Old thinking for a new year
A recent comment on my last blog made me realize how "hide bound" my thinking has become these days. I seem to have fallen into a bog, a swampland of mundane ideas and foggy thoughts, a wasteland of overused platitudes as ill-fitting as the sloppy over-sized flannel pants that my friend Emma brought me from the thrift store. I don't want to get out of my comfy pants, big sweatshirts and worn out mind-set.
I need to embark on a house-cleaning project which encompasses my entire life style! I need to quit eating the old foods, going to the same old places, reading the same tired ideas. I need to get up out of my favorite over-sized chair, push my favorite cat off my lap, get on the treadmill, and walk myself into a stupor!
I need to take my brain out, hold it in my hands, dunk it in a big bucket of bleach, and then wring it out till it's nearly dry - put it in the sun and let it burn to a bright beet red, and then see if I can get it back in my head.
I need to clean out my car. Take it to that big outside vacuum cleaner at the car wash, and vacuum up everything short of my old tennis shoes. I'll bet I have stuff that's been lurking under the front seats for four durned years! I'll bet if I lift up that middle seat, I'll find a whole family of field mice in there amidst their chewed-up Kleenex beds, eating old puppy biscuits and ibuprofen tablets that I've dropped between the cracks.
I need to polish my shoes. I look like a bag lady, scuffling around in my worn out S.A.S. Free Spirit walking shoes.
I need to get new glasses that I can SEE out of! I can't read the signs along the highway, can't see the television, can't see who I'm calling on my cell phone. I feel as if I'm swimming under water, and the world is passing me by. I need to get on board the boat before it takes off without me and I'm left to wander aimlessly in the wilderness forever.
I need to get an Alzeimer's check up, if there is such a thing. I can walk from the kitchen to the laundry room and forget what I went for. "Retrace your steps," they advise me. For Pete's sake, how many trips do I need to make, back and forth - back and forth! I've started repeating the name of the item aloud on the trip: "Trash bags...trash bags...trash bags..."
My daughter says I need to save electricity by using more nite lights and turning off the big lights, so this weekend I went through drawers looking for the old nite lights. But how will I remember to get new bulbs?
I need an answering machine. I'm tired of people not being able to reach me by phone unless they happen to have my cell phone number (and I do not want just anyone to have that!) I bought a new machine the other day, and I'll hook it up this weekend. At least I'll have messages until the first lightning storm or power surge - and then I'll have to go get another one.
I'm tired of my hair. I get up in the morning looking as if I combed it with an egg beater. I'm tired of the color. I want something exciting - maybe bright red with purple streaks.
I'm tired of my clothes. I want something bright purple. And GREEN. Bright green. Orange would be good, too.
I want warm weather to be here. I'm tired of the cold. I'm tired of carrying wood and starting fires that don't want to start. I'm tired of wearing two pairs of long socks and still having feet that are freezing. I think I need electric shoes.
I'm tired of looking in the mirror and seeing wrinkles. I want some make-up that'll take me away like the Calgon bath commercial.
From the dreary office of the North Stoddard Countian in downtown Advance, this is your raving rural reporter Madeline, signing off on another endless winter's day. If you don't hear from me again soon, I may have gone to visit my friend Juanita in Hawaai...
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I'll try to stay on the road and avoid the ditches till then.
Surely the rowdies can't do anything with this one...
Tillman is about halfway between Advance & Bell City, so you may have been in the area before - on a trip to see one of your cousins. I cover the Bell City area as part of my "beat," and it's a hop, skip, & a jump over there from here.
Only thing left of old Tillman is the Pleasant Hill Church, a sweet little former-Methodist church with a bell tower, lovingly maintained by the Pleasant Hill Cemetery and Church Association. They don't have services there anymore.
As for that lively blogger known as "Gonenow," her name says it all. She lives in another state now.
There's usually lots of information in the regular stories -- especially Noreen Hyslop's articles. She's the Statesman editor/writer, and she does a very good job, in my opinion.
Keep checking!