I’m not sure at all about how this evolved, but it seems I am of late being led through life by events rather than my own inclinations. It’s not the same as when something major happens, such as Robert’s first leg break. Then it was obvious I had to focus on tending to him for the ten days before surgery when his bones were shattered and any movement was extremely painful. And that’s what I wanted to do. I suppose my biggest contribution was going to the orthopedic center, dressed all nicely, speaking with my most correct grammar, doing my impersonation of a nice person and getting long-acting oxycontin and break-through pain percocet. (Don’t rob us . . . we no longer have it)

And urinal duty . . . and setting up a bed in the living room under the air conditioning vent and close to the TV.

Now that was an event, but I still had my personal time; I still had some choice in when I would do chores. I was still AmeliaJake. Lately, I have the feeling I am constantly having to hold onto my “A” or am calling out, “Leave my Jake alone. Stop tugging on my “m” . . . Sometimes I know I am thinking, “I know I have three “a’s”, but you can’t have one; I need all of them.”

I don’t think I’m whining; I think I’m befuddled. What the heck is going on here? Where is there a lever in the wrong position or a short in the system? Why can’t I find it?

This weekend, on a whim, I engineered putting up red, white and blue lights in the backyard and setting out many tiki torches. Maybe I need to put the torches in a circle, sit in the middle and chant . . . and ceremonially call forth the renewal of spirit. It could be I’ll need drums . . .

AND NO CLEMATIS FOR YOU

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!

Just a little AmeliaJake jokie.

Now if I had panned a bit to the left, you could have seen Summer’s blue jeans drying on the fence.

When I remember where I set the camera down, I will post a picture of what I saw yesterday at 6:20 in the morning. I saw it after I got in the car and started to back up and thought, “Why, I believe I have a flat tire.” Really. That’s what I thought. I did not think “&^%%$%#% flat @#%$#@% tire.”  There are just some unexpected things that put you in a stunned state and apparently this was one of them.

I got out and walked around to the passenger side front and there it was – spectacularly flat. From her seat in the tilting car, Alison asked, “Is it flat?” I answered with a simple yes, but already the unstunned, sarcastic AmeliaJake was kicking in and I thought of saying, “Why, no, it’s not flat. A sinkhole developed under that particular tire and it is following it around; it is a magical sinkhole. Oh, watch out . . . I think I hear Chinese voices wafting up.

So, anyway, I take her to the hospital and return to ask Cameron where in the heck is the travel film on Britain he wanted me to watch and I kept putting off . . . because I looked for it for 20 minutes the night before, even getting down on my hands and knees to peer under the table and sofa. On the mantle. It was on the mantle and he picked it up and looked at me and so I told him to put it in the machine. By the way, he had first said to me, “Well, let’s get it done,” when I returned, referring to the changing of the tire. I had already decided this one was beyond me and said we’d wait and have a professional tire evaluator look at it. No, I didn’t say that – for some ridiculous reason I just typed it – but I did indicate we would wait until business hours to call someone.

So there we are watching scenes in London when the camera focused on a man holding a child of about two and I blurted out, “My heavens, that kid is homely.” Yes, I am that type of person – going straight to the “H” word in reference to a toddler. I don’t know if it was a penance imposed from above but I wound up cleaning the back vestibule all the way down to its little concrete floor. Oh, the things I found . . .  including an antique sink pump that I am considering spray painting red. Summer and I can do that, although she and I with a spray can would involve a level of trust I don’t know that we can muster.

Just this past night I dreamed a complicated of deep snow, howling wind, bicycling in the snow and encountering a policeman who asked me how old I was. Jeez. The whole dream was a puzzle that kept getting more involved and a couple of times I came almost awake, only to choose to go deeper in the dream to succeed in getting out of my dreamland maze honestly – not by the quitter’s “wake up cop out” technique. (Although I am the first in line for that when it’s a snake dream.) The strangest thing about this dream, however, was not what was going on, but the fact that I wasn’t wearing my glasses and could feel the muscles in my eyes pulling and straining.

Hey, this was a dream in my mind. Why do I need my glasses. Not only wasn’t I wearing them, but I had misplaced them somewhere in the endless, turning hallways of a mansion-like house. Each time I went outside, the surrounds were more and more commercial and I would turn around and go back in.  I don’t know why I finally agreed to let one of my awakenings go to completion, but it was probably the best thing to do since my clothing had lessened to just trench coat and nightgown . . . and maybe no shoes. And people were arriving for a formal Christmas party.

First thing I did then? Grab my glasses.

I was searching through a closet, taking inventory of what is general called “a mess” when I saw a pile of stuff that had fallen out of a box or briefcase or whatever. In that stuff I came across two pictures.

The first is me AmeliaJake Grismore on the left and Amandaluke Kemp on the right at Read Hall on the Indiana University campus. Taken awhile back (cough, cough)

And this is me, your own AmeliaJake, a couple of years later:

I also found a pair of feet-in-them red flannel PJ’s that have a Santa face where a shirt logo usually is stitched and a label that says, “Made Especially for You by GRANDMA”

I told Quentin I’d have a picture of them on this blog right away, but I forgot and left them upstairs and so will take the picture tomorrow.

Okay, I remembered incorrectly. It’s Made with love by Grandma. I do think some of them said especially for you though.

Do you know I held these to my face and breathed in, hoping to get just a hit of that blond-haired scent? it wasn’t there – just the memory.