Suzanne and Me and 33 Years

Somebody pretty special is comin' to visit me.  It's been a long 2 years since we've seen each other. I'm gonna lay on the bed while she unpacks her suitcases of 12 pairs of shoes and 15 outfits and light weight jackets that she will not get to wear because it is a bazillion degrees here with 400% humidity~She is gonna cook and I'm gonna eat~we'll give each other gifts and shop till my feet cry out "No More"~and then when she goes back home we will talk for hours on the phone 'cause when we are together, we are just happy to be together~too much happiness for words~so we'll talk about everything in about a week..That's how we're the happiest together!

There's Work To Be Done In That Thar House

    Endless days and nights of bright blue days and midnight blue starry nights. Sounds like heaven doesn't it?  Just don't look inside the house.  You see the kittens of dust scattering about, felting the surfaces and fading the colors from our sight. Ya'grow used to seeing that speck of tree mulch on the foot rug in front of the door.  I should stoop to pick it up, I should get the micro cloths out and sweep away the protective covering from the sideboard. Seems like I remember those orange glass vases being much more brilliant.  My, I never noticed that mirror to look so antique...wait it isn't antique, it is dusty, swirly film from living with the overhead fan on for 5 months straight.  Things are sliding out of the freezer...a refrigerator should look like a magazine page with all sorts of goody treats and delectable meats, cheeses and vegetables.  Instead it looks like a tupperware convention, only the containers are not tupperware~they are the least creative pieces of previously used plastic. Why do I keep them?  My daughter uses glass containers for leftovers~I should be less thrifty and vow never to have plastic in the fridge again.

KennyRogersLookAlikeBeforeThePlasticSurgeryWentWrong uses hair spray and powder...man-scaping stuff he calls it.  I call it 'glue for the fuzzy powder dust' on the bathroom walls. I just don't seem to have motivation to vacuum the furry walls every week when the sun is shining~I believe I need rain.  But the squirrely thing is, I don't get motivated to clean on cloudy days.  I may have to buckle down and ignore the sunshine.  My English friend is coming for a visit and if you remember the last time she came she vacuumed the same spot for 10 minutes and then we had to take the vacuum cleaner apart to change the bag and the engine belt. We had to clean the rug well enough so we could roll up in it.  I wrote about it. She made me clean the spot in the oven before she baked the scones. Better get off here and get some house-scaping done. We've got a lot of rollin' and bakin' and baskin' to do while the sun is shinin'.

Looking forward to Autumn~in a way.  I don't really mind the heat but we have had tons of heat this summer...I say tons because heat in Indiana feels heavy..and it feels heavy on your body...making it difficult to walk...your thighs stick together and your legs feel so heavy you can barely put one foot in front of the other... you look and feel like you are walking through water...in slow motion. It makes you sigh and your neck feel damp and drippy and then the mosquitos come and feed on your damp, hot, heavy, drippy skin.  They like to gather on my wrists and ankles in particular...these Black Asian Tiger mosquitoes that have little white rings around their legs like they have stripey socks on.  Oh, how I long to just sit outside on my swing during the day and evening without the sheen of mosquito repellent on my skin.   But no, I have to be a shiny bauble slick with DDT or whatever is in this repellent spray so that I can just go out and fill the bird and squirrel feeders.  I know they see me coming and they just hope in their little black heads that I have forgotten to spray the crap on me so that they can have a nice big swig of fresh, non-repellent blood.  Doesn't matter what time of day or night it is, these little stripey vampires are out and about.  They seem to love the bright, hot sunshine.  Darned if I know why.  So I am looking forward to a little cooler weather just so that I can sit outside and enjoy the endless blue skies that we have been having since April and so that I will no longer be a picnic basket for a nit!

NEVER TRY TO BE A TECHNO GEEK AT 1 TO 3AM. IT'S JUST NOT RIGHT. I was looking at the shots that Michael took at the car races yesterday that he will send to the newspaper he shoots for and tried to put them in files or folders or whatever that I used to do so smoothly on my pc but not so smoothly on my laptop. wellllll....when I put the SD card back in the camera the photos are gone! I did not... delete, I repeat, I DID NOT DELETE. What the heck happened to them? Luckily they are on my laptop but still..what did I do? I didn't sleep a wink. I burned a dvdrw from the ones on the laptop so hopefully this will be good... I am not a techy person...obviously.I am a  "learn while you goof it up" type of person!

Threadbare First Marriages

I've just meandered through a couple of blogs tonite and soaked up some inspiration. One about making hexies for quilting and how not to become 'undone' by the word quilt  and another blog about threadbare and nearly departed tea towels that we can not ever seem to let rest in piece~so to speak. The third blog was a really nice story about the past when some of us of an age can remember being freshly in love and penniless...so as to enjoy our meager surroundings.
My memories come to life when I see the skeletons of my tea towels.  I still put them into use although, now,  they are unable to soak up any liquid to quench their once insatiable thirst. 'Those bare threads are the sinews of strong women in the kitchen.' But I still use them because they remind me of the long ago...the very long ago when I was first married and I adored being a housewife.  We had very limited income..very limited.  I sent away for a computerized (one of the first back in 1971) list of recipes for a month spending $10 a week for food to feed two to three people three balanced meals a day.  It was from the Hunt's Tomato Sauce Company. I still make those recipes and they are delicious. No way could I buy all those ingredients for $10 a week in this day and age. I remember taking my grocery list and pad and pencil to the grocery store with me each week and I would round up the price of each item I placed in the cart so that I could make it just under $10 so that I could perhaps have a couple dollars left over to buy a magazine or a little basket.  What excitement I would have hurriedly putting those groceries away so I could sit down and day dream into a new decorating magazine.  It felt delightful like cheating on your diet with a cookie and hiding in the closet to eat it. I miss those feelings of really getting excited over very simple pleasures and making a little tiny efficiency apartment feel like a grand home.

I decorated with an old quilt as a table cloth and hung the baskets that I was able to squeak into the budget.  Since we didn't have any furniture to speak of I painted the walls of the living room a beautiful deep ochre and the dining room nook a burnt rust color...those colors warmed up the apartment and made us feel like we had more furniture than we did.  I laid beautiful scarves that I used to wear on my head over the lamp shades in the bedroom area.  I hung pretty stationary box lids as art on the walls and sometimes painted my own very folk artsy portraits. I hung beads in the doorways and the windows (it was the '70's of course) and I put my pastas and flour and sugar in mayonnaise jars with hand painted lids.  When I couldn't afford wallpaper I stenciled my hallway wall with a block print that my English best friend helped me make from spare wood we found and layered cardboard. We didn't follow any instructions from a book~ we just made it up...me being creative with nothingness and her being a former art teacher from Darlington. Those empty pocket days were a creative time for young homemakers.  

Tumbling

our cousin in southern indiana said that they will soon be losing the old family home.
"yes, he said, there are many, many memories in that house but that is life and the way it happens"

       I wonder.....are memories in a house just sitting there upright waiting ~ like dominos~one falls forward and all the rest tumble across your mind?

Time Traveller

I am a time voyager...I travel almost every day, researching family lines. The past..why do I search? Perhaps it holds truths to the present and future. I wonder about the people that ate off the antique plates and stirred with the spoons that are stored in my cupboards ~I wonder about the lips that have touched the glasses and cups that I use every day~ I strain to listen, hoping to catch a faint ghostly uttering of what was discussed over the mashed potatoes and gravy boat so long ago. I wonder if the creak I hear in this old chair is the same creak my great grandmother heard under her long, black skirt or if she found the tick tock of her old kitchen mantel clock as soothing as I do. I wonder about how it felt to live in that big old farmhouse when it was first built and I realize that nothing in these old trunks smelled musty when they were newly tucked away. It makes me long for the past~ to briefly be in the presence of my ancestors~just for a little while to get the feel of their lives. Did they ever wonder about me? I feel I know them~I stare at their photos, I lie awake at night and imagine them moving about in their daily lives. I search through old photos and hope that I will perhaps someday have a revelation about the identity of the nameless faces that have been kept boxed for over 100 years. Many long hours are spent endlessly researching with cousins and newly found friends as we passionately seek the secrets of our family ties..some things we find we just keep to ourselves...too complicated to tell the others~too hurtful to tell some~relationships too overwhelmingly complex to share in a short email with relatives that just don't have the time to take it all in. And then there are some stories that are just truly myths, but have been so believed for so long that we will never have the heart to dispel. Yes, I travel to the past in my mind.