Yes, I did. I decided at 8:36 that I would go and changed clothes and found socks – which is not an easy task given that the sock thief (Summer) stalks my cache all the time, no matter how I try to hide it. I will probably be out on the street corner with a bell and a sign that says SOCKS FOR THE NEEDY.

So I get there and I have to say I thought the pickings were somewhat slim this year; usually they have tons of old kitchen utensils but not this time. I did score on some good cloth napkins, all ironed and ready to go and  four dish towels, embroidered with four days of the week.  The price was 4/1 dollar. Guess missing three days made a big difference to them. That reminds me I once had underwear with the day of the week written on it when I was little. I think I was smart enough to realize in a pinch I didn’t have to take the designations as written in stone. I don’t think I panicked if my drawer had Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday in it and it was Tuesday.

I also picked up some rustic fishing lures and stuff to use for Christmas decorations and a framed embroidered cloth that says:

The most beautiful

things in the world

are not seen or touched.

They are felt with the heart.

The lady at the checkout table timidly asked, “Is three dollars too much?” My total came to $10 and I gave them a $20 and designated the change for a donation.

Oh, I got three old hymnals for 25¢ a piece.

I just confirmed that Trinity Methodist Church is having its fall rummage sale tomorrow at nine, with bag day on Saturday.  I have spent a good deal of my recent time announcing that things must go around here – too much clutter. I have just spent two days at Mother’s going through odds and ends and found, among other things, my Great-Great Aunt Sara’s high school diploma from before the turn of the century – the last one.  I found it in the sewing bench that came with the sewing machine my Great-Great  Uncle Jesse gave my grandmother when she graduated from the same high school in 1900.

I found the booklet that came with my Terri Lee Doll. You know I think I thought that doll was boring but I figured I was expected to play with it. I vaguely remember making it hop along the floor as if it were walking and then thinking, “Okay, now what?” As I was leaving, I tossed a heavy iron pot made for cooking on top of a wood stove into my trunk.

I am sitting here looking at boxes of stuff I have carted to the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse. Do I want to go to a rummage sale?

But what if there is something there that is an unfound treasure? What then, huh?

For all the comic remarks we have made about lovable old Shane and his quirks, he certainly showed how well he could learn yesterday. We have been working with the whistle and on the way up to Mother’s, he barked at a couple of cars and I whistled and said, “NO” and then told him good boy when he stopped. On the way home he barked at no one, nada, zilch. While we were out back I introduced him to quick little tweets with his name following. And he came. Repeatedly.

People here think I was cruel when I only took Shane and left Sydney here. They  remarked that well, he’s old, what does it matter if he overdoes and dies. In my mind, a dog will push and push himself to please, to do the activities he has always done. He’s almost blind, deaf and is the equivalent of a 93 1/2 year old man – if you go by doggie years. He fights pancreatitis and he’s not nimble anymore. I can’t pretend this isn’t the case and let him be uncomfortable trying to keep up.

There are many movies we have watched together on this porch, me with my eyes on the TV and he with his head in a pillow on the other end of the sofa. He’s there now as I am typing. He makes Shane stay away from me at night; he sleeps by me. When he eats, I sit with him – and it’s roast or chicken and rice, with dog food mixed in for vitamins.

And, besides, when Shane was doing well with the whistle, he took a minute to roll in the tall grass . . . and I drove home with a non-barking dog that smelled like the barnyard. All windows were down. You know, senior citizens can only take so much of the elementary group.

I am here. And I will be back later. Ennui, dontcha know.

***

OK, see I said I’d be back. Not that I have anything great to say, but I’m here. I am determining the direction to take my cleaning.  Oh, we are getting a new roof and the roofer will bring a dumpster and I’m wondering how illegal it would be to toss in a few little things. Actually, I guess if I took them upstairs and passed them out a bedroom window to the porch roof, they would be officially roof debris.

Rats, I am going to have to take things off of the huge windowsill space on the porch here . . . you realize that includes a monk, a witch, a nutcracker, the incredible chiming clock – four on the quarter hour, eight on the half, 12 on the three-quarter  and a total of 16 tones plus the hour when the minute hand is straight up. I remember this clock since I was a kid. Once I was watching a late night mystery courtroom movie and the revelation of who dunnit it began as the clock began it’s pre-midnight chime. Sixteen melodic chimes and 12 big bongs.

Then there’s the lighthouse lamp and the oil lamp and  little wooden boxes and three cows, a cowbell, a moose and a pig . . . Well, I don’t have to have this ready tomorrow. Ah, the Procrastination Queen lives.

Today has been really nice: warm and sunny and dry. A great fall day. I finally got the energy to take advantage of it about four this afternoon when I strapped on my helmet and scootered over to the fairgrounds. Then I came home and Summer came out and her grandpa said if Cameron would ride it over to the fairgrounds, he would take her. I said that if she’d get me ice and bottles of water and iced tea mix, I’d ride it over. Then Der Bingle remarked about the dogs going and I exclaimed, “Those hooligans are going??” So Cameron went in the end.

Oh, and I just realized they took Shane hooligan without the whistle.

More cleaning. No details.

More rooms to clean. More things to throw out.

Tired little AmeliaJake.

I think I need a cure – that’s Diet Coke and Coke and aspirin.

I’m sorry, but it is on my mind. Last year at this time it was one day until my mother’s 83rd birthday; she would die ten days later. She had spent the summer and before that dying . . . and we didn’t know it. I don’t know if she did or not. I’d like to think at the time she felt she was just getting anemic and more tired with increasing age.

A year.

So what am I doing now? What Mother hated the most – housecleaning. I don’t know why but for some reason I want to get things all spiffed up. I suppose it is symbolic – for what other reason would I crawl around cleaning clutter which is quite willing to accept the philosophy of live and let live?

But, I continue;  today I am steam cleaning parts of the basement and then taking it easy by going through cabinets. I think my friends at the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse are gathering up all my things that and stashing them for some future date when I come to my senses. That’s what my grandfather did once. Grandma threw stuff out of an upstairs window and he came around and loaded it in a wagon and took it over to his work shed.

I wore myself out going through videos in the living room – or should I say the room of the large TV. I vacuumed the fake Persian rug in front of said TV and the one behind the leather sofa. Oh, the dog hair. It keeps surfacing! I used a special rubber brush, a pet eraser vacuum and a super sucking vacuum. I vacuumed UNDER the rugs – that was a unexpected surprise. I did the “big suck and brush” on the rug beneath the dining room table and dug out all the corners that are normally stuffed with school projects and the infamous “whatever”.  And I remembered to feed the dogs who seem to be the shedders.

Then I showered and hopped on the scooter and road around for awhile. Yes!

Sometime after that; sometime after being turned down by Summer in regard to getting a couple of inches cut off her hair; sometime after downing a bit of food, I fell asleep on the sofa and Summer did the same on the floor beside me. We each had ancient comforters on us.

Now we are awake for Hell’s Kitchen, one of our traditions. Yes, we know; we know. The language, the language.

I really don’t like it too much when people launch off into a long narration about their dreams; I will not do that. But if I did, it would include walking though a maze of concrete block rooms with hogs in them sleeping on straw. I had someone’s baby in my arms; I think it was a girl because she had a pink ruffled outfit. There is much, much more, but I take pity and will work my way through the aftermath by myself.

Aha, today is Day 2 of cleaning, which means people are going to start to feel scared. One day was an anomaly; two days will not bode well for the slobmeisters. I’ll bet they plan some out-of-house activity for Wednesday. I know, we could all go to Mother’s and clean. See, I’m ready for them – I have my back-up plan. I can really put fear into them; I can send someone to the store for more trash bags. I wonder if October is bringing the real witch in me out of the closet. The thing is: Our house is so cluttered, I know I have a pointy, black, authentic witch’s hat here someplace.

That reminds me, it will soon be time  for the Pilgrim Hunt for Thanksgiving. Got to find the turkey that hangs from the chandelier also. He usually stays until Christmas because I feel sorry for him; I think I hang bells and holly on him. (The little Pilgrims I put in obscure spots on one of the trees so they can celebrate too.) Yes, I am a kook. Two days ago I considered springing for a cottage Christmas decorating magazine. Then I saw the price – in a teeny font – specifying $5.99 in the U.S. and a dollar more in Canada. I think I can do festive without that expense.

I’m thinking about this already because, at least I think because – it will be one year this 17th since Mother died and I have not progressed very far in improving my life, which I should have done before my parent’s died, but I guess they knew me and were used to it. Last year, with Thanksgiving and Christmas looming after the burial on the 24th and Der Bingle getting a blood clot in early December, we stumbled through. And I think it was stressful for the kids, after all. On Christmas Day, I was dreading sitting down at the table and when Cameron said he was hungry, we spontaneously had a buffet dinner. The atmosphere was full of relief – no sitting down looking at the empty place at the table. This year, I don’t know what we will do.

Of course, if plane schedules work out, Quentin will be here and that will help us make the adjustment to a missing Grandma on Christmas. I am making no plans; I am just going to prepare the house and pantry for Christmas and let things take their own course – no schedule, no deadlines, just taking things as they come.

I feel bad about Mother being dead. I know that sounds inane. I know she is protected now from the things going awry in life that upset her so, but she didn’t want to miss out on things. She used to talk about how they would remember her. She didn’t need to have worried. They remember her often as a strong-willed, do what she could for them, very well-dressed and accessorized feisty lady. Someone shows some spirit on TV or in a movie and  am sure to hear, “Wow. that’s Grandma GiGi.”

You know, when I came home from the meeting with the school official who spoke of Summer being expelled because she had been sick for seven days, people told me, “Your mother would have taken him apart.” Oh, yeah. Say, Mother, mid-term progress reports are coming out and Summer has all A’s and in advanced classes too. Just thought I’d add that in.

Okay, I’ve come to the place where I take a deep breath, look at today, and start working on the house and myself.

I can’t be sure of tomorrow, but today I was sucked into a spasm of cleaning and a plan to deep clean every darn thing in the house. Uh, is that a domicile high colonic? Oh, AmeliaJake, think it through . . . do not imagine it as a high colonic. Perhaps I can buy into the idea of getting the house clean enough so people can tell holiday decorations from the clutter. No, actually, I am really interested in getting to the dirt in the nooks and crannies. I’m not going to analyze it, but simply go with the flow and make hay while the sun shines philosophy.

Of course we are talking AmeliaJake standards, which are high . . . in the sense that you really don’t want to eat off the floor.

I think the real reason I have gone over to the cleaning side is so I can be a Nazi enforcer.

***

We did have a new experience today. Last night the cable went out on the high def boxes and today Summer came down and said, “I’m sorry; it was my fault; I messed up the plug.” Sorry? Fault?  Of course, she did venture that she could have tripped over it.