I started thinking about going alllll the way to Memphis, picking up Shane, trying to sleep in a “pet friendly hotel” and driving alll the way back home.  Our new plan is to leave on Friday and go approximately six hours and then stop and do the flop on the bed thing; Cameron can explore the hotel – I see me as a flopper. He’ll have to locate the ice machine, though. I imagine that will be his prime directive.

THEN four hours into Memphis and getting Shane settled in. Then the 10 hour push home. Pushes home are always not that bad . . . and I certainly hope I have not jinxed moi-self.

We have a Kong Wubba * waiting for Shane; Quentin says it is his favorite toy. It came in an Amazon.com box two days ago and looks like a colorful sap you see in in gangster shows. Suddenly I have the idea to get a pitching machine and load it with Wubbas and let Shane run and run and run . . . until he is very tired and wants to lie quietly and sleep. Might be a good investment.

We have another concern: Sydney will run right up to the property line and/or road and stop. Quentin says Shane has a tendency to take off. So there may be a lot of long leashing and fence slat nailing and me yelling “SHANE!!!!!!!” And, of course, there is the matter that I never really cared for the name Shane since I don’t particularly care for Alan Ladd and the movie of that name. It is probably too late to change his name to Duke . . . or Percy, for that matter, which in the latter case is good.

It is Collaboration Wednesday but there is a two-hour delay for fog, although the fog is spotty enough, I thing the weather condition should be referred to as “frequent foggies to be expected”. Once in the northern suburbs of Cincinnati, I drove down into a low spot and was surrounded by fog. Unfortunately, I rolled down my window and the fog rolled in the car; I shut my window. Sometime after climbing back up the hill I realized I was driving a fog-filled car in  clear air that even had sun. Jeez-Louise.

The high today is predicted to be 58 and that is about 15 degrees higher than yesterday. We are having rain on a lot of days and are chilled and damp . . . but the grass keeps growing. I need sheep for Mother’s yard. I suppose I should put up posters: Uncle Sam wants Ewe. No, I shouldn’t. Sometimes I just don’t know what happens to my mind.

* I originally thought the Kong in Kong Wubba referred to it being a King Kong version; no, Kong is the name of the company.

Saturday Cameron and I will be getting up very early to head off to Memphis where we will meet up with Quentin; Quentin will have Shane with him. This is Shane when he was little:

And this is Shane now that he is bigger:

We will be bringing him back to Indiana with us. We hope he likes us . . . He may be like the dog in Marley and me.

And this summer, we will take him up through these gates –

And he will get to spend lots of time running here at Quentin’s Grandma Sarah’s.

Maybe I’ll dig out one of my dad’s old jackets for him to cuddle on. Daddy would like that.

But first – the road trip . . .

It is cold and very windy here and this morning I decided just to go with the indoor flow and watch the movie that was coming on – the Sean Connery/Harrison Ford pairing episode in the Indiana Jones series. That reminded me of the recent (as in a couple of years ago) fourth installment and what I thought of it.

Indiana Jones and me, AmeliaJake

May 28th, 2008 ·No Comments

Okay, so Harrison Ford is a few years older than I and he’s playing Indiana Jones again. So I think, oh, that’s going to be sad and they should have left it alone. Then I think well, he’s doing stunts and practicing with the whip and this might be inspiring.

I liked the movie; I enjoyed the movie. I’m not going to talk plot or anything . . . except to say that he didn’t appear as young as I thought he was going to. One other thing, all the way through the movie I couldn’t rid myself of the idea of “old man pants” – as in the way they fitted. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong, but, yeah, I personally can’t get away from it – old man pants.

I got a new comment on an old post referring to Ree Drummond, Pioneer Woman; one that mentioned how much effort she has put into her blog. Yes, there is a lot of time and work involved in it; I have wondered if maybe she wishes it were not so successful, that it has not become such a job. Letting my mind wander, I came to think there is a lot of money involved and good publicity and it occurs to me that this business could be very important if Mad Cow Disease shut down the Oklahoma cattle market for awhile. I know the Drummonds are smart businessmen and you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket and they don’t; this blog revenue can’t hurt . . . and the blog’s public relations fallout for the  rancher business has got to be priceless.

Yesterday Cameron and I were at Mother’s, killing weeds and doing some more mowing. And, by the way, the ball fell off of the gearshift on the Toro; I fear I may have run over it. Luck wasn’t with me in finding it so I’ll have to find something to screw on it. But, that’s that. We brought a bag of charcoal with us and lighter fluid and hot dogs and little sausages and we cooked them in the little red Weber grill.

Just the two of us – my teaching him about charcoal fires and draughts and our coming back periodically to see how things were progressing. I had looked for the short piece of stove pipe with holes punched in the bottom with an old fashioned can opener to help the coals progress but didn’t find it until I backed over it with a mower and flattened it. That is another story; actually, I guess I just told it. Come to think of it, maybe that is why the Toro threw its gearshift ball on the ground.

We didn’t bustle the way folks do here with the gas grill. As we waited for the stuff to get all brown and hot, we sat on mis-matched chairs from the deck and sipped soda out of the cooler. My hot dogs tasted really good on the whole grain Aunt Millie buns – so much better than the gas heated ones. And Cameron toasted his buns – just as my mother used to do. I think some things are in the genes. He also prefers stoneware to acrylic plates.

I mixed up a mean bunch of weed killer in the spray tank and we will see how effective it turns out to be; I have a kill everything bottle of stuff in reserve for the fence lines, but figure we need experience with the more forgiving week killer first. One year Quentin and I used the strong stuff and didn’t realize we were dripping as we went from site to site. The yard looked perforated that year.

The dandelions have been sneaky this year – I will go into that later. Now time to go to school . . . for Summer.

Well, now, Summer feels as I do about the nincompoop who started the 30 Minute Delay Collaboration fiasco. She didn’t remember either; we pulled up to school and I said, “Oh, Summer, it’s Wednesday.” I won’t quote Summer; suffice it to say she now feels the passion of the Resistance.

And, then, of course, there was Sydney who had to wait a half hour to go to the FG.

The water heater man is here and so it is out with old and in with the new and let’s hope there’s a hot time in the ole town tonight.

At this moment my pajama pants are nice and soft on my legs – the feel of quality flannel. They happen to have snowflakes on them by that is okay; I’m not looking at them. But in a few minutes I will have to take Summer to school, Sydney to the fairgrounds and then the appointment for the installation of the new water heater is at 8:30. I could do the taking to school and the fairgrounds in pajama pants, but I’m not happy with the idea of the water heater guys.

So the flannel will be reluctantly shed for denim. Considering I spent about seven hours yesterday dealing with mowers, gas, remedial ramping to get the mowers out of the shed and what must be record-setting growing grass (and weeds), I am going to have to trick my legs into jeans.

Is it illegal to shout “FIRE OF THE PANTS” in an uncrowded porch?

Some time ago it became the rage when explaining something, be it policy or personal preference in pie, to pose a question and then answer it with a definite “absolutely”. Well, I’m tired of it.

Will this cost more money? Absolutely. But it will last three times as long before it falls in the river.

Will this set the project back? Absolutely. But if mistakes are not corrected, the project will never succeed.

Will apple pie give me calories? Absolutely. But the down home flavor will remind me of the values of my parents.

Aren’t you tired of it? Absolutely.

My water heater is very sick; I stuck my hand in the part where the pilot light resides and I found rust flakes. I had seen a wet spot at one spot and this morning realized it continued under an area rug and reappeared by the corner drain. So, well, drat, I think the water heater is on its death bed. I am waiting for water heater men to come and look at it and plan to install a new one. They are running later than they said they would be so I figured it I started typing this, they would show up and ring the bell. That strategy is not working and I suppose I will have to sit on a stool in the kitchen and concentrate on sending psychic waves that pull them closer and closer until they are here.

The decision I must make now is which color stool on which to sit.

I ended the last post abruptly because I was worried about my cursor not showing up on the screen as I typed and tried to get a the right spot to fix a word that had gone misspelled. I pushed publish and then tried the cursor one more time on the post I had just written –  the one that was obviously still sitting in front of my face and POOF, the cursor was back.

I am nervous about this. When Quentin was little he would stand in the middle of circular clothing displays and I would feel panic start to grip me. Well, this isn’t that bad but it is unsettling to suddenly realize your cursor is not just one tiny step in front of you acting as a flashlight on the vast blankness ahead. The crinkling sound? I don’t know. I just don’t know. It is not doing it now, but that is about as comforting as having your heart skip beats and then go back to normal. It could do it again anytime!

I mowed my mother’s house yard with the rider again. Last week when I did that, I broke or dislocated a toe. Maybe this time the retribution will be something more vital to me than my little toe. I will probably become obsessed with this and check all the time. Oh, wait, if it breaks I won’t have to be compulsive about checking if it has failed yet. I will know. Of course, in such situations, I usually then become obsessed with checking to see if there has been a reversal of fortune and, somehow, everything is all right.

I will KNOW, of course, that it happened and may happen again so that “all right” is misleading. Already I feel a weakening of the knees and nerves twitching. I am uneasy. I think my pulse rate is up.  What if the missing cursor is only the beginning of a curse. Is there such a thing as laptop voodoo from beyond the grave? Oh, I don’t know; I don’t know; I don’t know. The panic: it’s started, hasn’t it?

Rose, Rose, I need you. Unfortunately, Rose is on vacation at the Ohio Redoubt, partying at Grover’s Grotto and eating Cousin Vinny’s pizza. I need to get a grip, but Rose packed her stuff in it when she went on holiday. Maybe I need someone to slap me? Ack, members of the colony here are pushing and shoving to be first in line to “help” me.

Deep breaths.