Some People Think We Are Always on the Go

I was asked last week do we (Anna and I) stay on the go all the time? Do we? Huh? Huh? Well, no. We do come home and sleep and watch TV.

The truth is I didn’t think we were on the go all the time. I just thought we had things to do a lot of the time.

I decided to keep notes for a few days just to try to figure out what we do. Mind you, it is not a diary. It is more manly than a diary. I would say it is more like a journal.

When my mother-in-law, Marie, was a child she went to the Campground Methodist Academy on Roswell Road. Roswell Road was a dirt country road then.

Marie is a natural archivist. Through the years she has kept memoirs of her class mates and also kept newspapers clippings on them. They had annual reunions, which lasted up until just a few years ago. She also has many photos of the alumni. One of her old classmates, who was the secretary kept the minutes of their meetings handed them all over to Marie. Later we heard she had Alzheimer’s Disease. We speculated that she realized her mind was about to go through some changes and she felt she should hand over the records to someone who knew how to take care of them. She picked the right person.

Campground Methodist Church changed its name to East Marietta Methodist Church.

The lady in charge of collecting the historical data for the church’s 175th celebration wanted to talk to Marie to see what information Marie could share.

Marie, Anna, and I met the lady and her mother-in-law at Marie’s Wednesday. The lady was absolutely thrilled of all the information Marie had and donated to their cause. You could tell it made everybody happy. They were thankful for getting such good information about their church members that went back to early in the 20th century and Marie for finding a good appreciative home for it.

The lady in charge of the 175th and I have probably crossed paths. I am about 12 years older than she but we both went to Crestview Baptist and knew all the members – or the well known ones anyway. Her father was co-owner of Smith Brothers Service Station that I did business with.

The mother-in-law, I probably crossed paths with too. She was about ten years older than me but we knew all the same OMs and who they were related to. She went to Waterman Street School as a child and remembers Miss Whitehead. She knew all my uncles and my father. Also, interesting, she caged 69 chipmunks in her yard over a season and took them all out, one cage full at a time to a spring out in the woods and let them out.

Thursday we had the carpet clean. Beforehand, we moved all the small furniture and little stuff to the carport, deck, and here and there.

The carpet cleaner was scheduled at something like 9:30am. He called and said he was running about 15 minutes late, which was fine.

I was keeping my eye out for him. At 9:45 I saw a vehicle turn into our street from the corner, two houses away. The vehicle had the carpet cleaning company’s name and logo on it. I stood out and waved with both hands. He went on by studying each house. Apparently, he looked through me and drove by. He went to the end of the street and turned around and again crept down the street at a slow speed. I stood in the middle of our driveway and waved my arms again.

Again, she slowly glided on by, looking at each house closely for the number. We don’t have a mail box with our house number on it. It is on the front of the house.
He went back to the corner he originally came in on and turned around and started his search again. I got nearer to the street and waved both arms back and forth, as before.

He turned into the driveway across the street and got out and asked the mother there was this the address, having to talk over my shouting, “OVER HERE! OVER HERE!”

She pointed to me and he looked at me and more or less said, “Oh.”

He got back into his car and drove over to our driveway. I told him he confirmed what I always thought, I am invisible. He apologized saying he just too focused on looking for the number he wasn’t studying any people around. He focused through me.

He did a good job. Later, he had a co-worker come and video him and his process for cleaning carpet in our den. He said it would be on his blog soon.


Friday I worked in the yard and carried a truckload of stuff to American Thrift Store and a truckload to the dump. I also went to Dr. No’s Comicbook Shop and saw a couple of interesting comic books I am considering.

I worked in yard by picking up limbs that were blown down recently during a stormy time. I also dumped a garbage can full of leaves mulch and spread it. While doing this twice I looked up just in time to see my dog Willow gobble up a chipmunk. She bent over and got what looked like another chipmunk and gobbled it down. She was eating them like tacos.

From a distance they looked about the same size of a taco or a burrito. She was in a monkey grass patch that is pretty much infested with chipmunks so I think she probably ate at least two chipmunks.

It seems to me she could choke on the bones… after all, they are not filet’ chipmunks. But it didn’t seem to bother her.

On my trip to the dump I noticed they are building a larger building beside the other building that you back up and get rid of your junk. The new larger building is only a frame now, but it looks like it is swallowing the smaller building whole. It reminded me of a scene in a James Bond that a space craft swallowed another space craft.

On my various chores that day I reason to stand in front of a cashier’s window. I told the cashier the last time I stood there paying through the window the lady inside was eating a Varsity hotdog. She asked was it her. I said I didn’t think it was her. She said she was surprised because she loved Varsity hotdogs. She had a very pleased look on her face when I mentioned Varsity hotdogs.

I said I liked Varsity hotdogs too, but they were not as good as Brandi’s Hotdogs. When I mentioned Brandi’s hotdogs her expression went into an ecstatic state. She told me when she worked someplace else they were always making Brandi Hotdog Runs, but not since she came here. I mentioned how much I like Brandi’s spicy chili. I think her eyes turned to flashing stars. If I had my camera and recording her face only without sound you would think she was sitting on something giving her one organism after another, each better than the last.

Saturday I mulched the leaves in my front yard. Several months ago on Sucker TV they advertised a vacuum/ blower that mulched leaves. We ordered one. In the past few days off and on collectively I have filled up three big garbage cans of mulched leaves. Yesterday I stood and held the leaf vacuum for four hours and still had over half the front yard to do. “There has to be a better way” I thought.

My riding lawnmower is set to mulch. I finished up mulching in less than a hour. I think the next time I am going to use the vacuum/mulcher to get in corners and other areas my riding lawnmower can’t reach.

This coming week we have 5 medical appointments; two club meetings; and a couple of other things we need to do, like shop for and buy tires.