Impatiens, Coleus, Begonias, Petunias

Just back from Bucks County.

First off, things look bleak as far as the guy that's in my house moving down to Florida. Immigration is giving him problems, looking with a (rightfully) jaundiced eye at his sham marriage. Alas. I think I need a Plan B. One possible Plan B is the house across the street from my parents. The couple who lived there have been dead for several years. Their son owns a house down the road, and now, also the house across the street. For a while, the son's son and his friends were living there. Son's son is now married and living in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The son's son's friends are departed as well, gone in a blaze of wild Saturday night parties that the neighborhood is still talking about. Anyway, the place is empty. Perhaps I can move in there until my deceased sister's ex-husband's cousin moves out of my house.

Tuesday was interesting. Very. My purpose in going down there was to go with my step-mother to buy some annuals for the flowerbeds in front of the house. My step-mother suffers from congestive heart failure. Her heart is not doing the job it once was of getting oxygenated blood to her brain and body. She is confused and has not much at all in the way of short term memory, so she tends to ask the same few questions over and over again. (Interestingly, one line of questioning this trip was "Think you'll ever get married?" and "Got a girlfriend at least?" put to me.) So on Tuesday, my Dad was all about hustling her out of the house so we could go grocery shopping and pick up some annuals. Step-mother wanted to get something to eat, and then was reminded of the time every fifteen minutes or so by my Dad. We got to the grocery store, and had just started to make the rounds when she had to vomit. This was bad, as it meant that she would lose her pills. She vomited once more before we were done grocery shopping. We headed to the plant place. She sat in the car and vomited two or three more times while I picked out plants.

On the drive home--a little unsettled--it struck me how weird that was. We all know the outlines of my step-mother's illness. The oxygen. She vomits because not enough blood is getting to her stomach to digest her food. That being the case, what she should do after she eats is sit quietly--or take a nap--for a few hours. Why did my Dad insist on getting us out the door?

The only answer I can divine is that he wanted to have her out of his hair for a few hours. She does the three questions over-and-over-and-over thing with him all day long. The fact that this was not the best thing for her to do was not apparently on his radar.

But we did get plants. I planted them this morning. The petunias are pale pink. Everything else is white or off-white flowers with a variety of foliage, ranging from chartreuse to deep green to reddish. It's simple, but I think it's a nice arrangement, and it should last all summer. I also got a few trays of marigolds for the various pots that my parents have about.

It felt sooooo good to have my hands in the dirt. Just glorious.

My dog had a good time being out in the country, although I'll be pulling ticks off of him for weeks to come.

Tuesday night, I made dinner (spaghetti and meatballs), and my brother came over to eat with us. We ate out on the screened porch, just the four of us. My brother's wife is down in Florida. After dinner, my brother and I went first to Dilly's Corner in Centre Bridge for the best ice cream anywhere. Alas, it was closed. So, we headed to Gerenser's in New Hope and got a couple of cones.

My brother and I sat on a bench on Main Street in New Hope, eating our ice cream cones and talking. As best I can remember, my brother and I have never ever done this before. Ever. It was mostly annecdotal. I learned that my brother has been seeing a psychiatrist or a psychologist on and off since he was sixteen. Something I didn't know. He did this, and persisted in doing this, despite opposition from our family and now his wife, who feel that unless there's something 'wrong' with you, you shouldn't be doing it. I told my brother about how I came into my own while caring for our grandfather before his death, taking the opportunity to go down and stay with him, because it got me away from my step-mother, who was giving me a really hard time back then. I also told my brother about how when I was thirteen or fourteen, my friend Jeff and I planned to run away to England. We had almost five hundred dollars saved. All the 'stuff' we would need was stockpiled under my bed. We would take a taxi to Trenton, take the train to New York City, and then fly to London on Laker Airways for $99 each. At that time, there were no age restrictions on working. Alas, correspondence from the British consulate informed me that to immigrate, you needed something like $2,000, and this was well beyond our ability to save.

Visiting Bucks County has left me wanting to move back there. It all felt so right. It's beautiful this time of year. The ride to and from was no big deal. I'd easily be able to do that for GMSMA or whatever. I saw an ad in the local paper looking to hire police officers. Now that would be a great job. Officer Singletails, reporting for duty. And I know how to use a nightstick.

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