I have a regularly scheduled quarterly appointment in Fort Wayne at 1 pm today. It is a fifteen minute in and out doctor thing.  And it’s in the middle of the day. Why can’t this guy be in his office in the morning? Huh? Is he not aware that AmeliaJake has things to do on Summer days? It’s not like there is a Crate & Barrel in Fort Wayne – although there is a GoodWill right across the street from his office.

See, this is an example of my talent for complaining about anything; I actually staked claim to the 1 pm time slot because in the winter that middle of the day scheduling is helpful – if there has been snow, it has been scraped and if it is getting ugly, I can cancel. There’s plenty of time to get home before the five o’clock darkness comes.

BUT IT IS NOT WINTER RIGHT NOW. I don’t want to traipse down there all cleaned up and then come back to decide whether to preserve my cleanliness or go for the dirt of the attic and recently delivered dumpster. I guess I will just have to treat myself to something.

No, it was a sharp stick just below the tear duct corner of my eye. I was walking under the willow when whatever happened happened so fast that all I can remember is a stunning pain in the corner of my eye and my glasses no longer on my face. I suspect my glasses deflected what would have been a sharp willow branch into the eye; I owe them big time.

We probably are going to be walking around with goggles on our faces and pruning clippers in our hands very soon. A couple of big windstorms and some spurts of growth have left the Scott yard booby trapped. I also noticed some newly broken-off branches caught in higher branches of the trees.

It is a little-known fact that a high percentage of pioneer deaths were due to falling branches; I learned that from a little old lady in Mason, Ohio. Come to think of it, a couple of years ago I was standing where our driveway meets the sidewalk, looking south. I heard a whoosh, thump to the north and turned to see a branch had fallen down right beside me. Just the luck of the drop, I guess.

But back to the eye thing. I went inside afterward to comfort myself with an iced drink and started poking around some stuff in the original invalid-turned-sewing-turned office room. My dad taped up so many things. I think I have a complete pictorial Christmas card history of Robert Allen and Donna and their two boys. Then I spied a tiny clipping of newspaper – yellowed and firmed taped to the file cabinet. It was too small to read without putting my nose right up to it, so I patiently worked the tape lose. Turned out it was a list of Indiana Leaders in basketball – and there on that list was Scott Woodrow, my Aunt Mary’s grandson. I’d say it has been some time since he played ball. But there it was, probably stuck up when Aunt Mary first sent the clipping to my dad.

Pictures of Robert William and Quentin and one of Daddy and me when I was, oh, about 16.

You just don’t know what you are going to find . . . and I guess I’m lucky.

Let’s assume I am a blue furry creature named Grover. Well, right now, I would be saying, “I am soooo embarrassed,” just like he did when he came to the last page of The Monster at the End of This Book. I, the Psuedo-Grover, along with Summer (who does not have an alias to hide behind) have been investigating the state of healing going on in the vicinity of Sydney’s neutering surgery. We have looked at his scrotum, okay. There, I said it. Oh, I am sooooo embarrassed.

He is wearing his cone and trying to nip and lick the incision and so Summer and I got a wet towel to dampen the area and some generic antibiotic cream, but he is a little sensitive and actually what we saw isn’t what we expected to see. We looked it up on the internet and had to admit we didn’t have the pre-requisite education to truly understand what we were seeing, especially since our subject here was very much aware of our poking around. Oh, I think he was soooo embarrassed also.

We are going in a 5 pm to get him officially checked out and maybe an impromptu lesson in normal/ inflamed/ swollen/healing properly scrotums. The spell-checker red-lined the plural of scrotum, so I guess there must be some medical Latin involved. I’m not looking it up.

The regulars here at the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse are showing some interest in this recovery investigation and we think Shane is going to take his cone and go hide. I think he is going to demand a big party when this is over with lots of treats and maybe another wubba. At present, I am advising all the little cloth people to stay clear of the teeth; I think he’s in a bit of a bad mood and while we hope all rest is peaceful, we don’t want any cloth people to have a problem with RIP.

Shortly after I posted the pictures of Shane without his Elizabethan collar following his neutralization procedure, he started bothering his tiny incision. We had to put the cone on him. Shane does not take easily to the cone; in fact, he has trouble functioning. Last evening as I stood at the kitchen sink, I heard a thump and turned to see Shane walk into a cabinet; I sighed. A couple of minutes later, I turned around in time to see him give up and just slide to the floor, cone still against the cabinet door.

Backing up . . . this is rocket science?

I’m sorry, Shane, that was unkind. It just seems so unbelievable. You launch yourself in the air to catch a ball or your wubba and you have trouble  taking a couple of steps back? Where is your derring-do? Incapacitated by the cone of krptonite?

You slept in it last night, but you came before six and looked at me . . . and I took it off. I guess we both are in trouble now.

We had an spur of the moment hot dog cooking adventure a little earlier and while that was going on, Shane just wandered about doing Shane things.

You know, I have to dig; I’m OCD

And just a few minutes rest then in the ferns.

Why are they watching me so closely? Maybe they will think I am watching them . . .

Pictures courtesy of Summer Vance

I don’t know what the problem is but the internet connection appears to be breaking off fairly often and sometimes only flashing on momentarily. Yesterday, I went upstairs and looked at the modem; I don’t mean I did anything to it. I just gave it a professional “look”. Then after a few minutes, I touched it, blew air into it and did the on/off maneuver I had been sending a grandkid to do  once again. Because I was inside pouting about the internet I did not realize the temperature had climbed to almost 90 and did not think about shoving the auxiliary portable air-conditioner into that room. (It’s such a pain with the crank out windows.) But now that looks as if it is in the future.

Now I am going out in the driveway and experiment with finding the place for power steering fluid on the diesel. If I don’t come back today, don’t worry . . . sooner or later I will raise my hand and go, “I am here.” *

*Quote courtesy of Emily Lou Hoo.

Each of my paternal grandparents had several brothers and sisters. They had five children and I can remember my dad talking about Sunday visits with this or that relative. Those five kids produced only eight grandchildren so you see the trend toward a giant reunion of people on someone’s lawn didn’t pan out for us. And even though there has bee n a family expansion that gives our family tree an hourglass figure, one of my cousins remarked that this would probably be the last generation to get together.

It’s people moving around the country – partly; I think it has something to do with an expanding media – to some degree; it’s busy schedules – maybe. Whatever.

Seven of us – Ronnie passed away a couple of years ago –  met on Wednesday, all from Indiana with the exception of Robert Allen and he’s just across the border in Chicago. (Gee, that sort of puts a dent in the “people moving around the country” reason – but I think in our generation, leaving the Fountain County area was part of it.) Of the eight, I am the seventh . . . the eighth announced her arrival with “Let the party begin, the youngest is here!” Nine months. However, because that nine months was between August and April, she was a grade behind me in school and I remember when I was a freshman at IU, her dad was asking me about my courses and asked her, quite pointedly, “Are you listening to this?” Actually, I don’t think we had much of a choice back in the 60’s . . . Western Civ, dontcha know.

Somewhere I have the picture she showed to the others: the two of us standing side by side, blondes and quite young, with our grandpa bent over behind us, his hands on our shoulders. She was already taller than I  . . . and I have the same toddler legs I had then.

Anyway, while we are sitting at lunch at the Beef House, I overhear Ronnie’s sister remark that his grandson had been heavily recruited at a college here to play basketball. And, wouldn’t you know it, the youngest – oh, heck, her name’s Lana, okay; less confusing that way. (Maybe she’s LanaJake?) Let me start over. Wouldn’t you know it, Lana’s son is the head basketball coach* at the college. Here two guys were – great grandson and great-great grandson of the same couple – and they didn’t realize they were related.

Maybe one factor is that my father was the only son and so I am the only one with the original last name, and then, I married so a lot of people don’t automatically look at last names and inquire about relationship.

* I would mention the college but you know how the internet is – someone might follow a link and ask, “Say, isn’t your mother’s FIRST cousin that weird lady who listened to DEAD Rudy Vallee sing The Stein Song for four straight hours?” And with a little more investigation find out his mother sat on a picture of scary Uncle Roy the night before  their grandfather’s funeral.

I decided to head back late this afternoon instead of staying over night so I could get an early start tomorrow on chores and whatever. Once I decided that, I sort of thought, “Let’s get this done efficiently.” So – you are not ready to read this and probably I should keep it secret – but I looked around for a pushing, happy song and put The Stein Song in the play/repeat mode on the ipod.

Yes, I listened to Rudy Vallee for four hours – Rudy Vallee and his megaphone. By the time I was almost  here, I was bolstering myself with the Gipper’s words in my mind:

Some time, Rock, when the team is up against it, when things are wrong and the breaks are beating the boys, ask them to go in there with all they’ve got and win just one for the Gipper. I don’t know where I’ll be then, Rock. But I’ll know about it, and I’ll be happy.

This could indicate that I am walking slightly on the crazy side. That should not be too comforting to my first cousins, so we probably won’t talk about it. Whisper? Probably; I mean, after all, four hours of Rudy Vallee.

I wasn’t going to be here because I am tired and I think, just possibly disgusted. But I came anyway for no good reason other than to jump into the fantasy world of Emily Lou Hoo . . . I am here; I am here; I am here. Today we did a little no-no at Mother’s house. I coughed up a minimal amount of money and put a minimally sized air conditioner in an east window. My purpose is obviously not to cool the house but to provide a little bit of respite on the humid days when you have no breeze.

Then, if yo do have a breeze, it is still a judgment call because the house is normally cooler than the outside air  with all the shade so if you open everything up on a hot, humid day when you have a breeze, you are going to suck hot and  humid air in. Then if the breeze fails or there is not cooling at night, it is going to stay hot and humid.

Isn’t this fascinating? I do this all day long – think of all these little tidbits of my life and lecture a non-existent audience. And, yes, this will be on the test.

I have to shut up and not say anything about the movie Shutter Island because the twists and turns are not fascinating enough to watch again once you know the ending. Well, that’s my opinion. It is no Casablanca or Alfred Hitchcock movie; nosireebob.

Now I am waiting to watch Breaking Bad after Ice Road Truckers. That’s my schedule. Two hours of my life. Oh, well, I’m not is a mode to be philosophical; I’m in a mood to pour the Crystal Light Peach Mango Green Tea powder into a bottle of water and kick off my shoes – oops, the socks came with them.

Might as well stretch out and relax.