Aha, I watched a movie filmed in the mode of a portable video and did not puke. My eyes, however, feel a little strained. My grandson came out and said a couple of times, “You feel like you’re right there.” Fortunately, I did not and so was not scared out of my gourd. Although the little things that came from the monster quickened my heart and almost brought me to the “looking away” point.

I don’t know if Cameron will ask me what I thought of the ending or not. I hope not because I have trouble when people apply logic to something that is made up. I will tell him that someone thought up the plot and told it and they reached a point where they stopped. He will ask me again about the ending. I know this. He is not big on my suggestion to just make up his own following scenes.

There is always the Just Woke up from a Monster Nightmare final bit. Oh, wait, that is next to the final bit. The final, final bit is when the person is so thankful it was a dream and you see a big monster eye looking in their high rise apartment window behind them.

Yes, yes, yes . . . YES!!!  We just stopped by to check the weather for today – although we can see it is raining – and saw featured Jim Cantore video moments. Woo Hoo. I certainly hope this link stays in service.

GO JIM!!!!!!!!

People who frequent the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse want to weigh in on an upcoming topic two weeks in advance. We do not put plastic flowers on the graves of our loved ones on Memorial Day. Never, ever. Some of us, quite frankly, judge those who do. Maybe we shouldn’t, but still, we think even a handful of wildflowers or a 99¢ geranium is a better way to say, “I remember.”

I walked behind the mower today and then walked behind the vacuum cleaner; I prefer the lawnmower, although it is harder to push and a great deal harder to turn. I don’t have a self-propelled one now because our yard is just so small and so many things to go around. So, yeah, in the strong heat of summer I mow a little bit and then rest . . . and make sure I drink frequently. But today was okay to mow – and I did.

I have been mowing for decades – starting with a reel mower. Sometimes looking at the grass in front of the mower, I could be 12 or 59. It’s not that I don’t think of current things when I mow  – it is just that there are times when all I am aware of is the line of mowed grass and unmowed in front of me, of the smell of it.

I feel I am just a little closer to the people who went before me in my family, doing this basic sweaty work.

This is the beginning or the 2008 version of Emory Feller’s Honorary Garden. Mr. Feller has had a garden in this spot since 1941. Well, that’s the year they moved here; I’m not sure it was early enough in the season to plant that year. He planted a garden every year and he and Kathryn did lots of canning.

Last May, Emory had a stroke and has been unable to be here at home in Kendallville. His 96th birthday is July 21st and this year there will still be a garden, although not as elaborate as the years he was in charge.

His neighbor to the west is planting carrots and something else – I am going to have to check this out – and we are setting out tomato plants. Emory told Kathryn it would probably be okay to do so by May 15th – past the danger of frost time. Kathryn thinks three or four plants should provide us with all the tomatoes that we want to eat. I think I’ll put out some cherry or grape tomatoes as well.

We’ll be heading over to Albion to see him this afternoon – Mrs. Feller and I. Maybe I’ll print this picture off for him. I probably won’t take a picture of my tomato plants; I don’t have a green thumb and he would have to shake his head and say with a smile, “Ah, AmeliaJake . . . AmeliaJake . . . ”

Guess I’ll go read up on the care and nourishing of tomato plants in Northern Indiana gardens.

Last evening I looked at the TV listings and saw that Planet of the Apes was on American Movie Classics at 8 pm. At first I just made note of it and then it started to play around in my mind. That was a film from a time when we couldn’t fast forward to see a favorite scene, or play it over and over. We had one shot at it. “Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!” And one chance for the Statue of Liberty in the sand.

Anyway, I decided to watch it and set myself up a comfy little place to do so. Then, the station that started out with no commercials and went to some and then a lot, became today’s version of the WGN late show of the ’80’s. I made it through the first of the movie and sets of commercial “breaks” but zonked out before they  even set off for the Forbidden Zone.

AMC,  damn you. Damn you all to hell.

Tonight I figured I’d forgo the bun on my hamburger – grilled, not fried – and so made a sandwich with two big slabs of onion on each side of the hamburger tomato burger. Now I am burping. Rumbling burps. Little burps, insistent burps. I don’t know if this is typical or not, but I think, for me, it is cause and effect. Well, it was good going down.

I had beans too, with bacon bits and half a grilled hot dog. Yes, Der Bingle, I am a pig, an oinker, a porker, a sow and so forth, such as a swine. That reminds me, when Cameron rewrote Shakespeare he had himself saying “You swine.” In the first recording, it sure sounded like he said, “You slime.” I guess you had to be there . . .

Forget the blue and red designations – I looked at the national weather map a few minutes ago and Indiana is, at least for today, The Green State. We will be getting rain from the Ohio River to the Michigan line – from the Wabash and Lake Michigan to the Ohio state line.

We are going to be wet.

I hear footsteps; I think it is Cameron coming to get me to take him to school. Wait, they have paused. I hold my breath, but it is inevitable, I know. He will come. I wait . . . I hear the pencil sharpener. Soon. Soon.

Ack, we’re green . . . that means it will be a pick-up date as well.

Oh, for Pete’s sake, now Summer announces, “There’s a hole in my sock.” Think for yourself, Summer, go upstairs and grab one of Grandma’s.

My mother had a good day today – she attacked the dandelions with her long digger thing and then plopped them into a bucket with the extended grabber tool. She says she looks at them and thinks, “Take that!” before she delivers the death blow.

Oh, and Mrs. Feller has rhubarb so I will be cooking it up. The first time I saw rhubarb was when I would run out of the house and head up the path to the barn that ran along side the garden. I think it scared me; my dad probably had told me it was poisonous. I also thought I didn’t like it for eating; I know I got this in my head because I thought rhubarb was an ugly name.

Then over a decade ago my mother made what we came to call rhubarb pudding pie and I discovered I loved rhubarb. Mother has the rhubarb growing in Amish horses –t, which is what is recommended, although it doesn’t have to be Amish.

Now I find out Mrs. Feller has it in the corner of the fence across the way. Woo hoo. Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb. Oops . . . don’t mind me. It’s probably some effect of the hair dye.

My granddaughter –  a sixth grader is charged with constructing a vehicle that will run at least five meters (I am definitely still a yard and inch person.) on the thrust provided by two nine-inch balloons. I claim heroine status: I got the wheel problem solved while she was in the throes of despair and agony and letting me know all about it.

She had the balloon part producing but now something isn’t working right. I have made some suggestions but she shrugs them off. You can’t tell her anything. That is what my father once said to me, “Nobody could ever tell you anything.” I’m sorry, Daddy; I was such a jerk.

Well, here I go . . . into the fray.