I was standing at the counter, pouring Diet Coke over my crushed ice and adding a splash of Mountain Dew to it, when it occurred to me to ask Frank, “Wouldn’t it be something if people were recalled like faulty products? Or if you had a lemon law for relatives?” Frank is used to this type of question from me; fortunately, this was one he could tolerate. Some of my hypothetical scenario ones make him roll his eyes and grunt at intervals. You know that kind: So if you knew that a scientist’s mind would be triggered to discover the cure for cancer if your daughter, son or Al Gore were bitten by a cobra, would you arrange for it to happen? Yeah, that kind – they drive him crazy.

But, okay, think about this idea of people as well, products. What if different personalities had been “test marketed” and those that weren’t too stellar pulled from the production line? Of course, then I suppose the ones already in the warehouse would be repackaged and sent to  . . . I’d better not speculate where.

Anyway,  my mind and mouth moved on to questions like “What if God ran people production like Proctor & Gamble did its empire?” That’s just the moment when Rosemary walked in – the words were hanging in the air. Ack, Rosemary and I have different views about things . . . and that’s okay. What drives me crazy is that I think people should be feel to let their minds wander around all thoughts – such as how many angels can stand on the head of a pin thing – and Rosemary is the kind of person who . . . doesn’t. She thinks I’m irreverent.

Frank started folding up his newspaper as if he were going to go, leave, flee . . . get out of Dodge. I shot him a look and he kind of hunched back down and became inordinately interested in the Living Section.

Nothing happened.  Rosemary sat down and ordered a orange marmalade, crunchy foldover and I asked, “So, Rosemary, what day did you ladies pick for the ice cream social?” Not that I really cared, but I knew that if “cobra” and “Al Gore” crossed my lips, Frank would make it a point to tear every daily Sudoku out of the paper for the next four months.

I do not feel as if I am in a batting cage with a machine pitching baseballs at me, but I might say I would compare it to being in the cage with a whole lot of machines tossing ping pong balls, tennis balls, baby rubber balls . . . hail, even . . . at me. And I have this feeling of “What now?” and a frenzied thought of “Oh, Miss Scarlett, I ain’t ever delivered no babies!” bouncing around in my head.

As I stand looking through the screen door – the old wooden one with the decorative knobs on it – at the rain pouring down, I am considering actually taking control of this situation and announcing: If you can’t handle peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth occasionally, get out of my way and maybe just get out.

However, I am fairly certain I will not say this. I will probably do the “take a number” thing and start handling issues in a triage manner, making unilateral decisions and letting the chips fall where they may. As Cameron cheers when my temper reaches a certain point, “Go, Grandma!”

So . . . I turn from the screen door, face the interior and the people within and get on with it.

This might be big talk for a short, soup-canned figured, coming up on being old woman . . .

Most of the folks who frequent the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse are what you might call proponents of a retro style of living known as “making do” or “hey, this works”. And that pretty much means you won’t find our domiciles featured in glossy magazines. Our places, and especially the PBC&R, are furnished, so to speak, with just stuff.

Well, you probably guessed that after reading my many references to the Chickenpox Sofa and rummage sales.

But right now, I’m thirsty and a little achy, so I’m going to go fix myself a cure – Coke, Diet Coke and aspirin – and get back to this subject later. I think it will be an “ongoing” later – as in bit by bit as I think of things.

Oh, before I hobble off to the kitchen, I have to mention one of the best compliments my husband gave me: We were about 30, had moved to Ann Arbor and I put a table in the basement laundry room. The floor slanted a little and when he came home, I demonstrated you had to “kind of kick” one of the table’s legs back a bit to make it stable.

He laughed and said I reminded him of his grandfather . . . “Oh, a little baling wire will fix that right up.”

So, a week ahead of Father’s Day, I’m going to make my cure and toast the late William A. Vance Sr. of Carthage, Illinois, known by his contemporaries as “W.A.”

I, AmeliaJake, have cleaned up my little porchery spot here at the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse. To real housekeepers, this translates as “she is not tripping over as many things.” I got enough stuff off the dropleaf coffee table that I was able to drop the two leaves. That is kind of nice. Now, if I put one up for a drink or a piece of whatever, I must, must, must take the empty glass into the kitchen and put away other stuff when I am done with it.

Yes, without seeing you, Der Bingle, I know you are rolling on the floor laughing. You are probably right, but let me have a wee moment of hope, please. I pulled up the wicker rocker closer to the table in case I deign to let someone join me . . . and I even have a folding canvas chair with two cupholders if I go crazy and let two people out here at the same time.

The layout here at the PBC&R is a little hard to get across to people in writing. We have a long porch out in front and half of it is screened so we can escape any flies and mosquitoes. One screen door leads out to the unscreened part of the porch and to get into the main cafe/roadhouse, you have to go through the double screen doors on that side. We keep saying we’re going to turn one of the windows into a door, but we don’t – although we’ve been down to climb in and out through one.

Okay, the main room when you come though those screen doors is the original building back when the stages stopped. A staircase leads up to the rooms on the second floor. Over to the right is a door that leads into the built-on paneled den with banks of windows on the west and south sides and a fireplace. The kitchen is behind the main room – it used to be the summer kitchen, but as we got more modern, we made a year round thing and put in more tables and a bigger counter in the freed up space in the original room. That enlarged summer kitchen is about 2/3 the length of the main room and den; Great-Great -Great Uncle Frank kept on going for the full length and added on a “private” room for meetings and such. Then my grandfather built a side porch and later in his life enclosed it and planted shrubs all around it – That’s where I am now.

Confusing isn’t it?

When I was writing about Lydia (Sparky) and Spikey I thought they would understand how their “people” looks flash back and forth with their spirit looks and how sometimes you tend to see the spirit part most of all. And they did; they just think I should post a picture of my spirit as it comes across. So, here it is:

They also want me to tell you that sometimes I eat peanut brittle foldovers at the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse. They snickered when they mentioned it.

A couple of years ago, we emailed this mac.com icard to the Bear Colony: