TheBanyanTree: Halfway Through November

[Margaret R. Kramer]

My neighbor across the street hung up his Christmas lights yesterday.  He
strings up quite a few and uses the same configuration from year to year.
It looks like a lot of work, but if you work out a system and use it each
year, it’s easy, and then your house looks festive and everyone oohs and
aahs.  

He’s taking advantage of the nice weather.  I noticed a few of my other
neighbors, too, have hung up Christmas lights while I was walking Axel
today.  I just can’t do it before Thanksgiving.  I’d love to have the turkey
get a little of the spotlight before we begin to focus on Christmas.

Joe and I watched some of the Jim Jones documentary on CNN last night.  It’s
hard to believe that happened 30 years ago.  I can’t get my brain around it,
even to this day.  Over 900 people either committed suicide or were killed.
Only 33 survived the massacre.  And the survivors have severe psychological
trauma.  Just unbelievable.

I made my weekly visit to the cemetery today.  There were a lot of people
there, I think, because the weather was so nice.  It wasn’t warm, but it was
sunny, and there was very little wind.  This was the first time I actually
talked to Ray like he was a person and didn’t just stare at his tombstone
like I usually do.  I wonder what caused the shift in perception?

Ray’s twin daughters are now my friends on Facebook, and I can keep up with
his family stuff there.  One of Ray’s granddaughters just had a baby girl
and another granddaughter-in-law is pregnant.  I think Ray had five great
grandchildren before he died, so more are being added.  I told him that
news.  I told him about my job hunt.  Some things are just understood
between us, but I felt like I was really talking to him and he was answering
me.  It was weird.

I mowed and pulverized the last of the leaves on my front lawn.  Then I
swept up the mess from the sidewalks and I also swept out the garage for the
20th time this fall.

My creepy and weird neighbors moved out at the end of October.  The landlord
(my mortgage broker) has had the leaves raked up, the inside of the house
painted, and today a couple of women spent most of the day cleaning the
inside.  They started at 9:30 am and left after 5:00 pm.  They cleaned the
house last year when Mary moved out, so I chatted with one of them a bit
while she was washing the outside windows.

I went back into my house and was eating lunch when someone knocked on my
side door.  Shadow was doing his vicious and protective bark.  It was a
young man, in his late 20s or early 30s, and he asked about someone who
evidently lived here at one time.  He said he had lived next door.  I told
him I didn’t know that person and he left.  I noticed his car’s license
plates were from Illinois.  I just thought the whole thing was weird,
because I’ve lived here almost four years.  Why would he stop and ask about
someone who obviously he lost track of?  Weird.  I thought he might be
casing the house. Hopefully, Shadow’s viciousness put him off a bit.  Plus,
the woman was washing windows next door, so if he tried anything weird, then
she would have seen it.  Of course, I didn’t think about any of this stuff
until he left.  My brain doesn’t move very fast.     

I took Shadow for a walk around Como Lake.  It seemed like the entire
population of the Twin Cities area was walking around the lake, too.  It
really was a gorgeous late autumn day.  We saw kids and dogs and lots of
people.  Shadow is no longer trying to pull my arm out from its socket.
We’ve been walking together a lot more lately and we’ve made the adjustment
to each other.

When I got home, I took Axel for a walk around my block.  He had to get his
turn in, too.

Spaghetti sauce is simmering in the crockpot, it’s “spaghetti madness” at
our house tonight.  I baked some cheese/onion bread to go with it.

There’s a good football game on TV tonight, the Colts vs. the Patriots.
Maybe I’ll get some NaNoWriMo writing done while watching the game.  Maybe
I’ll do a little reading.

Then tomorrow, it’s back to reality.  The job hunt – there’s a job fair
tomorrow.  Oh, boy, I get to wear my suit again.  I change clothes more
often than Cher, although my clothes aren’t all like hers, and my body
certainly isn’t like hers.  That’s the reality of my life.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net
margaret.kramer at polarispublications.com
www.polarispublications.com
www.linkedin.com/in/margaretkramer

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are
conscious of our treasures. 
-Thornton Wilder