September of 2006

LOOKS LIKE RAIN

We took some clothes the kids had outgrown to the Salvation Army truck at the Rural King parking lot area today and the two men working at the truck helped us unload our TWO loads. To load the clothes, we opened a window upstairs and threw out garbage bags filled with them. Then we transferred the pile on the driveway to the trunk and backseat. Getting the bags out the window was a little harder than anticipated because the windows crank out . . . and the ones in the room we used pivot at the center. We only had a few inches to ease the bags out, but we suffered no bag casualties.

Summer came in while Alison and I were bombing the driveway and promptly took over that job. After I went down to start putting stuff in the car – and Summer was left upstairs – I became a target of opportunity and was hit by a pair of shorts. Ah, life as a grandmother.

It was apparently picture day.

HERE IS A LITTLE PICTURE – OKAY TWO

We went to Fort Wayne and while there had lunch at Logan’s. Here is a picture of their clock – set to, of course, DST – what we used to call “fast time.”

Then I got a little artsy – and here is a shot of the light in the ladies room.

Well, I’ve noticed that just these past six years have made me more satisfied with just having a regular day.

THE PERFECT WEEKEND?? In Indiana??? You jest.

According to what I just read at the weather website, this little part of Indiana is supposed to have two weekend days of sunshine and temperatures that will be in the high 70’s on Saturday and the low 80’s on Sunday. As I understand it, that is two days of sunshine all day long. This is unusual for Indiana; more often than not, a sunny blue-skied morning will turn cloudy by 11 am, leaving everyone with deflated spirits.

You may know this is likely to happen – and living in Indiana will surely teach you this – but you always are sucked in by the physical impact of the sun and and a clear morning and then as the morning goes on, let down. You can feel the chemicals in your brain: NO CHEER FOR YOU. . . BUMMER, BABY . . . HAHAHAHAHA.

If the prediction holds, it will be an unusual Indiana weekend . . . It is very hard to trust an Indiana sky and here Chicken Little comes running with the cry of My Spirits are Falling; My Spirits are Falling – and he is not being an extremist kooky chick.

But let’s say you let yourself believe it will be good weather, then the problem becomes: I can’t waste this weather; I must do something fun. But what?? The pressure is tremendous. When I was in Sacramento in the early 70’s, we had day after summer day of sun and I practically killed myself by my Indiana-induced attitude of “Wow, the sun is out! Let’s do something.”

I hope you aren’t toying with me this weekend, Indiana.

I surprised myself. Mostly by this: Suzanna Dorkeaux had become one of the wisps of Southern family history who every now a then appear in shadowy form on the outskirts of a evening lawn party. My mind . . . it is an odd one.

From the old blog:

So what dork is doing this? O(h)

Some things I skim over and Dorko was one of them; that’s the last name of the new head guy at Lutheran Hospital. Then I saw it again . . . and it registered. Now, I feel for this man, I really do. I know he is a very successful man, and no doubt quite well off financially. I don’t know how old he is or when the term “dork” entered the vernacular, but it is probably not something is is happy about.

Excuse me, I am going to do a Google search. Ah, here it is – a reference to the word: DORK, and here is part of that entry verbatim:

Dork is a term used to describe someone who has unusual interests and is, at times, silly or stupid. A dork can also refer to someone who acts on his own motives without caring about his peers’ opinions. The term occasionally implies stupidity, though perhaps less often than it once did, and it can paradoxically imply an unadmirable (bookish, academic) intelligence, much like the terms “nerd” and “geek.”

. . . The adjectival form of dork is dorky, a word that was mainstream enough by 1971 to appear in a Peanuts comic strip

Oh, that 1971 mainstream reference means he has been dealing with it for some time; maybe it is the reason for his success. I know, I know, it probably represents a proud family – quite possibly of Dutch descent. There is nothing wrong with Dorko as a last name, not really. But, gee, it does kind of take you by surprise in a headline. He could have taken a French bent and changed the spelling to Dorkeaux and moved to Louisiana; heck, that kind of sounds like a name in a novel:

The dew lingered on the vines growing along the edge of the veranda where the morning shade kept the sun’s heat at bay. Mr. Dorkeaux always took his coffee there when weather allowed, often gazing across the lawn that rolled down to the river where Suzanna had first climbed in the boat that eventually spirited her away.

Ever so polite detectives had come and asked questions, left, returned and finally disappeared into the the same river mist that had closed in on the scene all those years ago. Suzanna Dorkeaux had become one of the wisps of Southern family history who every now a then appear in shadowy form on the outskirts of a evening lawn party. It was whispered that her travels – as Mr. Dorkeaux referred to them – had taken her to places where she could find no rest, no peace. And so, she was drawn back to her marriage home – Dorky Park.

Oh, no, no, no, no, nix that idea.

Of course, as I said, Joe Dorko has done well for himself.

Maybe my last name should have been Bozo.

I look at random at an archived month at my old blog and let myself be surprised by what I find. I think by doing that, rather than reading through in order, it is likely for the memory to vivid, popping out of nowhere as it does, than being foreshadowed by post written immediately before.

This one is from September, 2005. Oh, I forgot, you already know that.

MOVIE AT THE STRAND

I went to the movie “Flightplan” starring Jodie Foster last night at the Strand. She looked different to me, and not just older: perhaps her face is thinner. I found myself paying more attention to her than the actual movie, trying to determine why she didn’t “seem herself” to me. Anyone interested can read Roger Ebert’s review here. ; I wasn’t as impressed as he was still I appreciated that it was more of an Alfred Hitchcock movie than one dependent on bad words and nudity. Actually, the only thing that might bother someone is seeing a corpse in a coffin.

*******

HERE IS AN ARTICLE I WROTE ABOUT GOING TO A MOVIE AT THE STRAND WITH MY GRANDSON published in  . . .

The name of the movie was “Secondhand Lions.” And “we two” were in the audience, each with a large cola in the drink holder and a large bucket of popcorn between us.

I am the elder of this two-person club, by a good 44 years. I am the grandma. Specifically, I am the grandma who likes good books and good movies and has always been drawn to stories where characters try to pull themselves up to what is right.

I am the grandma with scenes in her head: Humphrey Bogart in the rain in Casablanca telling Ingrid Bergman about how if the plane leaves without her she’ll regret it – maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of her life.

I remember Gregory Peck leaving the courtroom in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” I can see David Niven’s quiet determined bravery in “55 Days in Peking.”

But let us not think of me – this grandma – as a gentle soul of soft voice and compassionate character.

No, I am also the grandma who looks at a refrigerator door standing open and yells, “The next person who doesn’t shut this door is going to . . . “ Well, let’s not go into what exactly it is that I yell; let us settle on the notion that I can be pretty inventive.

I am the grandma who looks over her glasses and inquires, “Now exactly how long have you known about this project . . . that is due tomorrow?”

Now the younger partner on this “we two” team is 10, soon to be 11 . . . and he is Cameron, the grandson. He likes video games and action movies and is constantly badgering me for permission to build up forts and such in a computer game called “Stronghold” which is installed on MY computer.

However, he is also the boy who gets up before school to turn on the Animal Planet Channel or the History Channel. And once, he and I stayed up way past our bedtimes to watch “Attila the Hun.”

So when I saw Cory Renkenberger, manager of the Strand in the Do-It-Center and he said “Secondhand Lions” was coming the following week, it got my attention. I remembered the magazine reviews I’d read and I thought that any movie where Michael Caine and Robert Duvall star as two old eccentrics who spent 40 years of derring-do in Africa and are now hosting a great-nephew for a summer should be pretty good.

Actually, maybe too good to see alone . . . and maybe too good to see with a brood. So the idea came to me of “we two” – Cameron and I.

We went on a school night – homework done first – and were first in the theater. And this takes us back to the beginning . . . in the theater with the drinks and popcorn.

While waiting for the movie to start, we munched our way about three-quarters of the way down the popcorn container. Cameron looked at me and said, “Why, Grandma, I think you’ve outdone yourself.”

I got us a refill.

The lights went down . . . the movie came on. We watched through the exciting parts, the funny parts, the sad parts and the part where Robert Duvall gives a portion of his “how to be a man” speech.

He told the boy there are just some things you ought to believe in – honor and courage and virtue . . . some things you just need to believe are true – such as people being basically good.

I didn’t look over at the boy sitting next to me, but I thought of him – of us sitting there together in a small town theater . . . and I remembered another movie I had seen over a decade ago –“Shadowlands”

That movie was based on aspects of C.S. Lewis’ life. Anthony Hopkins played the title role and he spoke of feeling happiness lay in what was over the crest of a hill, around the bend of a road. Then later in the movie he reconsiders and talks about happiness being “here and now and that’s enough.”

I feel the pull of the crest of a hill, the bend in a road . . . but in that theater, in this little town, the here and now of “we two” was enough.

Every since I found my old forgotten blog, I’ve been looking back and surprising myself. When I got to the end of this piece, I am reminded that I’ll never change.

SHIPSHEWANA INDIANA ADDRESS

The little village where I lived as a baby – my first home – one time had its own post office: Scott, Indiana. Then it was closed and when letters came to the house, they bore the address R.R. #1 Howe, Indiana. Not to confuse anyone more, but Howe had been called Lima when my grandmother graduated from high school in 1900. Anyway, by the time I got around to knowing the address, it was Howe . . . for awhile. Then, one day I found out we were going to be transferred to the Shipshewana post office.

At that time Shipshewana was not a well-known flea market and Amish shops attraction. Having the address change meant that I would have to spell Shipshewana to everyone who needed to know – college staff, telephone operators, and so on. I used to break it down: Ship . . . she . . . wana. Now that Shipshewana address has national attention and on auction days, the roads are so clogged into town that my mother has to use the back way in if she is asked to help a friend at a sale. Keep in mind here that the “front way” in is narrow roads with a “funny bump” that made my stomach jump when I was little and, in fact, still does.

So . . . I am thinking I should go into some sort of business with my mother – with her address, we would have a step up on things. We could even copy the old tintype picture to show we were “authentic.” The problem is figuring out what product we would market.

This has been a stumbling block . . . but I will keep thinking. How about storybook quilts – a person sends in some facts about different aspects of their lives and dreams and I piece them together into a “quilt-book?” Or they could send in a list of the things they have done wrong and I could write a story that would be a guilt-book.

Oh, I guess I forgot to sound the bad pun warning. Sorry.

That post title could be misleading if there is a town named Back. Yes, that is the state my mind is in. I started driving about 7:30 am to the western side of Cincinnati and then I got back some time around five . . . I think. Alison’s mother is very sick and I took her down.
I think I am a little tired. But I wasn’t too tired to pop into Crate & Barrel at Keystone in Indianapolis. On the way down, I used Ind.9 as a connector between I-69 and I-74; I thought I’d give it a 55 mph plus towns and stoplight trial as an alternative to taking I-465, which I find to always be under construction. It is also one of those roads that requires knowing insider information about both which lane when and the key word for the exit to the part of town you want.

I was glad I’d taken Ind. 9 because it started to rain and when I flipped on my wipers, I discovered they had experienced their last hurrah. I spotted an auto store, turned in and walked out with super wipers; I could not only see, but they didn’t make an awful noise. Then, on the way back, I thought that, well, going on the Indianapolis loop wouldn’t be bad on a Sunday and Crate & Barrel is practically a stone’s throw from the road.

There was the part about remembering that you have to take an actual exit AFTER you have exited the loop to get from Meridian to 86th . . . but it worked out okay. I pulled my crunched-up Buick into a parking place along side all the BIG and shiny SUV’s and walked in and around without breaking anything. I also bought about 8 sale glasses as a treat for moi. And I confidently chatted with the salesclerk as if I were driving a BIG shiny SUV. I don’t know if I pulled it off or not. Like I said, though, I didn’t break anything.

I-69 just after exiting I-465 was a mess and, fortunately, it was not a weekday. Barrels and signs about delays abounded. Traffic was heavier than I expected and I started to feel as if everyone had been told the cops had taken the day off. I stayed at a steady 75 and was passed lots of times . . . I may have passed a couple of cars. I remember I went around an RV that looked like a giant Brink’s truck – all grey and buttoned up.

The miles to Fort Wayne clicked down slowly and I went from planning to stop for a taco to just getting back. I see this has turned out to be like an obligatory book report – so let’s just say: that’s all she wrote.

Der Bingle called me today to tell me there was a picture of Joe Biden on The Drudge Report; I have finally gotten around to checking in to see it.

Oh Lordy, here he is:

The picture is linked to a story on mental health . . . I may have nightmares tonight.

There is some controversy about the Christmas lawn decoration that is inside. In defense of the bear interpretation:

Note the pointy nose.

Then, again, while searching to no avail for a picture of my bear in a labeled advertisement, I found this: