So, last night came the news of the raccoon in the trash can – the trash can that had to go out to the street for morning pick-up. These are the thoughts that ran through my head:

Glad it was Cameron that saw it and not me; I have already had the famous Palatine, Illinois Raccoon Encounter, in which I was watching a late show in a room with six-foot sliding doors on the east side and eight-foot sliding doors on the north side, with a deck going around the corner from one to the other. A forest preserve was close by and I heard a sound and looked over my shoulder and saw these BIG EYES looking right at me. I might have yelled.

With this experience under my belt, my first thought was 10-foot pole . . . with Cameron on one end and the trash can on the other. In my mind, I saw the raccoon pull off an Errol Flynn jump and land on Cameron and nip him . . . with a possibly rabid mouth.

Cameron may or may not have been thinking something similar, although I am fairly certain Errol Flynn was not in his scenario. He said he thought he’d wait to take out the trash. And I said, “Okay.”

But we both dozed off and when I woke up it was time to take Alison to work and she said she got Robert to take the trash out because Cameron hadn’t done it. And I launched into the Raccoon Story, although I think I embellished a little. It was a HUGE raccoon and we would have needed a 100-foot pole with spikes on it, dipped in deadly poison. And we didn’t have an antidote in case there was a little accident.

If the trip to the hospital had been any longer and I had talked more, I suppose the news trucks from the supermarket tabloids would be pulling up out front about now.

Cameron just came in and said a raccoon was in one of our trash cans. So there is a plot and it will thicken, I think.

Yes, I don’t have to post this, and as Der Bingle and Quentin pointed out in a 3-way telephone chat, “log” is not really the correct word. Really, I didn’t have to tell them; I was alone when it happened. But it seemed like such a good story . . .

I had mowed for hours and decided to put in 10 more minutes and clean up some scruffy spots when I got too close to a ditch-like area in which tall grass was hiding a pine branch, oh, about the size of a man’s arm. IT HAPPENED SO FAST!

I was stuck but managed to get moving and drove the mower into the garage with about 8 inches of log sticking out. Good thing the garage area was wide enough. Do you know I once carried a dog with his leg in a cast through a doorway the wrong way and there was a THUD?
And today I backed into the new berm/mound and bent one of the reflectors Der Bingle had put up just for me. Go ahead and think it: pathetic.

Anyway, it was the newish mower – the shiny mower. I guess I am going to have to call the folks at Crystal Valley and have them come and pick it up – along with the older, not so shiny one that won’t start. That would be the one I got too close to a fallen tree on and managed to get the blade to punch right through the cover. I wrote about that last summer, but I’m not linking to it. I’m too hang-dog to link.

As penance I am going to make myself clean up the old Lawn-Boy, study up on the oil/gas mixture and actually start p-u-s-h-i-n-g. It’s not like the little baby mower I use on the lawn in Kendallville; it’s more like a tank – that you push. Mother was pretty confident that self-propelled mowers never built character.

But you have riders, you exclaim. Well, yes, Mother started mowing fields and I left for college. I was invited to Indiana University for a special program the summer before my freshman year and when I came home, I saw my parents had been mowing with a riding mower. This is probably basically what happened to a guy on one of Der Bingle’s flight crews. His dad had a garden every year until he graduated . . . and then it was off to the produce department.

Water. They were giving away water. Who would have thought it? As my husband and I pulled up to the Four Way Stop intersection of Dowling and Park, we saw young folks walking up to cars and I reached for my purse because I thought they were asking for donations for something. I assumed it was a good cause because otherwise the police in this small town would have intervened at the intersection. (I didn’t need to add “at the intersection” because it is intuitive, but alliteration grabbed me and I didn’t fight back.)

Ah, getting back to the people, cars and stop signs. A young man approached my side with a bottle of water and I assumed they were selling it. NO. THEY WERE GIVING IT AWAY. They said they weren’t allowed to accept money. I took one because I have become a great fan of water and it tastes especially good on a warm afternoon.

Not only that – it was cheering to see people smiling and sharing and just doing something nice for the hell of it. Oh, sorry, we’re talking about a church here so let me rephrase that the way my father would want me to say it: for the heck of it.

Thanks, First Christian Church of Kendallville, Indiana. Thank you very much. Thank you for making me want to be better, nicer, kinder than I am.

Hi, there, this is me, Rose, posting for AmeliaJake because she is lying here with a cold cloth on her forehead. See heard from Pottermom about the benefits of that little yellow flower she is always complaining about. THESE FACTS. Right before she collapsed on the couch, she said, “Maybe I was w-w-w-w-w (at this point I hit her on the head and she managed to get it all out) wrong.”
Soon I will be making her a dandelion tonic. Hahahahahahahahaha. And, you know, as chief counselor here, I think I, Rose, should, make her face the facts every time she scrolls down the blog entries.
For you, my dear, sweet, AmeliaJake:

No one got her nose punched in the decision to stop for a quick shop and then stopped again for a lunch at Logan’s.

Although at Logan’s, I was giving someone a controlled experiment on launching peanuts with a fork, just aiming one low across the table. Well, it went straight up and came straight down. We got curious and tried different techniques and it was always up and down. So, I suspect Logan’s has anticipated hooligan behavior and shaped its forks to not be peanut launchers. I guess they have had people who are “controlled experimenters” visit their restaurants.

I suppose I am going to have bring my own fork. JUST KIDDING.

I have something else to worry about. The dandelions are back in my grass – not widespread, but they are there. LZP and the Gnome Alliance have widely proclaimed the benefits of dandelions, and yeah, I have to admit there is some validity to their claims. The same can be said of leeches . . . shudder . . . so maybe we could just cultivate the big Yellow D’s in confined areas, designated for medicinal purposes.

We have someone in the house who has an appointment deep in Fort Wayne territory – not out in the Dupont area where you have to make up an excuse to travel the extra stoplight infested streets to get to the mall or other stores. Best Buy, is that you I hear calling me?

We are going to be right there on Coliseum and after all this time, a bit of mall walking sounds inviting. I know, I know it’s not like Chicago or San Diego or Cincinnati or even Dayton malls, but it has the advantage of being here. No Apple Store or Crate & Barrel, but . . . it’s here.

DON’T PANIC, DER BINGLE! I am just thinking of a bit of ambiance and maybe a refill on my skin moisturizer. Uh, perhaps I should let my fingers do the walking over to the ads and see if Estee Lauder is giving away anything FREE with a purchase. Giving away and FREE are redundant . . . sorry. See, that was a little distraction.

Of course there is the possibility the person with the appointment will have a snit in the backseat and not want to stop anywhere. Well, I guess we’ll see which one of us is stronger. I think this means I’m leaving you with a cliffhanger. Tune in later to find out the answers. Hope they don’t involve the police and punched noses.

I was feeling sorry for myself, wallowing in despair, using sorrow for a pillow . . . so I mowed the lawn. It worked.
Sweat: the great elixir.

I am not a fan of April Fool’s Day, so we skipped it. We had a 48-hour-long March 1st here at The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse. We did cook out on propane, however, and that might have been tempting fate . . . Oh, of course, they blew up on April 1st – they were April Fools.

I was careless with my cell phone messages and missed one last week. LZP sent pictures of two of his trees in bloom and I heard only one alert. I saw the big tree full of blooms, but I wasn’t aware of the second tree – a little one – until today. It is Miss Jody’s Tree.

This month will mark one year since she passed away. We will always remember and we will probably always not be able to find words. Well, there are these, though: Jody, we will always look after your dad who loves you so.

Yesterday I wrote a post about a blog I found that talked about a couple building a new downsized house next door to their old Big House in Concord, Massachusetts. And I wondered about possible problems with any historical district rules. That’s enough of a recap for here; the original post is right under this one, or if you don’t want to scroll, click HERE.

Well . . . I checked back in today and guess what? Yes, a new post talked about the HDC being concerned with the color of the house. It is blue; I think it is a light blue, but that still puts in the category of blue as in Red, White & Blue. An American color scheme, dontcha know?

One of the homeowners wrote: While people have grumbled about the paint color and the HDC is on the warpath again . . . And when that happens, all manner of things will be well. We will just be another house on Main Street. Albeit the blue one.

The HDC puts out a 95 page guideline pdf (HERE), in which pictures may be found. Some of the houses appear to be in the blue family. But, to make sure everything is in the appropriate spirit, details are listed.

The Act states that the Commission “shall pass upon the appropriateness of changes in exterior color features of buildings and structures within the his- toric districts wherever such features are subject to view from a public street, way or place.”
A hearing before the Commission is not required to repaint a building or structure the same (existing) color.
A hearing before the Commission is not required to change the color of the building or structure provided that the chosen color scheme is in keeping with the period and style of the building or structure from the historically ac-
curate list available in the Commission office and the choice is confirmed by the Commission staff. A written rec- ord of the appropriate color choices, along with sample chips, is required to go on file. Please consult Commis- sion staff. If it is determined that the colors are proximate to those on the Approved List, given the architectural style, the owner will be informed in writing that a hearing is not necessary. Any other color choices require a hearing before the Historic Districts Commission at one of its regularly scheduled meetings with samples of color choices.
Color compatibility with adjacent structures should be considered in choosing your colors to promote vis- ual harmony of the streetscape. How- ever, several houses with identical color schemes in one area may not be appropriate.
Additional procedures on preparing for a paint color hearing, copies of the “pre-approved” appropriate color list, and additional resources on choosing historic paint colors are available for review in the Commission office.

The guidelines pdf. actually quotes Henry James right at the get-go of it’s no-no list.

“Putting the three or four biggest cities aside, Concord, Massachusetts, had an identity more palpable to the mind, had nestled in other words more successfully be- neath her narrow fold of the mantle of history, than any other American town.”
Henry James, The American Scene, 1907

I don’t know but maybe he meant to say “more palpable to the narrow mind”.

I have ancestors who were in the Revolutionary War. I would like to think they were fighting for the right to say, “I don’t like that color” as opposed to, “You can’t have that color.”

Gosh, we can really get worked up here at the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse. Maybe we’ll use some of this energy to put a pink flamingo out front.