Actually, this may be what he eats today in his finishing up years of high school. Sam is LZP’s second son; the first son just earned his second stripe in the AF. I don’t know what Joe – the second-striped first son eats – but from 4th grade, here are Sam’s recipes, which are (gasp) peanut butter free:

Captain Sam’s Tuna Salad

Put some ice cream in a big dish. Let it get kinda melty. Take some cookies and smash them up and dump them into the melty ice cream. Stir it all together. This is best while watching Star Wars or monster movies in the summer.

When Mother passed away – and right before – there was quite a bit of paperwork. I remember thinking many times, “I will put this in a SAFE SPOT” or “I will put this HERE” or “I’ll remember I’m putting it in this cute little wooden box, drawer, shelf, elf’s pocket . . .” Well, you don’t have to guess what; you know what:

WHERE IS EVERYTHING??

And my friends at the tables in the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse reply, “Why, AmeliaJake, everything is in its place.”

Oh, I may have spilled the beans. Grover came home with Der Bingle last Friday – sort of a little break from the Three Week Barbershop Quartet Festival at Grover’s Place at the Ohio Redoubt of the West Facing Cave. He spent the time here on the porch buried in the silence of fluffy throws. And then I rode back with Der Bingle to pick up his trusty pewter Buick and talk to it on the drive home about not being upset by being LaCrossed. We forgot to take Grover; Grover would have to spend a week hiding from Summer.

Then, Der Bingle got this emergency go to San Diego call and he is not here this week-end . . . and Grover is in hiding for another week. For additional security, Grover cuddles beneath the fluffy throw and Sydney sleeps on it. But now that loose fingers have jeopardized sweet, lovable furry old Grover. I guess I will take him to the double secret hiding place. I know I shouldn’t have leaked information, but it is so suspenseful – kind of like the resistance in WWII.

November 12, 1918. My father was born that day; his middle name was Pershing, after the general – the John J. one of the American Expeditionary Force. My grandmother had the Spanish Flu before my father was born; he was her fifth child and first son. A couple of days ago I opened an old trunk and found letters my grandmother had written to him during the war – and one from his oldest sister Geraldine. And I found one of those little tiny calendars that kids pasted on construction paper for a school Christmas gift project in grade school. The year was 1957; I guess I made it in December of 1956. He saved it. And then I closed the trunk . . . for now.

Sydney and I went up to Mother’s Tuesday afternoon, sort of on the spur of the moment. When I stopped poking through stuff and when the light began to fail outside, Sydney and I plopped down in the “cat chair” (don’t ask) and sat there with ghosts in the twilight. Grandma, Grandpa, Great-great Aunt Sara, L.D., Auntie, Stanley, Freddie and Orval; Mother, Daddy, Socrates, Miss Alice . . . not to mention the ages of me that are now gone.

But there is a “me” that is still here and I am pretty certain I am going to push that cat chair right across the room, through the kitchen doorway, out the back door, across the porch, across the deck, down onto the yard and out to the burn pile. And I am going to pour fuel on it and light a match . . .We’ll consider it a Viking cat chair funeral pyre.

Sigh, sometimes, we just have to move on.

This Halloween I made it clear other people could hand out the candy and answer the doorbell and do scary things; I settled down on a sofa in front of a TV . . . and maybe I dozed. I know at one point Summer came in to find one of those miner-type lights you wear on your head so she wouldn’t kill herself lurking in the bushes dressed in her grandpa’s jacket and a stocking knit cap to give her the appearance of a homeless gangsta. I wondered about the headlamp, wondered if she wouldn’t look more like a locomotive lurking in the bushes, but you can’t tell her anything.

Der Bingle poked his head in occasionally to remark on the goings-on and when the last two little costumed pre-schoolers showed up just at the ending of the Trick or Treat period, he told them, “You win the grand prize” and put a double handful in each bag.

Later he told me about the little person in the cow suit. He may have told me when I had enough time to take a picture. But I just didn’t go look at all. That was a waste of my “potential good times in life” time. I need to not do that again.

I hope the little cow enjoyed the candy . . . and, gee, I hope she didn’t try the chewing the cud technique. Oh, AmeliaJake, only you would think of that. That’s disgusting . . .  but maybe it means you’re getting back to yourself. That may or may not be a good thing. But I have to admit I have the urge to go find some family member who has annoyed me and wipe the floor with them with my razor tongue and uncanny talent for knowing just where to aim the needle.

Ack. This may be the scariest part of this Halloween.

Mother’s cat, Tiffany, who is being cared for by Summer is having a problem with Sydney. Der Bingle noticed that whenever Sydney walks into the same room Tiffany is in, she immediately starts to hiss and act as if she is being threatened by a terrorist. Der Bingle mentioned that this is the way Summer reacts when her brother Cameron walks into a room she is in. Only she doesn’t exactly hiss; it is more of a “HE’S BOTHERING ME” response.

This situation makes us miss our trusty and feisty Little Ann, who would have cocker- spanieled everyone into their place.

I have a PUR water filter on my faucet; it has started to spray water everywhere. I just looked it up with the keyword troubleshooting and found everyone complaining about this. Like me, they thought it was a fluke; but no, even the free replacements keep breaking. They have expensive filters with no working housing . . . like me. They wish they had read reviews first . . . ditto here.

What bothers me the most is that this company just keeps making a consistently defective product.

Summer is taking care of Mother’s cat, Tiffany. Der Bingle says they are absorbing each other’s personality. Of course, he also says he doesn’t know if there was much difference between them from the get-go. “Get-go” looks so odd in print, kind of like it should be a small creature peddling insurance – but that’s how the spell checker is telling me to spell it, so the heck with it.

Summer and Tiffany seem to be of the same mind: they consider each other “staff” ; Tiffany thinks of Summer as  Her Girl Friday and Summer considers Tiffany Her Cat Friday. Summer was astounded when Tiffany woke her up to “play” unsteady of waiting patiently at Sleeping Beauty’s feet. We are steering clear of them as this hierarchy is worked out.

That about sums it up. I decided the yard at Mother’s needed to be mowed. It was just too long to go into winter . . . just the tiniest bit too long, but no doubt about it, too long. So I spent a long time on the big mower with lots of horsepower and an accelerator. I almost bounced off a couple of times, but managed to both hold on and not get my head clipped off by low reaching limbs. And there was enough gas in the cans to keep the tank filled. I won’t say it’s the best job that has been done, but it was effective.

The sky was iron grey, but still the trees were stunningly beautiful. I chose not to take a picture, but keep the one in my head.