down “V”. It could have been bad.

I also sucked cobwebs. With a vacuum, of  course. That was probably obvious but knowing I had been upside down in a freezer might have had you wondering about my mind.

I also went to Wal-Mart. I’m looking at that sentence now and chuckling. Maybe I should be worried about my mind.

I looked at my email and there was an offer from Land’s End for convertible pants. This morning I tripped over the inner cuff of one leg of my convertible pants and smacked right onto the floor. I told Der Bingle, who called while I was still vibrating from the impact, that I would never buy another pair of convertible pants. But here they were On the Counter and the price of five pair was less than I had paid for the pair I had on – my favorites, except for the tripping thing. I looked at the picture and realized they had added tabs on the inner sides of the legs as well. YES!! There is one consideration: The colors are orange and pink. So next summer while I work outside in my pants that roll up and have many pockets, I will be known as pink butt or orange butt.

It has been sunny out all afternoon and Summer and I have been admitting that we are bored. We don’t know why. Grilling would have been nice but we’re not that hungry. Cameron and his folks are taking Colin back this afternoon; Cameron said, “I get to read my Kindle in the car and also we will stop for food.”

On Friday, when they went to get him, Der Bingle, Summer and I did grill out and then had a firepit fire. There was some activity other than eating and watching flames. Summer buried Shane in leaves and we all threw the Wubba for him. One of us threw it so high it went on the roof and caught in the high gutter. Fortunately, he has others and I guess the roofers will toss it down. It was the red one, a fairly new and good squeaker; could there have been subconscious intent?

Here’s Shane in the leaves:

And here are the leaves that are still on one tree:

We don’t throw the leopard/giraffe Wubba now because not even  Shane can find it too well.

And, finally, the fire:

Yeah, it was dying down.