Just as the weather cools and it is getting time to hunker down, I find myself imagining closing up the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse and totally changing my life. An apartment in a city, a minimum of things. In my mind’s eye I can see the place here standing closed up while debris carried by the wind gathers around the house and then snow remains unmarked around the doors. I’d be gone, just like that. Cold and wind and no smell of woodsmoke.

So here’s the deal: I’ll get this place in shape, all warm and cozy and neat and inviting and then, maybe I will leave. But first, there is this culling through of stuff, this fixing and sense of order. Once free to leave, I may stay.

I held a camera outside of the driver’s window and randomly snapped. Oh, I had the strap on the camera around my wrist.

This morning I get my ear stitches out . . . and I think there may be a little infection. Last night I thought back 41 years and remembered what we did when I first had my ears pierced with a hat pin and a cube of ice in an Indiana University dorm. Yes, we dipped my earlobe twice a day in a capful of Hydrogen Peroxide. (Why I capilatlized that I do not know; but once I did the “H” I figured I’d just go with it.)

So I soaked my ear and wondered why I had not been doing that all week. I think I totally forgot about it. I mean when you are 19 and from Indiana and it is 1967, you have this feeling you had better be responsible about putting holes in your ears. It is a big thing.  Now in 2008 . . . well, it’s a different story.

Oh, wait, was I 18 and was it 1966? Ack, a senior moment.

Robert is on his new cast and it is navy blue; supposedly it won’t show dirt that much. My doctor is having the same surgery (minus bone grafting) with the same doctor and I am taking in some pictures of the Robert foot when I get my ear stitches out tomorrow. Let’s see, surgery on August 22nd and still casted on October 21st.  Maybe the orthopedist is the “boot Nazi” – No boot for you . . . I can’t remember when he got booted last year or the year before. Maybe they are playing it very safe; maybe the bone grafting makes a difference.

We have to make some modifications to the invalid room – the bed is by the fireplace. Maybe we could just jack it up and make a slide down to the sofa. Oh, I don’t think so. Well, I will come up with something . . . It’s not like cast man is going to chase me and catch me if he doesn’t like being moved around the corner. After all, he spends his days now sitting with leg elevated. He can roll into another room to sleep. Of course, Summer steals his roll-a-bout when she gets angry with him . . . and you know Summer’s temper.

I don’t want to consider what Sesame Street character Summer would be. In fact, she would probably be the bricks falling off the building when they talk about peril and danger.

Hi there hungry people. Last Thursday I had lunch at Logan’s Roadhouse. I love it there. I love the music, the booths, the decor, the peanuts. I could live there. Well, maybe not, since I once told a host, “I don’t want to sit here; this is where you put the ugly people.” No kidding; I blurted that right out.

But okay, here’s my hamburger:

Then on Saturday I roasted a turkey and here is what is left from Cameron’s plate.

Good God, I am living with predators.

Snuffleupagus

You scored 40% Organization, 43% abstract, and 49% extroverted!

This test measured 3 variables.

First, this test measured how organized you are. Some muppets like Cookie Monster make big messes, while others like Bert are quite anal about things being clean.

Second, this test measured if you prefer a concrete or an abstract viewpoint. For the purposes of this test, concrete people are considered to gravitate more to mathematical and logical approaches, whereas abstract people are more the dreamers and artistic type.

Third, this test measured if you are more of an introvert or an extrovert. By definition, an introvert concentrates more on herself and an extrovert focuses more on others. In this test an introvert was somebody that either tends to spend more time alone or thinks more about herself.

You are somewhat organized, both concrete and abstract, and both introverted and extroverted.

I bet you didn’t think you were Snuffleupagus. Let’s find out why.

You are both somewhat organized. You have a good idea where you put things and you probably keep your place reasonably clean. You aren’t totally obsessed with neatness though. Alloyius Snuffleupagus (and all Snuffleupagus’) is not sloppy by nature, but he moves so incredibly slowly that it is impossible for him to be totally organized.

You both are about equally concrete and abstract thinkers. You have a good balance in your life. You know when to be logical at times, but you also aren’t afraid to explore your dreams and desires… within limits of course. Snuffy generally has very basic interests, but he explores his abstract sensitive side when he plays his snuffleflute.

You both are somewhat introverted. Originally Snuffleupagus was very shy and was only Big Bird’s invisible friend. However as he has aged he has started to build new friendships with new characters. Like Snuffy, you probably like to have some time to yourself. However, you do appreciate spending time with your friends, and you aren’t scared of social situations.

Want to know your character? TEST SITE.

This is Shane, Quentin’s dog. Shane is a little over a year old. That fellow with him is like his grandpa; when Shane was a small puppy and outside in the heat, he turned on the car and held him up to the air conditioning vent.

Sydney and I feel for Shane because he is, we believe, a kind, goodhearted soul . . . and there is another dog who has the personality of the indomitable, incorrigible late Little Ann. Her name is Anya and  here she is below – with Shane.

Here is Shane before Anya:

Ah, yes, Little Ann . . .

It is not that we didn’t dearly love the indomitable and incorrigible little red cocker, not that we didn’t sob when she got cancer and we had to put her to sleep. No, it is not that at all. It just that, well, Little Ann could be so incredibly obstinate and cute at the same moment. Okay, maybe sometimes I had trouble seeing the cute when she would refuse to get in the car and insisted on following it while everyone looked and thought, “Gee, look at that lady making that dog – that poor adorable dog – walk home. Is she trying to ditch the dog?” I would say, never again, as I pulled into the driveway. I said it almost every day.

Lest we forget:

Oh, one other thing: I was reading something written by a person who has a brain tumor that is affecting his normal choice of words. He wrote “Summer is coming off of things” and, actually, I think that is a pretty good description.

Sydney will share a foldover, but every afternoon he has his special meal of rice, washed and drained ground beef or ground buffalo and additional beef flavoring. We add a little dry dog food for the vitamins. I warm it in a good skillet and with my own little fingers test it for temperature. Then I put it on a plate (He doesn’t like bowls) and take it out to the porch for him to eat. He likes for me to sit with him while he eats and engage in an activity that indicates I will not be getting up for awhile. So he eats and I read or work puzzles or get on the laptop.

Then, after he eats, he climbs up on the sofa next to me; he’s here now. Summer is at the “Y” playing racquetball with her grandpa. Well, learning to play. She is at the running into the wall phase at present. I am wearing her shoes from last year and I don’t know if this is a good thing; most people think she out-means me . . . which is going some.

She tells that she and her buds have formed not a club, but a gang. They do not have a name for this group but the requirement for membership is meanness. She and I are members of the Mean Girls Ice Cream Eating Club, but we have let it lapse. That is probably good since we used to take a carton and sit there with two spoons. Not healthy  . . . especially since we pretended there were little people in the ice cream and we were gobbling them up. I’ve written this before, haven’t I?  Oh, well.

This is my mouth in a smiling position – in the bathroom mirror, with Crest WhiteStrips on my teeth. See, my smile is a little crooked and gets moreso the bigger it becomes. I don’t know why this is. I don’t worry about it. I worry about the way facial hair sneaks up on me. I discovered this when I for some reason enlarged the picture.

Some of those “hairs”  – if you are brave enough to click on the picture – are wrinkles.

I have now become the “daily plucker” and upper lip moisturizing fanatic.

BEWARE: Behind the teeth is a razor tongue.

We don’t have too much real sidewalk here around the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse and that’s why we got really good at making tight U-turns. Then we tired of it and these wound up in our catch-all closet:

They are tough little guys – Made in the USA by the D.P. Harris Company. Yeah, when we got tired, we’d sit on the grass and read the print on the skates – it was better than watching the grass grow.