Petunia rambles on and on….

Or so it’s felt like.  One odd step, and I’ll be off the edge of it all.   (My mother used to live way, way out – she said she could see the end of the Earth and there were serpents swimming just down the road – remember those old maps that showed the earth as flat, and then the “end,” and there were always beasties of some sort beyond?  I don’t know that I ever went down that road much past Mom’s house, now that I think about it.)

Anyway, things have been rocky here, to say the least.  The job that I have, that I’ve had for years and years, the service we provide, is being consolidated with others within the “company” and will be relocated to the other side of the country.  While it will take a while to get their technological acts together, and delays may occur as they do so, clearly the jobs will go, and I’ll be left here, too young to collect a Social Security pension and too old to be considered for any sort of decent job.  It is illegal for prospective employers to ask age, but the hair color and wrinkles might give up some data. (So will my preference for “Sixties on 6” radio station on the satellite radio) It is illegal to discriminate based on age, but companies look at me and think, “Spend all that time to train her so she can retire in a year or so?  Nope!” and they pick a 30-year old.

My coping skills are getting a work-out.

So I went to Vulcan’s Rest, played with the spindles, played with the wheels and look what followed me home —–

 

 

I had several recommendations from friends, and spent several hours playing with her before she jumped into the back of my car (Himself didn’t believe that, either, or that someone once handed me a ferret while we were stopped at a red light – remember that one, Kate?)   And the wheel matches my car so well that I’ll have to take her everywhere I go, right?

And I’m doing another Forest Canopy Shawl, because they’re so relaxing to knit, and I need that right now.

And one other thing.  I have to say this.  Oooops, I can’t hold it in; it’s like a bad case of “wind”.

KNITTERS GUILD NSW, INC.

And while I was at Vulcan’s Rest, I put a special gift for a special friend on order, too. And they came in today! That means another trip up there next weekend!

On Saturday night, Pop and I went to the Delaware State Fair in Harrington, DE, because it was slightly less hot than the surface of the sun and the humidity was about 243% and that’s what folks in Delaware do during the last week of July.  It’s like it’s some sort of contest to see who will be the last one standing.  I think the prize is a wagon-load of horse manure.

Anyway, we went, as we usually do, as I always did every year when the kids were small, and we walked all over until my back was ready to seize up.  And I ate funnel cake (isn’t it a law that you HAVE to eat funnel cake at the State Fair?) and I looked at all the needlework exhibits, and looked at all the stuff done by the kids, 4-H groups and such.  And watched young exhibitors exercising their horses, and watched people in the most idiotic looking clothing and hairdos and tattoos and body piercings – and some with “all the above.”  And laughed!!  And ate at the Grotto’s booth (another Delaware law!)

We went to the pig barn. I’m not a “pig” person, and time spent in the pig barn assured me that this wasn’t something that was likely to change in my senior years. I will never be a “pig” person. I’m sure. I prefer my pigs when they are more, how should I say this, uh, finished.  As in Sausage, Pork Chops, Roast Loin of Piggie. However, one of the guys who works down the hall from me and his wife/daughter raise pigs. It may have started with 4-H projects, being supportive of raising farm animals as a way of teaching children responsibilities.  Whatever the reason, I knew he and his family would be down there and so we stopped in.  I was pretty sure they’d be there, as these pigs must be constantly tended, cleaned, shoveled under, hosed down, squirted with cool water sprays, calmed, talked to. Little different, I thought, than having a 6-week-old newborn in the house, except these pigs don’t need to be burped and they produce BLACK shit.  And each one weights more than Pop and I put together.

 

 

This is Spot, inventively named, I thought. And dressed in “camo.” Trust me, there’s a lot of bacon there.

My attention wandered. So did my feet. Over to the sheepier side of the barn, where we met these two.

 

 

Pop petted them for a long time.  They became friends. I think he may have given them names. He was scratching them behind their ears. If he could have figured out a way of smugging them under his shirt, Sophie Poodle would have to move over in the bed. It was tough watching them say goodbye.

 

I don’t do “UP” well – that’s sort of a family joke around here, referring to my terrible fear of heights.

Well, I don’t do NORTH well, either.  And that’s another thing the kids have been teasing me about for years.  Way back, when Pop’s mother was still alive, we often went up to Philadelphia to visit her.  Many, many trips, and the worst part of the drive is on I-95 from Wilmington to just south of the Phila airport on that damn road.  6 lanes of heavy traffic, most everybody knowing exactly where they’re going (except me!), all in a damn hurry, cutting people off, driving like idiots. AND it seemed like each time we went up there, we’d get to that section of the trip when, just to make matters worse, it would start raining, or pouring, or coming down like a monsoon.  It got to be a joke.  “You say your lawn’s looking a little dry? Don’t bother to water it. We’ll just send Mom up to the airport!”

One year we were having a terribly dry year.  There’s a lot of farming near here, so we’re talking more at risk than people’s begonias. We’re talking livelihoods here, farmers being unable to continue doing what we need them to do.  The kids came up with a bright idea, the two youngest ones.  They’d hire me out to farmers, who would pay me to drive up and down I-95, which would bring on the rain!  They’d save their crops, I’d bring in some extra cash. 

I was off today and decided to go up to the Sewing Machine Doctor to get a 1/4″ quilting foot for my sewing machine.  My ability to judge a 1/4″ seam allowance appears to have gone the way everything else has around here – to hell in a handbasket, as Mom used to say.  This drive requires crossing I-95 but not actually getting on it.

It was enough to set off flooding in the northern part of the state, torrential downpours.  It was all my fault.  Mea culpa.  In a bit of a low spot somewhere between Christiana Mall and the cut-off for Rt 7, there was an ugly amount of standing water on the road, and hitting it felt like I hit a wall.  As the whole vehicle shuddered, some asshole went by me and threw about a swimming pool’s worth of water on my windshield. I’m sure it couldn’t have been that long, but it felt like MINUTES before I could see anything again!

When I got to Rt 7 (Limestone Rd) and Kirkwood, stopped at the traffic light, I noticed that the turning lane to my right was flooded quite deeply.  This didn’t stop the idiots from flying through the water though, in their race to get to a red light!

I’ll take the blame for it all.  It’s all my fault.