Yes, in reference to my post yesterday, today is the next day, but it is only starting – slowly.

People at the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse are not bustling around; they are tucked away in various corners sleeping off yesterday. I was away and I believe they played and told knock-knock jokes that left them gasping for breath between guffaws. You know, some of their oldies:

Knock-Knock

Who’s there?

Ann

Ann Who?

Ann the Dog.

I know . . . it’s not funny. That’s why it’s so funny. Maybe that is why; maybe it is because Summer was three at the time.  Oh, my sides, they ache from the laughing.

Did I just write that? Well, I guess it’s going to be one of THOSE days. Wocka-Wocka. Gosh, I miss Fozzy Bear.

UPDATE #1.

Augh, I thought “oh what the heck”  – just like that, no punctuation or anything – and flopped down and pulled a blanket over me and snoozed. So now I am having a second getting-up. Maybe I wouldn’t do this if I had a burlap blankie; however, burlap doesn’t come with satin feelers so I can’t bring myself to try it. Of course, we could sew a nice liner on the burlap and add a feeler . . . which somehow would defeat the purpose, but would no doubt be a conversation piece.

Even my cafe & roadhouse friends are up and about . . . maybe they are thinking of holding a smelling-salt foldover under my nose.

UPDATE #1.6

Well, I looked at the camera – didn’t have to get up to do it. I’m going to have to check the color setting and whatever – maybe we were taking pictures on the wrong focus choice, but anyway, here are four people from Der Bingle’s early birthday gathering.

Cameron with stuff in the background. I think he dieting and conditioning program are going well.

Colin and his mother.

And, of course, our dear Summer.

Got up and went to Indianapolis to take Colin back to Options.

Stopped by Keystone Mall to see the Apple store and Crate & Barrel.

Got off on an exit to go to Taco Bell. It was a road with roundabouts and we never managed to reach the eatery.

Went to another Taco Bell and scarffed a salad.

Plodded on home.

Sat down.

Got up and showered.

Sat down.

Got up and got dressed.

Went to Fort Wayne with Cameron and Alison for his appointment.

Stopped at a GoodWill.

Stopped at Speedway.

Got home.

Sat down. Have moved only when necessary.

Last night I woke up to what sounded like a dog breathing rapidly, urgently and in a near-death way. I steeled myself to face the situation and then realized the ceiling fan was making the sound. Sydney was sleeping peacefully right underneath it. Just one of those living in the moment episodes. Personally, I would have rather smelled roses.

Driving to Mother’s yesterday, I started thinking about nothing, literally. I think about it periodically; I can’t remember when I started, but I was little. I know I lack the mental ability to get to the bottom of this nothingness question, but it fascinates me anyway.

It’s a nothing/space question, really. Like what is at the end of the universe? Nothing. Well, how long does this “nothing” stretch and when it ends, what is there? Nothing. Or the old you circle back in a dimension you don’t know about and can’t understand to where you started answer. Well, a circle or let’s be liberal, a globe, has an inside and outside, so what is outside my circle path? I suppose it is some form of nothing.

We’re blending into forever here . . . as in what happens when the time’s up in forever? I feel my brain when I delve into this area; I believe I can actually feel the little electric messages going back and forth in confusion and panicking. I haven’t heard them scream, YOU ARE TOO STUPID TO THINK ABOUT THIS yet, but it is only a matter of time. Or they don’t have enough function left to express that truth.

Of course, nothing is empty space. I guess you can make nothing by sucking everything out of a enclosed cube. But then you have “empty space” if you want to call it that. I suppose anything that can be defined is something, even if it is empty space.  So, when we get out way past the stuff in the universe, past every darn electron, mathematics still exist and I would think you could still have a defined cube with nothing in it.

What is after empty space? Nothing? Auuggggghhhhh.

Quite seriously, forget the “oh, they look like ants” mentality and think about how far away you can get on a straight line from where you are. And none of that “the straight line actually bends” crap; I am talking a theoretical straight line. Now if space curves, my theoretical straight line should part company with the galactic one, going off on a tangent, so to speak. Well, where does it go? Into nothing? And what is this nothing.

It happened, I have gone in a circle and am back where I started.

Rose, could you come over and rub my head?

You wonder why I have not been talking about the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse and its swinging and slamming screen door? It is because the denizens there got a feel for this summer’s temperatures and humidity and decided to turn on the air-conditioning and watch Netflix movies and DVD’s and Phil Harris’ four to five week passing away on The Deadliest Catch.

I asked them about the ambiance of the old time place with condensation on the outside of the drinking glasses and perspiration on your stomach under your shirt and they told me they were leaving nostalgia for late autumn, winter and early spring.

Then Foo asked me if I wanted her to prepare a cucumber foldover.

They are contagious. You may remember I got a small air-conditioner and stuck it in the little eating nook at Mother’s. Well, I got another one for the west room and Cameron and Summer and I installed it  – in our own haphazard way. The advantage of the west room is that it can be closed off from all other rooms. And there is a TV in there. Cool, huh?

Then we went out back and tried to fly a couple of kites Mother had purchased at GoodWill and which we found in the Club 70 little yellow getaway. (Mother had it erected just under a willow and my dad remarked she wouldn’t be so happy with it when a big ole limb came down. She didn’t think it would but one morning she got up and looked out and there was a green blob. She quietly went out to investigate and found the limb had missed the building by a fraction of an inch. Only then did she point it out to my dad.)

That was a long parenthetical wandering. I suppose I could have just included it formally in the paragraph, but it was just a memory that popped up so I let it sneak in.

There are a lot of things in that yellow shed and one thing I was going to bring back was a table . . . but it has many things stacked on it. That will be something for another day. The table is an old one – solid wood and heavier than anything. But it has short legs; Mother sawed them off because she wanted it to be the right height for puzzle working while sitting on a sofa. I don’t know what it would have gone for at an auction with four regular legs? But she needed a table with short legs.

It’s a drop-leaf and I’m bringing it home to put a computer on for now . . . in front of a sofa.

We also found a painted small circular saw and I sent Cameron to put it on the back porch. I forgot it so I guess I will head back this morning.

I’ll be leaving now. Seeya.

Summer has been having a few ha-ha’s at our expense; she says that the leaning cow was actually a cow that had hurt two feet on one side and was leaving to get help. Of course, she would be leaning to the hurt side, wouldn’t see? Or not? If she were leaving, she has come back, so it would have to be the leaving and returning cow; well, we are going to stick with the leaning cow. Besides she sometimes “leans” on us to do things – and she doesn’t stop with our getting hay and fixing the fence and sprucing up the meadow/pasture. No, she fancies herself a conscience. We don’t tell too many people that.

They might ask, “What does your conscience tell you?”

And we would have to say, “Moo.”

Yes, I went HERE yesterdeay. Well, my specific “HERE” is at  5825 Covington Road in Fort Wayne and I came away in one hour’s time with a new windshield. I can’t tell you how much I had been procrastinating about the windshield thing and then pop, the pebble indentation zoomed out three inches in one direction and a couple in the other. From the inside, it looked as if it were a quarter to six and from the outside, a quarter after.

Then he took another jump and another and I was in the position of replacement, not resin repair. i delayed a week with Der Bingle nagging me to get on the ball. Actually, he started out slow with the reminders, probably figuring he had a long road ahead. But, I, AmeliaJake, did something totally out of character – I actually researched it and made an online appointment and got the car in and got a new windshield.

Nothing to it with the Safelite people. The shop I went to was in the end of a strip mall and for a moment I panicked, thinking oh, my goodness, how can I have goofed up the directions so much – I must be losing more brain cells than I thought.

And, then, there it was- three or four big bay doors and an office next door. Lots of trucks around, getting ready to make runs to a specific address – YOU DON’T HAVE TO LEAVE YOUR HOME OR OFFICE. Of course, it is probably cheaper to go in-shop and I didn’t mind.

I peeled off the apartment parking sticker from Der Bingle’s complex, dropped off my keys and walked about 100 feet down the way to Fazoli’s where I decided to try the summer deal:

I was a wee bit worried at first since it was over 90 outside, but I caved and ordered  penne and meat sauce. Hey, it worked out okay; I ate slowly and each little coated penne tubelet greeted my tongue with a comforting taste. I also had iced tea with raspberry. See:

Munch and sip, munch and sip. I took a couple of bites of my bread sticks, but let it go at that in deference to the heat. Then I got a refill of tea, puttered around at my table and then headed back to Safelite. My car was ready in another ten minutes and I was on my way.

Then it rained.

Then I went to Mother’s and mowed.

Then everything got still and I thought “Oh my Gosh” and retreated to the porch. But it did not storm – at least not at Mother’s, although I heard thunder. So I came home in sunlight, which was better than the eerie vampire-like gloom when I thought it was going to storm.

Anyway, I used my storm-waiting time to read part of one of Mother’s books devoted to stories about the Titanic. Did you know that John Jacob Astor’s second wife was only 18 when they were married and that his first wife had signed a prenuptial agreement and only got $50,000 a year? Yes, I know that was 1912, but by gosh, they had been married 21 years and he had over 100 million. Of course, the divorce and remarriage cost him greatly in social circles and he had a hard time finding a minister who would marry them. But, then, I don’t think he much cared.

Now I have piqued my curiosity and will be looking some more Astor facts. Seeya.

* Aha, here’s a tidbit: Madeleine Astor

A liver enzyme came back quite elevated in Sydney’s blood work, although the pancreatic enzymes were okay. The liver one was in the 300’s and normal is about 128 at most, if I remember correctly. We are starting him on some medicine to help his liver and will be checking him again in two weeks. If he has not responded, then we will have some more testing.

The vet doesn’t think Sydney is in much pain, but we need to continue with the antibiotic and keep him out of the heat and try to keep him from doing a lot of things. Oldtimers – the ones before me – used to say when someone was irritable that their liver was acting up. A lot of truth in those observations.

I gave him the medicine to help his liver and he followed me into the kitchen where I reached for the blue bottle of his other medicine. Before I could turn around, he had made a u-turn and was trotting toward the den. Guess I’ll catch him a little later.

This is not a time for people to be yelling from room to room and snapping off sarcastic answers, because I think I just might haul off and punch them right in their noses . . . just a little subtle heads-up.