We kind of all realize that Alison has a little problem with over-reminding people of things and events. Kind of like: gonna do that now? gonna do that? gonna do that? not gonna forget to do that? Then, today, September 30, when I took her to work at 6:30 am. she didn’t have anything to remind me about. Nothing, nil, zip?

Mother drove home this morning by herself because she said she felt better and then I sat down and leaned over and slipped into a nap – actually, I may have taken my medicine twice. Anyway, I was in the tar pits of napping. Eyes opened but re-closed.  TV movies slipped from one to another. And then I felt a demanding thought flogging through the murky trails of neurons: MUST  . . . WAKE . . . UP . . . MUST  . . . MOVE. So I staggered to the shower and then set about getting some food for the horde of two coming from school.

Summer came in the front door and just a couple of minutes later, the doorbell rang. She went to check and said, “Oh, it’s some Chinese people.” You never know with Summer, so I went to the door and there were two ladies who are involved in Colin’s placement and casework. They were here at the house for a meeting with the family. Okay . . .

Actually, I think we handled it quite well: I settled them in a the table at the fair end of the kitchen and when Robert came in I plopped him in a chair and then we grabbed Summer and Cameron and put them on the two antique stools I had scored at an antique place for only $23 each even thought they are really strong with good ball bearings and thick, wooden, round seats that rotate.  Then I leaned up against the trestle table and just puttered around as we had our little confab.

Then, about 90 minutes later, they left. And I looked at Summer and said, “Chinese?”

(The ladies were very nice.)

I was watching “Any Given Sunday” with Al Pacino and Dennis Quaid because I was trying to figure out with which movie I had confused it. And then I sat on the remote and I am now watching a Ken Burns special on Mount Desert which I think is a part of a series on National Parks. Yes, that is what it is: National Parks and I am no longer seeing stuff about Mount Desert. Most times I would enjoy watching a documentary on National Parks and Stephen Mather’s push for a national park system, but right now watching this educational program is striking chords in my nervous system on a par with sitting through a Cotton Mather sermon. So I am going back to Pacino and Quaid and perhaps mind rot.

Oh, wait, now we get gossip: Mather had mental problems and “was sent to an asylum” outside of Baltimore. He had had his first breakdown in 1903 and three subsequent episodes had been prevented from escalating by trips to the wilderness of national parks. So, what about Mather and this fourth onset – did he get better or not? Okay, now they are talking about Mt. McKinley and in a filmed clip, an oldtimer explorer said the mountain had the “Heart of an Old Whore”.

Bears! There are bears pictured. I see no cows, though. Mostly I think the scenery and inspiration of the land and the talk of wealthy people are just asking me to be more than I feel like being at this moment. On the phrase “power elite” I click over to Pacino and Quaid. Sometimes you just have to tie one on.

Alison and I headed on down to Options today to see Colin for the first time now that he has settled in. He has lost weight and is a lot calmer and seems content. After about 30 minutes he told his mother he guessed we had seen everything and could go. Then he talked for about 30 more minutes and gave hugs with no tears and we headed back north, reassured in his state of mind.

It was a great day for the trip – all four lane and mostly interstate and, wow, the place is just right off the exit ramp. Now we need to scout out the city via the internet so we can take advantage of our trips down there. This time we thought we’d better play it safe and get right back on the entrance ramp, though.

I was following Mother up through the yard to the back deck when I heard a loud shout. I ignored it and we went inside and did a few little things and then I looked out back through the screen and exclaimed, “Holy Smoke!” And smoke is what it was, only I didn’t have my camera. There was black smoke and flames and the fire department came and all I had was my cell phone and I haven’t fully figured out the camera.

And I don’t want to go to the trouble of rotating either. But, if you hold your head sideways, you can see black smoke. Now aren’t you excited? Oh, and that black circle in the forefront? Well, that’s the burn pile site. Last time we scorched the leaves on a maple . . . this time it was a willow. You’d think we’d learn.

Okay, okay, okay . . . I did the right thing and flipped it.

I have been sticking my head in various nooks and crannies, some real and some not, while trying to figure out where some real things have been stashed and  also the places some of my ideas want and/or need to go. And I haven’t figured it out yet, but that’s okay. I’ll keep working on it. I had to postpone it a wee bit this morning because we had a TWO HOUR FOG DELAY. And then tomorrow is the dreaded Wednesday automatic  and inane half-hour delay.

I have things I have to do – finish the pattern for the bathroom floor is the first one. It is hanging over my head, which is a neat trick for a floor, but that’s the way my life is. Then I need to resand and restain part of the kitchen and re-poly; the good news is I have found some clear protector that does not have the little nubs that grab the rug that is usually underneath. This is for hardwood.

We have to go; we will see you again.

I will have pictures and I will add them, but right now I just want to say there has been a lot of home-made pizza making going on in the kitchen here in the Peanut Butter Cafe &  Roadhouse. Green peppers, red peppers, yellow peppers, orange peppers; onions; mushrooms; pepperoni; tomatoes; sausage and different cheeses plus regular spices. I, AmeliaJake, combined a lot of these ingredients into a blender/chopper and made “the mystery topping” for my small pizza – and, of course, included was the super double secret ingredient that endows those who eat it with secret powers. Everyone is afraid to eat it because they anticipate turning everything they touch to kohlrabi or cauliflower. So it is mine, mine . . . all mine.

Oh, dear, I seem to be typing on a vegetable . . . hahahahahahahahahahahaha.

It used to be that on the Saturday of “clean-up week”, you could put your cast-offs at the curb and they would be picked up. The city stopped doing that some years ago and instead just issued free tickets to the transport site for the landfill. Soooooo, we accumulated some – shall we say – stuff during the years because we didn’t have a way to get big things to the site.

This year Der Bingle decided to take the situation by the horns and got a U-Haul truck with a COW on it – – but he didn’t notice he had a cow until I came out yelling, “You have a cow! You have a cow!”

He acknowledged it was a cow from Wisconsin, but he said it in passing because he was thinking of the work ahead.

Here is Cameron, at my insistence, giving the cow a scratch behind the ears. It appears he is also thinking of the work ahead.

Here is the big push from Summer as the sofa goes in . . .

And here is Summer’s dad, Robert William, going down in the Big Push.

Notice the arm reaching out for help.

And finally, The Mighty Moo takes off.

Got Mother to the doctor and her tests are all pretty good, but he is concerned about an irregular heartbeat; first she agree to see a cardiologist and then waffled, so we are going back to the original doctor on the 24th. She’s feeling more like her feisty self again, now that the lump she felt below her ribcage turned out to be something that is supposed to be there. She’d lost weight so now she could feel it.

Her question is “Why should I take medicine to help me get old and lose my mind?” I said, “Mother, just take it until you lose your mind.” Sometimes she is a challenge.

Wednesdays are horrible in the East Noble School System BECAUSE on Wednesdays the day starts about 20 minutes  –  or maybe a half hour –  later.  This throws schedules completely off . . . for people getting kids to school. And that would include me. Get up times, drop off times and,  for Sydney, Fairground Times. This is not my favorite part of the day to start with – getting up in the dark . . . in the dark that is darkest because it is right before the dawn.

Out of habit, I come awake about the same time on school mornings, but, then either someone reminds me and I slap my forehead or I remember myself and slap my forehead and it dawns on me (darkly) that it is the dreaded Wednesday schedule.  At such times I would like to go  mano a mano with the person who came up with this scheduling idea.

I think I have captured this feeling before; you can find more sputtering HERE.

That’s what we’ve been doing here – painting the fence in the back. Up and down and scrunched into corners and dabbed on the sides of the boards that make up the dreaded shadowbox fence. Of course, it is okay to drip on grass, but I have a rose-colored shirt that is mostly grey now. Well, it had a hole in it anyway.

Not that painting has kept me all that busy at all. And even the small bit of junk I’ve hauled to the place from which we’ll be loading trash on Saturday hasn’t taken that much time. Oh, I mowed, but that went fairly well also.

So what have I been doing? I’d say probably not much. The dog’s happy with that. He likes to lie in one spot and dream his dreams.

Walmart is filling up with Halloween stuff – the displays have moved into the garden area this year; previously, the garden area went directly from mowers and grass seed and fertilizer to Christmas stuff, but not this year. I think in the past couple of years, ad men have decided to push Halloween as a decorating holiday. I think they noticed that some people were hot to start getting the decorating spirit of Christmas  and would  hurry it along by purchasing lights and whatnot early. Then, of course, they didn’t buy them later – they already had them.  Since the store would have a hard time selling decorations to people who already had them, I think they calved a holiday out of the anticipation of Christmas. Purple and orange lights, coffins, tombstones, eerie music, battery lights for pumpkins, pumpkin carving kits, giant spider webs, strobe lights. I mean who doesn’t NEED a giant ghost for Halloween. And special bags for the loot – not to mention the costume? And doorbells that laugh maniacally.

I have to confess; I bought a string of bats last year with purple lights on as an outline. Each little bat had two green lights for sinister eyes.

My mother’s house has the occasionally bat visitor now and then and she chases them down with a badminton racket. Guess we’ll have to watch out if she sleeps over here this Halloween. But, then again, perhaps I have outgrown bats . . . maybe it’s the year of the zombie. Or maybe it’s : Ha, Ha to you Walmart – I’m only spending money on a pumpkin to carve and some candy to hand out.