I half-tripped over a pillow that had fallen off the love seat tonight and immediately thought, “Oh, wow, I’m lucky I didn’t  plant my knee on the floor again.” Then I sat down, stretched out my legs and started to work a Sudoku . . . but I felt a little pressure and then a little pressing pain that had a throbbing aspect to it. I looked down at my knee and it was swelling a little on top again. It stopped, though, before it reached the baseball appendage size it did last Friday.  I think I tugged a little on the blood vessel that I ruptured in my bursa sac (doesn’t that sound cool) when I took the BIG SMACK and it leaked a bit.

But I needed comfort, so I went into the kitchen and put a half of a foldover in my mouth and a baggie of ice on my knee. It might have been a half a foldover, but I was liberal with the peanut butter and it has lingered. Back on the sofa, I can still taste it on my teeth and it is not unlike the comforting effect of a thumb in my mouth and the satin edge (the feeler) of a blanket in my hand.

It occurred to me that I could duct tape Raggedy Ann volunteers to my kneecaps . . . but I think it’s best just to let that idea go unheeded.

I overheard someone speaking of Thanksgiving this year being right on the heels of December, and so this morning I checked. Yes, this year we have a late Thanksgiving, which means the merchants will have a late Black Friday. It occurs to me that there may be a lobby develop to change the law so that Thanksgiving is not the fourth Thursday in November, but so many Thursdays prior to Christmas.

I imagine retailers are busy trying to arrange to have pre-Black Friday sales without taking all the bang out of this newly sprung tradition.  I imagine, though, for the young, athletic set, it will remain a festive time of lining up in the cold, camping out, arranging football like pass plays of items to people stationed at cash registers and so forth. Actually, I can see people my age coordinating teams of “foot men” out in stores, texting in code, maybe hacking into surveillance cameras to monitor progress. Maybe you could have one person dress up as a BIG store security person who assists your team members.

I know . . . an action movie of Black Friday Shopping, not unlike The Italian Job.

Well, at least I have something to keep my mind busy today.

Trash Day. Wednesday is Trash Day. It is actually Trash Stomping Day because the truck comes around early on Thursday. AND IF THE TRASH IS NOT STOMPED AND TAKEN OUT BY WEDNESDAY NIGHT, THERE IS

PANIC.

So, we try to avoid that by constantly reminding each other when Wednesday comes around that it is Trash Day. Sometimes Monday is a legal holiday and Trash Day is delayed, but usually we forget and then have to drag it back in for another day. There have been times we have remembered the holiday will push everything back, but then we have forgotten to remember that Thursday is the temporary Trash Stomping Day and on Friday morning we

CURSE AND PANIC.

I used to live in the same neighborhood as John Boehner and went to one of his very first “meet voters in local homes” in the entry level of his campaign. I read about him today. He’s in Washington, all famous and everything . . . and I’m just here, stomping trash. Oh, wait a minute.

I did not realize that the last thing I did here was play around on Photo Booth and then skedaddle- and that it was a couple of days ago. But to where did I skedaddle? Gee, it beats me; I have no memory of doing anything. Perhaps, like Aaron in Primal Fear, I “lost time”. I think it more likely I just mundaned my way through a couple of days. And that doesn’t seem to be a bad plan for today since I am still coughing up gunk and finding afghans all comfy and inviting. Oh, and on a crisp morning, there’s nothing like a little radiant heat on your feet to just bring on The Big Cozy.

Holy Moses, there’s grey paint on my frames! Did any get on the fence?

I have a big, brick-like  Otter Box in which I keep my sleek iphone. I have talked about it before. This morning one reason I invested in it and its devilishly good-looks made itself apparent. I was drinking  something with ice in it and I got more ice, carried it in my own little hand, and let it slip into the glass, replenishing the source of coolness to my morning caffeine cure. Only, when it slipped into the glass, one curvy little piece, which can’t really be called a cube – did not go into the glass and I did not see it land elsewhere. I was in the dark, and although the ice was thick, I was soon going to be on the thin kind. (Am I driving you up the wall yet with my inane remarks this morning? Never mind. I don’t want to know.)

I left the room and came back; I saw a pool of melting ice water on my phone; I conquered my fear because said phone was in it’s Otter Box. And, on a humble note to the powers that be . . .  Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

In my mind, I can hear some TV talk show house – because I often hear him in real life since by daughter-in-law likes that man I find annoying, Dr. Phil. (He’s not in the same category as Joe Biden, who, I believe, will anytime start actually foaming at the mouth and avoiding water.) I can hear that annoying man asking a question in his cloying accent, not to mention the phrasing of a man who feels “I know better than anyone else how to do/handle/rectify/ ameliorate/ eliminate anything.”

Oh, am I meandering again, distracted by petty emotions? I’ll bet I am. So, on with it. I hear Dr. Phil ask, “And who stayed up very, very late because they were trying to figure something out that is totally not necessary, consequential, or even relevant to your life and is now really sleepy and groggy?”

Oh, Phil, old boy, this time, you hit the nail on the head. I know, you’re so gosh darn good at everything.

I was lying with my eyes closed last night at about 11, after having read for an hour or so, when I happened to remember my mother and my aunt sitting at the dinner table discussing something that had popped up earlier in casual conversation. One of them had referred to some small town soap opera drama that started  before either of them had been born – and, realize my aunt was then in her late 80’s.

My ears had perked up at some implied information that didn’t make sense and I started asking questions. It was the wrong thing to do because, like  math teachers who can’t just tell you the answer, they got involved in getting all the “steps of the proof” in order. And what those steps involved was about four generations of people being related to people they thought they weren’t – but everyone of a certain age knew they were. Those people had names, sometimes they shared the same name and they weaved around and it was inevitable that Mother and my aunt would digress into getting a link just right.

It finally came to the point that Mother got a piece of paper and started making a diagram that went back and forth and doubled back on itself. Somewhere along the line, one of the participants committed suicide, but his reasoning for doing so had nothing to do with “The Secret.” After much discussion, they had it straight and I had followed this trail of, by then, mostly dead people.

Then, last night, as I said, I remembered the lazy afternoon. Only I couldn’t exactly remember it. And then I realized with the online census history and other tools, I could jog my memory. Well . . . yes, but, you know, those census takers weren’t uniformly competent. But I did manage to get most of the characters lined up, but they were floating around, not neatly sitting on a shelf in my mind. And some much history does not contain those incredibly important little tidbits of information just dropped in conversation here and there.

Try as I might, I could not make things fit together – as they neatly had on Mother’s diagram. I was about settled into sleep when I my eyes snapped open and I knew REAL LOUD in my mind that it was Sidney who had committed suicide. This felt like a breakthrough, but it was not at all, although adrenalin had been produced by my body.

I sit here this morning, hungover after a night of puzzle-working with no completed picture to show for it. How, just a few hours ago, could I have been so vigorously alert and ready for Indiana Jones discoveries? Gosh, I guess one of the snakes bit me.

I have been looking at gray, but not 50 shades of them. I did consider painting the fence in various intensities of that color. (See the typing extra work I will go to to keep from repeating a phrase, and actually, I didn’t say 50 shades of gray . . . until now) Well, anyway, I wondered about creating an optical illusion, maybe an at random optical illusion. But I did not follow through on the idea; I just kept painting through three gallons of paint and have to break open a fourth to do the last bits and the cover up your mistakes section.

Come to think of it, I could buy some small cans of grey of varying shades and add paint in various spots against my background of prosaically-named  “Light Gray”. I believe I’m spelling grey in two different ways – just caught that . . . wonder how long I’ve been doing it and am resisting the urge to look it up.

As you can probably tell, I am in a blah mood tonight. Blah, blah and blah. Wonder if it is terminal

I am often entertained and informed by HGTV. But this morning, I clicked on a link about The Most Embarrassing Kitchen in America. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was not a picture of a clean kitchen with GASP outdated counters, cabinets and . . . Heaven Forbid . . . Rooster wallpaper.

Why do people feel they have to have the trendiest appliances, paint colors, counters, cabinets and flooring? Yes, it is nice if you can afford to make changes based on taste every now and then, but why do people think what they liked ten years ago is hideous today, except for the reason some designer tells them so.

My parents bought a refrigerator the year I was born and they used it until I was about 45. And then it became a backup fridge. The kitchen in LaGrange County has always had a big, heavy solid wood door and built in cabinets with beadboard doors. The counters have . . . wait for it . . . stainless steel bands going around the edge so the Formica is held in place. The wood burning Franklin stove is there putting out the wood scent that has welcomed people for over a century.

We ate well in the kitchen; we did not go hungry. We had to open doors under the sink in winter to add a little more warmth to the pipes at night.

I am not particularly fond of the kitchen in the Kendallville house and if someone credible offered to redo the whole thing for me for free, I would say Okay, as long as I get to choose the overall general feel. I wouldn’t want to be bothered with lots of details as to drawer pulls and so forth.

I guess I should be embarrassed by my kitchen, but I’m not. Not that I wouldn’t like to have a 24/7 cook and cleaner.