Category Archives: The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse

Just Me - AmeliaJake, The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse

Jeez, I had to remember my password again

Once upon a time, I would come to this site and not have to sign in because I had clicked keep me logged in. Well, I guess those days are long past. And perhaps I shouldn’t have remembered the password because what I intended to write about was the green snot in my nose. Yeah, I just put it right out there: SNOT. Before I had to go through the password thingie, my mind was already mulling over a more proper word than snot, although one that would imply the same GREEN.

Why am I writing about it? Because my nose hurts and pain radiates up into my sinuses and it has been doing so for about a month and so, finally, I made a doctor’s appointment. However, I just could not bring myself to go into his office in my plumped-out, woebegone state and so I made it for two weeks hence. As if regained weight will fall off and blossoming wrinkles will fade and I will get a perky bounce in my step.

What the real problem is is that I turned 69 and there on the next step is 70. That number makes me feel kind of snot green all over. 70!!!  Who knew that the second star to the right, straight on through until morning would lead to 70?

 

Just Me - AmeliaJake, The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse

Well, now I’ve gone and done it

I decided to take a quick look through my mail before I actually did something productive – such as moving a cabinet out of the way in the basement so the plumber who came to day and muttered, “Ahhhhhh” could access a good place to cut through the floor tomorrow. I saw Book Bub’s suggestions and noted one in particular: Bushmaster. Yeah, it’s what you’re thinking – a book about snake guy Raymond Ditmars.

With a series of No’s pounding in my head I still let a finger move the cursor and click a key and, voila, it was headed to my Kindle. Now you know that when you do that they pop up titles of books of the same ilk. I was not going to push my luck and buy another, but I did let my curiosity get the better of me when the synopsis of one mentioned a snake guy named Joe Slowinski and Burma and a krait. I googled his name and found this article AND I READ IT. Oh, I don’t know if I want to close my eyes tonight.

Just Me - AmeliaJake, The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse

How many pitfalls are there anyway?

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Yes, I was up and actually functioning when . . . the dreaded summer cold struck, mixed in with a bit of intestinal distress. I have had to postpone my second cataract surgery and that was a bummer, but having a stuffed nose, a racking cough and a fever made a good case for it. Only a week’s delay, so really not a foot-stomping event. Although, I have to say the shaking chills at 2 am one morning made me grateful it was a summer cold and not malaria or yellow fever. Remembered passages from books about Japanese POW camps and the Panama Canal workers haunted my dozing off thoughts; there’s no doubt about it: if you have a choice, go with the sugar plum fairies.

I am hoping events will even out somewhat, and I have such an urge to constantly knock on wood that I need to live in a log cabin or have Al Gore standing within arm’s reach at all times.

Just Me - AmeliaJake, The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse

Good Heavens, I had to take a couple of tries to remember my password

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Sitting in Fairborn, Ohio with my feet up on the coffee table and music playing on my iphone through a cute little speaker with lights that change, I venture into this space once more. God, there’s a lot of dusting to do and, drat, I see I’m going to have to clean out the cooler – you know, the one that looks like a chest freezer and you lift the lid and find drinks nestled in an ice bath.

Well, there’s nothing for it, but to get busy. So I guess I’ll turn off the iphone and plug in the jukebox. I’ll need something with a nice, bouncy rhythm – How about Red Dress? After all, they always said red was my color.

Just Me - AmeliaJake, Kendallville, N. Riley House, The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse

Is it really me, AmeliaJake?

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I think so; I think I have emerged from the shadows. I may wander back in, but while I’m here, I guess I could at least say HI.

Let’s see, Der Bingle was taken to the emergency room on April 19th with lights flashing and the siren going. I was three hours+ away and did not find out about it until five hours later. I could tell a long story – anyone who knows me at all realizes it could meander around every emotion and hospital corridor and long, sleepless nights; BUT no need for going through it again – he turned out to be okay.

Then two days ago I had cataract surgery, which went very well and for which I thank the researchers who did the necessary “how to” work and the doctors who went to medical school and mastered the “can do” part.

And in between, I had vertigo.

If it weren’t for all that, the big news would be the glass shower door shattering out of nowhere on my daughter-in-law. She got some cuts, but is doing all right . . . and they tell me you could see her footprints left in the tub full of pebbly glass. I’m going to have to track down the warranty material – now that I can read it.

So, actually eating healthy and doing muscle building exercises doesn’t seem like drudgery. I could post before and after pictures, but given the existence of photoshop, I will either get in shape or get very good at carving away bulges and flab with a cursor. The latter would be a useful blogging tool, but I’m going to try for the first option.

Just Me - AmeliaJake, The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse

Bored but not wanting to exert

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I feel like doing something, but I don’t want to do it alone and a lot of the work around here is overwhelming and tedious, especially if I happened to catch a snippet of a HGTV show where people are complaining because a perfectly fine house is – yes, here comes my oft-used word quote: dated. Some of the people are ridiculously snobby and snotty. It brings out the worst in me. One woman was so condescending I found myself looking hard at her and coming to the chanting conclusion: Really big nose.

I interrupted my little rambling here to ichat with Der Bingle and now I am thinking about a nice peachy iced tea with a splash of non-caloric berry soda.

Just Me - AmeliaJake, Kendallville, The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse

Hands in dishwater

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That post title up there? Well, that’s all that is left of a post I wrote this morning, not because I goofed up and fed it to cyberspace, but because I looked at it and thought, Jeez, Louise, AJ, this is rotten writing, rambling, just muttering around . . . whatever. I erased it; I thought it was the best thing to do. Of course, taking the time to wish for World Peace would have been a better use of the time, but that’s been well-covered in beauty pageants and movies spoofing movie pageants.

And explaining why I just wiped a bit of today’s writing off the face of the earth serves also to give reason as to why I am not writing anything else.

Sigh and ok: World Peace.

Just Me - AmeliaJake, Kendallville, The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse

The surprises that we allow

Of course, a vague post title. Even I sighed. You do your best, cut the slack, hope for the best . . . and then it comes: the little announcement or action that all along you knew would come. It’s usually the little things that disappoint the most – the ones that indicate – in some people’s eyes – that those who have held the fort have not strived, not been pained, not sacrificed. And you sigh and say, “I see.” It’s not really a surprise: it’s more the out of the blue moment when it pops out; you knew it was there but you just wanted to pretend maybe it wasn’t.

This is, for the most part, a fill in the blank post. I in our lives, so many of us have situations where the truth of the matter is the same, just the details vary.

I feel better, having rambled on. I would recommend rambling on to anyone who has experienced the let down of being left to hold the bag, and reminding oneself of what we have always known: the bag has been empty.

Just Me - AmeliaJake, Kendallville, The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse

Look at the sidebar on the left

Her birthday, not that today is the only day I think of Jody. I see that picture framed by where I sit; I think of Thomas Bickle everyday too – his light is still shining on the wide window sill of what was once the old north porch. You can see it better from the outside now that the bushes have been trimmed, but that’s just with your eyes. Thomas Bickle’s light burns straight to one’s heart.

But this is about Jody, about her picture, actually. It is my favorite picture of her; I once wrote to someone that she reminded me of a young Queen Elizabeth II. I said she looked so royal.
The person to whom I was writing – a very intelligent person – responded that yes, she did look regal. Of course, regal was the word I should have used; it’s an adjective . . . and I am a stickler for grammar. But for some reason, when I look at that little face under the scarf smiling out over her shoulder, I don’t see a description, I see the an essence. I am looking at someone royal.

Just Me - AmeliaJake, N. Riley House, The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse

Johnny Cash – what I didn’t know

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There are, I’m certain, a lot of things I don’t know about Johnny Cash. But last week, there were a lot more. That changed because I came into the living room, sat down and realized: Oh, my gosh, the remotes are here-not misplaced. So, I turned the TV on and there was the beginning of Walk the Line; I have seen this listed many times and it was in the movie theaters in 2005, but I never watched it.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like Johnny Cash. I don’t know why I avoided it, but I did. Then, well, there it was, right in my face and I decided Joaquin Phoenix actually looked like Johnny Cash . . . and I was open to an excuse not to do anything else.

Very early in the movie, I learned that Johnny Cash’s worshiped older brother Jack was killed in a sawmill accident and that his father laid a lot of blame on him. Jack was 15; Johnny (then known as J.R. was 12). I watched the entire movie, but that first part haunted me and so I researched.

Not believing everything I read, but pulling together a reasonable summary of the story: Yes, Johnny’s father expressed the idea that it should have been Johnny who died, that Jack was the good son, the one determined to be a preacher and so forth. I suspect that Johnny would have got that idea in his young head by himself, but I think his father’s judgement forced that feeling of guilt into his heart.

Of course, that young boy should have been led to realize there was sorrow in Jack’s death, but not guilt. He wouldn’t have fully believed it, of course, but he might have understood that life and death and accidents are often like the flip of a coin. I know I feel guilt for what have might have come from mistakes I made that, for some reason, missed disaster by a second, a fraction of an inch. It is unnerving when you think of life not in turns of what might have happened good, but in terms of what might have happened bad – what you might have had to live until the grave. If you really think about it, a shrug and a brief thought of “close call” should be replaced with gut-wrenching, nightmare terror. A nightmare that didn’t happen, not because you woke up, but because you got for no good reason – lucky.

It wasn’t even a mistake Johnny Cash made; it was just the way the day played out. In fact, Jack didn’t do Johnny any favors when he said, Go ahead and go fishing, J.R.; he didn’t say he knew it was not save for one person to be alone with a big old saw. In fact, Jack was 15, the good one, the one who was supposed to show his 12 year old brother the responsible way to do something. Oh, and J.R. was going fishing to try and get some food for the extremely poor family.

I don’t know what the pain and hurt and guilt and the accusations of his father did to J.R.’s mind and heart, but I suspect there was cultivated an anguish that became unbearable at times. And I won’t make any judgement because he stumbled on something that eased his pain and he had a hell of a time fighting it.

Maybe the reason he always started each performance with Hello, I’m Johnny Cash is because he was never going to let people think he was some man hiding who he was and what his pat included.