Ah, yesterday I wrote about stacking and mowing and painting  – a change from my recent days of dudding on the sofa or in a chair somewhere with my feet propped up. Last night I noticed I was a little  . . . okay, STIFF. Stiff in the feet, the ankles, knees and hips. I was also achy in some of my larger muscles – just visualize someone stretching their legs out and moving their feet up and down to somehow work the kinks out of the butt apparatus.

I was in marching band when you had to raise your knees so your thighs were parallel to the ground – none of this little walking/shuffling along. (I’m not going to apologize; bands just don’t high step the way we did way back then.) Doing that today and coming off the field would be problematic – I imagine the EMS would be called about 20 seconds after the loudspeaker boomed: Preeeeeesenting: The 1965 XXXX High School Marching Band.

I have a vague memory of Memorial Day Parades: The road past the cemetery was left in bricks and I think when we “hit the bricks” the drums were to go to rims and the rest of us were to assume a lower step. Looking forward to the bricks sticks in my mind.

What I do not remember after any Friday at school followed by practice and then showing up for the pre-game and half-time show was being the least bit stiff and sore on Saturday. I guess it’s better than being a complete stiff, as Mr. Capone would say.

Today, I cooked a roast, made macaroni and cheese, painted more of the fence, mowed the back yard, mulching dry leaves as I went and started moving the second woodpile. With the exception of the first two things, every activity was accompanied by wubba-throwing. Hey, I was a Dude. Oh, yeah, I also got gas in the car . . . while covered in fence paint and peppered with shredded leaves. See, I knew a Dude like me could carry it off, and I even remembered to put the gas cap back on.

I had nightmares last night; they slid one into another in a disjointed manner, sometimes looping back to cross over each other. They were very involved.

This is just a snippit from one of them:

Man lying with a heavy medical plastic mask over his face on a bed that transformed into a ledge along a sidewalk :

No, I didn’t get burned; this isn’t burns. I was having my fourth heart transplant when gang members came into the operating room and my mom had to keep me under the anesthesia so long that my face swelled up so much   . . .

You don’t want to read anymore.

So far I have dudded today. Just sat around looking at this, looking at that, sticking my head in the refrigerator and dudding. Nothing has been accomplished. Oh, I did feed the dog, although I just earned a demerit for referring to Wonderful, Marvelous, and Dashing Shane as the dog. He did have his doggie food mixed with Laura Lean meat, however, with a garnish of shredded cheese.

I am not going to feel bad about dudding.  I need to save my energy so I can fight off the urge to do something with this hair. I don’t mind the greyness so much; it is the fact it is limp, thin and straight. If I get it cut, it will be limp, thin, straight and do a good imitation of looking like a 1950’s swim cap. It does respond well to a curling iron, but one hint of humidity and it’s just flat on my head again. I know this is a small thing in life, but you know how little things sometimes feel soooo big. Maybe a wig, or not. Hats are good.

I think it’s time for an AmeliaJake experiment – Oh, say, a stocking hat with personality or a beret. Maybe a loosely knit stocking hat with little tufts of something attached. I don’t think I can do sequins. Maybe a loosely knit loose fitting modified stocking hat that you can see through to the hair but can be an anchor for a stylish pin .  .  . or post-it notes.

I’m going out this afternoon for a visit and I feel like I want to wear something smart, something with pizazz. I do not want to look dudding, although I am happy being so today.

Dud Dud Dud Dud Dud Dud Dud Dud Dud Dud Dud Dud  Dud Dud  – Dudding along with Dud Dud. Has a kind of rhythm to it, dontcha think.

So what, AmeliaJake, are you going to wear to day? What can you ferret out of your pile of duds. Oh, my, that was unintentional, but I think it was meant to be. I must scurry around and shower and put on some perfume and find something snazzy . . . because I WANT TO. That seems like a damn good reason to me.

You know it’s coming, don’t you? Actually, I didn’t until just a minute ago. Well, here it is: See ya later, Dude.

That title should be all caps, otherwise it looks as if it was a fizzle. So KABOOM. The medicine prescribed for my stubborn UTI starts with NITRO. As I emailed LZP on this his birthday, I believe my doctor may be planning on blowing up my bladder. I just took the first pill, so if there are side effects, nighttime is a better time to deal with it. With a name like this one, the side effects may be a real blast. HO! There’s a side effect right there: ridiculously forced puns. Or do I do that anyway? Side effect #2: memory loss.

I have been cheerful today, angry, hurried, frustrated and pissed off. That is not a Robert Grismore approved phrase, but there it is – the degree of my anger and frustration is PISSED OFF. Perhaps I am frustrated because I cannot just hit people with pieces of firewood and get away with it.

Today is Trash Stomping Day. Has anyone said anything about it? No. They take these stomping feet for granted. I just realized I’ve kind of been exploding all over and now, now my bladder is on the bomb squad list. It has to be kismet.

Rats!!! I still have a UTI and am now waiting for a prescription to be called in.  Nothing like peeing in a cup and putting it in a double-doored cubby in a wall. I imagine the staff use that cubby for little pranks when the office is closed.  Or maybe they are dull people and the little cubby just sits there,  unfulfilled  as a prop in childish trick humor.

Summer is talking about her paper on The Brave New World. Ah, been there, done that.

I’m up at three this morning; I probably will go back down in a little while. Right now, I’m afraid I might dream about the refrigerator being out in the yard, with pieces falling off of it. It was a struggle waking up from that dream to start with and I’m taking a breather.

Oh, my gosh, I just remembered another aspect of this dream. When I came running into the house to get help to bring the refrigerator in, I discovered the washer had shaken all its outer walls off and and  was steaming. I didn’t need to recall that, especially with people being okay with it. I mean, you’re standing there in amazement, yelling, “The washer has no walls!” and oh, hum, here comes someone with a load of clothes.

I need to think of something else before, alas, what more memories of dreams may come?

Great, I have Thinker’s Block. But now, fortunately, a picture of the block of stone of The Thinker has popped into my mind. My mind may take some strange paths but right now, this is  better than the Tennessee Williams appliance stuff.

Ah, but there’s not too much you can think about The Thinker at this hour. I need something more engrossing; perhaps I should read a little . . .

Kathryn Feller’s younger son died on Sunday; I am getting ready to just sit with her today, almost ready to leave. But I have to write something first, in case a meteorite hits me or a gigantic semi.

I saw deep and honest pain etched on someone’s face today – pain that I am partially responsible for its being there. He said someone didn’t have to go to so much trouble to help him because he had gotten himself in the mess.

Having an idea that intense stress hormones are not real great on developing cells and that less than enthusiastic interaction during the first meeting of the world, alone with one other person is indoubtably

I saw a Bible reference yesterday; this one:

Philippians 4:8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

And, in the back of my mind, I think about it off and on. It is not the first time I have seen it, and this is not the first time I have stumbled around it. I think one of the earlier times I dealt with it was when some bright young people said they would not work for companies that dealt with certain not so lovely things. Well, human nature being what it is, ugly things are out there that need managing, maybe involve choosing the lesser of two evils, to be quite blunt about it. Who is going to handle those decisions if nice, smart people turn away. That lesser of two evils thing is not unlike fairness in the real world. It may not be perfect, but at least someone tried to do the best by everyone.

This general idea came to mind again when a high school counselor recommended a school and said it was the first to have a Peace Program. That’s fine, but are those students in that major more moral than the graduates of West Point?

What I’m getting at here, and it’s a long way around my barn, is I think we all should look for the best, but keep our eyes open to seeing what else exists. Chances out we can’t do much about it and fretting about the world defeats the purpose of actually living your life. Still, a compartmentalized awareness I think is important.

Somehow, after thinking about this, I went to look up some fact about Bing Crosby and Christmas songs and happened on John Wayne and something he said. I was going to paraphrase it, but kept deleting, so I sighed and went back and found something I could rip off with copy and paste:

Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learnt something from yesterday

I think he’s talking about not looking for trouble but to recognize what may come. Actually, that’s too simple a summation, but monologues can only go on so long, and I imagine this one has hit that line.

Well . . . I don’t know. I thought I was here; I thought I wrote this post about whatever; but, now that I look back, I believe I may have written a great post in my head while I was stacking wood. Sigh, I guess that’s the world’s lost.

I have wood stacked mostly everywhere and the mostly is about to be filled because ANOTHER LOAD IS COMING! I need a woodshed. You know, I think I have not truly appreciated the meaning of woodshed – even though it is staring at me in plain English; I always kept it in mind as a place to take a kid behind.

And I’ve been thinking a lot about someone I don’t see very often anymore – so maybe it’s a good thing another load is coming because you get a lot of time by yourself when you’re stacking wood. And if your throat gets tight and your breath kind of ragged for a bit or so, the slow pace of toting a log from one spot to can accommodate it.