Yes, Summer and I decided that since I was going to rest my little self in order to do the floor this morning, we would partify ourselves and hand up some lights in the PBC&R. See:

Hanging lights from wall to wall.

Lights as dusk approached.

Lights after dark.

Say, hey, we had stars wrapped around the crystalized rope light. Summer made a special playlist from my itunes and burned a CD. We were cool.

And then we looked at each other and thought, so what’s happening at the party? Well, not much. So we did impromptu dancing, very physical and we made happy shouts. Then I did this little step where I put my head down, pumped my arms at my sides and moved my feet up and down very, very fast. She asked, “What was that?” And I thought quickly and said it was the football training camp step. Amazingly, she accepted it . . . and then we both did it.

Then later we had a fire in our firepit – practicing for fall, dontcha know. We roasted a couple of hot dogs, ate them and then sort of slipped into evening.

I started my mental prep for the morning polyurethaning . . . and at 11 pm, I figured I might as well throw my plans to the wind and do it right then. So I cleaned all the counters, vacuumed and wiped the floor and started in. Ok, the water-based polyurethane really doesn’t have much of an odor at all. It also looks like whitewash. I did not expect this and it was disconcerting putting it on the floor over which I have labored so hard. All the time, I kept thinking of the admonition to work quickly because the water-based stars to set fast and you really can’t smooth things out. That was tough because the stuff went on thicker than I expected and I was trying to put on a thin coat.

Anyway, I finished and went to wait a couple of hours for it to dry. Then I did it again.  Well, I got up at six to take Alison to work and I remember thinking, “Well, at least the floor is protected.” I was going to come home and look at it more closely but I flopped on the sofa and went to sleep.

The water-based dries crystal clear and shows ever flaw – I knew this and was prepared. I just wasn’t fully aware of what a clearly flawed job I had done with the sanding. I had decided to NOT go for the super smooth look we had before in which the floor looked liked a satin tabletop stretching out across the room. Oh, that was so elegant.  I aimed for a quick protective fix of rustic and distressed. I was wildly successful in the latter category.

Part of me wishes I had sanded it as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Part of me is tired. I tell myself  the wood is protected and in reality it would not take long for a big old sander to come in and totally smooth out the floor for the elegant look – the wood is thick enough for more sanding. But for now, I am going with this look . . . accompanied with rustic throw rugs.

I took a couple of pictures because it really doesn’t look that bad . . . but under the gaze of the digital camera, the long room view turned out looking like a basketball court that had been abandoned for years and then flooded and dried out. So I am not posting them . . . and scaring the sawdust out of Der Bingle.

I find that when I am upset or depressed or whatever, a visit one way or another to a place of bitter sadness can bring me to the point of tears – the tightening throat so strong you can barely stand it . . . and then the slipping out of a few tears. And, then, you seem to buck up, feel like trying some more. I can’t go here by choice – Like, hey, I’m going to my sad place now – but then I’ve never been one who could at will go to her happy place.

But it happens. And it doesn’t have to be an event or time in my life.

The Roses of Picardy – the song I mentioned in The Whales of August – can take me there. Some thirty years ago when I watched The American Experience PBS show about Theodore Roosevelt, the score had that song as background for the time in his life when he found out Quentin had been shot down and killed in France. I think the script referred to the long walk up to the house to tell Edith and the scencry was that of Sagamore Hill. And a tinny WWI recorded voice sung of roses.

Sometimes such encounters will open the door to things in my own closet that I try not to think of . . . and I do think of them, and somehow feel better for awhile, at least physically. And in that closet there is a jar with a magical firefly that glows forever and I look at it and know that it is love that will never cease – that it shines for those I have held most dear.

I suppose it is all just a biochemical thing – stress hormones exiting in tears. I’ll take it.

Tomorrow I will get up early and take Alison to work and then I will come home and put the blasted polyurethane on the floor. It is water-based; it can be re-coated in two hours; with luck, it will be dry enough by noon that an errant foot will not stick to it like honey. We are going to keep Colin up and hope he sleeps in most of the morning; pills and chilled drinks and bread and peanut butter will be set out in the dining room tonight.

We have a 50% chance of rain and thunderstorms today and then tomorrow is supposed to be sunny. That will be good for drying. I suppose I will turn on the exhaust fan and have regular fans blowing in the two doorways. It is advertised as low-odor so I will not have to have a magical pole attached to the applicator – you know, the kind that twists around corners, goes upstairs, goes through closed doorways.

THEN, after a break of a few days, I will lightly screen sand the floor and put on two more coats. Or, if this first outing is a disaster, I will not. My sources assure me that once all the coats are cured completely, we can, if we so wish and can find a time when the place is almost empty, apply oil-based polyurethane. But I am getting sooooo far ahead of myself.

Some people put white rugs down in the public areas of the house and then ask guests – you know, people who are invited into the house – to take off their shoes. I have always found that annoying. However, the thought has crossed my mind to charge a toll for walking on it when it is done. Of course, Sydney would be exempted and thank heavens I have one of those doggie nail grinders. It was one of those products I almost ordered from a TV pitch and then walked into CVS drugstore and saw some for sale.

For some reason talking Christmas trees popped into my mind. Were they on TV ads years ago? You know: call now and we will send you TWO – just pay shipping and handling. When the grandkids were quite little, I bought one in some store and listened to it go off all day long . . . and then an eyelid fell off, and eventually, the eyeball itself hung down. Something happened to the mouth – but it still sang. Gosh, I felt so sorry for it, I couldn’t call it pathetic . . . until I bumped into a box in the attic one spring and heard its little tune filtering through the cardboard. I don’t know how I finally put it out of its misery. In a way, I miss it: the clacks and clicks of the mechanism when the electric eye spied someone passing by.

Perhaps it is my spirit of Christmas past. Cripe, Scrooge had a pretty young girlfriend and I have a short, singing tree?

I managed to get the camera cord and the camera and the computer in the same area and am reaching back to show you the lights of the Fourth on the Fence:

And a sepia-ized brother and sister:

Not to mention an antique Summer in a Grandma hat:

Of course, there was the mowing time:

Grandma Sarah on the Toro,

Summer on a Wheel Horse,

And, once more, a classy 82:

NOW – we come to today and Summer and I decide to do tiki torches:

Then one of us got the idea to fool around with a homemade firepit and flipped down a pizza pan and some sticks and logs. We added a little tiki torch fuel and got our little spontaneous, back-to-nature, pioneering spirit fire going. Sort of. Just as we decided to take fun to a new level and roast hot dogs, the fire kind of unfired and went more to smoldering. At this point, Der Bingle came out and said something alone the lines of “Oh my God” or “What are you morons doing?” Then he pitched in to help us get out fire going, although I don’t think he had the same enthusiasm as the two of us.

So we roasted and ate our hot dogs, although at one point it was discovered that I had sat on the buns and they were really flat. We had ketchup; we had drinks; we made wishes on the fire. We thought it was cool. Then after about three hours, we grabbed the sprinkler and made it safe to go back in.

Oh, oh, oh. I forgot to mention that we turned on a CD player and aimed the speakers out on the little deck . . . and listened to a crazy playlist. Let’s see: The Irish Tenors, Randy Travis, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Bing Crosby, Rudy Vallee, an American Indian singer. One of the songs was “Buckle Down Winsocki” but I don’t remember who sang that. There were 21 songs – we went through the list twice.

Just now I have eaten four Ghirardelli squares and have the hiccups. Going to go off and hold my breath.

The folks here at The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse are upset with me; I have no time to sit and talk with them and my regular table sits pretty much unoccupied. Why, even yesterday, when some confused travellers stopped in for a foldover and a icy soda from the cooler and the place was full, one of the girls helping out here just pushed my stuff in a box and had them sit at my table.

“It’s different here, AmeliaJake,” they said. We don’t sing at the piano anymore. (Well, okay, Summer and I did renditions of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” songs over the Fourth, but that was just because the James Cagney George M. Cohan movie was on and buoyed my spirits.) We don’t yell at the people to be quiet in the Foo Bar; you don’t sit and work Sudokus and you didn’t join us when we watched “The Whales of August” on TCM.  Bette Davis, Lillian Gish, Ann Southern, Vincent Price . . . and the beautiful Maine coast. And the tinny playing of “Roses of Picardy” that you like so well.

Roses are shining in Picardy
In the hush of the silver dew
Roses are flowering in Picardy
But there’s never a rose like you
And the roses will die with the summer time
And our roads may be far apart
But there’s one rose that dies not in Picardy
‘Tis the rose that I keep in my heart

It is a good question: Where have I gone? Another, slightly scary and maybe very important, is: And will I be back? Or is that rose in Picardy growing fainter?

Yes, from LZP in Iowa, I received this latest update about dandelions:

And you can read ALL about the Dandelion Celebration right HERE.

My right hand. I awoke this morning to realize it was a slightly swollen, somewhat painful thing hanging from my wrist – looking sort of like a paw, but not a cute, furry one. Soooooo I think this morning I will get cleaned up and go over to the nursing home and see Kathryn. (I have already taken quick acting aspirin crystals.)  Then I will come home and if the things have come around, attach myself to the sander again.

Today is Quentin’s birthday – July 6th. That was actually the start of a tension-filled week: The morning after he was born, the doctor came in and said his right eye was all red, as in “filled with blood” red, and he was calling in an ophthalmologist. Well, he did and that fellow got him an appointment with the head of the eye department at the University of Illinois in Chicago. You have to have a special “ticket” to go to the head of the line like that.

So I came home and then we brought Quentin home because, as the nurse explained, he would be breaking the sterile field of the nursery to go to the University anyway. It was quite a day, from Dr. Morton Goldberg’s resident asking me, “Has anyone in  your family had an eye removed?” to Dr. Goldberg himself getting down on his knees to put drops in Quentin’s eyes so he wouldn’t have to be moved off his dad’s lap, to the giant microscope coming down out of the ceiling, to the room filling up with ophthalmology people, to Dr. Goldberg saying, “Well, I don’t see a tumor.” The sudden lightening mood of the medical personnel slapped me in the face with an ‘Oh my God, they were thinking tumor, but it isn’t’ moment.

We walked out of the room and Dr. Goldberg asked me how I was. I answered fine and then went into the waiting room, looked at our friend who had driven us, and burst into sobs while gasping out, “He’s okay.”

And then Quentin came home.

That was 28 years ago. Now, today, my paw and I will be sanding the kitchen floor. But if I were in hot, hot Houston, I would get him a cake . . . and eat some, too. I think my paw could handle a fork.

Look! Out in Iowa, those dratted dandelions (which may or may not be helpful to weight loss and health) have enlisted the aid of the tomatoes. Although, they are green recruits, they are already having an effect . . . Our tomatoes have no blossoms yet.  Yes, we are jealous here in Indiana – so jealous we may have to call up the Kolhrabi Garden Guard.  And that would be . . .  BAD.

The Garden Guard Brigade Marching Song:

For we wrote the stories of the old brigades
We know the glory of yesterday’s parades
Who’s standing firm in our own front yard?
The soldiers of the Garden  Guard
That’s Who!
The soldiers of the Garden Guard

We have gone to High Alert status because this popped up behind a woodpile:

We are listening to

And here is yesterday’s clematis

And yesterday’s flat