Yesterday, Der Bingle mentioned that “Knowing” with Nicholas Cage was at the local theater – he’d seen the marquis while driving down Main Street. I was having a drowsy attack but immediately started thinking about putting my head in cold water and going. Then it came out that some animated whatever movie about aliens and monsters was also playing and Summer wanted her grandpa to take her to that.  So they went . . . and phoned me from the lobby. But, I missed that call; I got the text message, though, that informed me they were going to see “Knowing” after all.

Ack! I tried to call back but they were already in the theater with phones turned off. So I did the text thing: It was something along the lines of  being butt heads and I hoped snakes got under the seats and ate their popcorned butts.

Early yesterday evening, I went to Scott’s to take advantage of the last day of the ground chuck sale, and actually found two Manager’s Special roasts aw well. And then I went to the Redbox and saw that “Marley and Me” was available. The scene with Marley going out the car window and running with two legs on the road and the back two legs on Owen Wilson’s lap has been on TV a lot. I didn’t know if Summer had seen it, but thought, hey, for a dollar, I’ll watch it slapstick around.

But, It isn’t that. I think I knew in the back of my mind it was something real and real is unreliable. When I gave it to Summer, I thought she’d take it to one TV or the other and watch it; instead, she decided we should watch it together. Well, okay. We did. As we were getting to the end, I came to understand they were going to the whole lifetime thing with Marley – the getting old and you know.

Then we had a burst of commotion in the house and by the time we got back to the movie, the menu was on. I called my mother and then flipped the movie back to where I had left off to see how they would handle it. I can take a bit of sadness, I thought. Well, it was heart-wrenching; I choked up, I cried, I made little quick intake of breath sobbing whimpers. And then my daughter-in-law came out and I told her not now, this is a sad part. She tells Summer I’m crying and Summer comes out and sits down and watches. We were a mess. After the movie was over, I still cried.

Then I distracted myself with something else and before I knew it, it was one in the morning. This morning my eyes are still puffy and aching and I think I’d be happy to pull a blanket over my head.

So, it’s morning and I’m awake and I don’t know if I’m all sobbed out about Marley or not. On the way back from the fairground with Sydney my throat got tight and my eyes teared and I had to take deep breaths in the driveway.

***

I think Owen Wilson is like the character he played in the movie – being really good at something and people wanting him to do that because it makes them feel good and him wanting to do different things. Sure, you can act, Owen, but we love it when you make us feel so upbeat . . . so just do that okay. We think,” I need some Owen Wilson feel good moments to cheer me up.” I think he’d like to do more, maybe like Bill Murray in The Razor’s Edge” but people want him to be their medicine.

I was looking through some old papers, sorting more or less, when I felt something slip to the table in front of me. It was an envelope and when I turned it over, the handwriting reached out with instant recognition and a catch of breath. In various trips and movings, it had slipped from drawer to box to shelf to stack to drawer and so on. And here it was, not two days after I had been thinking of Sydney as a link to the past. My father’s handwriting; my son’s then address. So many times I watched that writing appear on paper flowing from a pen – for as long as I can remember.

There’s a letter inside, but it’s not mine; it belongs to someone else. But I’m going to keep it here with me until I can pass it from my hand to his.

Sydney knows me. He is here on the sofa with me, thinking, “You’re in a rant mode, aren’t you? You’re going to bitch because you were all set to take pictures of a soft sun at the fairgrounds when Cameron reminded you it was Wednesday and the former high school principal had pushed Wednesday starting times back half an hour so teachers could meet to discuss students, but everyone else’s schedule is goofed up. You’re going to do that, aren’t you?”

Okay, maybe. It drives me CRAZY. Instead of stop at the high school, stop at the middle school, it’s go to the middle school, come home, wait and then go to the high school. REALLY CRAZY.

Well, he pretty much covered it so I’m going to take the time now to post the pictures I did get at the fairgrounds – too late to catch the soft light.

The trees looking to the west.

Well, I’m here but I don’t know if I want to get in the car.

Okay, here’s a bit more face, but I don’t think I’ll get in the car now.

Sighing and thinking

I’m up, but I don’t think I’m pleased.

HA! You cut off my nose, AmeliaJake . . . Wait, are you trying to spite my face? Huh? Well, all the better for people to see my eyes displaying the ache for more attention, more belly rubs, more special cookies, more FG trips, more visits to Grandma Sarah’s and that dastardly cat.

As I typed the title up there, I wondered . . . Why so long? Why so detailed? That’s not like me. . . .  I know why, though. Because some years from now, if I am looking over archive titles, I want to see this one and realize immediately what it is. I think I will want to remember it – see those minutes in my mind again.

He and I were out there as we usually are after having done our schoolkid-dropoff- run. I had parked on the little rise in the road just before you get to the Swine Barn and this morning – at that time – the sun was a big yellow gauzy ball showing through the still bare trees. Yesterday, its brightness had led me to park a bit beyond the bend, but on this turning cloudy morning, it appeared as a warm soft glow. You could look right at it.

After awhile, I honked to alert Sydney and there he came – from the area to the east of the Swine Barn. The Swine Barn is mostly poles and roof with some sections of cast-iron enclosure fence reaching between some of the outside posts. You can see right through it – sort of. He went in that east end and meandered around, sniffing this and that and then, after my reminder honk, came out onto the grass and down to the road in front of me, detouring a little as he made his way.

Then he stopped – in the middle of that road/lane with the soft sun lighting the area  – and looked ahead at me in the car. But, we don’t know how well he sees anymore. Perhaps he just had nose to the direction of the scent of the car and me. I thought . . . Now this would be a picture to remember – this morning sun, this spring, this dog . . . but I had no camera. That is probably best because I sat there and soaked it in, willing myself to remember the details – the slight ruffling of his fur, the way his ears flopped, that smile of his.

How much longer? He will be 12 this April; my gosh, he will be 12 in just 16 more days. 84? Was he a little old man running out of the Swine Barn and looking at me from the road in front of the car? He is from a time when life had not crossed the threshold of people being gone; he is that link. Gosh, he is from the time of my 40’s – okay, the late ones.

We just held our postions – me looking through the windshield at him, he looking down the road at the car. I don’t have the ability to hold a vision in my remembered sight; it flashes and my mind sees it, but I can’t stare at it. I only get the flashes. I think I have it imprinted on my brain, somewhere maybe where it will stay safe for awhile. Maybe it will stay long after my mind has, as they say, “gone”. That would be okay.

Going back to school, going back to school . . . Hi Ho, the merry-0, going back to school. Well, darn, I forgot I can’t carry a tune. Oh, the heck with it: Going back to school, going back to . . .

Yes, maybe you remember my reporting that Mother heats by pilot light and wood stove. Well, here’s the pilot light . . .