This week – Wednesday morning – I am going to have my ear repaired where an earring tore through . . . oh, maybe 20 years ago. I know; I know.  I know that I don’t know why I didn’t do it before. Always being pushed back, I suppose. Didn’t seem that important, I suppose.  But now, I am having it done. The folks at the PBC&R aren’t quite sure what to make of it. I think they are worried about what I might put in my ears; will I be satisfied with the dignified little posts I used to wear all the time. Or do I want diamonds? Whoa, AJ taking the pipes under the sink apart with diamonds in her ears. I think they are wondering if I will point and say,  “Okay, you get your face in the muck, now.”

How about AJ with hoops and/or dangling earrings. HA! Now I know I will not do that, but maybe they are apprehensive that I have wandered off down a really adventurous path with this ear repair thing. Battery powered flashing earrings with moving parts?

I guess I’d better not wear a political button type earring – I don’t want my ear ripped out again.

Oh, maybe people will start giving me earrings. At first that sounds great, but then maybe some don’t exactly have great taste. And what if it is someone dear to me and I don’t want to hurt feelings? Well, I’m sure I can deal with that. After all, when I was 18 I wore gumball-sized basketballs in my ears – Indiana University, Hoosiers, dontcha know.

I think I’ll look at earrings online.

Aha, I operated on an Apple laptop tonight and it works now. YES!!! I love my computer screwdriver set. One little AJ fumble was when I didn’t notice the metal shield had slipped back into the bottom cover and spent 15 minutes incredulously and very quietly looking for it. I felt it would look bad on my resume.

I am sitting here in the PBC&R watching the window being scraped outside. We are doing a fall painting of a few windows. My part right now is supervising through the screen. You know, I believe some feel I have the easy job. Oh, well. I will just turn the other cheek. Ah, there was an annoucement: Those helping get an ice cream treat. Hmmm . . . . I believe while they are gone I can turn my cheeks and mouth toward the store bought package ice cream in the freezer. I just must remember to look ice cream deprived when they return.

Here’s a picture of Depression Feet. Mother has shoes for yard work. My dad used to put duct tape on his. I wore my son’s to mow the lawn, then my grandson’s and now I am being a spendthrift – $3 for a pair of mowing shoes at Goodwill.

east to west

looking east

insulator on a post

Mother’s sentiments

maple color

Mother from the rear

sunflower drooping heads in front of crooked little shed

Sydney in the corn

walnuts

our target for BB’s

My mother is 82 today; Sydney and I were going up to Scott but Mother said since it was raining and Sydney wouldn’t be able to run outside, we should come tomorrow. So we are. Tiffany, the cat, will be there. We are not exactly thrilled but will be polite to the interloper.

I believe I will be taking with me the bat lights I put up for the kids for Halloween, even though it is three weeks away. They are made of black plastic shaped like a bat and have green lights for eyes and purple lights to outline the wings. And two of them flash. I suppose I could climb up and change the flasher bulb, but I think I will climb up and take them down and give them to Mother to put on her porch. Maybe she will hang them down the west room window for the kids who live in the old store across the road.

I remember when it was the Hagerty Bros. General Store and the second set of Haggerty brothers were the fathers of mother’s schoolmates. Jack and she were in the same class – eight graduated. They had a candy counter with glass that slanted back and my folks would buy me candy corn. I don’t remember caring too much for it, but guess I didn’t know any better . . . until I fell in love with Grandma’s lemon pie and people realized I liked tart things best. You could say my taste matches my tongue.

So today I went and saw Kathryn Feller at the nursing home, came back and scarfed a coupld of foldovers and then went on the hunt for the bat lights. I was burrowing through a couple of boxes in the closet when I started sliding and wound up on my back with lots of stuff coming down on me. Actually, it was pretty comfortable there, but eventually I called for some assistance. And later I discovered I had ripped my slacks on part of a Christmas tree. Rats. Well, it happens.

I am boring myself here.

I miss the early daylight of summer and am wondering if I would winter in the southern hemisphere if I had a lot of money – independent wealth, dontcha know. Of course, I have watched an awful lot of TV programs about all the deadly snakes and insects in Australia and that would be the stuff of a winter’s worth of nightmares.

For some reason I just remembered something I read about the colonization of Australia: A great many people thought there was an inland sea and took boats with them over the mountains outside Sydney. I think that’s interesting; actually, it sort of fascinates me. Surely scouts and explorers had ventured out and over the mountains. Maybe some people went over and came back and said, “There’s an inland sea.” Then they started a boat-building business.

Oh, I almost forgot. During some impromptu research here at the PBC&R, Al and Simon discovered the existence of nano-alligators that thrive inside computers. They are working on traps and soon, for three easy payments of $39.95, you can buy one. And if you call right away after they announce the perfection of their device, they will send you two. The traps are so small they are not visible to the naked eye and will come packaged in a small cone container. You clip the end off the point and stick it in the earphone jack.

No, actually, I have been down from the attic for quite some time; I am just coming back from the period of insanity induced by attic visits. Not that I have crazy relatives living in the attic . . . that I know of. It is just having a group of people simultaneously deciding what should go up, come down, be trashed is bedlam.

Then, of course, there is the triggered memory factor: There’s the  winter coat I bought Cameron when he was in first grade and he wore it upstairs right after getting out of school when my dad was sick and Daddy said, “He has a nice little coat,” and Mother said, “AJ got it for him.” At the other end of the spectrum is the Oh! Look! It’s a computer from the days before the Internet or Oh, look! It’s a stretched Mrs. Butterworth bottle made into a lamp. Cool!!!

We went at 4pm because it was a lovely, perfect fall day and we knew the area would be jam-packed. We had confirmation of this because Alison decided to take Colin and Robert (on a roll-a-bout) at 12:30. They called to be picked up about 45 minutes later and reported wall-to-wall people and long, long lines. The beef noodles from Brimfield United Methodist were in smaller containers and cost $4. Hey, I am not paying that. Pork tenderloins were $7. If Mother had come down, she wouldn’t have paid that. I mean, too much is too much. Apple Burgers were still $2.50 . . . and good. Our Bayou Billy cups were filled for only a dollar each.We brought home apple fritters.

I went with the former Georgia guy and Summer and they were dud companions. Sorry, but it’s true. And, you know what? I walked way behind them coming home . . . but their total dudness had already spilled on me. So I will be spending the evening scraping dudness off me and my duds.

Summer challenged her mother to a race – never mind the fact that her mother can go for an hour on the treadmill at a pretty good pace. The results were somewhat unexpected . . . or maybe not. Summer opted to take off her shoes after just a bit around the track. Grandpa did the color commentary on the flip camera and maybe we’ll post that . . . or maybe not.

But for now:

Summer, Alison, track at fairgrounds.

Oh, by the way, we also have and after race interview with Summer on flip video. Oh, so gracious in victory.

I didn’t turn my computer off last night; I left it sleeping on a shelf. I hadn’t looked at the screen in a while before I set in on that shelf and forgot that Summer had been looking up song lyrics. Had I died last night and had someone opened my laptop to see what I was last thinking about, they would have seen a screen showing lyrics to (cringe, cringe) “I farted on Santa’s lap.” I really hate the verb in that sentence, but nevermind that now.

I looked at the screen and sighed deeply . . . and then I looked at the Google search slot and saw where she had typed in “I farted Santa’s lamp.” Lamp? Santa’s lamp? See, now it was impossible not to tell the folks at the PBC&R . . . only I had to say that word, twice. Auuuugggghhhhhhh!!!!!!!