Evening falls softly and slowly on the prairie.  The sun slants along the horizon for a long time before it finally sinks out of sight.

I sit out on the patio with my faithful hound dog at my feet.  I’m sitting in my purple chair.  It’s the one I pulled out of the dump when they tore Ryan’s house down.  I cut the broken rockers off and painted it purple.  It’s a nice chair for sitting on the porch.  There’s a handmade rug that my mom made hanging over the back of my chair at the moment.  I washed it yesterday and hung it over the chair to dry.  It dried completely in the 90 degree weather today, but I like it there, I might leave it.

There is no wind tonight.  It’s so still and calm that I can hear Loren B. on his custom built Yamaha a mile away on the highway.  I listen as he downshifts and makes the turn onto Main and then up to his street.  He got the bike at a state surplus auction.  I know this because he was late for Kim’s birthday party the day he bought it and rode it home unlicensed.  In a town this small, you wouldn’t think you’d have to differentiate people by a last initial, but there’s Loren B and he lives two doors down from Loren H, and neither are to be confused with the differently spelled, but same sounding Lorne S.

A little closer to home, probably two blocks away I hear mens voices talking.  Only one stands out.  Herb O‘connor.  It’s the doorway of his shop where the men are standing, drinking beer and swapping stories.  Probably he and Gene and Smitty.  I can’t hear what Herb is saying, just the distinctive ring of his voice carries on the evening air.  

Closer yet, kitty-corner down the street, I hear my neighbor open his back door and call “come on in” as his mom parks in his driveway and  climbs the steps of his deck.  

Birds are chirping everywhere. I know I enjoy birdsong, but I do not know the song of specific birds, except the pheasant roosters. I hear one in the tall grass across the street and then one further away and then one over by the church.  The dog is fascinated by the evening moths flitting around.  The light fades by degrees.  A cotton tail rabbit hops across the street and stops in the middle to look around and see what is going on.

The sun is behind me, but I can feel the coolness to the air now.  The sun has set and it’s time for me to say goodnight.

!

Miracles happen.  I don’t know how else to explain this.

Friends, I was on the computer this morning, doing my morning thing and my phone rang.  It was an unfamiliar out of state number, but I answered anyway because I was curious.

A very unfamiliar hesitant voice asked who this was and I gave my name.  And that unfamiliar voice said, “This is your brother.”

I honestly thought someone was screwing with me or had the wrong number or something.  This voice said he was calling to tell me I’m going to be an aunt again.

Ok.  I’ve never had the opportunity to be an aunt to my neices and nephew.  Got to be the godparent to one and after that I was shut out of their family circle.  I have a neice who must be about nine or ten and I’ve never laid eyes on her.

For ten long years I have never heard one single word from my brother.  Never had a card, letter, email, or text.  He’s not showed up for my parents 40th anniversary, nor their 50th, nor Dad’s quadruple by-pass surgery.

And this morning a phone call out of the blue.  

He said Mom told him he should call me.  And I quote, “So I figured it was time I stop being a jackass and do that.  Talk to you later.  Bye.”

I don’t know how to process this.  I can hardly wrap my mind around the fact that he called.  I can’t even relate to the smooth sophisticated city sounding voice I heard over the phone.

I don’t know what to think.  Has the Tulip ban been lifted?  Is it worth trying to communicate again and establish a relationship with my neices and nephew, or am I just going to get kicked in the teeth again?

The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.    

I remember that little phase being embroidered on a sampler in the doctors office when I was a kid.  Like a lot of things, that didn’t make a lot of sense to me when I was a kid.

Now, I understand.  Oh, boy do I understand!

And you all know I LOVE the little town where I live and the people in it.  But...  A person just can’t hurry. There is very much a prevailing attitude of no hurries, no worries here.

This morning I had a lot I wanted to get done.  So, I thought “I’ll have a quick cup of coffee with the elders”  There was my first mistake.  I should know better and one quick cup turned into 3.

Then I went and fed my chickens to get that chore out of the way for the day and took my usual walk to the post office.  I thought I’d duck in quickly and get my mail.  No.  I got caught by someone inside and had to go in and discuss coffee grounds of all things.  But I kept the discussion short and hurried home, only to find 3 new text messages and 3 voice mails from my daughters.

GracieBabe split out her pants at work and needed me to bring her some new ones.  Ok, I laughed myself right off my chair over that... and then I hurried over to her house to try to find a different pair of jeans. If any of you have or had teeenage daughters I’m sure you can relate to trying to find anything in their room!!  

And then I had to deal with the dogs who wanted out and wanted to ride along and so on.

Got out to the gas station and gave her the jeans and realized my neighbor who works for the same company as my hubby was standing there at the counter.  And Larry is very friendly and talks very slow.  And it was a long conversation.  And now it’s 11 am and I’ve finally gotten my second load of laundry put in the washer and haven’t even gotten to item number 2 on my to do list.

Oh well....

First of all, thank you all for the positive thoughts, prayers, etc.  It was greatly appreciated!

I got the job.  Drove over some pretty nasty roads this morning to get to my job interview.  Wasn’t even much of an interview.  We talked for about 5 minutes or less and he gave me a job, with PERFECT hours and is going to start me at $9 and hour which isn’t as much as I was making before, but more than I expected for working in a warehouse.

The clinic even had time to get me in for the mandatory drug test right after my interview, so that’s out of the way.  Now they just have to wait for the results of that and then they’ll be in touch and I’ll get to start work.  

Monday-Wednesday 8-5.  Can’t ask for better than that!  That gives me Thurs-Sat for odd jobs and resting up. I’ve gotten so fat and out of shape this winter that I assume the first few weeks will be killer for me, but I’m just so glad to have a job that does not involve cooking! I didn’t realize till this week how much I didn’t want to cook anymore.

Some of you may remember my tirade last week about my teenage daughter smoking.  I was so angry I couldn’t focus or even deal with it.

Well, I’ve calmed down now, but I’m still not going to put up with this new developement.

If that kid is going to smoke, it’s going to cost her dearly and she’s going to learn some lessons along the way.

The day I found the cigs in her purse, I took them.  It was almost a full pack. This morning her sister took the ones she found and ran them over with her car.

When I went over there to feed my chickens, I saw two packs of camels on the front seat of Gracie’s car.  I took those.  

 And no, she didn’t have her car locked.  That’s another thing, she buys a $20,000 sports car, that I co-signed for, and she doesn’t even lock it???  We are a small town with about a zero crime rate, but still.....

Anyway, my plan is to just keep stealing her cigarettes until she decides it’s too expensive to smoke.  Might not be the best plan in the world, but at the moment, that and the silent treatment are all I’ve got.  

Anyone got any suggestions?

Yes, we got rid of her.  We burned her.

Sounds pretty horrible, doesn’t it.  Well, it was an emotional day and it wasn’t even my granny.

I went to clean house for a friend today.  I’ve known this guy since we were twelve and so I know his family and some of its history too.  It’s a rather large family with roots that go back to homesteading in this area.  Grandma lived on the family farm, with her bachelor son, right beside the house her other son (my friends father)and his family lived in.

Grandma died in 1980something.  Before we were out of high school.  Uncle Richard, an old bachelor, continued living in the house until ten years ago when he died.  

Three years ago the heirs ransacked the house.  Took anything of value and put it on an auction sale.  And believe me when say, there wasn’t much that was worth anything but they sold it anyway.  I know, because I went to the auction.  Anything that wasn’t worth anything, such as family photos and old magazines were dumped in piles and left for the mice.

I’ve taken on the task of making this house habitable again.  I’m being very well paid to do it.  My friend set me the task and told me he was leaving for the day.  But he couldn’t bear to leave.   His grandma could be a right nasty old rip at times, but never-the-less, she was still grandma, and he couldn’t quite leave while I was throwing her away.  And of course I’m throwing away Uncle Richard too, and that was even harder.  And to make matters worse, they were kind of hoarders.  

I found amazing things today, like small cardboard boxes filled entirely with empty cartidges from razor blades.  I found unused calendars from 1946.  I found unused greeting cards dating back to maybe the 50’s, and an old container made especially for storing Green Stamps, complete with two empty books.

I’ve helped my mother go thru my grandmother’s things, and I’ve helped two mothers in law go thru their mother’s things.  I’m no stranger to getting rid of Grandma, but I have to say, it doesn’t get any easier no matter whose Grandma it was.