It is Sunday morning and here I sit again in my little place here at the PBC&R Cafe. They didn’t exactly have to carry me out here, but I did pretty much make a bee-line to the spot, followed by mighty plop. We had our trip; Summer had her birthday; Grandpa made a special effort to arrange to spend half of the day at Kings Island with her; we parked really close; the park was not crowded; we stayed until closing; we got caught in a huge traffic construction jam and it took two hours for the 45 minute trip home to the Ohio Redoubt Apartment. Fortunately, the AF base and the Wright State University made it profitable for pizza places to be open and delivering after midnight; we retrieved Sydney from Mother’s; we had a cake with a frog picture on it.

Oh . . . and there is the tale of  “well, grandpa rode Diamondback and so grandma did and that led to the gma eventually hurling FIVE times on the white water canyon”  . . .

Later. I will get into details. With pictures.

When Glenda was here she mentioned the movie Julie & Julia and asked if I were going to see it. Well, I hadn’t heard of it, nor seen a preview. But just a few minutes ago, I did. There was Meryl Streep, accent and all and food, food, food and stoves and food accidents . . . and yes, I will be going to that movie.

Did I spell that correctly? That teetering word. It’s not one that I write too often. Well, okay, I am not getting a dashed redline heads-up so it is probably right. Actually, it’s starting to look okay to me now.

See, that’s the start of my day; I feel as if I am teetering on the top of a peak and could lean and go any way. Not that by saying “peak” I am implying that all possibilities are downhill. No, no. Leaning a certain way might actually land me on the raft of good humor. You guffawed, didn’t you? Or snorted? How is it you get the feeling that is probably not the prevailing wind of my personality? Oh, yeah, experience.

I am starting to get a hint of the day’s direction and it is the path of Chicken Little. That’s probably too extreme. Maybe it’s the “I never birthed no babies, Miss Scarlett” frenzy coming on.

Of course, there is the remote possibility that this might be the first teeter on a journey of assuming the determined and commanding demeanor of General George S. Patton . . . It would be easier, though, if I had a tank.

Blue . . . ACK, ACK. Der Bingle just put a Diet Coke in the cooler before leaving for the Ohio Redoubt after having loaded up with the cold ones that spent the night in ice . . . and it exploded. Right in his face. On his glasses.  We couldn’t type that fast so this isn’t really live blogging; it’s delay blogging and we did censor out one word.

As I was saying, blue skies are outside and the radar map shows the rain to the east. And now, I’ve forgotten what I was going to say. Okay, I’ll be back later.

Last night, having searched for most of the afternoon for the shut-off valve to the unisex bathroom on the first floor of the PBC&R, I threw caution to the wind and flipped the house shut-off main valve and started to change out the fill valve. When I reached underneath the tank to work with the locknut, the old, old pipe coming out of the floor, broke off.

Are you at this paragraph? It took me a while to get here. That sentence about the breaking triggered a recurrence of the stunned moment of realization I faced last night. I just can’t relive this moment by moment. My head down, I announced to lingering patrons what had happened and I called a plumber. Summer chimed in with “Good job, Grandma! How will my toad get water?” and then Sydney barked when the guy came.

I sat on a little step stool in the kitchen with Sydney beside me while he worked, sawing through ancient pipe and all that. Quentin called and I answered and he said, “Are you all right, Mom?” I told him what was going on and then had to hang up abruptly to answer plumbing questions.

Der Bingle called almost immediately after and I just said I’d call him back in a few minutes.  The plumber left shortly thereafter and I did call back . . . and told him. Then I called Quentin and got him up to date. He asked me if  this one of the things that we don’t tell anyone? That used to be just Grandma – Now, you know, we don’t need to mention this to Grandma – but, now, sometimes includes (cough, cough) his dad, Der Bingle. I told him it was okay, that I had already fessed up.

Oh, dear, do you suppose Der Bingle might wonder if there are other things he hasn’t been told? Well, no, no. Uh, Quentin and I have just had a few dry runs of being quiet about AmeliaJake antics. Yes, yes, that’s it: dry runs.

Anyway, the plumber did a quick fix for me and didn’t charge much at all, relatively speaking.