On Sunday after a visit to Jill’s so I could peruse her Princess House crystal and order over $100 worth of stuff (what the hell is wrong with me?), we went to Grandma’s. I wanted to go to the cemetery to water the flowerbeds we’d dug, and Grandma said she’d planned to walk there and now we could give her a ride.

We parked outside the gate and I jumped out and grabbed the watering can and headed for Grandma and Grandpa J’s gravestone. I was already finished there and headed for Grandpa B’s before Grandma had gotten very far herself, and she said “Hoo, you walk so fast, I can’t keep up to you!”

There were just she and I and Farmboy. We strolled past every headstone in the graveyard, looking at the names and birth and death dates, asking Grandma which of the people she’d known. There were quite a few. Well, there’d have to be. She’s "86 years old," you know!

I’ve said more than once that I like cemeteries and would like to go have a picnic in them, and people have thought that was a morbid location. But as it turns out, cemeteries were originally planned so that families could go picnic in them. So there!

Seeing my little grandma slowly picking her way among the rows of tombstones reminded me that we’ll be lucky to have her with us for another 10 years, probably.

The photo above was taken yesterday after I'd delivered Barney's forgotten lunch to him at school and bought Farmboy a burger at the local drive-thru. This old gent was walking around the grass outside while his companions were in the building, and it reminded me of Grandma, the way he stepped so carefully. 'Course, he was carrying a white cane, but still.

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Jill has this recipe book of fancy cookies, and Barney borrowed it. I told him to find a recipe he wanted to make, write a list of ingredients, and we’d do it.

It took several weeks to collect everything the recipe called for and then have cool weather for firing up the oven without roasting ourselves out of the house. But last night was windfully rain-expectant, so I agreed to help him make Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies at about 8 o’clock.

What was I thinking? I was already getting tired and cranky, and to attempt a child-accompanied cookie-bake in that condition was pure carelessness. His bedtime is 9:00. And we had to melt chocolate chips, chop peanuts, roll dough into balls, and melt peanut butter chips as icing drizzle. The stress, the stress I tell you!

Well, we managed. I cursed my folly, but the cookies turned out and Barney was a happy little boy. I've eaten two of the damn things instead of a smart breakfast, but what can you do? The call of the chocolate is powerful.

Here is the cookie carnage facing me this morning. Guess I'd best attempt to make a dint in the explosion we call a kitchen. There is almost always a rack of drying dishes on one side of the sink, and a counter half-full of dirty ones on the other. I hate that. But what are you going to do? There's only so much time in a day, and when those cookies came out of the oven last night, we left everything as it was. The boys went to bed, and I joined Farmboy in the livingroom. Messy dirty kitchens are the lowest priority.

Sigh.

Speaking of resigned sighs, Farmboy tells me that I will be disappointed if I try to paint this kitchen, that the panelling, etc., won't take paint well.

I have to brighten this room up. It is sorely in need of a makeover. It is dark brown panelling on three walls and a lighter-brown brick face on the wall the cupboards are on. The cupboards are old, rickety and brown, and the countertop edges are chipped and broken. It is a small room to start with.

Renovating Kate, soon to incarnate.

xoxo
etc

It was another leisurely morning. The kids had trundled off to school and the lover had gone off to work, and she lay languidly in the lukewarm water. Hot when she first toed her way into the tub, the water had left her weak. It was time to get out.

Through the screened window she could hear the chatter of crows and the tiny talk of sparrows. A gentle tinkling cut through the trees from the other house, where several sets of chimes had been hung along the front veranda.

It was almost 10 o’clock, and the first pangs of hunger were pointing her in the necessary direction of the kitchen.

She roughed up her short hair with a heavy towel, then dried off and wrapped it around her body, tucking a corner of the towel into itself above her left breast. The mineral-laden water, laced with lavendar oil, had left a ring in the tub; while the water ran down the drain, she scrubbed the grime off with a used facecloth. Then she squeezed the water out of it, hung the wet terrycloth square over the side of the tub to dry, and walked out of the bathroom.

Before she’d made it to the end of the hall, the towel had come loose and she put up her hands to tighten it. Then she remembered she was alone — totally alone, but for the birds and the curtain of living greenery covering every window that met her eye. This was as good a time as any to go naked; she might as well take advantage of it.

She hung the towel neatly over the back of a kitchen chair and stepped over to the cupboard. There was just enough dry cereal for one bowlful, and she liked the thought of putting the empty cardboard box into the recycling bin, making more space in the overcrowded kitchen cupboard.

Simple things. It was the simple things in life that contented her. She was not a difficult person to please. This morning she’d been out of bed in time to see her boys and her lover out the door. She’d read her mail and surfed the web for an hour. She’d soaked in the tub and now she would sit at her desk and eat breakfast, while through the open windows could be heard the traffic of birdlife and the breezy rustling of the poplar leaves.

By the time the cereal bowl was scraped empty, her body had begun to cool. She took the bowl to the kitchen and headed toward the bedroom to find something to wear. Just as she reached the porch, which she had to pass through to get downstairs to the bedroom, the door swung open and there stood the farmer who lived down the road.

His “Anybody home?” was cut short by a startled glimpse of her naked glory, and followed by an embarrassed “Oh — sorry” as he turned on his heel and made a rapid exit.

She let him go. He'd have a story to tell, at any rate. And she — well, she doubted he'd actually seen more than a fleshy blur before he did his about-face.

She'd probably missed his knock, as she often did when she was in her office. She wondered how many days or weeks it would be before he showed his face at the door again.

Ah well. These were the hazards of living in a house in the country, weren't they? You think you are alone, but when you most wish to be, it turns out you are not.