A real entry, except it’s accidental

Hi there.

This is an attempt at a real entry.  The kind sane people write when they want to talk about their lives.  I did not intend to write it right now but I hit the wrong icon and instead of the front page I got the write an entry window.  So I am writing an entry.

It’s midmorning on a Thursday in the middle of May.  It happens to be my mother’s 105th birthday but I am not going to write about her.  I’m sitting in her (and my) kitchen at her (and my) formica table, still in my (just mine) LL Bean robe  It’s been one of my prized possessions but the zipper is getting bad – it won’t separate at the bottom so I have to put it on and off either by stepping into it and pulling it up or pulling it over my head.  Sad.  It’s been such a good garment.

Weather is lovely and I should be dressed and outside.  Jim mowed the lawn Tuesday and it’s full of trails to walk on and abandoned and current flower beds to visit.  The dog and I are happy.  We need to walk more though. We need to catch more rabbits (the dog) and dig more garden patches (me).    I planted my 25 glad bulbs yesterday and resolved to do at least ONE thing gardening wise a day.  Of course I have plenty of today left to get it done.

I am planning to go to town today or tomorrow.  I have this vast list of things to do that I am happy to share with you.

1/ Buy stamps.  I can get them at the convenience store.  They do not have pretty stamps like the post office does but they are convenient.  Get it?

2/ Vote.  Our primary election is first Tuesday in June but you can vote at the court house now.  I have been voting early for the last couple decades.  It’s handy and you don’t have that panicky feeling on election day.  We have some interesting contests and I have one in particular that I am uncertain about.  I probably won’t know for sure until I see the ballot in front of me and have the soft lead pencil in my hand.

3/ Renew my drivers license.  I do that in the office across the aisle from where I vote so it’s quite handy.  My birthday is in June but I’m SURE I can renew it this early.  Wish me luck.  I’m not sure how many years it lasts now that I am older than 70.  We will see.  I take my ‘driving’ glasses with me.  Eye doc assured me at last appointment that they were good enough for the drivers license people.  Still it’s a concern.  So wish me luck.

4/ Take cans back.  I will have four garbage sacks of empty nickel cans to take to the redemption center.  They usually add up to about twelve bucks.  I usually leave them and pick up the money another day.  That of course involves remembering to do it.  If I go there first I could probably stop on my way home and they would have them counted.  I may do that.  Probably won’t though.

5/ Stuff to recycling.  I probably won’t do that.  Since I canceled the daily paper I should probably hang onto at least one grocery sack of newspapers for fire starting purposes.  I have a big piece of cardboard and a few sacks of glass jars and cans and always a sack of misc.  It would be nice to get rid of the stuff….. maybe.

6/ Library is on the maybe list too.  I don’t have any books out so I have none to return.  I’ve been looking through my own vast store of books and have found Woodward’s account of the beginning of the Clinton administration and an urban Irish/NYC novel called Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann that looks promising.  The Woodward book which MIGHT have some historic value was laying open in my bed this morning when Gracie hopped in all muddy to join me.  She laid right on top of the open book so now two of the centerish pages have extra decoration.

7/ I will stop at the grocery store.  We bought a fair amount at the city store Sunday but we always need more of something.  I have given up all my good food habits and now just eat total junk.  I’m thinking a bucket of ice cream,  cookies, chips and dip, diet pop and sugar pop, maybe an unsliced cooked ham.  I am not proud of that list.  And I suppose I will get some of my good habits back eventually.

John is expected down this weekend to help farm.  Jim is waiting for the ground to get dry enough and for the Co-op to spray the sod so he can no-till it.  I have not been into it.  We end up both mad when I try to supervise.  Which of course is understandable.  He’s been selling corn from the bins to the river.  His friend Lyle hauls it and they have a big time.

Lyle noticed my half dead/half sprayed by the county crab apple tree at the end of the driveway.  He asked Jim about it and now for the first time in the tree’s 30 years, Jim is interested in it too.  The unsprayed half is in really pretty dark pink bloom.  I planted two trees there – one a crab and one a purple plum.  I’m never sure which is which.  The one that got sprayed had a beautiful shape to it and for a week in the spring it was the loveliest thing along quite a few miles of road.  Jim wanted to trim it but before he got to it the country sprayed the side he didn’t want to trim.  Now it’s sort of a wounded beauty.  A monument to the difficulty of life.

I guess this is an entry.  I’m sorry there aren’t pictures.  When I look through my old diary, I mourn the pictures that aren’t there.  At first I could find quite a few but lately they all seem gone.  Damn life.