Here they are . . . all the way from the Southern Redoubt of the West Facing Cave – just to cheer me up. Of course, I was sad because they took off on me and left. Maybe tonight I will use a little Super Glue and they will stay for a little while. Just a thought; just a thought.

Oh, here’s the smiting hand of an angel:

I am considering signing up for smiting lessons, but don’t know if I can get a license or not.  I think I would be good at it.

I spent last night with weird dreams and nightmares. Normally, I would call being in a bathroom in a mom and pop restaurant that had two stalls and the walls slide away and then fall down a nightmare, but I also dreamed of snakes and people thinking it was funny to chase me with snakes. Two guys tried to scale down the outside of a building as I watched from a window; I don’t know what they were trying to get away from – it could not have been snakes or I would have been the first one out.

As usual, I came into the PBC&R and recounted all this to Early Sam who needs his shot of caffeine and life sustaining peanut butter at the crack of dawn. Early Sam, as usual, pulled out his hearing aids when he saw me coming and just occasionally nodded.

Oh, did I tell you the snakes were kept in a cell with bars; why no one thought they would not just slither out between them in beyond me. But. come to think of it, I was standing there looking at the bars, hoping some man would close the cell door quickly, and I didn’t yell, “You idiots” and start to run.

You can see now why the bathroom stall wall fiasco didn’t faze me too much.

The weather site tells me it is to be sunny today and tomorrow, with temperatures of 63 and 69. Maybe. It would be nice . . . on the other hand I have become somewhat accustomed to looking out the window and thinking it is cold and raining and might as well watch a movie and warm my feet by the firestove heater. See, a few days ago I was in the mood to go outside and perk things up and now I have been reminded of the comfort of cozy. I know I will feel cheerful out there raking and picking up. I just have to get it started. We’ll see.

UPDATE:

Took Summer to school; she complained of the seatbelt being stuck. Then Sydney and I went to the fairgrounds and he complained of nothing in the chilly sun of morning dew. We came home and went throuh the backyard to the porch so we could pick up a couple pieces of egregious trash – one was a windblown, rain-soaked, orange trash bag box. Another was a split open Diet Cheerwine can that I had stuck in a snowbank to chill, forgotten about and only remembered when the wind of the past couple of days dug it out from where it was under shrubs. That little fellow didn’t just pop his tab, he split his pants from top to bottom, and, alas, the cheerwine is gone . . . maybe to give the grass a boost.

And now the seatbelt is unstuck and Sydney is sleeping on the end of the sofa and I am going to go shower for a trip to Wal-Mart – auggghhhhh –  and the grocery store and then a jaunt over to the nursing home. I feel cheerful; I like that.

Now this is a personal opinion and I know that a lot of folks who do this thing I find infuriating do not mean it in a demeaning and insulting manner, BUT I cannot abide hearing elderly people described as cute. Babies can be cute; puppies can be cute; and, okay, young kids in the first couple of grades can be cute. After that, it sounds as if the people being referred to as “cute” are laughable as they conduct themselves as typical people doing normal things.  An old man and his wife walking down a hall after almost 70 years of marriage: “Oh, aren’t they cute?” And always the little chuckle laugh. A woman referring to her parents: “Aren’t they the cutest couple?” Auuuuggggggghhhhhhhhh.

Endearing is a good word. So is charming.

To me, it sounds as if  “cute” elderly people are being lessened. That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.

I think it is because I am getting older, but I find myself really appreciating sunny, warmish days – the ones with blue sky and low humidity. (Gosh, I see age hasn’t made me any less picky) I want to stop and suck those moments in, let them wash over me, hold on to them. I just want to hug them to me.

Last night the mag-safe power adapter on my new MacBook just quit. That’s all, no dramatics. It simply stopped working. Quentin called shortly thereafter and about all I could say was, “My power cord isn’t working.” Then this morning the mag-safe on the power adapter that goes with another laptop failed. This was not unexpected – the stress relief point did what Apple power cords tend to do.

I tried to jiggle the frayed one just right, but it came apart in my hand. So I figured it couldn’t get any more broken and started experiementing. Okay, by carving into it and separating wires and putting broken ones together, I got it to go orange and charge. It wasn’s pretty and as  it turned out, it was tempermental. So I went with alligator clips, but I had fiddled around too much and the wire on the mag-safe end was so short that it was too fragile to keep the connection. But I think I learned a lot . . .

* You realize I am the lady who kept her ibook functioning with a big ole red clamp on the left hand side. I sat in the Atlanta airport with this set up, much to Der Bingle’s chagrin. Now if I could just get alligator clips and clamps to work on me  . . . clip up a little jowl here, clamp in a little bulge there. Oh, yeah, cool idea.

The folks here at the PBC&R want me to mention that I have entered my moccasin phase again. I guess they expect people to know what that means – I don’t know that I do, but I think it is not bad. These are suede with hard soles and I need to fill out my lazy summer foot wardrobe with a pair of soft sole mocs, probably beige and definitely with beads. Hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya.

Der Bingle and Cameron and Summer and I took stuff from the Grandma Room (I’ll explain that name sometime) to the attic yesterday and then had a “festive” pizza meal – one Papa John’s and two double pepperonis from Jim’s, the local mom and pop . . . and other relatives . . . local pizza shop. The sun was out. Now today, it is raining – rain and/or clouds all day long. And today has seemed long.

And now it is 8:39 pm.

View from balcony of Der Bingle getting home.

Summer hiding in storage closet trying to get a sneak peek at the Elusive Grover.

Grover’s spy picture of Summer spying from his room.

View of plane going over balcony.

The Hooded Cameron and the Camera-ed Summer . . . photo by Grover.

For whom Quentin was named.

Tattered cuff on a flight jacket indicating to grandkids where he had been stationed. Thirty-five years ago, his father was pointing out things about WWII planes in the museum.

This reminded Cameron of Summer.

Let’s see, for our trip to Fairborn, I downloaded 271 pictures from one camera and 574 from another . . . and then another download of about a hundred. Almost all are taken by grandkids. Last night I sent about 300 to Ofoto and tonight I will try and use the dead of night to upload the rest. Summer enjoyed taking pictures of road signs, her shoes, the dashboard and the clock at high noon. We also have pictures of Grover’s Room – sans Grover because he had retired to a secret location. Oh, yes, we have pictures of food – food at restaurants, food in the car, food from take-out, food in the pantry.

Picture took “spy” pictures out of Grover’s window and I took a picture of her sprawled out taking those pictures. We both took pictures from the balcony and then faced each other and took “dueling camera” photos. Next time I will need to take more cameras . . . Der Bingle offered us an old camera he had but it was below our pixel acceptance rate. (Summer and I are more into zooming and high pixel numbers than proficiency in photography.)

Cameron was a serious historical-record picture-taking guy so we have documentation of what we saw. We also have pictures of the way home and the sign “Welcome to Indiana”.

Unfortunately, William Holden in in The Bridge Over the River Kwai, but then I tune his scenes out or use them for commercial breaks. I don’t kow why I am bringing this up now, other than I just turned on Turner Classic Movies and Love is a Many Splendored Thing is on . . . and, of course, so is William Holden. What IS it that I can’t stand about William Holden? Oh, I don’t even want to think about it.