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This trip to Indiana was marked to be different, in part because DYA's grandmother has recently put her house on the market and will probably be moving up to upstate NY by the end of the season, so there's a general feeling of 'this could be the last time'. So instead of just driving past the random markers noticed along the way every time, we would stop and examine them.
The first, on Friday afternoon, was the 15 foot statue of Jesus on the huge altar near the road, but when we pulled over we realized immediately that it was actually the Virgin Mary. The grounds were immaculately kept, so to speak, and Sophie was happy to be running around in the grass and over the marble gravel rocks, playing fetch with pine cones. But perhaps even in her manic pupppy-like behavior, in her own way of recognizing she was guest, she did not pee or poop anywhere. We wandered around the statue itself, examining items left on the base from Mother's Day, reading the inscriptions carved into the granite. The main one I did not recognize from the Bible -- not that I have it memorized, but I have a lot of it stored up in the recessess of my brain collecting dust that occasionally springs out in fully formed passages. It said, "I am all thine, my queen, my mother, and all that I have is thine." I wrote it down in my book to look up later, and this morning the best I could find is that it came from the Pieta Prayer Book, or maybe it's a somewhat common Catholic dedication that just is featured at the beginning of this particular book. The monument itself was in honor of Rev. C.P. Bergan by the The Legion of Mary and dedicated in the 1960s. I was convinced the use of initials meant the person was a woman.
The second, on Sunday afternoon, closed out the trip. We finally, finally, finally visited Boot City, and let me tell you, of any city in Indiana I most want to live in, it's Boot City. (The website doesn't do it justice.) They 10,481 pairs of boots, according to one billboard. I don't know if they go out and change it every day after they sell some or what. But I doubt it since it was a wheatpaste sign 20 miles out. The store was divided by genre into huge sections that were practically the size of their own store -- a general woman's section, a motorcycle gear section, above it was the saddle and bridle section. Then the general men's section, the western shirt section, the boot section, the jeans section, the Carhartt section. The boots were subdivided out into style/brand, same as the jeans. I almost almost bought these Wrangler rodeo-fit jeans but realized it would pretty much be a waste of $25 because I can't really imagine myself devoted to the process of wearing skin-tight jeans that need major breaking-in. I don't really think of myself as having a cowboy fetish, but walking in there, it's hard not to get sucked in. I did buy a pair of boots, an indulgence onto the credit card, but they are more SWAT team boots of the black leather variety, a style that I'd never seen here around the city at a cost well below what anything would be here. Plus, I mean, it's hard not to buy boots from Boot City. We also bought matching underwear, which are pretty fabulous. We took pictures, but I'm feeling too shy and private to post them, so I will just describe. Bright orange, with blue waist bands and pink leg bands, and on the front it says "Hello Cowboy" and on the back there's a 60s style graphic of a cowgirl kissing some strapping square-jawed fellow and she says "I feel a SIN coming on."
Ah, sin. My queen, my mother, all that I have is thine.
The first, on Friday afternoon, was the 15 foot statue of Jesus on the huge altar near the road, but when we pulled over we realized immediately that it was actually the Virgin Mary. The grounds were immaculately kept, so to speak, and Sophie was happy to be running around in the grass and over the marble gravel rocks, playing fetch with pine cones. But perhaps even in her manic pupppy-like behavior, in her own way of recognizing she was guest, she did not pee or poop anywhere. We wandered around the statue itself, examining items left on the base from Mother's Day, reading the inscriptions carved into the granite. The main one I did not recognize from the Bible -- not that I have it memorized, but I have a lot of it stored up in the recessess of my brain collecting dust that occasionally springs out in fully formed passages. It said, "I am all thine, my queen, my mother, and all that I have is thine." I wrote it down in my book to look up later, and this morning the best I could find is that it came from the Pieta Prayer Book, or maybe it's a somewhat common Catholic dedication that just is featured at the beginning of this particular book. The monument itself was in honor of Rev. C.P. Bergan by the The Legion of Mary and dedicated in the 1960s. I was convinced the use of initials meant the person was a woman.
The second, on Sunday afternoon, closed out the trip. We finally, finally, finally visited Boot City, and let me tell you, of any city in Indiana I most want to live in, it's Boot City. (The website doesn't do it justice.) They 10,481 pairs of boots, according to one billboard. I don't know if they go out and change it every day after they sell some or what. But I doubt it since it was a wheatpaste sign 20 miles out. The store was divided by genre into huge sections that were practically the size of their own store -- a general woman's section, a motorcycle gear section, above it was the saddle and bridle section. Then the general men's section, the western shirt section, the boot section, the jeans section, the Carhartt section. The boots were subdivided out into style/brand, same as the jeans. I almost almost bought these Wrangler rodeo-fit jeans but realized it would pretty much be a waste of $25 because I can't really imagine myself devoted to the process of wearing skin-tight jeans that need major breaking-in. I don't really think of myself as having a cowboy fetish, but walking in there, it's hard not to get sucked in. I did buy a pair of boots, an indulgence onto the credit card, but they are more SWAT team boots of the black leather variety, a style that I'd never seen here around the city at a cost well below what anything would be here. Plus, I mean, it's hard not to buy boots from Boot City. We also bought matching underwear, which are pretty fabulous. We took pictures, but I'm feeling too shy and private to post them, so I will just describe. Bright orange, with blue waist bands and pink leg bands, and on the front it says "Hello Cowboy" and on the back there's a 60s style graphic of a cowgirl kissing some strapping square-jawed fellow and she says "I feel a SIN coming on."
Ah, sin. My queen, my mother, all that I have is thine.
