At Least They're Committed

What a strange year this has been.

We’re in a lovely neighborhood — a cluster of well-to-do-ish folks, nestled in the center of natives who have lived, worked, and poured (yes, poured, not pored) their lives out into this farmland for generations.

In the move, I realized I needed new sheets. Gosh, silk sheets are delightfully lovely! I’ve heard so much about them! So I invested. Alas, every time I rolled over, I risked sliding off the bed. Even when the bed was made, and I hadn’t been home, the linens would have sashayed their way to the floor.

Yesterday, I replaced my lovely baby-blue queens with tan-and-blue flannel. Much better. Snuggly! Earthy! The silkies lasted 2.5 months.

We moved here to be closer to all of the children and grandchildren, and that’s the most awesome thing ever! We’re so grateful.

Goodness. We always need something! Yes, much of that is because we just moved and are going for a three-quarters ‘refresh’ of the old stuff. But the new stuff is crappier quality, so we’d likely have been better off with the comfortably used, methinks.

We just don’t have the energy to fix anything, sadly. Every day that I think, ‘I’m not going to order anything else, period!’ something comes up. I will continue, however, on my quest for minimalism.

The children — all in different homes, obviously — are each 13-15 minutes from here, vs. 30-40 minutes before. But not long after driving away from our new neighborhood, the scenario is quite different. More hardworking or more bleak? I can’t tell. Both?

You can be better off — buy a larger house, more land, the best lighting and landscaping — but you’ll never get away from the wind in Brighton. It’s always blustering in Brighton! No, not gentle zephyrs — gusts!

Not far past the ridiculous mass-mailboxes, clumped a mile-plus from where we live — requiring us to stop by on our way out or in or take the dog on a hefty-ish walk if it’s not subzero outside — there are ramshackled homes littered with vehicles, working or not, unknown, camped on the nonlawns. (Run-on!)

There are a lot of MAGAts near here. The police here are just as . . . avoid them at all costs, and if they pull you over, just smile and pretend you’re guilty so they don’t go all ICE and make up a reason to kill you. Yes! I still fully support the deputies.

There’s a light-blue careworn but not decrepit mobile home — no, not that beige one, that’s a little farther east — but this one has a resin or concrete 2-foot-tall donkey with polka dots as part of its front garden landscaping. Someone loves that ass. It is the gatekeeper and the security for that home. And if they can’t afford a larger, more energy-efficient home, and they probably don’t want or need one, by God, that’s a pretty cool critter to have heralding the good and protecting the homestead from the bad. I love it! And someone loves that home, and that makes me happy.

If you have heat, water, and shelter from the storms, who should really give a shit about where you live?

Ooooh, don’t get me wrong! There are amazing things here! The Something Brewery is fantastic! A true highlight in the area. There are plenty of other great spots here, just none that we’ve gotten a chance to explore yet.

On County Road 2, aka 168th, across the tracks by Main, there’s a five-or-more-storied building that appears long deserted. The glass is mainly intact, and there’s a rough, tall white ‘M’ on each side of the construct.

I can’t find my beading tools! Where are they hiding in all this crap? I’d like to restart creating poorly made, yet strikingly beautiful rosaries again, even if nobody wants them. But my tools were not packed by me, thus their whereabouts are a mystery. Add to that, two of my 7-year-old rosaries are suddenly in want of repair, but I can’t fix them until I find the pliers. Argh!

I asked my good friend ChatGPT if it knew what that M building might be — or at least was. It wasn’t sure, but from the description and the age, it might have been Midwest Steel. I told it that sounds very possible, but that I’d research it further. I haven’t yet. There was a bomb scare today at the county building. Unfortunate.

We at long last got the 2017 Kia to its wonderful new home — we’ve been wanting to give it to my niece and her family, one of whom recently got her driver’s permit, for months now. Paperwork, D losing the title, and stupid Wells Fargo Bank conveniently forgetting we paid it off four years ago made it complicated. But that has finally been resolved: It’s a good car that has done well by us, and it deserves good people. Check off one more daunting task.

D7, D’s Mini-Me, loves all things creepy. Like I said, my fault (heh). Our rides home from picking him up from preschool are always feisty. I point to that building, “You gotta know THAT place is haunted!” He nods enthusiastically, “Yeah, it is!” And I hope he’s just speculating and doesn’t know something I don’t.

It’s good. It really is. Another bead just fell off one of the damaged rosaries. I just need to get things put together, ya know? It doesn’t matter, really, where I’m at. I don’t care where I’m at. I just need to get things put back together.