That’s what it says on weather.com. Right now the humidity is very high and it is predicted to be so after the storms, so I guess it will be a sticky day. I don’t feel like humidity today; I don’t really crave that “tough guy, I can take it” you get when the sweat is rolling down your body and your hair is soaking wet. That’s right – today I can’t take it.

I am going to sit in the air-conditioning and wonder why I am such a wimp this morning. I dare not nap, lest the ghosts of the Panama Canal diggers haunt my dreams.

I’ve been giving this some thought. I’ve watched HGTV and lots of shows about decorating – not because I like to decorate, but because I like to see the different ideas people have and how much personal taste influences how welcoming and comforting a space can be to a family – or with the wrong flooring, lighting and a hundred other things, how alienating a place can feel.

Hardwood or carpet . . . or tile?
Vertical blinds or lace curtains or no window coverings at all or voluminous draping masses of material?
What style of kitchen?
Oh, and Heaven help anyone who guesses what someone else would like for a wall covering.
Basement to work in? Basement to relax in? Basement to provide a space for jumping up and down full of energy kids?

That’s probably why custom homes are in all the magazines and why professionally decorated homes of the rich are in those same magazines. Of course, some people just want a roof over their heads that doesn’t leak; some people want to make a statement; most of us are like Goldilocks – we like things “Just right.” And that brings us back to architects and decorators and the expenditure of money.

But let’s say you can’t start from square one with an expensive architect and a completely blank drawing board, along with a fashionable decorator. So how can you make your own home out of a “used” house?

On the other hand, let’s say you have a “used” house – the one you are living in – and you are thinking, “How can I stage this house to attract buyers?” Yes, that word STAGE . . . Well, you can go neutral and then someone will want to change the color. Or you can go trendy and dramatic and a potential conservative buyer will think, if not outright exclaim, “Oh, Gawd!” It’s a guessing game.

It would be interesting if there were an eharmony for buying and selling – a business that facilitated changing one person’s house into another’s home.

I have been walking my path around Kendallville for three years now and it dawned on me that once I had adapted to walking, I was simply using the same muscles over and over again. Now that’s good for my heart muscle, but my legs have lots of muscles and some of them were not being used. I noticed this especially when I was walking with the sun behind me and my shadow nice and clear in front of me. It was disconcerting to see the flesh on my inner thighs jiggle with every step and at first I thought, “I need to walk more.” –  the “We need a bigger boat” Jaws signature line.

Thinking about it some more, I decided I needed to try different strides, having my little duck legs really stretch out. Right away, muscles that had been silent started yelling at me, threatening to burn and ache in the morning. It was effective blackmail – I walked with a longer stride intermittently, going back to my accustomed gait quite often.

I do look like a silent movie comedy scene when I stretch out my legs in steps geared to gulp up the sidewalk. I don’t think about that; it’s better that way.  Of course, not thinking about it does not mean that other people are not watching me go past and thinking, “That lady ain’t quite right.” Once you realize that is happening, you figure, heck, you might as go whole hog.

I decided that it would work more muscles, including those at my waist, if I zig-zagged from one side of the sidewalk to the other with my legs, while keeping my upper body aimed straight down the middle. It turns out it has also helped strengthen my knees and ankles because I am altering the stress put on them. It also turned out that I appear to be not certain of where I am going – maybe a little tipsy. Add to that an occasional stumble and Voila, there you have it, the little old lady who takes too many “medicinal” nips from the Elderberry wine.

I considered doing some upper arm exercise while walking, but figured that would put me in the Jim Beam category and/or at an interview for what is politically incorrectly called the “funny farm”  – and not in the HA HA sense of the word.

On top of everything else, I occasionally put a white moisturizer on my face because the perspiration makes it lose its color and expanding pores soak in the cleansing elements. It takes me awhile to get enough sweat on my face to turn the white to clear and given the white face, the zig-zags and the frequent lunging steps, I suspect I look not only tipsy, but like a clown.

Well, that might not be far from the truth.

I thought about titling this post: Where did the italics come from? because when I looked at the site, almost all the post had switched to that font – and I believe some things in the sidebar. I don’t know. Maybe it will come to me; maybe not. I did get an email I ignored that said WordPress had automatically updated. Whatever.

I’m not going to sweat it because we have been sweating a lot here today pruning a tree in the backyard and getting ready to repaint the fence. One limb was longer and deader than we thought and it fell down outside the fence. I ran around to get it and discovered it had fallen on one of the neighbor’s little lights by his driveway. No one was home, so I left a note. I think the little connector flipped off, but I am not certain how to get it back on and sitting and sweating in someone’s driveway with parts of a light was rather embarrassing. So, I covered it up with plastic, stuck a marker in beside it and left a note in a baggie at the back door.

My granddaughter learned that saying, “I’m going to saw that thin branch” and actually doing it involve different levels of effort. She was feeling her bicep; I don’t think logging is in her future.

It is supposed to rain/storm this afternoon right about now, but we went ahead and watered Fern anyway, in case the forecast is wrong and in case she is too protected by the tree she’s under. I think I may need to put some Miracle Gro on her.  Once Quentin and I were using Miracle Gro and I read the directions wrong and for a long time we thought it was supposed to be a brilliant sky blue liquid. I am not a master gardener.

Well, darn, it’s still bugging me about the italic thing and I’m going to have to investigate. So much for my “whatever” comment.

I ran several errands today, the last one taking me to Albion, which is southwest of here, Kendallville. I usually go SE to Fort Wayne, or a longer SE vector and end up in Dayton, Ohio – or NW to this little village in Lagrange County. Up until May 12, I did often go to Albion, because that’s where my friend Kathryn Feller and her roommate who became my friend, Clara Bender, used to share a room in North Ridge Nursing Home. Clara died early in the year; Kathryn died May 12th and because the nursing home was my only destination to the west, I have not driven by since.

I have thought about going over to visit with some of the residents and nurses and aides I met over the past few years, but I just didn’t do it. Today, I drove right by the entrance on the way to downtown Albion, and on the way back, I turned into the entrance road. It was strange going back and not making that turn into Room 420 – but I think it would have eventually felt stranger to have never returned at all.

I was able to visit and laugh with residents I had seen regularly and talk with staff I had come to know. I first saw Tiffany; I remember a few years ago when she was a very competent and mature aide, I had asked her age while in Kathryn’s room. She said 19. Good Heavens, what I would have given to have had her poise at that age. Sharon was there – Sharon who was so understanding and calm and caring during Kathry’s last days. And Tracy with her incredibly consistent good humor. And others I spotted while visiting with Helen Rex who had been Dorothy’s roommate when Dorothy had been Kathryn’s tablemate. Dorothy passed away last fall.

I didn’t get to see Amanda – an aide whose is also a triplet – who took care of Kathryn and Clara for years, always with a smile. Amanda, who washed Kathryn for the last time . . . Matt is a resident who was in the hospital, but he’ll be back. And I guess so will I.

I know “Life goes on” is a cliche, but then almost everything is and it doesn’t matter. In this case, it’s a resigned sigh, an acceptance of breathing in and breathing out until that one day when you don’t. It’s the laughter that followed remembering Clara and Kathryn stories and it will be the laughter of those remembering the times AmeliaJake (you know: me) did some eccentric thing. (Yes, there were lots of times. We just don’t need to talk about some of them now. You know, like backing into the garage door . . .)

There are five blank stars and your job as a rater of the book you have just read – or maybe one you read 25 years ago – is to fill in the number or stars that reflect your opinion of the book. This is not unlike the 1-10 pain scale in doctors’ offices where 10 is supposed to be the worse pain you have ever felt. Well, if you are not moaning and grimacing and whimpering, I’d said you don’t have a 10, but I’ve been informed some people calmly say “Eleven.”

Well, put that out of your mind for now and just think of the book rating scale of 1-5. This is so unfair; it does not take into consideration the reader’s mood. Sometimes you gear a book to what you want to experience at the moment, and not just in topics. For instance, if you are sitting in a waiting area to have your oil changed and the chairs are uncomfortable and there is no drink machine and the TV is high on the wall and playing one of those totally mindless game shows, just about anything to read would be appreciated. It might have the quality of a minus 1, but in that circumstance, it could easily seem a three.

Are you reading to relax? A fanciful and somewhat – okay, really unbelievable story – might fit the bill. You might actually groan at a well-written book with long, complex sentences because you are in the mood for: Greta looked out a the people seated and saw her proud parents as she received her summa cum laude degree at Stanford. There was no time for hugs afterwards, though, as she had to hurry to pose for pictures with the one other Olympic Gold Medal winner athlete in her class. That planned routine, that happy moment was shattered when gunmen wearing Obama masks stormed the gathering and kidnapped Susan’s father, the senator from Wyoming who was the leading contender for his party’s nomination for president. Buck Allscout, a Rhodes Scholar and Greta’s boyfriend, jumped up to thwart the action, but he stopped mid-step, grabbed his chest and collapsed as pustules erupted within seconds over his body. Blood flowed from the side of his mouth as he uttered his last words: Bud of the Rose. The lady who had been standing next to Buck screamed as she saw a giant bubo start to blossom on her hand. Despite her elegant appearance, she yelled, “F*CK!”

So is this a five star? Uh, I’m thinking not, but when you’re feeling low and want a distraction, it might just beat “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”

I think anyone rating/reviewing a book should let it be known what he/she likes to read. Then, again, some people write very good prose as they pen books such as, oh, The Slut of Sacramento. Others may take a shared human emotion and reduce it to a cliche, with a misplaced comma and maybe a misspelling.

Still, a reader can put up with a lot if the subject is one that captivates him. I know; I’ve grimaced at chopped-up sentences in books about espionage.

Some books are so full of elegant sentences that is is hard to leave each one to go to the next, but maybe the story is a bore.

And then there are the books – and I am generous with that noun – that are composed of nothing but dialogue. Talk about needing a wall to bang your head against. But that’s my opinion. I really don’t like to trash a book with just using stars as a rating. Of course, if one knows AmeliaJake, then the number of stars would have some relevance, but beyond that, it’s all up for grabs.

Those stars – such a responsibility. And once I said a book was well-written, but I didn’t care for the topic . . . and the author trashed me in an email. Sigh.

I am being very specific in the post title because I suspect my brain may be a little addled; I spent five and a half hours mowing. Yes it was on a riding mower, but we have had so much rain, with little drying time in between that the grass was sooooo tall. I had to put the mower height at the highest position for the major part of the yard and I still had to climb off the mower to clear out the chute. Many times – off and back on, off and back on.

Because it was on the highest level, the whole thing looked like a bad haircut and I had to go over it again at a lower level. And still the grass blades held so much water, the chute constantly clogged. Off and on; off and on. The tricky part of this off and on thing is that my cargo shorts are just the right length, given my height and the structure of the mower, that the back of the left leg kept catching on the shift that determines Forward, Neutral and Reverse. This was not a pleasant experience since it caught before my foot hit the ground and I could go no farther down until I had raised myself by my arms and kind of made a movement that hiked my shorts off the shift.

I do hope you didn’t try to visualize that. But here I am after all this adventure: crooked smile, crooked hat and crooked glasses.

Clutter windowsill with picture of first dog and hurricane lamps . . . and other stuff

Living in a little town in the Midwest, you walk down the street and see a lot of old houses with front porches; and from the porches before air-conditioning, people would sit in the evening and talk to people passing by or enjoy a glass of lemonade while the trees along the street shaded the area.

When I go for walks, I pass many front porches, most of them empty, except for a flower pot or a hanging windchime or a swing. Now, on a lot of the streets, the trees have been cut down when the road was widened and the shade wasn’t as important because of of air-conditioning. Some of the porches have been enclosed and I guess can be used as an extra room, but it’s right there close to the sidewalk and not so private.

One fellow has an enclosed porch with a cut-out figure of Obama on it; I think he’s a biggie in the Democratic party. I had to change my walking route so I wouldn’t have fight the urge to break a window and grab that darn cardboard guy and rip him up.

I’m off track here. What I started out to say is that I’m glad the porch on The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse was built on the north side of the house. It’s enclosed now with windows on three sides and tall shrubs filtering out the neighboring yard. It is like being in a forest, but just a few blocks from eateries.

And, being on the side of the house, I guess it cuts down on the possibility of being hit by a drive-by shooting. Okay, I am sliding down the crazy hill.