Home or Roam?

Another storm approaches. Thanks to Rita-rain, the dust on the road has been knocked down, although it didn't do a darn thing about thinning the love bug population. The pests are still swarming and seem particularly attracted to things white and shiny. My husband and I have decided that the big bug that "tows" the smaller bug is female. Single love bugs may be gay and, therefore, out of luck. Or love as the case may be.

I had planned to go and visit with my sister in Shreveport this weekend, but my family here was so adamant about me NOT going that I decided to postpone. It was a hard decision since Jen is home alone with her husband Randy away for training with the AF in Dallas. I wasn't worried about my safety traveling up there, but am concerned about lil' sis riding out Rita by herself. Another friend is riding out the storm in Houston with her family. I'll say a prayer for all in Rita's path.

Work continues on the trailer. My husband has been over there on the other side of the lake every day and has just about done all he can to the inside. He finished painting the master bedroom and installed new works in both the toilets. Next, he says he'll move outside and put in the water lines and set the porches. Once the front porch is set, we can start moving furniture in. My stepmother is anxious to get her new couch, so we'll have her old one, a recliner and end table. The trailer guys never did return this week. We last saw them on Saturday. My father called their boss last night and he's promised to have them come out and finish the job. The paperwork for the power company has finally been turned in. With any luck, we should have some power out there in a few weeks. Unless the power guys are called to work on the damage left by Rita. I'm sure that would receive priority.

Brody and I saw three deer the other day during our walk, two with antlers and one without. They pranced across the road and into the woods and the big, black dog started after them. I'd hate to have to put Brody on a leash for our walks, but what if he goes into the woods and doesn't come back? I also saw a flock of turkeys. It won't be long before the Elmer Fudds are out. I've got to get a shocking orange vest to wear on my walks.

We watched "Jeremiah Johnson" the other night on DVD, one of my father's all time favorite movies. My father has this thing about mountain men and wanting to be one. Even though I'm not a Robert Redford fan, JJ was pretty good and the scenery was fantastic. Loved the "Bearclaw" character played by Will Geer, JJ's wild and wooly mentor. In the film, JJ comes to be responsible for an orphaned boy and is hitched to the sister of a Flathead chief. There are wonderful little montages of the "family" camping -- making fires, bagging supper, snuggling into blankets in front of the fire. Just as I was beginning to wonder, "How long can they just wander around?" JJ finds the perfect place to build a cabin and they set to work. The reality/myth of the mountain man speaks to all of us in some way. Freedom. Individualism. Independence. But, when you come right down to it, Jeremiah Johnson is the happiest he's ever been sitting by the fire in his log cabin with his Indian wife and adopted son. We can spend our lives divided between the ideas of roaming and roosting and never be happy. My father, that would-be mountain man, doesn't much like eating food he's not familiar with and I'm not sure he'd trade in his recliner for a pallet on the rocky ground, but we all need some kind of myth to follow. And the mountain man story is as good as any.

My grandmother told me that when she was a teenager she loved to jitterbug. Imagine that. I've never seen anyone jitterbug except in the movies, maybe Judy Garland and Andy Hardy. She said that she used to sneak out and go to bars with her girlfriends just to dance. She said they didn't drink, but her mama would have skinned her alive if she'd known she'd gone to a bar, period. For a few minutes on an occasional evening, I sit and listen to her stories, mining her memories of the past. Although she scoffs at my need to know, I can tell she is eager to remember, and she is a generous story teller.

God bless all those in Rita's path. I keep waiting for life to return to "normal." It's seemed very ab-normal since we left Oregon. My husband and I are still roaming, in a sense, homeless and jobless, but hopeful. That's got to count for something.