Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Too Pooped to Pop, or Too Hot to Hoot

Today, Jed and I went to Birmingham to get my car tag, then found that the right place was in Bessemer, so there we went. Afterwards we ate lunch at the Irondale Café. But it was a lot more complicated than it sounds, and we are both worn to a frazzle. And Jed even has to drive back to Atlanta today.


"But fill me with the old familiar juice,
Methinks I might recover by and by. . ."




Last night the poetry group met at the Leeds Arts Council. Jed went with me, and I read my new poem, "This Rough Magic." It was a good meeting.

Friday, March 17, 2017

I'm Really Okay. I think.

Today I arrived for my dental appointment exactly four days and one hour early. Really, what happened is that I had dreaded it so much, I had changed the appointment a couple of times. I called myself checking my email confirmation this morning, but reckon I looked at the wrong one. A couple of other one o'clock appointments didn't show, so they took me anyway. I had a new technician, and she had some new fuzzy stuff to clean my posts, so my mouth isn't sore.

I did get my NFSPS entries postmarked on time Saturday. Or whenever the fifteenth was. If this is Friday, it must have been Wednesday. I entered 21 old and new poems that had never won much of anything, and had never been published. And probably never will, but you never know till you try.

Yesterday I cooked turnip greens and cornbread for lunch. Today I had corn, green beans and potato salad.

Thursday, March 16, 2017

No Book Today

Yesterday afternoon, Dave was dissatisfied. He thought the old beat-up mailbox spoiled the perfection of his artwork. So he went to Walmart and bought a spiffy new metal box and installed it. All this was surprisingly inexpensive: $14 for the mailbox, plus all the stuff he had on hand, and I paid him what I regularly pay him for a day's work. As long as the City of Valor doesn't bill me for a permit to replace a mailbox.

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

The Pecan Man, by Cassie Dandridge Selleck***

This is our selection for the next book club meeting. It's a very short novel, and good reading. I finished it a few minutes ago.


I think Ramey is going to host the next meeting of the book club. I'm going to try to help her, as I don't believe I could handle having the group at my house. Though I don't know why. I feel well lately, as long as I don't have to walk a long way. We shall see.


Dave and Jennifer came over this morning. Jenn cleaned up the house, while Dave fixed my mailbox. He straightened the post and the crooked box, then replaced the crumbling wooden base around the foot of the post, then painted the base and the post brown because he had some brown paint. He painted the numbers white. I guess it's up to me to plant something inside the frame. Me and my black thumb.


I went to the post office this morning to mail my entries in the National Federation of State Poetry Societies' contests. I entered 21 contests. Anyway, the post office's computer or something was down, and they couldn't do postage and mailing. There was a long line, and a couple of us were only there to mail packages. I decided that, instead of waiting, I would come back tomorrow. I asked the lady behind the counter if she thought it would be fixed by tomorrow, and she said, "It'd better!" If it isn't, I'll go to the P.O. on Montclair road, because tomorrow is the deadline for mailing the stuff.

Monday, March 13, 2017

Oh, me!

I slept too long, and now I've got to go to Walmart for medicines and typing paper. I've got all my submissions for the NFSPS contests on the computer, but ran out of paper last night.

Need to find out what's making me sleep so long. I suspect it's the increase in my meds. Anyway, when you gotta go--

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

The Lost City of the Monkey God, by Douglas Preston****

I've nearly finished reading this new book (Jan. 2017). It's the most fascinating archaeology book I've read since 1976's Maya, by Charles Gallencamp. Makes me wish I could have been an archaeologist and could have gone with them to Honduras.


This has been a good day, with a lot of thunder and lightning and spattering rain. Tomorrow is Women's Strike Day, and I'll wear my red shirt in support. Although it's doubtful anyone will see me.


Today my cousin phoned. I wish there were something I could do for her. She's living in her and her husband's original house which is falling down around her, ill, without a car, and her two children don't help her much. Her son occasionally takes her to buy groceries or to a medical appointment, and she gives him and her grandchildren money all the time. She hasn't seen her daughter, who lives in Atlanta, for six years, when she (my cousin) drove part of the family to New York for her grandson's wedding. I try to get her to buy a car while she still has some of C.'s insurance money, but she seems to be in a paralysis of nerves, says her son won't help her look for a car, and she can't do it on her own. I take some of it with a grain of salt; it seems to me she has just found a sort of comfort zone in a houseful of cats and dogs, where she's not in danger of having to nursemaid another family member as she did her father and her husband for years on end.


She thinks after the children get all her money, they'll put her in a nursing home on welfare and forget about her, which sounds sort of reasonable, considering how they've treated her so far. I want to help her, but I'm reluctant to, like helping her get a car. If she had an accident, or even if she didn't, the son and daughter would probably jump on me like ducks on a june bug. Besides, I'm several years older than she, and not in the best of shape myself. I'm afraid to drive on the highways to get over there.


I must admit that her personality is a very large part of her problem. Since she and C. lost all their property except the little house where she lives now, she seems to turn all of her hurt and resentment outward. If a thought comes into her head, it goes out her mouth in a tirade. Knowing her history and how her personality came to be, it's very hard for me to blame her or hold her responsible. But while she still has money, she simply must take hold and rescue herself. Sometimes it's necessary to let a child/grandchild (or in her case, a bunch of them) fend for itself and take care of Numero Uno.


Maybe I shouldn't put this on my blog. But I can't vocally explain all this to other members of my family, and besides, I've got so many cousins, only a few will know whom I'm talking about.

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

A Gothic First Novel, by Andrew Michael Hurley****

I enjoyed this book at the very beginning, because of the rainy, overcast seaside locale. It reminded me at first of the Cornish coast, Plymouth, Portsmouth, etc. But then the vegetation started sprouting and blooming too early, and other oddities happened. I had to keep going back to check things I thought I remembered but that didn't seem quite comme il faut.

I thoroughly agree with Stephen King that this is a whale of a first novel, worthy to be set up there beside some of Shirley Jackson's and Daphne duMaurier's tales. Those who complain of the many words they had to read before getting to the horror, most likely didn't catch the hints--nay, the events throughout--that I, too, understood only after the final explosion. The Loney really lives up to its name.

I think we should have this for a book club selection. Or maybe not. You don't get the full significance until after the end, and maybe not even then, that could have whispered, "You might better think twice about reading this!"

I bet "Tonto's" real name was Michael.