It warmed up enough that I could get out and start putting mulch here and there – one bucketful at a time. I discovered that under the top layer, the mulch pile was frozen. Getting at it was like scraping frost off an old freezer – or one which  has not be closed correctly. After a while, I decided enough; I came in and started a wash. Of course, the dryer is kaput, but never mind, a new one is coming.

Actually, I had better mind, because the laundry room is a nightmare to maneuver appliances in and out of. When the washer came, I requested strong, agile, innovative thinking young men. They got it done. Please, let tomorrow go well.

Then I sat down and an ad popped up somewhere on the browser page about hand-crafted bracelets with whatever words you wanted on them from VERMONT. You know what Vermont is, don’t you? Yes, it’s Ethan Allen and The Green Mountain Boys. Back in the 50’s, this was big, fun stuff in school – almost like Robin Hood.

Vermont: the battle at Bennington and the Don’t Tread on Me flag.

But do I need a bracelet with words from some poem or Churchill on it. No, hey I’ve got a wrist and a magic marker.

It snowed on my mulch and the mulch by the car froze on it. I suppose that sets the tone for this summer, which is looking like a shaggy landscape  by a little known company: Old Lady is Me Landscaping. I should put the words on separate little signs so pedestrians can read them one after the other just like the old Burma Shave signs on the highway. Right there is evidence I am an old lady. Good Heavens, I remember reading them while standing on the hump on the floor of the back seat in an old sedan.

I have here in Kendallville a postage stamp yard, but you know, it feels bigger when measured in bending and picking up twigs and chores that use other muscles.  You have to sigh; I mean you pick up a stick and then what do you do? Stand there and hold it? No, you have to take it to a pile and then go out for more. I wish someone would invent a wood magnet. Oh, I didn’t think that through. A tree would no doubt fall on me.

I got desperate and called for a pile of mulch; it is just too much hassle to pack up bag after bag of mulch, or so I thought. Now I have a pretty big pile of mulch and I stuck a shovel in it. I have a feeling it is going to be me, the shovel and my wheelbarrow dealing with this mulch. Too bad you can’t train ants to pick up a piece on their hard-working little bags and take it to a designated spot. I mean if they are going to call them Army ants, lets get some work out of them. It would probably be better than digging latrines.

I was sitting here with my Kindle, thinking that I had not posted anything for a while and that  maybe I needed a sign to let me know if I should. It thundered. Really. So I suppose I should take off my tinfoil hat and take my chances with Alien transmissions while it is lightning.

I am trying to decide what sort of hat I should wear to guard against weird political transmissions from crazy candidates. You know, somewhere I have the cow hat that I used to wear to cheer up Mrs. Feller at the nursing home. Actually, I don’t know if I cheered her up; it may have been that I got her mind off the monotony of the place as she explained to other residents that her friend AmeliaJake was “special.” I hope I wasn’t too much of an embarrassment to her.

Suddenly, I am thinking Moose hat. I don’t know why. The idea just popped into my head . . . of my gosh, is it an Alien transmission? Disguise myself as a moose and just wander onto to secret installations? But, still, I am intrigued by the idea of a Moose hat. (Not the social club ones – but one with real antlers and fuzzy fur.)

There is a remark that people make when they encounter some situation that gets in the way like a rock: It is was it is, they say and sigh. Well, of course it is what it is . . . for now; the question is what are you going to do about it. Sometimes you have to study it, think about it. and maybe if this “is” is always going to be this “is”, then how are you going to negate it or, just possibly, use it to your advantage.

You have to keep your head, think it through and remember a poetic line from John Dryden I’ve quoted before:

“I am sore wounded but not slain
I will lay me down and bleed a while
And then rise up to fight again”

It comes down to character; it always has.

I suppose the above popular attitude advice has exceptions: a frozen turkey falling out of the top shelf of the freezer and doing serious damage to your small pet – things like that. However, I am tempted to say that yesterday was in its own right  a terrible day, just  really terrible. I don’t think I deserve all the blame for being miserable – this is a variation on “I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

But, come to think of it, there was no major disaster yesterday and I am not sitting here with a broken bone or concussed brain. I could have sucked it up, to use a phrase I don’t like to hear, but sometimes find coming vehemently out of my mouth, and put on a happy face. I didn’t do that and I am trying to convince myself that not meeting my pouting quota for the day would have had unfortunate results. I haven’t figured out what those might have been, but give me time – I’m good at rationalization.

Now today it is not even light yet and I am thinking of John Wayne’s remark about tomorrow: paraphrased, it is that tomorrow comes at you fresh and hopes that you have learned something from yesterday.

The thing about emotions, however, is sometimes you could just benefit from that turkey falling on your foot and tears pouring out, carrying stress hormones with them. I think I’ll start with a small package of frozen peas and I expect I will find it is not a good idea. Maybe if I threw the peas? Oh, dear, that is not a positive thought. I imagine if they had posters that highlighted cranky, negative thoughts, I could make some money thinking them up.

I may or may not write about what attitude I decided to apply to this day. I mean, it could turn out to be a confession that would look bad in court at my trial. I will say this, however: the John Wayne quote is a having quite a time contending with the one by Alice Roosevelt Longworth about being so mad she could grind her teeth into powder and blow it out her nose. Well, that would give me something to snort. (See previous post.)

My nose keeps clogging up with what I have started calling “snot clots” because I am forgetting that choice of words says a lot about you. My father would be shaking his head; one does not have to say “snot.” (And I still feel the period should be outside the quotation mark, but the rules are changing . . . or something.)

But back to my snout, and to say snout is a humorous way of indicating your nose; it is not the same relationship as snot and mucous. My younger son has had sinus surgery and several sinus problems. I was telling him about my difficulty with my nasal passages and he told me his “snout doctor’s nurse” advised him that people should not block one nostril and try to blow out the other. They should, instead, give short snorts.

Thinking about it makes your face crinkle up in laughter and I think the facial muscular activity puts pressure on sinus cavities and helps them drain. I doubt that is correct, but if it works, it works. It is so hard to go “snort, snort, snort” without starting to laugh.

Maybe it is what I should do, however; I have been pigging out in the kitchen. It could be this is how people turn into werewolves – one step at a time.

SNORT . . . SNORT . . . OINK . . . SNORT

I know- and odd sort of post title. However, I imagine I have come within a couple of miles of these lakes often in the years since I was born: going  to Gene Stratton-Porter, going to Fort Wayne, going between here and my mother’s Lagrange House, going to North Ridge Nursing Home.  Actually, whenever I have been on Highway 6, just west of Kendallville, I’ve been so close.

I did not know they were there; I think that may have something to do with them being fishing lakes and I don’t fish. But I have seen a couple of signs lately, and thought, “Huh?” I think they are fairly small, but I’m going to have to go look. I’m just curious. I’ve passed between Twin Lakes more times than I can count, going past Aldrich Lake almost every day I went to high school and having my hair washed in Stone Lake when I was a wee girl and I vaguely remember there was something special about the water. Of course, that would have been about 1951 and most places were still small town America. (I do know that my cousin would drive her old Willy’s with her friends over to the lake to swim when she was in high school. It was war surplus I think and her dad wouldn’t let her take it to college because he said it was “no car for a girl.” Turns out there was a man who wanted to buy it.  I can still see her sitting at our dining table at Mother’s remembering that time and saying of her father’s remark: That was a big, fat lie.)  And, I forgot to mention Sylvan Lake, which was a stream dammed for a reservoir for a canal.

Oh, where I was heading was to comment that after all that lake passing, here are two I did not know about. I’m going to have to do some research and see a comparison in size between Twin Lakes and Hall and Beck Lakes. Then I’ll drive down and look because, hey, I always wanted to travel. Sorry, silly remark; it just popped out.

I see from the map there is a Bunea Vista Road by one of the lakes. Maybe that explains it. Perhaps it wasn’t here earlier; maybe it’s a Mexican lake that migrated up here. I think that was also a silly remark. I’m going to have to work on control here.

I have all these chores that I have to do and I used to think about them and then decide to post something here; that got to be obvious. I tried pushing both topics out of my mind, but that left me with a garage that was getting dirtier and no place to moan about it. It could be dangerous – the inner moan could expand and expand and I would explode and then there would be more to clean up. Of course, I guess someone else would be doing it, though, and making all sorts of CSI jokes.

I once wasn’t paying attention and put an Alka-Seltzer in my mouth instead of dropping it in a glass. That got my attention and I was grateful it was too big to pop in my mouth and immediately swallow. It would be an interesting experiment, though; probably frowned on by people in uniforms with radios on their shoulders and light bars on their cars.

I wonder if I were riding in the back of a police car if I would look out the window, smile slightly and give the royal wave.

I decided to look at something on YouTube and wound up watching most of a documentary about Richard Burton. I am now feeling not only lackluster, but just plain lacking. However,  I have no beer to cry in and that works out well since it is no use crying over spilt milk. Even I am shaking my head at that last sentence.

I learned many things that I did not have the slightest idea about concerning Mr. Burton. I also found out that Robert Hardy who played the older veterinarian on All the Things Great and Small was in a class at Oxford with him when they were both starting out. To be more accurate, although it was a program at Oxford, it was something special that also involved the RAF and Burton’s training as a navigator. I’m obviously confused about what I heard, so I will look it up later. However, the fact remains that My Dear Siegfreid and Richard Burton were beginners together.

There were 13 children in the Burton (which was actually Jenkins) family, 11 of whom survived infancy. Richard was next to the last and was two when he mother died following the birth of his younger brother.  He was raised by a sister and her husband and some of his siblings were interviewed in the documentary.

The alarm to remind me of a task is soon to go off and I’ll just go off myself here.