Years ago, telling a story about a woman in the area where my grandmother lived, my mother remarked about the former’s character. She didn’t tell a bunch of ancedotes about the woman’s character, although many people did; Mother simply remarked, “Let’s just say your grandmother never invited her to Sunday dinner.”
I witnessed the behavior of a woman like that today; when you see it in person, you truly understand my grandmother’s stance, no matter how many decades have passed from them to now.
While I was mowing Thursday, my daughter-in-law’s mother passed away in Cincinnati. It has been a hectic few days and today I took Alison down to Cincinnati for her mother’s funeral this coming Wednesday. There is not a lot to say at times like this, so I will leave people to their thoughts.
This is better than being behind the mower for five hours, pushing and manhandling it under bushes and such. It got a little bouncy on the rider – maybe because I was giving it a little too much gas. I do not have a farmer’s tan now; I have a rider mower’s little old lady tan – LL Bean shorts and mesh-vented shirt with roll-up sleeves and a hat with a mesh crown. I walked into Walmart that way and one old gent said, “I like your lid.” Catching sight of myself in the mirror, I could see it was beat up and the brim bent in an odd way. I try to smile when I look like this and hope people will think: Kook, but harmless.
With storms in the forecast, I went upstairs and started taking old wallpaper off some walls. Sometimes this is satisfying; other times, it just might cause one to exclaim to one’s one self: Holy Moses! What is this weird looking orange plaster? I probably scraped and peeled for about three hours and then I came down to get a snack and watch for the storms.
But, oh nevermind, now the weather people are saying we might get a stray light shower – and it feels like it is 93 out there. Upstairs I have walls that look like they belong in a tenement and downstairs I am sitting here pouting because I was expected the emotional release of thunder and lightning . . . and it’s just still and humid.
It’s like a greenhouse out there and that means the grass is growing and after dealing with the mutant grass from some scary sci-fi movie last week, I will have to do it all over again tomorrow or Friday – in Lagrange County for about five hours.
I’m glad I can do it; I’m not in a hospital bed or a chemo ward, but, rats . . . orange plaster and monster grass doesn’t seem like a party theme.
That’s what it says on weather.com. Right now the humidity is very high and it is predicted to be so after the storms, so I guess it will be a sticky day. I don’t feel like humidity today; I don’t really crave that “tough guy, I can take it” you get when the sweat is rolling down your body and your hair is soaking wet. That’s right – today I can’t take it.
I am going to sit in the air-conditioning and wonder why I am such a wimp this morning. I dare not nap, lest the ghosts of the Panama Canal diggers haunt my dreams.
I’ve been giving this some thought. I’ve watched HGTV and lots of shows about decorating – not because I like to decorate, but because I like to see the different ideas people have and how much personal taste influences how welcoming and comforting a space can be to a family – or with the wrong flooring, lighting and a hundred other things, how alienating a place can feel.
Hardwood or carpet . . . or tile?
Vertical blinds or lace curtains or no window coverings at all or voluminous draping masses of material?
What style of kitchen?
Oh, and Heaven help anyone who guesses what someone else would like for a wall covering.
Basement to work in? Basement to relax in? Basement to provide a space for jumping up and down full of energy kids?
That’s probably why custom homes are in all the magazines and why professionally decorated homes of the rich are in those same magazines. Of course, some people just want a roof over their heads that doesn’t leak; some people want to make a statement; most of us are like Goldilocks – we like things “Just right.” And that brings us back to architects and decorators and the expenditure of money.
But let’s say you can’t start from square one with an expensive architect and a completely blank drawing board, along with a fashionable decorator. So how can you make your own home out of a “used” house?
On the other hand, let’s say you have a “used” house – the one you are living in – and you are thinking, “How can I stage this house to attract buyers?” Yes, that word STAGE . . . Well, you can go neutral and then someone will want to change the color. Or you can go trendy and dramatic and a potential conservative buyer will think, if not outright exclaim, “Oh, Gawd!” It’s a guessing game.
It would be interesting if there were an eharmony for buying and selling – a business that facilitated changing one person’s house into another’s home.
Yesterday, July 26th, Der Bingle turned 67, with not as much enthusiasm as he had when he turned 16 and could drive; but still in good spirits since as he says, it’s so much better than the alternative. I did not write about it or send a blog Happy Birthday because I was afraid I would have a major punning spell and really that would have been so depressing for him.
So, one day late: Happy Birthday. See, still no puns, no limericks, no silly fonts. Gosh, I hope I don’t get his hopes up that it will last.
I have been walking my path around Kendallville for three years now and it dawned on me that once I had adapted to walking, I was simply using the same muscles over and over again. Now that’s good for my heart muscle, but my legs have lots of muscles and some of them were not being used. I noticed this especially when I was walking with the sun behind me and my shadow nice and clear in front of me. It was disconcerting to see the flesh on my inner thighs jiggle with every step and at first I thought, “I need to walk more.” – the “We need a bigger boat” Jaws signature line.
Thinking about it some more, I decided I needed to try different strides, having my little duck legs really stretch out. Right away, muscles that had been silent started yelling at me, threatening to burn and ache in the morning. It was effective blackmail – I walked with a longer stride intermittently, going back to my accustomed gait quite often.
I do look like a silent movie comedy scene when I stretch out my legs in steps geared to gulp up the sidewalk. I don’t think about that; it’s better that way. Of course, not thinking about it does not mean that other people are not watching me go past and thinking, “That lady ain’t quite right.” Once you realize that is happening, you figure, heck, you might as go whole hog.
I decided that it would work more muscles, including those at my waist, if I zig-zagged from one side of the sidewalk to the other with my legs, while keeping my upper body aimed straight down the middle. It turns out it has also helped strengthen my knees and ankles because I am altering the stress put on them. It also turned out that I appear to be not certain of where I am going – maybe a little tipsy. Add to that an occasional stumble and Voila, there you have it, the little old lady who takes too many “medicinal” nips from the Elderberry wine.
I considered doing some upper arm exercise while walking, but figured that would put me in the Jim Beam category and/or at an interview for what is politically incorrectly called the “funny farm” – and not in the HA HA sense of the word.
On top of everything else, I occasionally put a white moisturizer on my face because the perspiration makes it lose its color and expanding pores soak in the cleansing elements. It takes me awhile to get enough sweat on my face to turn the white to clear and given the white face, the zig-zags and the frequent lunging steps, I suspect I look not only tipsy, but like a clown.
Well, that might not be far from the truth.
I thought about titling this post: Where did the italics come from? because when I looked at the site, almost all the post had switched to that font – and I believe some things in the sidebar. I don’t know. Maybe it will come to me; maybe not. I did get an email I ignored that said WordPress had automatically updated. Whatever.
I’m not going to sweat it because we have been sweating a lot here today pruning a tree in the backyard and getting ready to repaint the fence. One limb was longer and deader than we thought and it fell down outside the fence. I ran around to get it and discovered it had fallen on one of the neighbor’s little lights by his driveway. No one was home, so I left a note. I think the little connector flipped off, but I am not certain how to get it back on and sitting and sweating in someone’s driveway with parts of a light was rather embarrassing. So, I covered it up with plastic, stuck a marker in beside it and left a note in a baggie at the back door.
My granddaughter learned that saying, “I’m going to saw that thin branch” and actually doing it involve different levels of effort. She was feeling her bicep; I don’t think logging is in her future.
It is supposed to rain/storm this afternoon right about now, but we went ahead and watered Fern anyway, in case the forecast is wrong and in case she is too protected by the tree she’s under. I think I may need to put some Miracle Gro on her. Once Quentin and I were using Miracle Gro and I read the directions wrong and for a long time we thought it was supposed to be a brilliant sky blue liquid. I am not a master gardener.
Well, darn, it’s still bugging me about the italic thing and I’m going to have to investigate. So much for my “whatever” comment.
I don’t have anyone to talk to or with, although I have to admit that I am one to do most of the talking and usually it doesn’t involve listening, so I should have just put a period after “I don’t have anyone to talk to” and let it go at that.
I don’t talk to myself because like my dad once said, “Nobody could ever tell you anything,” and so it wouldn’t do any good. Generally, I find myself with this invisible audience to whom I ramble on about some idea, intricate and ridiculous plot of fantasy, or some gossip I’ve heard and am desperate to retell. For the most part the ideas and gossip are but a smidgen of the amount of talking to technically no one that I do. I’d say 95% of it is made-up situations. It’s a way to pass time and it is entertaining and it takes me mentally away from the aggravations of my life.
Sometimes I find myself repeating what I have already said to this non-existent person, which indicates it is time for me to find a new topic about which to fantasize. I’m at that place now and it occurs to me perhaps I should up the ante and hold myself accountable to legitimate conversational protocols by typing things out.
I could do this, but there are times when I am going on about something where I am not, oh, let us say, your everyday AmeliaJake. So, this would be a bad idea – you know, the writing it out for people to read part. Better I should just keep talking in my head to some non-existent sheriff, doctor, scientist, CIA man, pilot, junkie, ho . . .
Gosh, I should not have brought any of this to your attention in the first place. Excuse me now while I go describe just how oddly Andrew was acting yesterday morning to the officers . . .
Well, I didn’t really have a grasp on it at first; I mean, I just felt off-balance. It wasn’t until Andrew had walked into Jim’s office that I realized I felt relieved he’d left – that he was the one out-of-step. Then, I don’t know, it just went out of my mind. I didn’t think anything in particular when I heard the first siren . . . What? No, no, I didn’t feel frightened when he was here. Look, I don’t know what I felt. I was uneasy . . . and if this hadn’t have happened this afternoon, I probably wouldn’t even have thought about it again. It’s tense around here and you just don’t remember every time you’re tense.