Bettie Bookish

Where my Jungians at?

I had a dream last night that my husband and I robbed a bank. Twice.

It was his idea, and apparently the scheme was foolproof. So foolproof that we accomplished it twice. At the same bank.

I love my husband. He's really smart.

CAN I CALL IT A NA-NA?

Yesterday was big. In the morning, I had another followup appointment with my ladydoctor, who pronounced that everything looks peachy. You know that makes a girl feel proud when someone says her (per husband's request, I am not going to call it a hoo-ha) "looks great, REALLY GREAT - the best I've seen it."

He also said that, even with all the reconstruction, it's obviously "functional."

Flatterer. Now you're just trying to make me blush.

After my appointment, I picked up Buttercup and raced to my mother's house so I could meet the charity truck and make another donation.

Just so that you can understand what it has meant to clear my mother's house, let me explain to you the layers of archaeology that I had to accomplish.

First, I removed at least 10 bags of trash per room - and these were big, black lawn bags of trash. I had to have thrown out somewhere in the neighborhood of 100-150 bags of trash. And that was just the OBVIOUS trash. The trash that could be ascertiained without any effort.

Then I had to sort through every purse Mom had owned since she was 25 - all of them still full of stuff. And no, I couldn't just toss them, because among the gas receipts and napkins and disintegrated latex nurse gloves, I would find things like her baptismal certificate, a wedding ring, an original photo of my grandmother as a child.

And I've just discovered that I can't even go further in describing the work, because even putting it in writing is too grueling.

I also am struggling against the feeling that my brother could have done more. Or, indeed, anything. I need to let go of that, because it will only get in the way.

I just wish I hadn't been the one who had to look at EVERY piece of paper in the house. I wish that, when I watched the man close the truck door on the living room sofas that had been in our house since I was five, I wish I hadn't been alone watching it go.

Wilma and Bettie

No, we were not in the path of this latest absurd storm. Wilma, indeed.

My New York Realtor called me yesterday while I was shopping for materials for Buttercup's Halloween costume. Buttercup wants to dress as one of our dogs. I will post photos.

My Realtor wanted to know if we were in harm's way. She has no concept of the geography of Florida. That's OK - I probably couldn't point to her part of New York on an unlabelled map.

Yes - we are planning to move to New York. We're looking for acreage. We're going to farm Christmas trees and hope. We're going to freeze our heinders off in the winter and wonder what the hell we were thinking, and we will remind ourselves that we were thinking about spring, summer and autumn, which together last about as long as winter.

We are looking at homes in villages. Villages! You have no idea how beautiful that word is to me.

You should know that I am married to George Bailey - actually the Bizarro George Bailey. He has spent his life trying to get INTO Bedford Falls.

Come March, when the permafrost turns to mud, he and I will pack the younguns in the wagon and strike out for his Bedford Falls. We have fallen in love with a house, and will talk soon to a lender to find out if there is any hope of making an offer on it sooner than our move.

(***If you are my New York Realtor and you're reading this, please note that the language I use - "fallen in love" is just literary hyperbole. We could take it or leave it. We're not that excited. Really.***)

The one difficulty with this decision has been our son, who will turn 17 in a couple of weeks. He is ambivalent about the prospect of moving. He has threatened to stay behind with friends. I'm not sure how this will shake out.

I do know that I'm going to mention the necessity of buying him a 4-wheeler so he can survery the Christmas trees on the back nine.

Dora's a cruel, cruel mistress

I'm going to do a blog in which every entry is an apology for not updating more regularly. Yes, I know - that' what this blog has become. The catch - and the hilarity - of the other blog will be that I will update it daily, if not hourly.

There is a general, boring chaos surrounding me right now that includes:

- My boss, friend and favorite priest on the planet retiring from her post at my church. Really crushing news. I am essentially holding my breath to see whether I want to continue to work as the church secretary as the office conditions change.

- Another trip to New york, this time complete with househunting. We saw a PERFECT house. We are both in love with it. It's generally in our price range. The only problem is that we have too much to accomplish here in Florida before we can consider the move.

- Trying to accomplish all there is to accomplish. Getting Mom's house emptied is like having a job scraping pet kittens off the highway. It's harder than I want to give it credit for. I want someone else to do it. Any takers out there?

- Preparing for a trip tomorrow to visit my aunt and grandmother, who turned 93 last week. Buttercup and I are going together to celebrate.

So you see, as usual there is much on my plate. I keep trying to figure out how to let some of it go, but there is nothing that can be eliminated. At least, I can't see anything right now.

FUNNY KID STORY

Buttercup and I were shopping in the pet food aisle of the grocery store - or the "market" as my daughter has started calling it - and she told me:

"I don't eat dog food! I eat Buttercup food!"

"Yes, that's right."

"I don't eat cat food. I eat Buttercup food."

"Right you are."

(Moment of pensive silence. "I eat DORA food."

"Oh, really? What does Dora eat?"

"Boots."