this June

What I did this June.

For three weeks this June I moved and cleaned and cleaned and moved and turned the electricity on (at the new place) and had Ming come in and install shelves and had the boys help put together a multi-shelf unit and 'made' a pantry and hung things on the walls and vacuumed and dusted and sorted and pitched and sold and sorted more and made five thousand trips (I swear) to the Good Will. whew!

Arthur, my brother, was down tonight. He and our nephew Adam stopped by on their way to St.Joseph and we went to the Olive Cafe which is 'greek', although really it is turkish or tunisian or arab, not greek. We like the food there. I love the Turkish coffee (Arabic coffee in their parlance).

What I did this June. I swam. In the pool. In the neighborhood. The old one.
And rode the bicycle from the 'new' place to the 'old' place five hundred times and lost six pounds in the pedalling and found that as a forty-eight year old woman I cannot eat the same sort of greasy-fatty-salty-surgary foods I was able to eat at the age of forty-five. My ankle is swollen again.

In the Olive cafe you can sit at one of the tables near the window and eat their good and inexpensive food and talk and laugh at your brother and ask your nephew how he is doing being unemployed and drink the strong Arabic coffee (I like the Coffee Zone's Turkish coffee better, the cardamon is more distinct), and sitting near the window your brother can point out the moon in the sky which is still light and people can watch you as they pass by on Providence and you can watch the people. Ray is handsome and nearly as tall as his uncle Art.

Ray and I went to the Ragtag tonight and watched an outstanding film (documentary-type) called, "Exit through the Gift Shop". It is not a must see for everyone. I thought it was brilliant.

This June was recertification for ACLS, a must have, and after the class there was a property which was calling, having been viewed a week or so prior on-line while doing RE searches (maniacally, obsessively). It was late afternoon and the month of June was nearly over so, having been ALL DAY in a class in a cold building with only a brief break outside for lunch and then, later, after class, you had the oil changed at the Riley Toyota, Cadillac and whatever else they sell showroom (they charge 13.99 for the wiper blades and 14.00 for installation of said blades--now how long does that take??). And after the oil change you sat in your hot car and enjoyed a piece of pie, bought from the southwest campus cafeteria, with coffee from that morning poured in a travel mug, and thought and felt that an afternoon drive with the sun shining and the wind breezy would be fine. So, on a whim, you took off and drove down 179, past Marion and nearly to Sandy Hook where you then turned left onto a gravel road and drove and drove until you saw The Property (the one long-ago mentioned) on your right. It was lovely. Six acres. And overgrown. Surrounding it were farms, Heislinger and Baich. And the houses were nice old farmhouses and the barns were well maintained and the fields were just lovely with perfectly straight fence rows which sat close to the gravel road.
On the drive home and before Centertown, there was Matt, driving his tractor down NN, he was squinting into the sun (he did the farmer's wave) and you laughed at him because of being alive with the wind and the sun and the day seemingly perfect.

It is 11:09 p.m.. This is the last week of June. I have been awake since three a.m. Ray's bedroom door is closed. Dylan will soon be home, will knock on the front door, will be let in by a sleepy mom. They are growing, growing, nearly grown. I miss my babies sometimes and the life we had will never return.

I'm going to bed now. I'll dream of the little house in the country with the beautiful land surrounding it and not a trailer in sight. And that, my friends, is a miracle.