I had a good day because I got stuck in my driveway, I got stuck right where it meets Riley Street, which the plows had cleared to a nice, smooth surface. But right there, right before the smoothness, was a wide-based snow dyke where the plows had pushed the snow. And, despite my grandkids digging and pushing and being downright good and cheerful workers, we were in that spot . . . for a long time, not making any progress. It was four degrees, with wind.

A young man came along on an ATV; he was dressed for winter and he offered to give me a tug out to the road – a tug of a few inches, maybe a foot, that was as good as a mile.

We talked a bit as I pressed some money on him that he didn’t want to take, and then I asked his name.

“Don Moore,” he replied. Yes, he was Don Moore Sr.’s son. You may remember Don Moore Sr., the dynamo of a man who lost his life too early. He had earned every wonderful word spoken about him  and was  posthumously named a Sagamore of the Wabash Award winner.

There, in front of me and smiling, was his son. Actually, when he was passing my house, he was on his way to help an older lady with her driveway. Thought he’d check on her, he told me.

I told him his dad would be proud and we spoke of his loss. He said it was the hardest thing to get through he’d ever experienced. Said he’d been out to talk to his dad at the cemetery just the day before. Said he served for a year in Iraq and would do ten more if it would “bring Dad back.”

His voice was strong and friendly and masculine, but I saw a glimpse of his face becoming momentarily drawn and heard his voice start to get husky. He caught himself and smiled and headed toward his ATV to get on with life – as his dad would have wanted.

Don Sr., you would be magnificently proud.  I know you were all along, but the way he’s handled this and is pushing ahead with your positive attitude is  – to use an expression that captures true admiration in America’s Heartland – really something. It’s the type of thing that old men – and old men have seen a lot –  witness and don’t spend a lot of words on.  It’s the type of thing to which they give their greatest accolade – a solemn nod and the hint of a soft smile. That fellow can cut it, they think; that fellow’s a solid man.

I used to write about a lot of people for publication in a large city and when it came time to put my words down, there was a worried tension that I wouldn’t get it right. A day or so ago, I was thinking that I actually missed writing those stories after all. They brought out the best in me and allowed me to be let others see the best in my subjects. It felt good, doing that.

And, now, again, I’m felling good.

******************

*Originally, I wrote Sycamore, instead of Sagamore. Well, you spend a lifetime with they lyrics of Back Home Again in Indiana and what do you expect? Thanks for pointing it out.

I can get myself up and going and shower and GET IT OVER WITH or I can sit here and type a long post and then maybe decide to read a little, all the time having the chore of the shower hanging over my head. It’s 6:11 am; what will I do?

6:54 am: Well, it’s done and I have clothes on and boots on and my hair is combed and I weighed myself and, to be brutally honest, I don’t feel too much more inspired. Clean, but that’s about it. I might be going a little heavy here on the negative, because it does feel nice to have clean skin and feet inside clean socks. But, all in all, today it was, for me, a chore. I’m human. Yes, I do have some human tendencies along with my undeniable atavistic ones.

Enough of that. Alison has an appointment today over at the hospital at around ten, so we are going to have to corral some younger inhabitants here to gear up and be ready to push me out of the curving driveway. Ha! All at once the quotidian chore of showering on a cold morning doesn’t seem so bad. Of course, getting them out to push and shovel might be the easy part; getting them to answer the cell phone and come out to push us back in when we get return could be a problem.

But, there is some good news: the clock of which I have written lately sits by a cold window pane and this morning, it was acting oddly – just sounding the occasional chime and one bong. So I warmed it up and I just got a nice seven bongs; it may be six minutes slow, but that’s an easy adjustment.

Say, I think I wrote a post about making this a year of improvement and published it. I believe I need to go back and read it, but since I didn’t follow my edict of making sensible post titles, I may never find it. I suspect, however, that such a situation is akin to the policy that ignorance of the law is no excuse. Well, at least I can look. Maybe I’ll just shower again.

Hello and okay, I did not go back to sleep; I do not even have covers on me.  If you would like a visual, and, gee, who wouldn’t? – just think of me, AmeliaJake, coming onto the porch, rolling up a couple of afghans on one end of the sofa and then sitting at the other end with my feet propped up on the ‘ghans. Add in Emu boots, crossed at the ankle.

As I was typing that sentence, I started thinking of Der Bingle and his occasional remarks about my long sentences. I thought about breaking it up, but, oh, the heck with it. If that attitude is a barometer for the day, I’d say I’m in a fairly normal mood. Is barometer the word I want? Maybe I should choose harbinger. Whatever. I suppose that “whatever” – could you hear the sigh? – might be another indicator. Why do I feel as if I am on my way to a Gordon Ramsay expression without the good food?

And it is not even daylight yet.

Oh, by the way, I have forgotten to mention that I am officially a serf. A document showed up regarding my ancestors who came to America on the Thistle of Glasgow. They were serfs released to go, but if they came back they would be re-serfed.

Der Bingle always said I was a peasant. Not in a mean way, just matter-of-fact. And, I guess I do have short, stocky legs and don’t have much length to my neck.

It’s just after five in the morning and I am awake and wondering if I want to lay my ugly head down upon my wretched bed – oops, sorry there, a Muppet reference just hopped into the flow of my thought. Actually,  I feel like being a little sneaky here and getting something to drink and checking the news and then just easing back under the blankets.

Yesterday we had a series of snow squalls – mini blizzard things – with the temperature going up to the 20’s and then DOWN; today the same up and down pattern is predicted only with more snow. I’ve been talking so much about the weather, I need to get a barbershop pole and a bench with old men on it. More appropriate would be a big black stove with mismatched chairs around it – but I think the bench image was in a song once. There might have been a lyric about old women then talking about old men . . .

I’d say it’s time to go get that drink before my morning imagination really starts joining in.

We do not yet have snow coming down, BUT there is snow blizzarding across the roads from the gusting winds.  The wind is picking up any snow that is not packed down and moving it; I noticed about an hour ago that my eastbound lane on Hwy 6 was narrowing. It is a little unnerving to see those white fingers coming out onto the road while the headlights of a semi are heading at you.

It is going to warm up to about 20 tomorrow, but by six tomorrow night, it will be 5 again. My hair is dry and full of static electricity . . . and I don’t care. It may look wild, but it is nice and soft and freshly shampooed. I don’t know why I mentioned that other than when you’re huddled down, it’s nice to be clean and huddled down. Kind of like you and the downy blanket are one.

Shane wants me to go eat something so he can beg some bites of cheesy burritos. We are having a stare down. I think he’s winning.

I wore one of my grandson’s outgrown fiber-filled jackets with a hood this morning to take Alison to work. It is not one of the sleek ones; it is a like wearing a nylon comforter, the material consisting of stitched squares with fiber puffing them out so I look like a three-dimensional checkerboard – only all the squares are red. The hood is big and pushes in to grab my head as well as puffing out to keep the cold at a distance. I felt like an Eskimo – a noticeable, but cozy Eskimo.

I think I am going to be wearing this coat for a while. My usual coat is my old faithful Lands End early thinsulate that is really adaptable to temperatures. But, when the wind chill is -15, the big other one is just, well, more comforting.

Last evening, when I went to the grocery store, I found myself driving home with my hands pulled up into my sleeves – the steering wheel was cold all the way through. I went out in the cold because it was the last day of a big Stouffer and Red Baron sale and there was no need for me to take anything out of the trunk. It’s out there now – the solid lasagna, pizzas and entrees. I figure if someone thinks they want a french bread pizza serving, they can go out and get it. They might think a little bit more about if they really want it or not if it’s in the trunk and not in the freezer inside. Just one of those little grandma maneuvers, dontcha know.

What is it with all these Internet articles regarding updating 80’s houses, or 70’s or 90’s houses for that matter? The news sites are reporting on unemployment; people lost a great deal of value on their homes; websites abound with stories about living with children with autism; stories about celebrities (and addicts sponsored by Dr. Phil) going into rehab and police blotters mention poorer people going to jail.

Yet, comments on the color of the paint on your walls, the special section of wallpaper, the new chalky paint, countertops, appliances, bathroom fixtures are also everywhere. Whatever happened to the roof over your head concept? If a chair is comfortable, why can’t you sit on it, even though its lines are not those featured in glossy magazines?

How lucky these people are to have no worries other than up-to-date color schemes and trendy flooring. I know of many people who have children with life-threatening diseases; I suspect they could have polka dot walls and not even see them. In fact, be glad to have walls.

I suppose soon someone will find it necessary to redecorate Habitat for Humanity homes built a few decades ago. I mean, good heavens, surely they must appear ghastly now.

Is this the end of the rant? Maybe . . . for now.

I remembered to pull the paper stop out of the clock last evening at eight, and then I started reading and after awhile found myself dozing off. I let it happen; medicine be damned. I dreamed a whirlwind, including being in a stage play, going out to dinner with my parents and, get this, talking to John Wayne for a couple of minutes.

Then I woke with a start, wondered how close to morning it was and remembered i hand not taken my pills. Rats. Then the clock chimed 12 times. Rats again. It was a quarter to what? Close to the morning? Shouls I just wait to take my medicine then? It was awfully dark, but it’s that way at seven too. Apparently I thought for about 15 minutes because the clock started to chime and I thought, “Good, I’ll know what time it is. I listened for the 16 chimes, heard a Bong! . . . and then silence. Only one o’clock.

So I figured I’d hit the bathroom, gulp my medicine and then try to adjust to it still being a time I have been known to go to bed at . . . for the first time at night. But all this got me more awake, thinking about the book I had been reading and then marveling, “John Wayne?????”

I checked the news and am considering looking at the weather* to see just how grateful I should be for my warm covers and roof over my head. Maybe I’ll take a stab at reading a bit more . . . I’m finding the book to be not really my preference, but up-to-date informative on aspects of life in India.

As I opened this blog, I noticed the clock update didn’t post visually correctly, so I’m going to fix that and then push publish for this one and the repaired post at about the same time.

* It’s two degrees and maybe going to snow and get colder by three or four degrees.

UPDATE . . . . . UPDATE . . . . . .UPDATE The clock is chiming six o’clock. Woo-Hoo. So I am going to let it go until it chimes eight and then stop it. Then, if I forget until, say, ten something, I will only have to advance it manually through two cycles. Why not stop it now? Well, if I forget until late, I will have to advance it four cycles. Oh, I have to remember to stop it at eight chimes . . . It’s always something.

I have this clock that belonged to my grandmother; I have written about it before. It chimes on the quarter hour – 4, 8, 12 or 16 times, depending upon which quarter of the hour it is. It also BONGS on the hour. Noon isn’t so bad, but if you are just falling asleep at midnight, it can be a jolt. Well, that is, if it is wound. For the past couple of months (or more), it has not been. It is not pure laziness that has kept me from putting the big key in and turning it. It is the coordinating the correct bongs with the hour. Of course, it is very easy to wind it, listen to the bongs and then stop it until it actually is that time, but I forget a lot. What I may do today, because I am not in a mood to do much else, is wind the clock and see what I’m up against. If it is one of those hours that happens in the afternoon and in the very early morning, I’ll have one chance a day to get it going. On the other hand, I could do the manual rotation, but that involves listening to the chimes as well as the bongs. Gosh, I’m a bit wound down just thinking about it now. East Noble closed. I don’t have to get out to take someone to school, but on the flip side, she’s heeeeeere. She’s here all day . . . and she can get wound up.

I was over at the nursing home yesterday afternoon. Kathryn now likes to sit in the large area by the nurse station. At that particular time, it was festooned with helium balloons in red, white and blue; one of the residents inquired about them and I said I thought it was because it was Martin Luther King Day.

No. I was wrong. One of the staff members said it was because a car was being given away that day – in just a few minutes, actually. A car? Yes. The corporation with which the facility is associated was giving away something like five cars, one at each of the affiliated nursing homes that had a two year safety record. Okay. A car.

To be eligible to win, you had to have worked at the home at least 18 months and have had no “lost time” for two years. Yes, that sentence is confusing to me as well. (I would hope the “lost time” refers to unexcused time off. I mean, I would hate to think of sick aides coming in to keep their hopes of a car alive.)

So, one of the head honchos comes in, remarking on how happy he is to be giving away a car. And that’s what he does; he gives the car to an employee, whose name was picked ahead of time to allow for titling and whatever.

One winner among all those workers – nurses, aides, housekeepers and administration personnel. Only the “all those” wasn’t such a big number that the winner was one in a crowd. Those not picked were very gracious and work went on as usual. Meanwhile, I’m sitting there thinking, “Boy, so and so just won a car! and these other people didn’t. I’m not certain this was the best morale booster the corporation could come up with.