I had weird and scary dreams last night, which I cannot remember. That is probably a good thing, unless a snatch comes back while I am driving and I lift my hands off the steering wheel, put them over my face and scream. Of course, I might do that if a Sugar Plum Fairy suddenly appeared right in front of my car on the highway. Could that be why children can’t get driver’s licenses – I mean what if the drove Christmas morning. I’d say this paragraph is getting pretty far out there sooooo I think I’ll back away slowly.

I read all day yesterday and then the book was finished and there was more daytime left. So I looked at a sample of a more expensive book Kindle has been pushing:  Leaving Berlin, an novel set in 1949 – early in the Cold War – and I found myself confused. I will not be coughing up the dollars for it; if I want to be confused, there are a lot of books I already have that can do that.

I feel obligated to do something today, however since I am not trained in neurosurgery or astrophysics, I don’t think I will be doing anything noteworthy. Well, as Bill Murray said in What About Bob? – BABY STEPS.

I think fence painting is on my agenda this week; maybe I should have been reading about Tom Sawyer. (No relation to Diane)

Two days ago, I announced I had decided to just not do some things; to let them go – things like laundry and weeds and washing dishes. And then I couldn’t take the pressure of “Just saying No” and finished all tasks. Yesterday, I sat around until 11:30 in the morning and then gave a big SIGH and gathered up two grandkids and power cords and drinks in a cooler and headed up to LaGrange where we mowed, used the weed eater and sprayed weed killer. It was not hot, but humid, and when it came time to leave I could not find my hat. My hair, which had been thoroughly wet with sweat, had half dried into blobs all over my head and so I refused to leave until I had found my hat. I am that crazy. Fortunately, one of the kids found it and saved me from either their frustrated response or my needing to wrap my head in a turban.

Oh, little Pacific Dorfman hat with the mesh crown, I love you.

And one more “Oh” – I want to thank my grandson who patiently untangled four long extension cords so we could range freely with the weed-eating. That was not a fun task for him. We weed-ate until we ran out of string; I imagine we would have stopped eventually but we could have become obsessed and kept on weed-eating forever and ever, Amen.

I am going to try the super lazy tactic again today and something tells me I will succeed. You know, the old try, try again mantra.

I knew I had wandered away from the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse; I just did not realize how long I’d been gone. The days are somewhat of a blur, but the screen door has slammed behind me again as I returned . . . only no one yelled “AmeliaJake” like they yelled “Norm” on Cheers. Well, that’s okay, I’ve still got a place to sit and sip.

Some things did escape my attention. One of them was a plant that was included in a basket sent to Alison’s mother’s funeral. We had taken out all the separately potted plants from the arrangement for re-potting and somehow this one plant wound up on its side and under a couple of books.

I saw the little pot sticking out, sort of like the witch’s feet from the house in The Wizard of Oz, and quietly lifted the books. It was not a pretty sight. I picked it up and carried into where Alison was sitting and said her name softly, extending my hand. She sighed, “Oh well.”

I took the squashed green being into the kitchen and watered it a lot and let it lean; I think it’s deciding if it wants to try. I guess if it turns out to be terminal, I’ll just have to pull the root.

I was walking down one of the main aisles at Glenbrook Mall in Fort Wayne when a fellow stationed at one of the kiosks reached out for my hand. He was, I don’t believe, a native English-speaker because he took my hand and said, “I can help you with that stain.”

I was confused momentarily until I realized he was talking about the white splotches on the hand he saw. (I also have them on my other hand, ankles, knees and elbow and a couple of other spots.) I first noticed them on my ankles and knees when I was a kid and I never gave it any thought. It didn’t hurt for the most part I think it was triggered by the constant scraping of those areas when I was playing.

Later,  some other patches showed up and maybe about two decades ago, I discovered the loss of pigment occurring on my knuckles and the backs of my hands. People would sometimes ask if I had been burned or if I had cream on my hands. Maybe others stared and wondered but never said a thing; I don’t know – I really never think about it.

Getting back to this young seller of cosmetic creams, he attempted to tug me over, saying that he had something to help it, fix it, whatever. I think I gave him my, “Are you crazy?” look and said I was fine with it. He looked amazed and I kept nodding my head and saying it was okay. Finally, he got a look of surprise on his face and exclaimed, “Really?!” and then gave me a high five. My hand worked fine for doing that. It works fine for most things. It’s not arthritic and I’m happy for that.

Now I’m wondering when I walk past vendors that I they must consider me hopeless because they don’t grab me and say they can fix my height, my weight, my nose, my really big mouth, my eyes which I think I set too close together (but, I really am grateful to be able to see) my clothes, my limp hair, my lack of a bustline and so forth.

I know those spots are likely to eventually show up on my face. Well, to be honest, they will probably look better than I do when I get in a “mood” and frown and scowl and forget how lucky I am to be able to walk quickly around a mall without aching joints or shortness of breath and a lot of other conditions.

I am not at the Fairborn Sweetcorn Festival. I think Der Bingle is going; he may send pictures or he may be watching demonstrations of different methods of eating corn on the cob. It must be hard for younger people who don’t know about the actual carriage return action of a typewriter.

I did not realize it but the festival has been around for over 30 years. That’s a lot of corn munching. It will be followed by the Dayton Bacon Festival. I kid you not. This one is only in its third year. Der Bingle looked at the list of bacony foods offered and decided he couldn’t bring himself to go. I don’t know, but the information about it leads off with:

Awaken Bacon Nation ~ Everything is Better with Bacon! It’s time to get your chops wet with BaconFest 2015!

I’m thinking about this Bacon Nation – maybe soon there will be a sports team called The Pigs . . . or let me think of other names. Nah, better not.

I didn’t post yesterday because the main story is that I assumed when I turned the mower blades off and then climbed off the mower and then spent time adjusting my shorts and stretching that the mower blades would have stopped. Fortunately for moi, they had almost stopped. Otherwise, I would have lost some fingertips instead of just getting a good WHACK that left me with a bone bruise and cut and a fingernail bed that is purple.

It’s not like I stuck my hand right under the mower; no, I was picking at the blob of grass that had blocked the chute, and then I picked a little bit farther and the thing I mentioned earlier happened – the WHACK.  I think that the impressions of thought that crossed my mind in a split second were “Oh No” and then “Oh, Thank God” as I snatched my hand out whole. After that I thought a lot about my parents and my dad especially and his concern for my safety and not being foolish. I think had he still been alive, I would have gotten a totally frustrated and never before performed BIG WHACK UP THE SIDE OF THE HEAD.

I was very lucky, and very stupid, but I’m going to be really thankful for the lucky. In fact, I may even consider this particular “lucky” as a noun. Yes, this was  a main Lucky for me. It doesn’t really hurt at all unless I put pressure on it, and I try not to do that.

When you don’t have a fancy suburban lawn, but, instead, are responsible for mowing a rural yard, part of which was converted from a field, it is not unusual to get what people older than I have called “summer grass.” It is probably a short weed, but being green and not growing like a vine, can pass for grass. However, in late summer, when it has been warm/hot long enough to get the actual earth nice and warm and when there as been adequate rain, it starts fattening up its blades. Each blade of grass expands with water and when the blade of the lawn mower cuts it, the moisture spews out and pretty soon, you have a major green blob of clogging mush. Those fat blades also dull the mower blades quickly.

I think I am going to have to face it today. The last time I mowed, I cut the grass very short, too short actually, but I suppose there was a little AmeliaJake vengeance in my choice of cutting level. Then we did a a few days without rain . . . and I decided to push my luck. Frankly, from a distance, when it gets taller, it has a nice lush green appearance and as long as there is not mowed spot showing, it looks not bad at all. Up close it is a different story. I’m going to find out what chapter I’m on today. We have had some rain; I just don’t know how the height chips fell.

I will have to wait until after 12 to even consider getting started, though, because when you are between a river and a creek on a block of land the settlers called “the island”, the dew lingers forever. It will also be a mosquito repellent-wearing afternoon, and I think it will be one of weed killer application. It is cloudy right now, but I think  it is supposed to NOT rain. However, I don’t know if the clouds will stick around and trap in all the moisture. I may find myself in a pickle.

Gee, isn’t this interesting? I’m sure Donald Trump doesn’t have these concerns. Too bad I can’t go out there and arrogant it into submission. Say, I wonder who mows his head.

For someone who has always been considered to be a quick learner, I have certainly missed the mark on some important things.

When people are gone, they are gone. No matter how many times I open the big, heavy old wood door that leads into the kitchen that smells of the woodsmoke of my earliest childhood, no one is going to come around the corner. About five years ago, I wrote about being there, closing my eyes and letting the ghosts come out. I guess I thought that was enough, that seeing in my mind life as it used to be would somehow keep it from actually not being there anymore. My imagination is too good. The rooms are empty, despite the ghosts that I actually see now with my eyes open.

They are like clouds. Oddly enough, I can glimpse myself sitting there doing algebra homework at the big round table. I am a misty ghost, too. And what the place is now is just an empty place. I don’t know what took me so long to realize this; maybe it really started when I walked out of Room 420 at North Ridge Nursing Home on May 12th. I followed Kathryn’s last exit and on my way, I thought of Clara who had been there until January and was also gone. I think I had been seeing her ghost as well during the last few months. I couldn’t close that door and keep the room unused as if waiting for the past to come back.

Here we are contained in these small bodies, with our awareness in a small part of that body and we are capable of feeling utterly crushed. How can perception be so overwhelming? Maybe only some part of life goes on, or perhaps some of us just can’t grow old, can’t accept the passing of time.

Right now I could use a furry shoulder to bury my face in, but he’s gone too. I think, though, that maybe one more time, I’ll close my eyes and let his ghost come out.

I only write this because I have a Wal-Mart trip in my immediate future and, for some reason, I really, really do not want to go. Perhaps when I get there, I will be like a cat being put in a carrier – all four limbs sticking out, fighting the doorway. I just thought I’d warn you so it won’t come as a surprise on the news or People of Wal-Mart.