It is muggy outside, very muggy and I am covered with mulch dust and dirt from pulled weeds roots and have a triple layer of dried sweat on my body. However, rain was predicted for today. So, last night, after I had picked up someone at Kroger’s at 10 pm, I decided to leave my clothes on and sleep in the rough and be ready to do a little more quick outdoor dirty work this morning.

Possibly that indicates a total lack of class; possibly it indicates an innate sense of true class, not bound by the judgemental rules of white gloved women. Perhaps it means nothing: I’m going with the second interpretation – it gives me a good feeling.

First thing this morning was to drive another person to Kroger’s as dawn was breaking. Just as I pulled into my driveway on the way back, a police car blinked its lights at me. Odd, I thought, but I stopped at the end of the drive and looked at the car and I HAD NO DIM HEADLIGHTS. This is not good, so I took my mulchy, filthy body over to a dealership and said, “I know I look like H***, but I’ve got a problem. He said, “Ma’am, you look fine.” I don’t think it was intending to lie; I think he was shocked and grasping for a variation on the “The customer is always clean” motto and stammered out what he could.

There was a recall for a module; because of the holiday it may not be in until after that weekend. Fortunately, the days are long.

I took my dirty self home and started to finish up some things to prepare for rain. I cleared the area I want the rain to soften so I can pound in a mulch border – think of it as Trump’s Wall agains mulch crossing onto my concrete. Or don’t think about it at all. I spread out a rug with a bear printed on it on a table with a woven metal top that will let the rain water pass on through. I picked up sticks and twigs and put them in the fire pit and covered it up. Then, sigh, I noticed the sky seemed lighter.

Looking at the weather guru site, I saw that whoa, the 100% chance of rain and storms was now under 50%. I don’t do well with coin flips. The sun has actually come out. I may have to perform a sacrificial ritual: getting in the shower and taunting the lightning powers that be.

This Memorial Day, I could not make it down to the small cemetery in Fountain County, so I asked my cousins to please put flowers on my father’s grave. This morning I received this picture and the following message:

Sue and I did this yesterday. We talked to Uncle Bob about memories and told him . . . (how) much you loved him.

Sue will always be to me Susie and the writer of the note is her sister Glenda. Remember the front porch with the swing, the old bandstand in Kingman, the flannel sheets in the bedroom upstairs and Grandma’s portrait of her father in his Union Army uniform watching over us on the wall? I love you both. And thank you so much, so very much.

What was it we used to say in grade school? Oh, yes, Present or Here. I guess if they were calling role this morning, I’d have to put up my hand and respond with one of the words above, but, gee, it is almost with a sigh.

Still, I can find something good and productive about this day, but it will probably involve me and spray cleaners and vacuums and errands . . . and then there is my imagination: I am actually doing a quick vacuum of my special room overlooking the Pacific Ocean – save the maid a little trouble, dontcha know?

I have made it sound as if something dreadful happened; it didn’t. At one point I placed a plastic chair fairly close to the fire and sat there and then began to think, “Hmm, I’m hot and is the side of this chair starting to melt?”

I started to write about the weather. Blast! I’m boring.
I could say a few words about politics, but it is so surreal.

Somewhere in the middle is a story and maybe today I will find it.

I am not referring to the cold, white stuff – even though we have had yo-yo weather which sported a high of 43 degrees just a few days ago. It is chilly and rainy today as well. Tomorrow it could be in the 80’s. Who knows?

There is a less abstract question that I would like to figure out. I planted two snowball plants on the south-facing side of the mound two years ago and they thrived and spread. Last year I went out and bought more and planted them here and there and, by gosh, I not seeing them this year, neither here or there?

They is the distinct possibility that I was – and it would have to be on an impulse – weeding and accidentally pulled their tender shoots. You see, I have what I call a wilderness area and then one with some sense of order, covered in glassy ground cover and home to perennials I keep forgetting about. One of them has a delightful bloom, but it only comes at late summer and until then, the green stalk looks as if it belongs in science fiction movie about alien cabbages that are planing to eat me.

There are still more hostas to plant and a fern, not to mention more mulch to spread around. I wish I had a master gardener for a neighbor who desperately wanted more space to do her thing – my backyard is your backyard.

They are calling it the Kindle Oasis

Oh, please. Really? The ebook reader with adjustable print and ability to hold lots of books has been great. Believe me, sometimes the expression “good enough” is correct.

It was rainy and cold on the 14th and I got my hair cut and then decided it was too chilly to plant ferns and hostas; I also decided I would wait until Colin leaves for his group home to start a major reorganization of things in the house. I was thinking piles for right now – making certain clothing for people is in specific piles as it goes through the wash. Oh, and I have to reschedule the electrician also. As it was, I fell down on the job, after I went to the store. I snacked and figured I do stuff on Sunday, which is today.

Today,though, I started thinking about Mobius strips. I know, I’m leaving off the little dots over the “o” – I don’t want to look for them on my keyboard. After I thought for awhile, I made a strip. Okay, so you can go along the surface all the way and come back where you started without going over the edge. It seems to me that this edge thing is sort of a trick. Does an edge have thickness when you are talking about lines. Assuming you have glue on your feet, you could walk along a strip, reach the end, hold on, swing your feet around and walk upside down back the other way. You’d have to have glue on your boots to follow the twist of the Mobius thingie or you would fall off. Gravity doesn’t exist with those strips? Now, technically, you aren’t walking straight on a Mobius strip, you are only staying in the middle. If you went by the compass you would walk right off it.

But, you see, I am wrong – WRONG – about this. I am living in a world I do not understand, which is starting to bother me. And I’m not even going to consider quantum stuff – I’m here, no, I’m there. What is it like for people who understand these concepts? What does the rest of the world look like to them? When they tell you in grade school that the earth is speeding along with you on it even though you feel as if you are standing still, you go “Okay.” Do these other folks feel accepting it isn’t enough – that you have to understand it?

And exactly why is a smaller object attracted to a larger, denser one? Yes, I’m asking you, Gravity, what the heck are you? I’m not going to even start to think about all the space in the atoms of my body, and the idea if everything was all lined up just right in Goldilocks fashion, I could walk through a wall.

This bothers me; here I am living and I don’t know. I can’t understand. Could it be because half my brain started eastward on a train from San Francisco in 1948 and the other half started westward from New York and they are traveling very, very slowly and haven’t met yet. Or maybe they missed each other. Maybe for one split second, the halves of my brain passed each other on a double track and were almost close enough to make sense of things – but not close enough and not for long enough.

Perhaps that moment of meeting came early on and was when I successfully tied my shoes. That would be kind of a Mobius Strip thing . . . maybe.

I’ll make one more comment, however. All this thinking about this stuff certainly puts someone getting in my face and calling me a jerk in perspective.

UPDATE ON MAY 15TH.

See, I missed the 14th; was it because of the 13th? I don’t know, but look down at what I wrote on the 13th. Yep, I typed except instead of accept. Of course, it could be argued that miss a lot of typos because I loathe proofreading. However, let us not let that fact get in the way what you can see with your own eyes: I typed the wrong word on Friday the 13th.

I did not realize it was one of those days until I looked at news headlines and saw something about Friday the 14th not needing to be bad. Great. Well, I’ll tell you, my Thursday the 12th was a bummer and I wasn’t paying attention to the date. Was all the dastardly happenings of life having a little foreplay with me?

Is this all superstition? Is this a psychological trick that leads people to do something careless because their minds are on the date and bad luck? Or is this one of those things we don’t understand – such as time bending. You know, even if I don’t understand it, I think I could except time bending in a U-turn and going back to being a whole lot younger. Why look a Timex horse in the mouth? Of course, a Rolex might be even better. Ah, see, there is is: greed.

Friday the 13thc- probably a day on which I shouldn’t think.

We have been having problems with out modem: it works, it doesn’t work. That about sums it up.

The post just below was supposed to have been published on the 10th, but apparently, it did not make it through the pathways of the Internet. So the yesterday it refers to is not the real yesterday, but then, I’m not certain the real yesterday was kosher.

However, assuming it did occur, I mowed the lawn and sweat a lot; then I came in and did not realize I was soaked and I cooled off and started to chill. I was like a horse rode hard and put away wet. So I got all dry and pulled a blankie around me and then . . . yes, then, someone thought a shirt was missing from the laundry and there was a scene. I don’t know, the horse metaphor could have come in handy then – just shoot me.

An electrician is coming Monday or Tuesday and it could be interesting. We have a short somewhere or wires crossed and I don’t think this is something with which AmeliaJake should experiment.

One thing I must remember today: GET GAS. We did manage to get the trash out. Oh, the little victories – how comforting they can be.

Yesterday was not particularly confusing; I just had to pay attention and keep alert. No sitting with a book, hearing something going on and come to awareness of real life with a “What? What? What?” Actually, it was a follow the bouncing ball day.

First off, my grandson got up early for work, then dozed off and at the last minute we got the show on the road – sans his coffee, which is not a wise thing. Then talking with a group home facilitator – hey, it was the first word that came to mind and stomping trash and gathering up more trash because someone camped out in front of the TV with a 24 pack of soda and there was no Ranger sign that said, Please put all trash in receptacle painting on a can with a swinging lid. How could I have forgotten to do that? Sigh.

It was a short day for my grandson at work and I was there to pick him up, but, at another last minute, no one else showed up, so he had to stay an extra two hours. This turned out to be not bad because he was scheduled for his lunch break and asked me to come in and join him.

I went on home then, only to discover my older son backing out of the garage with his son and a dog in tow because they had to visit the group home. I had to step up and say, “I’ll babysit the dog.” I finally convinced the little furry one to come back into the house and I was thinking maybe I could sort of pass of the job to my granddaughter. However, she’s busy and the dog’s behaving himself so we go about our business . . . until my cell phone rings and my grandson wants to know if his sister can come into work two hours early because even more people have not shown up.

I would not call her a happy camper, but she got on the bus and we headed off, the dog in the backseat. Now, I drop her off and realize it is only 30 minutes until I have to be back to get her brother. After thinking of the time it would take to get the dog back into the house and then almost immediately back into the car, I elect to wait in the parking lot. I think the dog is used to waiting and he sat in the bask seat watching people come and go.

When Cameron came out, he remarked that he had not expected to see a dog and I went with the “It’s a long story” line. Cameron announced that he thought the dog’s name should be changed to Charley. I have no idea why, but he may have a point. The dog seemed to think so.

Cameron had intended to take his brother to a movie that evening, but when the latter got home, he said he was worn out from his trip. Ok, change of plans again. Laundry, vacuuming, getting granddaughter at nine pm.

And today? Well, one to school just now, one to take to Fort Wayne to appointment and, drat, how did all that stuff get on the floor again?