Hey! Should we laugh or cry today? I'm going to GRIN because it's been exactly one month since The Big One Before the BIG ONE and I've stuck to my goal of writing something every day. YIPEE! A tiddlywinks 11 months to go. Of course, some days I've written a crazy something-or-ruther-anything just so I could say I wrote something, but hey, I didn't make any serious groundrules for this blog. And let's remember, some days I write enough to count for 3 or 4 days in one.

This evening I walked at dusk. Dusk, I've decided, is THE coziest 1/2 hour of the day. When I was a little girl we spent our summers in Michigan at my grandparents' home, Watervliet, Michigan, to be exact. Michigan is only the greatest state in the Union. I can say that because I'm really a Floridian, I account for 1/3 of all people in the world who were born and raised in Florida, Florida Crackers. My brother and sister are the other 2/3. You meet any super nice person and the chances of their being from Michigan are 99.9%. (I just changed that from 100% so all you nice folk from Alabama and Mississippi and Kansas won't send me a box of rotten tomatoes. Every super nice person I know who is NOT from Michigan is in the .10%.) We had to go to bed in Michigan while it was still light. Of course in the summers it could stay light until 10:00 PM. Actually, it was dusk, a medium light, when I climbed into my bottom bunk. I'd lie there and look out the window the bed was pushed up against and study the leaves in the copse of trees, which were dark against a pale blue-yellow sky. Oh boy, the shapes and designs waiting to be discovered in the spaces between the leaves. It's just like finding elephants and kangaroos in clouds, which is a worthy pastime, studying hidden pictures in clouds, if you live in Florida. It's so exciting, because you have to find them before the clouds move or, with the leaves, before blackness swallows the dusk. Also, there was the yummy sound of motorboats putt-putting on Paw Paw Lake across the street. My eyes, ears and imagination were united in bliss.

Well, so tonight, and also two nights ago, I'm out walking, appreciating the dusk. Actually, I think I mean twilight, having just consulted Webster. Lovely peachy pink colors leftover from the sunset diffuse behind the leaf lace, a dusky (I like the word dusk, it fits) gloaming envelops the neighborhood. Okay, gloaming. What's that? Webster doesn't seem to get that word right. Webster is usually very good at including ALL the different meanings of a word, but he's caught napping here. The best he can do is spell it GLOM, like mom, when it should be GLOAM, or, at the very least, GLOME, like Rome, foam, dome, comb. I'm POSITIVE there is an Andy Griffith epidode where the community choir with poor Barney at the helm sings something about "in the gloaming." I can hear it right this second. Sounds like dusk to me. Better dig up that episode and concentrate on the words then direct dial Webster. Stay tuned. Gloaming just HAS to mean darkish light or the period of barely dark before nightfall. Yeah, dusk.

Well, so I'm loving the gloaming exept . . . Except. EXCEPT, EXCEPT, EXCEPT. What should come swooping overhead but MY FAVORITE? A BAT. There was no mistaking it, a bat in flight is seared into my brain FOREVER. All else may abandon my memory, but a bat in winged, webbed flight, NEVER. Bats are so dang FAST, like tiny missiles on a curve, dipping and soaring. And at any moment ready to dive into my hair. Bats and twilight, yep, a perfect pairing. Honestly, is there any joy in life that is untainted? Yes, there is. Lying in my little bunk bed, age 8, with the little red and white patchwork quilt, in a narrow room with walls of creamy paneling, a red and blue Indian rug warming the floor and a stack of Nancy (by Ernie Bushmiller, Nancy was like the adorable spiked black-haired version of Shirley Temple, only spunkier and less talented) comic books next to me, being lulled to sleep by motorboats. PURE JOY.

Today was the day to clean well the upstairs bathroom. Do or die. Work or wane. You know what I mean, the Lick and Promise Technique just weren't cuttin' it no more (bad English is just so appropriate sometimes). Mike unscrewed the exhaust fan and about tripped over himself running downstairs to show me all the little goodies the lightbulbs and glass cover had collected. He beamed, It looks like a haunted house up there. Good, we'll go get our butterfly net and scoop up a couple of bats and let 'em loose in the bathroom. We won't put the lid back on the fan box and the bats can perch up there in the cobwebs in the ceiling. It'll be so perfect. All that DUST. I'm telling you, the dust wins. After a VERY LONG TIME and a temper ready to trip, I said, Enough!, we'll get rest of the dirt the next time. That's how I squelch my clean freakishness, telling myself,There's always the next time, we'll go a layer of dirt deeper the NEXT TIME. Except the next time might be ten years away. Some jobs are just so pathetic because no matter how long and how meticulously you labor you're never going to get it CLEAN clean. You know? Makes you not want to even bother. So chuck that chore in the column under Non-Essentials-Who-Cares?-No-One-That's-Who and go make a milkshake.

DTD is on the prowl for a new apartment. She came by after my Twilight Bat Walk to take me to see her favorite so far. I have to say, it's VERY cute . . . and clean, from what I could tell peeking in the windows in the gloaming. Old Florida stone-front house, French doors, wood floors and woodwork, a kitchen with a counter (2 whole feet of counter, but that's two feet more than she has in her current apartment), multiple little cutouts and cozy spots (I'm the Cozy Girl, in case that has escaped you). Sidewalk, porch and patio, trees. I said, Who's going to help you move? She replied, I thought Mike and his friend. I said, Oh, I thought you would get your Male Interest to help. Naw. She has a couple of boys on the rope right now. You have to walk the rope gingerly. She favors one of the guys so I intelligently asked, What qualities does he possess that makes you like him better than the other boy? Her very honest answer, He's newer. You gotta love that DTD. I said, I have a new nickname for you . . . CRUSHER. Well, I'm telling you what, I've never meant a more capable, industrious, with-it, knows-her-own-mind young lady in my life. She was born on a special family friend's birthday. That is an incredible story I shall have to tell you soon, it truly is, maybe I'll save it for DTD'S and friend's birthday. But this friend always says about DTD, She doesn't suffer fools gladly. It's the truth. She never has, she never will. Glad to have an iron-willed offspring in the family. Refreshing. She'll go far. DTD already knows more than I ever will. A June Cleaver Wannabe and a Thoroughly Modern DTD. Some combo. God had fun matching us up.

Wishing I Were in Watervliet Reading a Nancy,
KEM

P.S. If the concept of dusk is still underappreciated by you, then certainly don't cast blame in my direction. On the other hand, I could go on about it some more tomorrow. I've not exhausted the subject yet . . . just for this particular post I have.