It is windy out and I so wanted to be at Mother’s with a good kite. Since we have beaten up our kites in the last few weeks, I decided to get a couple of new ones and some strong string. Well, guess what? Yes. You are right. No kites for sale in town. Der Bingle is trailing along, telling me I can probably get some nifty ones at Amazon.com. Yes, I know. But I’m thinking now, as AmeliaJake wants it now.

We checked in Rural King, thinking perhaps rugged farm kids would still be flying kites. No. Or maybe they make them themselves. So I guess I will be looking at Amazon. com, which Summer used to think was Amazing.com. Actually it is a new-fangled Sears & Roebuck catalogue, now that I think of it.

Two photos – the top one by Alison, Cameron’s mother and co-conspirator; the second by, as the Irish would say, Himself.

INDIVIDUAL PACKAGES??? FOR LUNCH BOXES??? AUUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHH!

Cameron’s little food pyramid plus the Wide Obelisk of Intensity.

Long title of the post, but today I had my hair done and

colored at Scizzor Worx. She me above? Yes, that is really me, AmeliaJake.

Donna (See Below)

Ah, where was I? Oh, yes, Donna (See Above) cut it and colored it for me.

And while we were talking about school and people at my house – especially the girl – who is getting ready for the first day, she mentioned they are having a back-to-school sale on haircuts.

This is great because I know a girl in junior high or high school doesn’t want to look uncool when opening day comes. I have fine and really straight hair and Donna did this with it. Gives me a confidence, dontcha know? Makes a believer out of you, no?

I’m thinking “Hey, where was she when I was in school?” Well, okay, I guess she was in grade school; but lucky for today’s kids she grew up and has a shop. She’s not the only one at Scizzor Worx who can bring out the best on your head, either. They have a site on Facebook – Scizzor Worx – and you can meet the stylists and view all sales.

School may try to put the best in your head, but like I said, Scizzor Worx can put the best on it.

FYI: No scissors have been endangered by being part of Scizzor Worx.

My cow bag and my tipping cow T-shirt have arrived. Perhaps I should have used the word “tote” instead of “bag”.  Or I could have gone back and changed it, but ever now  and then, I forget the new technology in my hands and flash back to the days of typewriters and no delete key. Anyway, I think if I were to wear the shirt and tote the tote, I would give most people the idea of an overweight Maxine-type.

Oh my gosh, earlier today Der Bingle was waiting out a rain drenching in the front part of Rural King and he called to tell me how glad he was not to be in a car with soaked dogs.  He, Summer and Cameron took the dogs to the fairgrounds just a wee bit ago and guess what? Get ready. The sky opened up and is smacking the earth with water. I don’t think I can truly call it rain – it looks like a waterfall out there.

If they get drenched, they will have to change clothes because all but me are going to Auburn to watch movies. Colin, Summer, the dad and the mom are going to Marmaduke; Der Bingle is accompanying Cameron to a horror flick. I’m kind of under the weather – that is, is the bathroom – and I guess Summer only agreed to go if Der Bingle would sit through the Splice film with Cameron.

A rare moment in my life – I slept for 30 minutes while my alarm clock was doing its horrible sound. You know the sound, the one that makes you leap over the bed and lunge at the clock to turn it off before you go mad. So I was running a little later than I preferred, but I did get the cooler, the flowers, the bag of AmeliaJake necessities and myself in the car and headed out of the driveway. It was at this point I called the house to tell Robert to bring up the trash cans and position them at the driver’s rear side of the diesel so no one would back into it . . . before it makes another trip to Middlebury to see what is wrong with the power steering.

I listened to FOUR songs on my ipod on the way down. One song over and over and then another over and over . . . and so on. I’m a little funny that way; I like to get a song that fits my mood and just let it play. On the way back, I think I listened to THREE songs. Nobody to talk to me, ask questions – just me and my songs. (Odd thing about it is I can never really memorize the lyrics this way.) I used earphones, though, so that I wouldn’t disturb the geraniums. It was a pretty large pot and it might have overpowered me if the song was annoying to flowers.

On the way down, at the very beginning of the trip, I started to feel sad and decided the best thing was to wait until I got to the cemetery to cry. Well, I got there; I put the geraniums out; I took some pictures; I looked at the stone. I sort of felt numb and after a short while said, “Daddy, it’s hot out here.” No thoughts came to my mind; no choking sobs . . . so I got in the car and pulled away, but I circled back, got out and kissed the stone and said, “I love you, Daddy.”

Then I found my  way over to Glenda’s and we talked for a couple of hours and I started home. That’s when I got the idea to go through Covington and just go a wee bit down River Road for the heck of it. It is a narrow road that borders the flood plain, all woodsy and no real place to turn around. So I just went on, all the way to 32 and then followed that road/trail’s twists and turns back to Highway 41.

The diagonal trip across Indiana on secondary roads revealed a spectrum of green and rolling hills and I, guess, the heartland of my home. When I pulled off into Peru to get gas, I got turned around and spent about 10 miles on the road with no name; however, the direction of the shadows led me back to my main route.

Just before I got home, just as I turned onto Diamond Street, I felt an overwhelming of tears. So the sad at the cemetery plan was a bust. I sucked it up and got home as dusk turned to night.

According to the computer, I have eight minutes until another episode of Breaking Bad begins. I got hooked on it a couple of years ago and now we must be coming up on the end of the third season. I think it alternates with Mad Men, which is another soap opera type of show on AMC.  I am a fan of a show in which the plot involves a cancer victim who got cheated out of a Nobel Prize becoming a producer of meth through a chance encounter with a former student. One thing leads to another and so far the event that has grossed out Der Bingle the most is the head mounted on a booby trapped tortoise.

I have a legal pad and I have determined it is time to put down on paper not things to do, but what Grandma (AKA AmeliaJake)* has done each day. Then I believe I should  put said paper on the front of the refrigerator with a magnet for all to see and feel shamed. Well . . . probably the part about ‘them’ being shamed is unrealistic, but for a moment before they reach their snack my 61-year-old exertions will be IN THEIR FACES.

Last night I told Summer I had the hot water heater making hot water, but I didn’t know for how long. I told her it would be a good idea for her to shower. This morning her mother asked her if she had and she said yes. Alison told me this on the way to work. When I got home Summer was getting ready to take a shower; she interrupted my obvious question with an admission that she lied to her mother and instructions not to tell her.

The water was cold. It was her own fault and she knew it, so the fact that she told me it was cold is the equivalent (for Summer) of acknowledging that she was WRONG and UNWISE. I had thought she might have launched into a fit that I should have known her personality and just figured I would have to re-light the pilot light an hour before she got up. Remember, this is the girl who at age five accused me and her great-grandmother of having a remote switch that was causing the two-wheeler she was trying to learn to ride to tip over.

* (AKA AJ) just looked too weird and too much like an organization that needed to be monitored.