I’ve written before that for awhile I did not care for hostas, but they grow easily and are not high maintenance, so I am turning my backyard into a Hosta Rescue Center. Find a stray hosta, plant it at the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse. And with all the rain we’ve had, the soil is so easily “holed”. I made that word up because I am bored. It is idiopathic boredom; there are plenty of things I could be interested in, but I am symptomatically bored. It’s akin to the being hungry but remarking that nothing sounds good. Then you are really hungry; and I am not really bored. It must be some crazy twitching in my brain.

Yesterday, while importing photos into iphoto, I lost my place and clicked on a category and this is one picture that popped up. Just there, in front of my face, looking at me. Shane, I will always love you.

So, I took a Canon camera, a Flip camera and my iphone to Iowa for the 2015 VanceFest, and what did I do? Sort of forget to take pictures. A bit of time ago, I posted a picture of two brothers – Der Bingle and LZP. They are sort of the, one might say quirky, possibly almost crazy brothers. I had that picture because I had them pose for it as we were leaving.

Thinking back about photos, I thought, “Well, this is a fine pickle I’ve gotten myself into . . .”
So from the few quick iphotos, I am cropping three views of a third brother, Rod. He doesn’t have a nickname like LZP or Der Bingle or (applicable to both) Old Kook. He is “the competent one.” LZP once referred to having Rod getting something done and watching as he – and here I’m quoting LZP – “took a drill and went zip, zip, zip and then a couple of other fast things . . . and it was done.” He is also quite possibly the best-looking and best-natured. That last part is convenient today because I had to do some serious cropping to get photo views of him.

Now, this one where Rod was sitting right next to me, I had to crop out my finger and Der Bingle’s hand on the left . . . and I guess he probably wouldn’t have chosen an armpit pose, but I’m going to call it “relaxed and candid.”

When I mentioned being in a pickle, I was reminded of the canapes Rod’s wife, Kathy, fixed. I could have eaten the entire container. She grows her own pickles (bush pickles – although I am only repeating what I heard and have no idea of what that means – other than the part that seems obvious) and then spreads cream cheese on lunch meat and wraps it around the pickle. After chilling them, she slices them into pinwheels.

Although I pay more attention to grammar than a good number of people – it is sort of my mind’s math – I must admit I have not really given any attention to the correct usage of “owing to” and “due to.” I came across a snide remark in a book about people who don’t recognize the difference and, with my eyes shifting from left to right and back and forth again, I wondered, “Gosh, has anyone really noticed that about me?”

Although after 66 years, I don’t suppose it makes much difference, but then if I want to be referred to in my obituary as a life-long learner, it behooved me to investigate. Do you know that people can get very picky and petty and outright nasty in forums concerning grammar? Well, I am not going to link to any of them, except to “Dave’s snit was due to GrammarGirl’s response.”

It is one of those little topics that seems quite clear when you are reading the explanations and then looking at examples, but once you get out into real life, you start second-guessing what you supposedly understood. Kind of like, “Uh, is the red wire positive or negative?” I personally think the latter is confusing because red is associated with “NO” and the wife of every Air Force crew member trainee learns that one does not answer “No,” but instead utters, “Negative.”

I probably could just keep typing into the next day, wandering from story to story, but owing to my craving for a snack, I will just stop. Right here. See, I’m stopped.

I am not bacteriologically filthy, at least as far as plague-like diseases are concerned. I do have a lot of dried sweat on me and real dirt – the kind that comes from the earth and you can go things in. Probably some dust, also, and maybe remnants of a spider web. Yes, I let all this happen to me . . . and stay. Now I have to decide whether to clean up and thereby render myself not really inclined to refilth myself by doing some work around here or not.

The benefits of the getting clean are enticing – no dirty work today, some reading, that clean feeling, and guilt. On the other hand, I could just get to it and go to bed tonight knowing I had improved my lot and I would be able to put off handling that soap and water stuff. Not that I don’t like soap; I practically worship it. However, it is such a chore to get undressed, to get wet, to get dry, to get dressed, to take your dirty stuff to the laundry room and then realize, “Oh, I ought to empty the washer and start a load.”

Time for a daydream:

I have so much money I can send out for emergency workers on a Sunday to first, empty out my house, then remodel and repair, then move in new furniture, then pack and inventory all the knick-knacks. Well, to be truthful, the first thing they would do would be to put me on a Lear jet to a wonderful resort area with Spa people waiting on the tarmac with a Hummer to whisk me away to a personal cleaning process that requires me to do nothing except breathe and talk. I no doubt would have to pay extra to be allowed to talk, but that is almost the story of my life, and the first premise was that I had SO MUCH MONEY.

Wait, I think I’m going to modify the plan: I get whisked away to a spa and then to a brand new big house where everyone waits to be blessed with an assignment from moi. Organize those photos, refinish that antique furniture, get me a glass of iced tea. It’s the little things, dontcha know? Oh, and some of those cucumber canapes.

Well, I did it; I took my shovel and went into possibly snake-occupied territory and dug up a big fern. Fortunately, the rain I have been cursing for making the grass grow a whole big lot, has softened the earth and it was not a hard dig. The intertwining roots of the surrounding myrtle didn’t help, though. But, anyway, I got it out and in a bucket. And then I drove off and left the bucket. BUT, just as I passed the front of the house, I realized a giant fern was not seatbelted into the car; so I turned back.

After trying to calculate how much sun this fern got at Mother’s, I decided on a spot under a tree and near the corner of the six-foot fence. The soil is fairly good there since years ago I dumped some good dirt there, thinking that I would plant stuff. HA. Well, at least Fern is there now.

Yes, I have named her Fern, because I got tired of saying “the fern.” Subconsciously, I am probably thinking that if I think of her as Fern, maybe I will take better care of her. I am going to wait to see how she comes along before I dig up more Mother ferns. Now I am wondering, would they need names? Rose is taken, you know; but, of course, that’s silly because Rose isn’t a fern . . . even though a rose by any other name . . .

I’m not mowing this morning because it is too wet. Not complaining here, because a couple of summers ago, I opened the door every morning to really hot (by Indiana standards) temperatures. The kind where you open the door and then close it. It was real good sweating weather.

I may or may not attempt to transplant some ferns from LaGrange to this place. Yes, my life is that dull, which given my level of motivation is not all that bad.

Some people might remember my becoming upset with someone and making a bold statement. Well, it was this:

I said, “Lose weight? I’ll show you lose weight.” I went off and weighed myself and came back and blurted, “Twenty pounds off by my birthday.” And my face was all scrunched up in that really pissed off, determined look of death that I have been known to sport on occasion. This may turn out to be a real trial – either I eat very little or I eat crow.

Only know I have gone from doing really well to falling into the well of recidivism. Rats