Days like this, in early Autumn need to be cloned. Repeat performances should occur upon demand. They are delicious, cooling, uplifting, and they dare to foster hope and promise. Perhaps there will be more. And if luck holds, I will live to see more...this season and the next. Always, of course, providing that luck holds, I look forward to the morrow.

Headed for the library this AM, singing loudly all the way. Kind Petey sent me a tune-about drinking coffee in the afternoon and reading T.S. Eliot. And I dared to follow the suggestion. T.S. wanted to question and defy his society and it's constrictions by expressing his feelings, it would seem. It was not standard decorum in his day,early 20th Century America and England, to concentrate on or display one's feelings, but instead to maintain proper manners and dignity, pomp and circumstance. T.S., I am told, is responsible, the original author of what became The Broadway Musical "Cats." In his plays, it can be found as "OLd Possum's Book of Practical Cats". Now, that bit of information pleasingly surprised me, and I am looking forward towards some experimentation of my own, literary attempts at a type of osmosis and absorbtion. The librarian was so excited for me when she asked what works I wanted, and I told her that I wished only to discover. So, with her recommendation, I checked out "The Complete Poems and Plays,1909-1950" and then "Life and Works T.S.Eliot" by Sue Asbee. I know that in past English Lit. classes (always places I loved to be) that I have studied him, but time has worn away the particulars...I wonder if he would be the author that triggers my memory about "fog coming in creeping in like cats on grey, soft feet..." or something remotely akin to that...I recall that my instructor was as excited about that passage, as the librarian was that I wanted to discover T.S. I, too, hope to be excited.

And yet, inspired by the beauty of this crackling September day, I covered my bases. After the death of my father, against my therapist's better judgment, I had promised myself a "Stephen King Summer." I know I am not alone in being mesmerized by this "Master of Suspense," or this "Master of Horror", or however folks want to label him. A freak show at the Carnival? An upsetting ride through the Haunted House further on down the same path?...it matters not what others think. "The Green Mile'" "The Stand," "Hearts In Atlantis"...they do not have to work for you, as long as they do the trick for me. "The Tower" books, that of "The Gunslinger" confound (and borderline bore) me, but as his writings are, indeed, an acquired taste, perhaps I can learn to grow into them at a later time and place. Today, the library loaned me "An unauthorized guide to...The Lost Works of Stephen King" and the VHS of "Hearts in Atlantis"-a book I started shortly before leaving California the last time, and lost track of, and rediscovered and loved reading last month. It stars Anthony Hopkins, so I don't see how it can lose, plus there's a lil' note that "Ebert & Roeper" gave it "TWO BIG THUMBS UP!", so, I gotta guess that the odds are in my favor.

I could not pursue Mr King all summer, it would seem, without running into Mr. Koontz. They are birds of a feather (in my humble opinion), and of course, both collections on fiction hung out in the K's at the aforementioned local library. Now, I just finished two real stinkers from Koontz that I cannot recommend. I can only surmise that they were written very early in his career, and published after he had attained some fame. "Fear Nothing" and "Seize The Night," I would venture to guess were meant to be the first two books of a trilogy, but I feel Dean (no real disrespect intended) would have been forced to name the third book something like "Please Don't Bother"...there was plot potential, but so much unneccesary description, unlikely dialogue, and preposturous situations and short cuts, peppering the first two books that reading them was next to impossible,and following them, just plain was impossible...for the reader or for Dean. But I am fond of "Odd Thomas," and "Forever Odd," and I really enjoyed "The Husband," so today, I got "The Good Guy" on CD, and, "Brother Odd" the book, as my SK Summer is almost gone, and I will soon be forced back into the gray ranks of a working class reality, leaving no time for such adventures, so that I may continue to live my life in the manner to which I have become accustomed-which by the way, is a pretty doggone great life.

Last weekend, Sweet sister Kathy, piled Angel Sister Jan, & myself into her really nice car (a new gray something or other ) and drove us to Illinois to visit our favorite Aunt & Uncle, Gretta and Merle. It was a mixed bag of extreme emotions. Merle is my mother's brother. When he was very young, he victoriously overcame Polio. Now, that he is leaving middle-age behind, "Post-Polio Syndrome" has hit him hard...and there are no more victories to be had, other than Gretta's daily victories in her fight to keep him out of the nursing home, and out of harm's way within their home. And, oh, she fights these battles with such dignity, perseverance, and courage! He has lost more brain function than his Alzheimer's afflicted sister, my mom. And darlin', I cannot lie-in both beloved relatives,that is an unfortunate amount of brain function to lose. It is wasted effort to compare them or describe them, as there are good days and bad days, and for those of us left here to watch, there are mostly only sad days. Time has not been kind to either sibling. Both children of my grandparents, Ray and Hazel, are vacant, rambling, incomplete, and totally dependent on others to get through their remaining days with any semblance of comfort, or hope of pleasantly passing the time. Lordy! Lordy! After all I have seen this summer, I think that The Who said it best-"I hope I die before I get old..." Yet, somehow, I am already 55, and I still have got such a lot of living to do!!! So very many books to read, and movies to see, and adventures to be had...

After the heartbreak of Merle on Friday afternoon, and Saturday luncheon, Kathy decided we needed some cheering up. We had rendezvoused with brother Mark, and his wife & son, Kim and Ken, at Aunt Gretta's, and they followed us Saturday afternoon to revisit our childhood home in Illinois, Galesburg, birthplace of Carl Sandberg.

You cannot begin to imagine our excitement, or our luck! We found our big old white house redone in blue, with a hot tub on the remodeled back porch, and didn't the garage used to be off to the right, we asked each other? There were so many questions, and of course, no one was home. Mark spied a next-door neighbor returning from a fishing trip, and strolling up the driveway, as if invited, extended his right hand in greeting, and marched into the neighbor's back yard behind their returning fishing boat. We girls demurred for a few minutes out in the front yard already feeling we had invaded private property that was no longer our own, but then, we quickly followed Mark's lead, as we had nothing to lose.

This friendly neighbor, Todd, was the first in a line of wonderful surprises. He had been neighbors to Peg and Wayne(the current owners) for 18 years, and he knew that Peg would welcome our unannounced arrival with open arms, "She'll talk your ears off!" he laughed. But as she wasn't home, he got back in his truck and led our little caravan downtown, to where Wayne ran a favored local Italian restaurant. The evening meal was lovely, and Wayne phoned Peg who hurried home to await our arrival. It was better than we could have dared to hope for... Indeed, most pleasantly, she did talk our ears off, as promised, and she also gave us free reign to roam our old house at will. We were soon split into groups of 1, 2, and 3, alternately listening to Peg and her passion for the place, and then, straying off to explore old rooms remodeled, and long forgotten. It was my first major experience with a repressed memory, when Jan moved a fan, and opened a door, and we followed steps up into the attic.

"The playroom," I heard myself say as we ascended the stairs, and peeked over a railing, "We used to roller skate up here on rainy days...and play in the winter!" A room I had entirely forgotten came flooding back into my memory. We'd spent hours up there, with paper dolls, Barbies, and doll houses, and I now remembered groaning and whining, when the summer heats hit, forcing us to retreat to the lower floors. It came back to me in bits and pieces...but, come back to me, it did. What a rush! I have a vivid total recall of watching an old man through a playroom window one winter, struggling against the gale-force winds, fighting his way, head into the wind, gripping his hat, across the street from our house. I remember how he looked so old, cold, weak, and lonely, and maybe even, afraid...and how I felt so bad for him, so guilty, while I was warm and loved inside a house full of food and family..I couldn't have been much older than 10 or 11 then, as we left Galesburg the summer after I had graduated from the sixth grade...I could have spent hours wandering the house, asking questions and listening to Peg's stories...and she could have spent hours telling us her stories, I know. It was all pretty great. But again, never enough hours in the day or the night, and all too soon we were headed back to our suite in Peoria, with me asleep, like the child I used to be, in the back seat. Sweet sister Kathy's sweet husband, Bob,insisted upon picking up the tab for our 4 day, 3 night stay in Peoria, where we also viewed from the outside the home of another of our grandparents, Larry and Sarah, and our first home on Sheridan Ave., before Mark was born. We only saw these homes from the outside & one was better than well-maintained, and the other had painfully been allowed to be run down to a shadow of it's former style. Such is life.

The motel suite in Peoria was pretty wonderful, too. I only had to pay for my meals the entire weekend, so the manner to which I have become accustomed remains a very nice manner, indeed.

Sunday, we wandered into Metamora to meet with Dad's favorite cousins, Bev and Carol. The faces were vaguely familiar, but we really didn't know them. This was one of Dad's last wishes...that we attend the annual family reunion in Metamora...Rene had never allowed him to go, and all-too-soon, he was too old and sick to go...and then, all-too-soon, of course, Daddy was gone. But not before he had begged his children to go where he could not go...We did it for him. We knew nobody, but they made us feel welcome. It was all too clear though, had Dad been able to go, there were few folks that would have remembered him, let alone my grandparents, his folks. Time marches on, and rarely, at this stage of the game, is it ever pretty. I did meet a cousin who shared my migraine affliction... our symptoms fit to a "T," which was a close enough quirk of a stretch for validation.

I am always grateful to find something that validates my own affliction as there is no rhyme or reason for the attacks, and people are often suspicious that I am faking the headaches or bringing them on myself. I really have to learn to not think twice about what other people think...they think that it is all in my head? They're right! It hurts all over my head, especially starting in my right rhomboid muscle traveling in an unreal straight line up the right side of my neck, up the backside of my head on the right side, down the right side of my forehead, landing throbbing, stabbing and pounding behind my right eye...(had a recent run-in w/a non-believer, if you couldn't tell, but I hurt too bad to stick up for myself).

Well, this post got away from me,(again!), another novelette, but there was so much that I wanted to enter. Someday, when I am depressed, I want to be able to flip through my blog & find days like today, when it is almost all good, and try to get back to here from there. There are bound to be plenty of almost all rough times ahead, and I want to do all that I can to remember the good times. Most of early September 2007 was pretty good-I really hope that I can remember that. And not repress the memories, especially, those that are all good.