Wind me up

It has been raining since noon here in Missouri's wine country. Great for all the grape crops but not having the best effect on the achy joints of this old gal with fibromyalgia.

Perhaps, the Old Salt and I overdid it with the mad dash we made all around the state of Oklahoma this weekend combined with the stress of attending my cousin's funeral. Today we feel as if we need someone to insert a key and rewind our energy motor. The Old Salt has slipped back into bed for a nap and I have been staring at a blank computer screen for some time now. Just can't find the steam to complete anything today.

Plus, that old movie projector in my head has been flashing 1940's type newsreel clips on my eyelids, disjoined snippets of my childhood, images of long lost friends, but, mostly replays of the ways the word has changed over my lifetime. Perhaps it is just all the surreal activities of the last few weeks that has my head in a tailspin. Then again, I could actually be losing my senses, but it seems there is no good news lately.

Living in a small town has lots of good things going for it. This is a sleepy community where many people still do not lock their doors and where crime is the occasional cat in a tree or some elderly person scared by an unlatched shed door banging in the wind. You will see kids walking home from the high school dressed in the latest goth, hip hop or big city fads but they are the same kids who sing in the church choir or mow the grass for their disabled neighbor.

But, somehow recently this town has slipped into the middle of a Alfred Hickcock drama. Early one Sunday morning recently, my nephew, who is one of our towns finest law enforcement officers, was returning to the station house at the end of a long night shift; when two young boys ran across the street in front of him loaded down with a variety of objects. The younger of the two realizing the vehicle was a squad car, dropped his load in the street, and took off in a mad run across the field that runs directly behind our condo. My nephew soon scooped up the six year old boy in his arm and within a few more minutes had run down the older child (who turned out to be seven) and had him under the other arm. And, thus was solved ten burglaries in our town, with all the missing loot found hidden under the children's beds and the parents oblivious to their crime spree. Turns out the seven year old boy planned the heists and enlisted the help of his six year old friend. He told the police that he chose early Sunday when their parents were sleeping late and half the town was in church to sneak into the mostly unlocked homes over a period of months. The boy admitted to getting the idea from a movie he saw. When asked what they were going to do with the merchandise, the boy stated he was going to wait for a cooling off period and then take the items to a pawn shop.

In another recent event, a seventh grade student at my grandson's school, convinced one of his classmates to distract an eight grade student while he snuck up behind him on the street after school and clobbered him over the head with a crow bar he had kept hidden in his backpack all day. I still have not heard what his reason for the assault was.

But, I digress. My intention was to relay that even though I had plans to post to Mellow Yellow, Ruby Tuesday and a few other memes this week, I think I am going to go back to bed and pull the covers over my head and sleep. Perhaps, when I awake I will no long feel as if I need someone to come insert that large key and wind me up again.