When I was looking up information on Amelia Earhart, I automatically typed AmeliaJake into the search bar, and I found myself staring at:

Okay, I guess it’s a sign.

Then, wondering what would happen if I searched AmeliaJake images on Bing, I found this from The New Yorker:

Yep, I must have posted that somewhere along the line.

I have now backed away from search engines and think I’ll just go check Amazon.com. Of course, that can be unnerving; they track what you have viewed and offer suggestions based on that. Sometimes, I look at what comes up and drop my head. I suppose I should seek out some “normal” things on the site so maybe I’ll slip below the radar of those Internet police looking for candidates for the Group W Bench (made famous by Alice’s Restaurant. Okay, now I’ve gone and done it.

Everyone who knows me is very much aware that we lost a beloved Australian Shepherd a year ago last October. Actually, the hurt is still so big that when a lady form the Noble County Humane Society called me, I misspoke myself and said last October.

Actually, it feels like yesterday. Shane was himself, the clown, the cuddler, the teaser and he was also a link to other loved ones.

Anyway the lady from the shelter called to tell me they had a sweet dog, already spayed looking for a home. But I don’t know where I’m going to be living and what the rules are going to be, and another member of the current household already got a dog.

Her name is Maggie and if you’re interested in a furry friend, well, go meet her and please pass the word to others. I’m not going because it wouldn’t be fair; I’m not in a position where I can assume the responsibility of a dog.

I remember watching Chinatown way back when. That when was a long time ago; Jack Nicholson had hair. I’m not certain I followed the plot too well the first time I saw it; then later came The Two Jakes and renewed my interest in the earlier movie and I sort of got everything figured out.

Somewhere in this timeframe, I had become aware of the actual nitty-gritty convoluted story Los Angeles and its water supply. At one point, I came across a book about the St. Francis Dam collapse that killed over 400 people as a giant wall of water raced 50+ miles down a riverbed to the Pacific Ocean. It was one of those fascinating soft cover books that had a lot of pictures and illustrations and diagrams.

The one thing, though, that I remember most vividly about the dam was that when two boys/young men climbed a remnant of it, one fell off when the other threw a dead rattlesnake at him, which led to that remaining section being torn down and my being wary of anyone walking around with a dead rattlesnake, ready to toss it at someone.

But, anyway, today on the Kindle book list, the Floodpath book lured me in. I’m a long way from the rattlesnake part; in fact the Owens Valley Aqueduct has just been completed so I’ve a long, long way to go before I finish.

I also started a book about the smallpox virus and other contagions and while I am fascinated by what I am reading,I find that I have been corrupted by the well-written mystery, crime novel and overall literary fiction. It’s so relaxing to just sit back and let a story flow and not have to worry about hydraulic uplift and bio-hazard suits.

I’ll probably just wander over to the free section and download some sort of pulp. I admit it; it’s like Twinkies – just so tempting.

Just a few years back, TV ads and magazine pages showed cows in pastures sharing their thoughts about the Contented Cow Contestants. What happened? I miss those clever little, and maybe snide, moo-ings of the pasture?

Whoa, this isn’t one of the commercials but it sort of fits in with the Iowa Caucus time period and primaries to come:

But back to the Contented Cow Contest. I can find nothing right off the bat as I search the Internet. Certainly, it can’t be revisionist history at work. I continue to look . . .

OKAY, here we go. It started out as the happy cows in California and promoted cheese. This one is from (gasp) 12 years ago. I particularly like the “she’s been tipped one time too many” line.

I may have a version of that put on my tombstone.

I haven’t really thought about why I don’t use FaceBook. I have a page, mainly because someone asked me to quite a while ago, but I never really got the hang of it and I’m not certain if I triggered something that shows other people’s posts. I may have to go look.

Still, while looking around on the Internet, I occasionally find myself directed to someone’s FaceBook page and when that happens, my little face and notifications appear at the top of the page. I see I have some friend requests, but I don’t know if they are real or generated by Internet cookies.

I remember when I did register on FaceBook, I used this picture:

AND PEOPLE COMPLAINED

Now, why would they do that? I think it is very representative of my personality.

We are north of the blizzard, quite a bit north, although I believe if I still lived in the Cincinnati area, I would be on the northern edge of it. The sky is blue here; I am not sitting in a bogged-down car on an interstate nor bracing against a pelting wind. That’s good.

However, this morning, after being up late last night, I got up at five to run some people to work and then I came home and worked a Sudoku and looked at the weather mess, highlighted on the Internet sites and thought, Now, what would I do if a blizzard were raging outside while I’m feeling a bit tired?
I was fairly certain that I would find a warm spot and cuddle up and close my eyes and sort of “rest it out” for a while.

There isn’t a blizzard here, of course, but it occurred to me: I can fake this. I then put my little head down on a pillow, grabbed and afghan, closed my eyes and thought, Oh, it is so great to be all warm and cozy. I did a great job faking it and dozed off.

I haven’t done any chores today; actually, I recovering from reassembling things after an all out hunt for someone’s phone yesterday. Despite protestations that I had already looked carefully in some areas, I found myself following behind the phone’s owner who was searching like a dog dig a hole – in everything.

The phone was found – fortunately before I had gone through more than two bags of trash.

Actually, a lot of stuff is still strewn about so I probably will be shoveling anyway, just clutter, not snow. It is tempting to build a nice fire; heck, it’s tempting to read in front of the fire, were I to build it. And maybe throw a little clutter in . . .?

I wouldn’t do that; no not at all. However, I am thinking it would be fun to get a woodchipper and bring it inside with the chute aimed out a window and just, oh, toss a few things in. I suppose I could put a big piece of plywood outside that window and spread glue on it and develop a new genre of modern art. Why throw paint when you can use a woodchipper? It would be a painting/sculpture thing and just think of all the little hidden themes art critics could discover. Oh, yes, this was her anti-demim period, reflecting a need to spruce up her later years with more stylish clothing. Or: She is creating an archaeological* representation of her civilization after it has been trodden over by following nomadic tribes. The observant with find pieces of what were commonly known as “knick knacks” in this era.

The spell checker led me to research the two variant spellings of this word: Archaeological and Archeological, What I found is HERE, if you give a darn.

I suppose this says a lot about me: If asked who I would like to have been in history with the initials MT, I would answer Margaret Thatcher, not Mother Teresa. At least I’m truthful.

Oh, Lord, this says even more: I just bookmarked the BBC’s 60 Second Shakespeare.

I really am that EMPTY.

I found this picture on a news site on the Internet; I imagine quite a lot of people viewed it. It took me a moment, though, to realize that was a dress sticking out from under the coat. This digger was a woman. My mother was a very good-looking woman, and, frankly, I don’t see the same lines of beauty in this woman’s face. I do see determination and my mother had that; she dug out after the blizzard of “78. She dug out every year – one shovelful at a time.

When she died, the people across the street told me at her visitation that the previous winter she had dug out a place for the mailman and the snowplows kept closing it up – so she climbed up on top of a snow ridge and wouldn’t let the next plows mess it up. She would have been 82 that year, and I’m certain she was dressed as if she could have been on the slopes at Aspen.

She had spunk and class; I have a temper and wear about anything. I’m certain I was a disappointment to her, but one thing though, I can shovel. Maybe that can be my epitaph.

Motivation eludes me. I know there are books on the subject; I could write one myself, with an afterword that stated, “Ha! Good Luck! If you needed to read this book, non-motivation is probably in your genes.” Of course, that would not be written because the book would not be written because of, well, go back and look at my very first sentence.

Where does this leave me? I would suspect it is not a good place, and that is unfortunate because, dontcha know, non-motivation will probably leave me right in it – -sort of like the lady whose body grew around a certain object in her bathroom. I know; disgusting; below AmeliaJake’s usual reference points.

I am actually chortling aloud at how low I have fallen. Maybe I can find an elevator, because, hey, you know, actually climbing stairs. It’s almost tempting to look around at the stuff on this level, but I did learn a lesson some years back that discourages that. Way back – decades back, long time ago, another galaxy, and so forth – I reasoned that if I were ever homeless I could go to jail and have my little cell and meals and reading material, and the occasional movie. Then I watched a documentary on a prison; do you know I saw inmates throwing food and bodily products through the bars at guards and other inmates walking by. I was stunned. Stunned. And the foul language, not to mention the bad grammar.

I realized dimples were probably not going to be an asset. It’s almost enough to motivate me to Plan B.

I’m only here to see how long I haven’t been here. Since, the the 13th, well, how about that? And now that I am here, I am the equivalent of a wallflower at a dance. My dance card is empty and, that is okay, because I am out of sorts and would probably step on feet and find something to complain about.

I’m going again.