CATCHIN' UP

I don't know where this month has gone but it is almost over. We all managed to get through the End-of-School picnic and the slumber party afterward without much trouble. Miguel had a few bruises after the baseball game and the humiliating loss to the high school baseball team. I think his and the others fellas from town's pride was the main bruise suffered. Bethy Rose and her girlfriends, with Cora's help, and Aunt Lutie's recipe, turned out a pretty good mess of fried chicken and a real tasty Key Lime Pie for the picnic before the game. Then Miguel and I managed to put up with giggling girls and, what they thought of as quietly, sneaking down to the kitchen and out on the back porch in the middle of the night; they finally settled down a little after one in the morning so we old folks could get several hours sleep before it was time to make pancakes for us all.

Jewel and Harold have been doing a lot of whispering among themselves in the cafe for the past week or so. I don't know what's going on but have tried not to be my usually nosey self and ask. I am wondering if they are going to surprise us by announcing a wedding date though. I keep looking for a ring on her finger, but then again maybe under the circumstances of the end to her last marriage (and not a day too soon as I was about to take a shotgun after Chester myself), Jewel won't want one. But then again, maybe Harold wants all the world...well, at least here in Harts Corner...to know she's been asked and said yes to his proposal, and will want her to wear his ring. These older folks can be so complicated.

Don't look at me that way. My life is complicated enough without getting involved with all that wedding bell stuff with Miguel just yet. We are both perfectly happy with the way things are going. It may not be legal as far as a piece of paper filed at the courthouse, but Miguel, Bethy Rose and I are a family. I know he is the only man for me and, I'm pretty sure, he knows that I'm not running off anywhere. I'm going to say yes one of these days. That is when I'm ready. And if Miguel asks me again.

Wouldn't it be a hoot if he never does ask again? Hmm, I wonder if he's changed his mind?