Yesterday afternoon I decided to make a wreath for my friends in the nursing home; I decided to make a grapevine one . . . from square one. I went out and started pulling down grapevine and then Der Bingle saw me and he came to help; Summer came out, too. There we were tugging and hanging onto a vine that had climbed up to a tree’s branches and nothing much happened. So Der Bingle gets the saw and it was a tough vine but finally we got a good chunk loose at the top and I started to walk to the house.

I had to stop and ask for the bottom part of the grapevine to be severed – ah, the details. So, okay we get it in the porch and I start to make my basic circle, tying it together with raffia. Summer comes out: “What are you doing?” I have learned: With Summer you do not ask, “Do you want to help?” You query, “Do you want to make your own?”

We’re going along with me talking her through the beginning steps and after she gets her initial circle, she adds some more vine and the emergent wreath starts looking a little rectilinear. She said that; I didn’t. What I did say was for her not to worry about it being squared off, continued work would tease it into a circle.

“IT IS A CIRCLE.”

“Uh, you just remarked about the corners . . . a rectangle . . .”

“IT’S A CIRCLE.”

Then she proceded to tease the perceived non-squarish thing into a roundish thing. I kept my mouth shut; she did a pretty good job.

“I’m going to use these really pretty and classic dark red glass beads on a fine wire vine for my wreath because it’s for Mrs. Feller, okay?”

She nodded.

I added faceted colored balls, slender patterned ribbon and two nutcrackers – I hope the raffia isn’t too tight around their little waists. We think it looked rather nice and I took it over. I told Mrs. Feller I had made it from scratch from the vine in out yard and that Summer had learned to do it and had made her first wreath.  I think she liked that.

It was about suppertime then and we headed to the dining room with Mrs. Feller pushing her husband, who was a little confused yesterday. There is an empty spot at their table and I usually sit until dinner is served and chat. Then I leave, saying I’ll be back and Mrs. Feller knows I will. We both like that.

I think I started out visiting to do something nice for her, but you know what, I’m being nice to myself too – somewhere along the way I figured that out.

Oh, what a subject. Well, I can’t help it; it is driving me crazy. I feel as if I have slime sliding very slowly down the back of my throat. Graphic, huh? I probably should have posted a warning of off-color imagery before I started. I think it is a yucky green. Oh, never mind . . .sorry.

Well, anyway, I have been trying to drink things with a straw and set up a current that will speed the going down the back of the throat process. I have also tried to swallow bites of a foldover in a way that they will sop up the slime the way bread sops up gravy.

I should find another topic, right? Guess I’ll pass on the pictures . . .  hahahahahahahahaha.

Okay, here I am on a county road in the country part of the county with no other cars on the road when I realize that the white car parked in the church parking lot was a police car and that it is flashing its lights behind me now. Yes, I was speeding. And the officer gave me a ticket – not a warning. The dog let him. Do you believe that, the dog let him give AmeliaJake the, dog-lover, a ticket. The dog let the man give AmeliaJake who was on her way to the nursing home to see an elderly woman a ticket – not a warning bark.

Well, rats.

It upset me. I turned around to come home, then thought I needed to go on to the nursing home and turned around again and then I started to really cry and turned around again.

The last day of the month.

A police car in a church parking lot.

An empty county road in the country.

A slam bam thank you ma’am ticket.

The dog let him.

So I fell into a well of despair while Lassie watched.

Oh, rats.

But maybe I’m being catty.

I remember watching the made-for-tv movie, Love Among the Ruins with Katherine Hepburn and Laurence Olivier. I really liked that movie; I think I even quoted lines from it. But now I can’t remember what it was I quoted so I started to research on Google. I haven’t found much yet but I did learn one startling fact. Hepburn and Olivier were 68 when they made the film. 68. Eight years older than I am now. I think I watched the movie in 1975 and, uh, thought the pair was old. Now, I must utter ACK quietly so no one will ask me what has taken me aback and back to my perceptions when I was 27.

Oh, the hell with it: ACK! ACK!! ACK!!!

Soon, very soon, we will start getting Summer up to make for school. Grandpa has been doing it. It is sort of like throwing yourself on a well-made German grenade, not the Italian ones of movie lore. Only a few minutes now . . . and it will start: “Why can’t that clock move slower . . . School is so boring . . . But I’m still tired,” These are translations of her remarks after they have gone through the venom filter. I think on Career Day they should suggest Summer become a croquet ball quality tester. You know: Give her a mallet and let her whack them outright, “send” them by hitting the ball under her foot hard enough to send the ball resting beside it to kingdom come. See how they hold up, dontcha know.

What am I thinking? Summer with a mallet? We have been that route before. I remember her at three chasing her brother up the basement stairs with one and Mother having to disarm her.

Oh, something new happened . . . she disappointed her grandpa with her temper last night and he let her mother wake her. She came to him complaining, “You didn’t wake me up. Mom yells at me.” And he said, “Well, yes.”

She’s a little quieter now – maybe she’s thinking about it. More likely not; more likely she thinking, “Oh, rats, another chore for me today – charming myself back into his good graces.” Perhaps it will be a little harder than she thinks. (This last sentence was written for you, Grandpa, to help put a little steel in your backbone. Uh, the quick forgiveness thing still will work for ME – the hot tempered, but cuddly little Groverette person, right? . . . . right?)