JRC

It's here.

2012-02-02T10:34:00.001-06:00

My favorite months, from best to worst:

December - November - October - September - May -April - June - March - January - August - July - February

The best thing about February is that it's short.

One of the worst things about it is that it's hard to pronounce.

Help Is Where You Find It.

2012-01-31T19:21:00.002-06:00

Charlie, the Lowe's installer, came today and put up a new door at the top of the stairs. He said they ordered the wrong door for the basement, so he's going to reorder it. While he was working in the foyer, I asked if he would do me a big favor--help me move the dollhouse so I could put a cloth on the table, and then set the house back on the cloth. He said sure, and wanted to know all about the dollhouse while we were moving it.

I had packed up all the furnishings in the house, because I need to repaper at least one of the walls and make some other changes.

The white cat's ear has healed up nicely, though it'll be scarred. He's such a sweet kitty. I fixed him a bed again in one of the big plastic bins turned on the side, and put it on the deck. Trouble is, it all gets wet and frozen when the weather is bad.

The poetry reading last night was very good. We had eight attendees, and some good stuff was read. Joe read a sympathetic poem about a somewhat scary incident with a black person, which made me brave enough to read my Autherine Lucy poem. I think that's the first time anyone except Ramey, Barry M., and Prof. M., at UAB, had read or heard it. Years ago, Barry gave it and another poem of mine to Prof. M. to read, and the great man said the other poem was worth working on but the Lucy poem wasn't. Our poetry group seemed to like it, though.

***

Here's a poem, or song, that I wrote in the 1980's after Bob disappeared.

Bob the Cat
His mother was Carly, a proud calico,
His dad was a rogue black as jet;
But my feline companion called Robert the Bob
Was loved by all that he met.

They called him Beautiful Bob;
He was gentle and never a snob.
With eyes golden yellow,
A most handsome fellow.
Was my dear Rob.

He was brave and faithful and true,
The best pal that I ever knew.
The years can’t erase him;
No pet can replace him.
He’ll always be Beautiful Bob.

Vickie and Albert

2012-01-29T11:08:00.007-06:00

Jenny and I used to make dolls out of clothespins, but I've sold, lost or given away most of them. I don't know where Mama got these two big antique clothespins, but she gave them to me long ago. She had used her tiny drill to make holes through for their arms. All these many years, I've meant to ask my artist sister Ramey to paint their heads to resemble Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and I've collected pictures of the royal couple so I could make their costumes. But I never think to tell Ramey. So I'm posting this as a self-reminder.

The taller pin is nearly 5 inches high, and I've thought about using it to make a new Daddy for the Dolls' house, so he would be almost as tall as Mama. But I hate to abandon the Prince Albert idea.

Queen Victoria was a pretty good-looking little woman until she had twelve children, Albert died, and she didn't care much any more.

***

Shakespeare's prettiest poem:

Tir'd with all these, for restful death I cry,

As: to behold desert a beggar born,

And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,

And purest faith unhappily foresworn;

And gilded honor shamefully misplac'd,

And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,

And right perfection wrongully disgrac'd,

And strength by limping sway disabled;

And art made tongue-tied by authority,

And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,

And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,

And captive good attending captain ill--

Tir'd with all these, from these would I be gone,

Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

This is the thing he wrote that, in my opinion, most strongly indicates Oxford as the author. It sharply describes his life, and the influence of Authority over his works.

The Dolls' Storage Shed

2012-01-27T07:17:00.018-06:00

Besides the unsightly piles of household stuff in the attic, the Dolls have to keep some things handy in the storage shed, like garden and carpenter tools, the sewing machine and the ironing board. And the trash cans.

Daddy has acquired three new hunting dogs, Sooner, Echo and Belman, who currently sleep in the shed because Tiny the Airedale won't let them come into the house.

Daddy himself gained a lot of weight over the holidays. He also quit dyeing his hair black, and looks quite different. Will show new pictures of him later.

***

I looked out the window this morning, and it looked like someone had turned on the lights. Oh--it was the sun, which I hadn't seen in several days.

***
A poem so beautiful it makes me cry:

"Beloved, let us once more praise the rain.

Let us discover some new alphabet,

For this, the often praised, and be ourselves

The rain, the chickweed, and the burdock leaf,

The green-white privet flower, the spotted stone,

And all that welcomes rain; the sparrow, too,--

Who watches with a hard eye, from seclusion,

Beneath the elm-tree bough, till rain is done. ...

"...The wheel of cloud whirs slowly: while we wait
In the dark room; and in your heart I find
One silver raindrop, --on a hawthorn leaf,--
Orion in a cobweb, and the World."

by Conrad Aiken

Hello, Goodbye

2012-01-24T06:44:00.001-06:00

One cold rainy day last week, I went to the drugstore to pick up a prescription. When I got back and opened the garage so I could get in, a pretty black and white dog ran in ahead of my truck. He was wet and cold and shivering, and I sort of rubbed some of the rain off of him. Then I went upstairs and fixed him a plate of leftover beef stew and rice and things and took it down there.

He tucked his long bushy tail between his legs and looked sort of sheepish, but after a while he ate it all up. He had on a collar, and I turned it around and around, looking for a tag, but he didn't have one.

"You're a right nice dog," I said. "Matter of fact, you're the very kind of a dog I've been looking for, with your long wavy hair and your medium-sized build. How would you like to hang around here?"

"No'm," he said. "Much obliged for the dinner and the rubdown and all, but I reckon I'll get on back to the house when it quits raining."

"Well, it was mighty nice talking to you," I said, and he said likewise. So we shook hands, and after a while I let him out. When I looked out the window, he was long gone.

I really don't want a dog, but it had slipped my mind.

Crossroads

2012-01-19T12:47:00.002-06:00

The movie "Crossroads" (1986) was shown on TV last night, and I watched it, of course. They don't make movies that good any more, and probably never will again-- Is that true, or is it just the old-timer's classic "good old days" versus "bad new days"? It's a subjective thing, of course.

Watching the movie on TV saved me the difficulty of opening my new DVD package and figuring out which remote to use to play the disc, all of which I've been putting off for a month or more. I've got several unwatched DVD's. Must remember to arrange another tutoring session with Jed, and label the relevant remote. I may not be tech-smart, but at least my kids are.

I think I'll copy Roger Ebert and start a Four-Star Movie column on this blog.

21-0, by gosh!

2012-01-10T13:47:00.003-06:00

That's a little better than 9-6. What happened to the No. 1 LSU Tigers, y'all?!!! The Tide sort of casually rolled over them, that's what! You won't find a whole heap about it in the news, not at all like what you would have found if Auburn had done anything near this. But then, it's Alabama's what? fourteenth National Championship, big deal. Nick Saban said he was happy, and almost smiled.

2012-01-08T13:46:00.007-06:00

Book Club and Other Stuff

2012-01-07T12:05:00.002-06:00

It's January, and as far as I know, no one has mentioned resuming book club. It's probably just as well.

During the twelve days of Christmas, I got old. It seems to be different for different people, the point at which one surrenders and admits to being old. For me, it was a day when I realized that I feel, not just tired, but superannuated. I think I need a new hairstyle. Or A hairstyle. What's a good style for thin, gray, straight, baby-fine, flyaway locks? If you can call them locks. Maybe like Mirren.

Would need a face-lift to go along with the style. And lots of makeup. All of which really boil down to lots of money.

I have to say that for me, December was the best month of 2011. Dec. 31st wasn't the best day of that year, but at least it was the last one. I wish everyone I know, and don't know, a Happy New Year, and I hope to goodness everyone wishes me the same. A year with no broken doors, broken teeth, broken resolutions, flooded basements, carcinomas, new stray cats, paucity of poetry prizes, lost things-- Last week I laid a newly opened deck of smokes and a lighter somewhere, and have been looking for them ever since. "Many are the travelers . . . "

I think this year I'll read Walden again. And The Once and Future King. Hank's poem about Lynn, in Then We Came To the End, was heartrending. That was really a good book, worthy of all the prizes it won.

Then We Came To the End

2012-01-06T15:05:00.000-06:00

By Joshua Ferris

I started reading this book about an advertising agency where employees were being laid off left and right. Good writing, but execrable personae and lack of story. Several times I started to quit reading it. Man, I thought, I hate these people, and I'm not a person who hates people. I'm not a person who keeps on reading a bothersome book just because I don't have anything better to read.

And then, after so many pages of no positive reactions except to the most offensive characters, on page 108 I find myself rubbing my eyes and screaming with a sick sort of laughter, just because they finally revealed who stole Tom Mota's chair.

Come to think of it, Brizz's totem pole was pretty good, too. I guess I'll read a few more pages.

It has to be a pretty good day...

2012-01-05T12:46:00.000-06:00

when I win Spider Solitaire. But I'm down to 1%.

It's still a mighty beautiful day. I'm going to walk around outside, bundled up if necessary.

My Best-Loved Christmas Carol

2012-01-04T14:14:00.000-06:00

My favorite verse:

Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask Thee to stay
Close by me forever, and love me, I pray!
Bless all the dear children in Thy tender care,
And take us to Heaven to live with Thee there.

Seems like I nearly always get the Christmas spirit, about a week later.

Adventures in Atlanta, GA

2011-12-31T13:27:00.000-06:00

Jed appeared Friday a week ago, in a big beautiful new vehicle that Santa brought him. We spent a delightful evening (Soup Night) as Sister Susan's on Friday, and then Saturday evening Sister Ramey hosted a wonderful feast of turkey and the trimmings at her house.

We didn't do much on Christmas day except open some presents and read some books. Then Monday we were off to Jed's house in Atlanta. I had been there once before--to his house, I mean. Since then I had been to Atlanta to an Oxford-Shakespeare convention. Mostly what I remember doing for the best part of four days was eating until I was stupefied. We ate steak at Longhorn on the way out of Leeds, and in Atlanta we ate Mexican and I don't know what-all. The staff at the Mexican restaurant hollered and took on over Jed, hugged us repeatedly, and fed us sumptuously--turns out that Jed hangs out there a lot and has charmed the proprietress.

Here are some pics of Jed's renovated kitchen.

Directly above, on the left, is a bit of the marble tile backsplash, and the beautiful granite countertop with undermounted sink. The photo on the right is the gorgeous travertine floor. Click on the photos to enlarge for detail.

For Christmas Jed gave me a new toaster-oven, and for my birthday (which was Tuesday) a lovely pair of furry leather scuffs so I'll quit running around the house in my socks.

It was a wonderful Christmas and birthday season, and I thank the Lord for all my loved ones and friends, both those who were here and those who were not. Jed and I got back to Leeds Thursday evening. I persuaded him to stay over that night and rest instead of driving back immediately. So he went home yesterday, and I have slept most of the time since then.

The Dolls' House

2011-12-21T06:24:00.006-06:00

All decked out for Christmas

All the rooms.

The Front Door

Kitchen - Cook has brought her baby to work.

The Living Room - Where is everybody?

Daddy is calling up the stairs, telling Mama that Grandma has arrived--they're taking her out to dinner!

But Mama Doll is still in the bathtub! (Baby Doll is in his cradle,
minding his own business.)

Lucinda the upstairs maid is admiring the Christmas tree in the study.

Little Dolly has dressed up to go out with the grownups, but
big Camilla knows they won't be allowed. (The girls' room with
their books and dolls.)

***
The house is crowded, with ten people, four cats and two dogs.

***
Merry Christmas from the Family!

Left to Right
Front Row: Peter Alexander, age 6 mo.
Camilla, age 8
The rocking horse Peter got for Christmas (Daddy will buy him a bicycle next year.)
Dolly, age 4
Daddy (Alexis Hugh Doll)
Tiny, the terrier
Back Row: Beauty, the parlor maid
Lucinda, the upstairs maid
Spot, the spaniel
Grandma (Mrs. Dolly Buff-Orpington)
Keenya, the cook, and her little boy Beolius
Mama Doll (Miranda)
(The cats were hiding.)

A carrot for the donkey

2011-12-17T12:06:00.000-06:00

Spent the morning trying to get inspired to stand up and move. Actually, moving is one of the few things I still like to do. While making coffee, I do stretching exercises, make sure I can still touch the floor without bending my knees, etc.

Samuel Johnson said (I paraphrase), "Of all the noises, music is perhaps the least offensive." I still like some music, sometimes.

Food? Ho hum. Unless I get hungry, I don't care much. Yesterday I did make an effort, cooked squash and cornbread, and made a bowlful of corn salad. And a Great Divide milkshake for dessert. Food is pretty good, if you're hungry. Trouble is, after a great meal, you have to go to the store to replace what you cooked and ate.

Shakespeare is still worth moving for. But it's pretty exhausting, after most of a lifetime spent trying to straighten out the matter.

Writing poems? It's not something you can just sit down and do. You have to have some emotion to remember in tranquillity (Wordsworth--Bill or Dorothy).

I think the only thing that would make me holler, and jump up and down, would be for River City to call and say, "Mrs. Cage, we would like to publish your book."

"Anonymous"

2011-12-11T12:44:00.002-06:00

I recently read a comprehensive review of the movie "Anonymous," and now I want to see it. Apparently, it either alleges or hints at many of the things I believe to be true about the real Shakespeare, including the most important "fact."

A few nights ago, I watched "Neverland" on TV, and that Ifans guy played Hook. He looks like a good choice to play Oxford in "Anonymous."

So, my plan is to see the movie, then write a paper and add a string of references from my 50-odd years of studying Shakespeare. And then I want to see if the Leeds Arts Council will schedule me a program time to read my paper to an audience. That probably can't happen until next season, so maybe I should negotiate the time, before I start writing the paper.

This idea is part of an appeal by the Oxford Shakespeare Society, for members to "educate" the public on the identity question, and to explain some points in the movie. I received their letter yesterday, and it commented favorably on the movie, and put the presentation idea into my head.

Another Recurring Song

2011-12-08T12:26:00.000-06:00

This is another one that runs through my head sometimes (I like this one):

I'll Be There

There ain't no chains strong enough to hold me
Ain't no breeze big enough to slow me
I never have seen a river that's too wide
There ain't no jail tight enough to lock me
Ain't no man big enough to stop me
I'll be there if you ever want me by your side
So love me if you ever gonna love me
I never have seen a road too rough to ride
There ain't no chains strong enough to hold me
There ain't no breeze big enough to slow me
I'll be there if you ever want me by your side

Now there ain't no rope tight enough to bind me
Look for me honey you will find me
Any old time you're ready with your charm
I'll be there ready and a waitin'
There won't be any hesitatin'
I'll be right here if you ever want me in your arms
So love me if you ever gonna love me
I never have seen a road too rough to ride
There ain't no chains strong enough to hold me
There ain't no breeze big enough to slow me
I'll be there if you ever want me by your side
I'll be there if you ever want me by your side

The 18

2011-12-08T09:55:00.002-06:00

I have a recurring dream of running to catch the No. 18 bus on the Southside. Sometimes it's from my apartment, sometimes at Five Points, occasionally at UAB. Always, when I'm just a few steps from it, the bus pulls away. It's as if the driver watches me and leaves when I'm almost there. That really used to happen sometimes.

I had the dream last night. The scene before and after I run to catch the bus is always different. This time, I was getting dressed to go to work, and Mama was there, and she told me I could wear her blazing hot-pink printed skirt. Then after the bus left me stranded, a convertible car full of six of my college acquaintances stopped at the curb, and I squeezed into the back seat and started talking to them. But close up, they weren't who I thought they were, but a bunch of unshaven, sort of thuggy-looking guys. When I explained and apologized for getting into their car, the one beside me said it was all right, they would drop me off at work.

Explain that one, Dr. Freud.

The Blahs

2011-12-04T12:57:00.000-06:00

Lately I'm not in the mood for holidays. Or much of anything else. There's too much of this-and-that that I need to do hanging over my head, that I can't think of anything else. And I don't get anything done. It's not that I don't give-a-damn. I'd love to see all the repairs done and the house spotless, and the car washed and the oil changed, and the clothes washed, and the teeth cleaned and filled and the hair cut and the nails clipped--all that stuff that life is full of.

What I need is another cup of coffee, and I'll be right back in the game. I hope.

The Man With the Moxie

2011-11-27T20:15:00.003-06:00

If half of the politicians in the U.S. were half as smart and half as concerned as this guy, I would be much less afraid for the future of our country.

Really Stupid Songs

2011-11-22T12:56:00.002-06:00

Often, songs that I heard as a child will play in my head, or snatches of them. Thank technology for the internet, so I can find some of them and try to banish them forever. Here's one:

O dear, what can the matter be?
Dear, dear, what can the matter be?
O dear, what can the matter be?
Johnny's so long at the fair.

. . . He promised to bring me a bunch of blue ribbons
To tie up my bonny brown hair.

I just remembered 2-3 lines of this one, but that was three too many:

He sat down beside her and smoked his cigar
Smoked his cigar, smoked his cigar
He sat down beside her and smoked his cigar
Smoked his cigar-r-r

She sat there beside him and played her guitar,
Played her guitar, played her guitar
She sat there beside him and played her guitar,
Played her guitar-r-r

Each of the following lines is a repetitive stanza like the two above:

He told her he loved her but oh how he lied...
She told him she loved him, but she did not lie...
They went to be married, but she up and died,,,
He went to the funeral, but just for the ride...
She went up to heaven and flip-flop she flied...
He went down below her and sizzled and fried...
The moral of this tale is never to lie...
Or you, too, may perish and sizzle and fry...

I may write a poem called "Sizzle and Fry."

"When you don't see him, he's somewhere else."

2011-11-20T14:38:00.007-06:00

Last night I watched "Michael," the movie. That has to be one of the best, or at least among my top favorites.

Why didn't anybody show the Alabama game yesterday? Since those overblown giants of LSU beat them by a hair, I guess the Tide is not considered worth broadcasting. That LSU win was shown at least a dozen times on TV in the past week. It really was a big accomplishment, to beat Bama.

I've been decorating the dollhouse. I can't help it, tedious though it is.

Coffee! For the love of heaven, coffee!!!

2011-11-11T11:07:00.002-06:00

I saw Mo curled up in a spot of sunshine on the carpet. Made me want to do the same. There's a poem in that somewhere. I guess Mo is older than I am, in cat years. Still, it would seem inappropriate for me to curl up on the floor and go to sleep. I may do it, anyway.

Yesterday was a bit stressful, so I went to bed about 7:30 p.m. and slept until ten this morning. I'm still so sleepy I can't sit up straight.

Thing is, I had a dental procedure yesterday, and they said not to drink coffee or anything hot for "several days." How many days can I survive, awake, without coffee? Makes me think of Ramey's espresso-colored tee shirt that says "Instant Person--Just Add Coffee."

Iced coffee?

*

Iced coffee with lots of creamer and a little bit of sugar is really good, I find. But it doesn't work the same as a big mug full of the hot stuff.
*
Back about 1949, I wrote a poem called "Kitten in the Sunshine." But I've lost it.

things are bad all over

2011-11-08T12:50:00.000-06:00

When a new crisis arises, I have to give myself a day or two of craziness before my usual sense returns. This crisis is a dental one, so the rest of this year will probably be dominated by running back and forth to the dentist, needles, screaming and running mad. On top of the doors, the basement, and the wee little piddling retirement income.

It's enough to make you cry, or laugh. Or start feeling your age. I was ten years older than Joe Frazier, who died Monday. And I'm still running around in my raggedy jeans and tee shirts like a 60-year-old, moaning about my little crises. A hundred years from now, who'll know the difference?

Crossroads

2011-11-05T12:36:00.005-05:00

Yesterday I discovered that I have a lot of purchase "points" on Amazon. So I ordered this video that I've wanted for a long time, free of charge and free shipping. Ralph Macchio and Joe Seneca. And Jamie Gertz. This is one of my 100 favorite films.

I've fallen behind in my clean-up schedule this week. But I haven't given up. Today I aim to FINISH THE DOLLHOUSE and get it out of the way. Or off my mind. All I have to do is install the stairs--they're all put together and painted--and touch up the paint here and there.

*

6:00 p.m. The D.H. is finished, so I can relax and watch the Tide beat LSU (knock on wood).

Night on Bald Mountain

2011-11-02T14:18:00.000-05:00

In the middle of doing laundry, I was thinking that if I ever got thrown into solitary confinement, I could occupy myself by hearing music in my mind. Mozart string quartets, Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique," Beethoven piano sonatas, Chopin preludes and piano concertos. Then for some reason I thought about "Night on Bald Mountain," and I thought Berlioz, but it's not by Berlioz, it's Mussorgsky/Chernov/Rimsky-Korsakov. So I ran to the computer and found this arrangement on YouTube, all piano with the sheet music pictured, and spent ten minutes listening to the ghosties and devils and witches and stuff on the "Bare Mountain." Why didn't I think of it during Halloween? It would be perfect to play and scare the trick-or-treaters. If one had any trick-or-treaters.

Anyway, I posted it in my Music Links in the left column. It's really a pretty piece of music, with a lazy left hand and a real workout to try with the right hand, if one had a piano.

Welcome, November!

2011-11-01T11:47:00.000-05:00

Boy'm I glad Halloween (the whole month of October) is over! Everything on TV was haints and horror, and old reruns of Project Runway.

Counting Reed Sunday night, I had six trick-or-treaters, three of them in one visit. So there's the great bowl still full of every kind of Tootsie Roll candy ever made. I kept urging the little ghosties to "take some more--don't you want another Tootsie Roll pop?" But they were all too polite to be greedy.

The weekend was sort of fun and sort of disappointing. On Saturday, Jed and I went to Montevallo U. to the ASPS Fall Awards luncheon. I signed up to sponsor a spring contest, to the tune of eighty bucks. As to awards, I won an honorable mention (aargh!) and a second prize, out of all those good poems I entered. At least I thought they were good; the most disappointing thing was my wondering if they weren't so good, after all. But, compared to the winning poems that were read aloud, I believe they're pretty great.

Like a fool, I left my keys at home and all the doors locked. So Jed had to break the foyer door to the stairs. So now I've got to go to Lowe's and buy a door and get them to install it.

So, this morning I paid bills, and finished all the painting for the doll house, and started washing the heaps of dirty laundry. Yesterday, besides the 2-pound bag of treats, I bought allergy masks, gloves, and other supplies for cleaning the back room of the basement, which I plan to finish up this week.

Shirley S., my first landlord at the Southside apartment, once said that she liked for everything to be fun. I managed to make the nose surgery sound like fun while it was going on, so maybe I can get a laugh or two out of cleaning the basement. Speaking of the nose surgery, today I received a bill for $300 due after Viva and Medicare paid their parts. It's always something.

Poor Robin Crusoe

2011-10-27T14:12:00.007-05:00

For a couple of days, I've been working on the dollhouse, and re-reading Robinson Crusoe for the first time in many years. My near vision is almost out, but I can still look a squirrel in the eye from 20 paces or so.

To answer the questions in late "Comments," about Dave W., he was the best friend of my best friend at the University. Karl was my special buddy, not to say my boyfriend, as he was a great handsome hulk who followed or carried me around, better than a dog or a horse but maybe not quite as intelligent. We all worked in Radio and Television, at the first educational radio-TV station to broadcast live on TV. (Karl once announced, in opening a radio program, "This is Karl Pickens Perking," instead of "Perkins speaking.")

Karl's best friend was Dave, who was about as tall as Michael Crichton, with flaming red hair, not handsome in the face but spectacular to look upon, and of course I had a crush on him, but he was engaged to a hateful little brunette that he could have thrown away with one hand, and I often wondered why he didn't. Years later I learned, through my sister-in-law (whose best friend, and a former roommate of mine at the U., was Dave's cousin), that he was a radio DJ and sometimes did comedy acts at local events, but I don't remember where that was, but not in Alabama.

Also a few years later, a friend of mine in college, Helen L., inherited a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and bought Karl a sports car, and they got married. Helen was almost as tall as Dave W., with flaming red hair and skinny as a rail and quite ugly. But that $150K at that time was probably equal to several millions of today's money. So hooray for Karl.
*
Poor Robin

When Robinson Crusoe left England in 1651, not to return for 35 years, the English Civil War was raging, King Charles I had been beheaded in 1649 and his son fled to France or somewhere, and England was run by the Puritans, to be ruled for 7 years by Oliver Cromwell, a right handsome dude.

So while Crusoe was absent from England, the English civil war years had come and gone, Kings Charles I and II had come and gone, James II was the English monarch, and the Church of England restored. But all this time, Crusoe was still a Puritan, though at times, in Brazil and Portugal, letting himself be thought a "Popish" Catholic. He was marooned on his island for 28 years, and, contrary to modern impressions, for 25 of those years totally without human companionship, having rescued the savage Friday toward the end of his isolation. He did early on hear English spoken, by an island parrot that he tamed and taught to speak, such phrases as "Poor Robin Crusoe!"

What amazed me most about the book was the modernity of Defoe's usage and writing of the English language. Even some of his odd expressions and spellings are not strange to today's usage in England. Although since first reading the book, I had read Defoe's Moll Flanders and Journal of the Plague Year, I was impressed all over again with the clarity and modernity of his English.

Considering that before Robinson Crusoe, published in the year 1719, there was no such thing as a fiction novel in the English language, I think it was the first and perhaps greatest of such, though with no plot and no explicit sexual references.

*
I've lost a day somewhere. I thought this was Wednesday. Jed will be here tomorrow, and I haven't washed any clothes or cleaned the Augean stable in the basement.

The Tragedy of My (Love) Life

2011-10-20T14:49:00.001-05:00

Yesterday at the Clinic I saw a Dr. Sami, a dark little clown of a doctor who yelled, "Well, hello! hello! hello!" when he saw me sitting on the exam table, and I grinned and hollered, "Hi-de-doo!" Anyway, after he and his resident doctor lady rubbed and conjured and consulted over my nose, he decided what I had was a whole bunch of little some-kind-of-pillomas, and prescribed me some cream to rub on them. He said if they changed, or bled, or bothered me, to call him. Yeah. Sounded familiar. But I decided to believe him, and went home and dozed in front of the television until about midnight, and then I went to bed and slept through Mo's hollering, the telephone ringing, and lots of stranger noises, until eight o'clock this morning.

I got up and fed Mo and staggered back to bed, where I dreamed practically my whole life running before me but changed a whole lot. At the end of it, I was 25 years old and an old maid, and I was trying to get Dave W. to marry me, because he looked like my cousin Jim. Jim had got out of the Army and married some little southern belle, and I might as well marry someone else. But, said Dave, "I don't like you." Damn! Why was he always hanging around, if he didn't like me?

But during the dream we were always moving from one place to another. Finally we were moving from the house in Leeds to somewhere else close around. Daddy had two suits, and Mama was about to fling them on top of the truck, but I took them on hangers across my back and walked all the way to the new house with the little girls. In another scene, I was in the empty house with Mama and some lady to whom she was showing all the little multi-colored child-sized pants she had made, and I was thinking I could use some of those colors in the doll house.

I woke up again around 2:00 p.m. and fed Mo again to get him to shut up. Whether I'll go back to bed, after I take my pills and rub my nose-cream, I haven't yet decided.

They say when you're dying, your whole life runs before you. Well, I ain't dead yet, unless I'm still dreaming. I feel very glad and relieved, because I don't have a growth on my nose that's going to spread its roots all through my body--or my head! And because I didn't marry my cousin Jim or Dave W., the other red-headed man. Back of my hand to all of them.

I really feel OK.

2011-10-15T14:56:00.000-05:00

I've almost decided to keep the little white cat. Except I'm afraid he would live for 25 years or so, like Mo. And I can't let him into the house as long as crazy Mo is around.

I've been sort of down, because there's another anomaly on my nose, opposite side from the first one. (I hate to say that C word.) Yesterday I made a Dermatology appointment for next Wednesday, to get them to look at it. But I'm pretty sure that's what it is.

Shakespeare's "Tired with all these" poem keeps running in my head. Sometimes I think I'll just give up and eat ice cream and hot dogs until I'm as big as old Lucy. Last night I watched "Thinner" on TV; that guy was pretty happy as long as he weighed 300 pounds.

The critique group meets tomorrow at Joe's, and I don't have any poems to read. The awards dinner is scheduled two weeks from today in Montevallo, and I don't know whether to make reservations or not. It would be just like TKC to schedule me for surgery the day before.

"The leaves decay, the leaves decay and fall. . ." I was looking out the window and down the street a while ago, and it looked like it was snowing leaves.

The big white-faced possum came back a night or so ago, to clean up the cat food that the strays left.

Southern Snow Dance

2011-10-08T16:21:00.003-05:00

*
Beloved, let us make our Christmas white.
Let us invent a conjure more complex,
a chant, or many-patterned morris-dance,
to coax the icy hexagons to fall:
on every fence-post, see in our mind's eye
a pyramid of snowflakes; on each roof
a blanket blue-white in the morning light;
and every blade of grass in crystal bloom.
And if we, in our air-cooled southern room,
perfect our fervent prayer or pagan hex,
perhaps our childhood dreams of snow, by chance,
may come to pass to bless us after all,
and Santa, sleigh-borne from the winter sky,
spring earthward to the dance of tiny hoofs.

by JRC, 10/08/11

*
"I've got to admit, it's getting better, a little better all the time." I mean, I'm feeling better.

Acting Funny

2011-10-06T14:00:00.000-05:00

It's the computer, not me, that's acting funny. I seem to be shifting or grinding my gears out of neutral. I've got things to do and places to go today, and I don't mind so much. The Birmingham Arts Review people are meeting at the Leeds Arts Council tonight, and at some point I volunteered to bring some snacks. So I have to go to the store, and then make chips and dip, and then go down there. And now I only have about four hours to get myself and the makings ready to go.

Somebody said, "You don't have to like it. You just have to do it." A beer would help get me started. I haven't had a beer in years and years, but I think about it often.

This morning I wrote one page of a story. And people, that's progress. Four paragraphs.

Moving On

2011-10-01T05:53:00.000-05:00

My doorbell rang at 4:30 this morning. I ignored it for a few minutes, and it rang again, so I got up and cooked oatmeal and ate a few bites. The outside lights were on, so the little people must not be scared of lights.

Anyway, I'm going to do something today, if it's just housework. I've sat around and dozed most of this week, but now I'm going to--to--move, at least.

Up From the Ashes

2011-09-30T09:36:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm slowly climbing out of the trough into which I fell Monday night. Started back on the antidepressant and B12 Tuesday, so I'm beginning to feel human again. Still low on energy, and feel like my mind needs some new spark plugs. I also started taking the multivitamin and calcium+D. I'll probably add all those other supplements as I get used to swallowing pills again.

What I need to do is write another novel. Or make another quilt. When I feel like lifting my hands.

Making a list

2011-09-26T11:57:00.000-05:00

Okay. The things I must do today. Can't get out of doing. Laundry. Print out a poem or two for the meeting tonight. Haircut. Shampoo and shower. Manipedi. I guess that's all. I can let the house and car go on festering for twenty-four hours. After all, tomorrow is another you-know-what.

Thinking of a new quilt

2011-09-24T11:17:00.001-05:00

Tracy's guys came by this morning and chopped down the perennial cottonwood that grows up by my office window. This time it was at least 8 feet high, and the trunk down at ground level is about 4 inches in diameter. I wish it had grown up somewhere else; it would be a beautiful tree by now. But where it is, smack up against the house, it has to be cut down once or twice a year.

The basement got wet again night-before-last, and Tracy said he was coming by yesterday to look at it, but he never did. I don't know what they're going to do about it, if anything. I'm afraid if they dug that well any deeper for the pump, water would gush up like an oil well. Maybe, as Jed suggested, we should just bring in some heavy equipment, level the house, and build a community swimming pool. Or pour in enough concrete to make the basement floor several inches higher. Or move to Santa Fe, New Mexico, above it all.

I'm wanting to make a pink-and-white quilt, and I think Aunt Carrie's quilt that she made for one of my boys would be a good pattern. I sketched the block(s) this morning.

Each large block is actually made up of 4 each of 2 sections, plus the center square. I think it would be pretty in light and dark pinks, plus white. For a mini quilt, you could just make one block, based on an 8-inch center square, and the quilt would be 40" square plus any borders.

5:45 p.m.: I watched most of the game, and it didn't jinx Alabama. Tide rolled all over Arkansas.

Pizza At Last!

2011-09-23T08:36:00.001-05:00

Yesterday Ramey stopped by after work with a load of pizza, cupcakes, and lots of other goodies! We had a feast, and I've got pizza and other necessities for the weekend.

Later, I watched the New York Philharmonic on PBS, playing Richard Strauss's Salome, based on the play by Oscar Wilde. I don't like Richard Strauss, he was "Hitler's composer," very anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi. But musically he was a genius. That's not to say his music appeals to me. It is great, but not appealing. Salome was terrifying, especially the parts sung by Deborah Voigt, a very powerful dramatic soprano. I guess I'm glad I finally sat through something by R. Strauss, but once was enough.

This is probaby the least horrible illustration by Beardsley, for Wilde's play.

I said Strauss was a genius, but that's just hearsay. It's what "they" say. What do I know?

What's Going On Here?

2011-09-20T13:21:00.002-05:00

I don't understand. I used to be able to order a pizza about once a week and not feel too much of an effect on my bank account. Some time ago I switched to picking up the pizza to save $5-$10. Now, on this dark rainy day when a pizza would be so appropriate, I don't even have the wherewithal to go to the market and buy a Red Baron or even a Totino's to cook in the old gas oven.

The mailman just delivered the staircase for the dollhouse. The package is about 3 feet long, so I suspect I'm going to have to return the thing. It was supposed to be 14 inches long. I'm afraid to open the box.

Is Mercury retrograde? Worse, is Pluto back in my sign? I'm about ready to pack it up and move to Oregon, or Oklahoma or Ohio. Or the West Coast. No, not that. A bologna sandwich sounds good.
*
Worst Commercial (even worse than the Progressive one): The girl who sings (hollers), "OOhhhhhh, Pie in the sky, you know how I feel..."

I know it's not "pie in the sky." But that's what runs around in my head for a few hours, every time I accidentally hear a few bars of that commercial.

Vincent Van Gogh's "Bedroom in the Yellow House At Arles"

2011-09-17T12:32:00.003-05:00

Blue Door, Stage Left

To think the great Paul Gauguin will sleep there,
in that small room adjoining my chamber!
I've made my own room up in many colors,
hoping it will cheer me, while I rest,
improve my health and my exhausted nerves.

I need to get well, to be at my best
when he arrives. I hope he'll be surprised
and pleased with all the plans I've made for us.
Perhaps he will acknowledge me his equal,
in art his brother, and in life his friend.

O let me sleep tonight, if I can sleep,
with no nightmares, no images of crows,
black clouds and somber faces to disturb
the sanctuary of this simple room!

By JRC, 09/17/2011
*
I think it was my friend Joan D. who didn't believe me when I said that a poem can come into my head, pretty much fully formed. This one took less than half an hour to write down and make a few word changes. Maybe because I've been thinking about it and looking at that picture for more than two weeks. But I hadn't thought before of letting it be something Vincent might have been thinking. The germ of the poem was "blue door, stage left." And I'm not even sure about stage directions; anyway, there are two blue doors in the picture.

Psalm 100

2011-09-16T08:10:00.001-05:00

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
Serve the Lord with gladness: come before His presence with singing.
Know ye that the Lord, He is God: it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise: be thankful unto Him, and bless His name.
For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting; and His truth endureth to all generations.

*

Last night I turned on the deck light, and a great big possum was running its nose around the bottom of the door.

Other houses, other rooms

2011-09-15T13:54:00.004-05:00

I've decided to put all my dollhouse furnishings and people back in the old metal bookcase. It originally consisted of nine rooms and a rooftop garden, and I'll either have to use all those things I made or throw them away. Throwing away stuff I've made is not something I like to do.

When I finish working on the big dollhouse, I will sell it for the highest bid. Which will probably be less than the house and staircase cost in the first place.

The Bedroom in the Yellow House at Arles

September is halfway over, and for 15 days I've been trying to write a poem for the fall ASPS contests. A poem about Vincent Van Gogh's painting of his bedroom at Arles. He said he was going to get total rest until he was healthy again. Though how he expected to rest in a purple room with green chairs, yellow sheets and and a blood-red bedspread-- The walls don't look purple in this picture, but he wrote to his brother and said the walls of the room were lavender. He must have liked the room. He painted it three times.
*
Strange how many yellow houses there are. Vincent's Yellow House at Arles. Jared's little yellow house next door, which is the pretty view from my kitchen window. One of my sisters lives in a yellow house.

Keeping a Small House

2011-09-13T13:20:00.002-05:00

This tiny dollhouse is only eight inches high from the peak of the roof. A long time ago I bought it at one of Sylvia I.'s yard sales. It was just a curio shelf, in bad shape, but I painted it and added the floors and ceiling effects.

These tiny porcelain pieces are Red Japan, one of my favorite antiques. The bed and piano are less than two inches long. I've probably got more little china things I can display in the newly-painted dollhouse.

The big dollhouse is frustrating in a way. After all the work I've put into it, it doesn't look much different from when I began. It doesn't shout, "Look, I've got new moldings, new floors, clean windows, a new chimney," etc. After days of biting my fingernails and throwing away piles of wood strips and cardboard failures, I finally broke down and ordered a staircase kit, although I couldn't find one the right size. Someone with a little fine saw will have to shave off half an inch from one side of the stairs.

But it must be fun, or I wouldn't keep doing it. Last night I went through my boxes of dollhouse furnishings, all the little animals, toys and people. Camilla, Tracy, Dolly, Peter, Kenya, Heidi, Beauty, Ben Gunn, Sir Hugh Davenport, Mrs. Buff-Orpington, and others. I made most of the furnishings, and some of the people, when I lived in the Southside apartment. The only "house" I had for them was an old 3-foot-wide metal bookcase. I bought the big house at Hannah Antiques after I moved to Leeds.

At first I thought I would try to sell all this stuff when I have a yard sale. But I may just have to keep it and bequeath it to my heirs. I know they'll be thrilled speechless.

A Helping Hand

2011-09-10T06:21:00.000-05:00

Tracy came by yesterday to check on the aftermath of the flood. He said he would call the new city director of public works or whatever she's called; said she's a friend, and maybe he can get them to clean out the drainage ditch behind my lot, which would help a great deal during heavy rains. That ditch is blocked, and when it overflows, guess where all the water goes. He's also going to send his crew to clean up the yard.

Tracy backed his big old truck halfway into the garage and loaded up the rest of the trash from in there. He also cleaned out the closet under the stairs; there were two ironing boards in there--one was Flora Cage's, but I have no idea where the other one came from. Lovvorn's has a thrift or junk store, too, where they refurbish stuff and distribute it to the needy, so I gave them a lot of things that might be usable. I kept the brass bedstead and a few other things out of that closet, to sell at the yard sale which I've got to get busy and throw before another flood. Or before Christmas, or New Year's.

I have pared my "collected poems" down to fifty of my favorites, and find that none of the publishing companies I know about are considering poetry. So I guess I have to bite the bullet and go through the misery of self-publishing. I do want to get at least these fifty between covers.

I found on River City Publishing's website that they will notify the winner of the awards contest, in which I entered my novel, "before December of 2012." When you think about it, that's not unreasonable, considering how long it might take them to read all the entries. It's the same way with them and with NewSouth, when they're accepting poetry; reading time is from three to nine months.

Saga of the Ringing Bell

2011-09-07T14:36:00.000-05:00

The flood has subsided, and I'm trying to summon the grit to deal with the mess it left. Lot covered with trash, deck covered with pine straw, leaves and twigs. A few wet spots on the basement floors. Bedraggled cat who looks like he was out in the middle of it, but he wasn't.

The dollhouse has a new chimney, new moldings, this-and-that. Ready for a new staircase. I've paced the floor, trying to figure out how to make one. If I had fifty dollars, I'd buy one ready-made. Maybe I can find a "stringer" at Michael's.

Last night the doorbell rang and woke me up. I lay there for a minute, thinking, "It must be Ramey on her way to work." So I turned over and looked at the clock, and it was 2:30 a.m. Deja-vu all over again.

This has happened several times before. The first time, several years ago, I got up in the dark, crouched by the office window, and watched someone running away from the front porch. And it has happened at least once in the past year, because I remember telling Ramey about it.

The reason it bothers me is that I think they may be planning to try to break in, if no one reacts to the bell.

Last night I finally got up, turned on the porch lights, and called 911. Apologized for bothering them, explained that it happens every once-in-a-while, and they sent a police car cruising by. End of story. I finally lay back down and slept till noon.
*
There ought to be a programmable device to connect with the doorbell. Between midnight and six a.m., it would shoot a non-lethal load of buckshot at whoever pushes the button.

New poem

2011-09-05T12:11:00.004-05:00

Il pleut.
Bonheur.
Je suis tres heureuse.

I'm not sure it rhymes. But it's true. How in the world do French babies ever learn to talk?

OK. I've solved the problem of floors for the doll house. Rather, Susan solved some of it for me by dropping off three Scrabble sets from the thrift store, so I can use the wood tiles. Thing is, I need to complete the repairs before doing any painting necessary, before I install the floors. But then it'll be done. I give myself three days for the job. On America's Next Top Handyman, they'd only get three hours.

Today is Labor Day. So je travaille.

6:45 p.m.: The sump pump was doing well until an hour or so ago, but now the basement is flooded. I guess you can't expect it to handle a real flood, which I think is what we're having.

Looking northwest

I had to stand out in the rain to get these pictures.

Northeast

The green in each of the back yard pictures is a little island strip with water on all sides.

Out the kitchen window

And the lights keep flickering off and on. I hope that's not a bad sign.

It's still morning--

2011-09-03T11:23:00.000-05:00

And I've already cooked eggs and toast for breakfast, done 3 loads of laundry, run one errand, and put the start of a beef roast in the crock pot. And fed Mo several times. Now I've got the misery in my back when I stand up, so I think I'll take the rest of the day off.

I want something good to read, but I've become too picky in my advanced age. I get impatient with most of the stuff that's being written these days.

New poem

2011-09-02T11:44:00.003-05:00

The Lighthouse

The house was light, with no dark corners.
It rose on a pinnacle of dreams
and faced both east and west
with gardens all around.
There were fountains
numerous as the breasts of Artemis,
and a glittering stream that lit the way
to a river of light.

The house was light itself;
I see it still, from a century away.
There I was born, and there
I dreamed my life, and there
when it flowed away, I planted
an evergreen of children.

jrc Sept. 2, 2011

*
4:20 p.m.: Today I mailed eight poems to the Ala. State Poetry Society contests. I wrote the lighthouse poem this morning to enter in one of the categories--i.e., "The Lighthouse." I feel guilty about winning prizes and seldom sponsoring a contest. From now on, I'll reinvest at least some prize money into sponsoring contests. If I ever win any more prizes.

Bodies at rest tend to remain at rest...

2011-08-31T17:25:00.001-05:00

Today I'm slow getting started. The AC man came and inspected the installation job and pronounced it OK. Otherwise, all I've coped with is a shower and shampoo and some clean clothes I found somewhere.
*
I had a few errands to take care of, buy gasoline, pay the light bill, go to Wal Mart for some necessities. This evening I plan to work on the doll house some more. If I could get all my tools, materials and plans organized in one place, I could finish this thing in a day. I keep telling myself.

What Else?

2011-08-27T10:49:00.000-05:00

It gets harder and harder--or more and more of a nuisance--to live by oneself and deal with everyday disasters. In the past week, the AC has crashed. The living-room light fixture broke--or I broke it trying to turn on the ceiling fan. A stray cat got in through the pet doors that I unwisely unstopped; Mo ran it off but not before it had ruined the foyer floor. I get dozens of telephone calls where the caller I.D. just says "Texas," "Wisconsin," "Georgia," etc., and if you answer, there's just silence. I forgot to put out the discards for the charity trucks.

There. That doesn't look so bad, does it? It was less than one disaster a day, and only a few nuisances. Don't count the computer freezing up in the middle of something, or burning my hand taking something out of the oven.

I just resent the waste of my time. It's the servants' job to take care of such stuff. But where are they when you need them?

An Old Poem

2011-08-26T11:29:00.002-05:00

Great-Uncle John

I know what he meant when he said,
“My old cup runneth over!”
Mine doeth that so often,
I’m afraid I’ll go to hell
for loving life too much.

He looked like one of the Indians
in an early photograph
of Geronimo and his band,
all hung about with extra clothes
and miscellaneous items.

I looked for his grave the other day
over at Pleasant Ridge;
I know it’s there, for I’ve seen it,
but it seems to move around,
much like the old man himself.

Never at home anywhere,
he was always on the move, walking
“to Gilead for the balm,”
or “up the old Jericho Road,
to hear Paul, that new little preacher.”

My mother says she thinks
he was buried somewhere else,
but Aunt Bob says he’s there.
She puts flowers on his grave
on Decoration Day.

I asked her if she remembered
the bags of sweet buns he carried
to share with children he met;
he'd give one to a tot, then tease,
“Don't you eat my pie!”

(by JRC, October 2000)

*

The installers finished the AC at noon yesterday, just in time to keep me from lying down on my back and sticking my arms and legs up in the air and hollering "calf rope!" It took ten hours to cool the house down from 85 to 77. I guess that was pretty reasonable; cooling about 3600 square feet, counting the basement. It's not really supposed to cool the basement, but somehow it does.

Rather Warm

2011-08-25T08:42:00.000-05:00

Yesterday afternoon, the air conditioner totally quit. I mean, every whatchamacallit in the whole system froze up or burnt out. Our friendly AC guy Brent had been trying to sell me a new system for more than a year, so he was Johnny-on-the-spot with the installers. They almost got it done but about nine p.m. needed something they didn't have, so they left. Said they'd be back about nine or ten o'clock today. Maybe by the time the temp hits 100 today, I can close the windows and turn off the ceiling fans.

At the book club meeting, I borrowed Barbara's copy of Cleopatra: A Life, and I've started reading it. The Pharos lighthouse at Alexandria was taller than the Saturn V rocket. The picture is a modern image based on the ancient descriptions. The mosaic is ancient, referring to the top of the structure with a statue of Poseidon. They don't identify the other guy up there.

To care, and not to care...

2011-08-22T13:56:00.002-05:00

"Teach us to sit still."

It's hard to blame people for not reading great poetry. Because when I read it, like Eliot's Ash Wednesday, it breaks my heart and makes me cry and think too much. Not for its own self only, but because I know I will never create anything that beautiful. The harder I try, the worse is my result.

Maybe you could say I'm just not a poet. I agree that I'm not and never will be a great poet. I remember saying once that I would be content to be a minor poet of my time. Looks like I'll never even attain that mediocre post.

Teach me to be a minor admirer. Teach me to care and not to care. Teach me to sit still and keep my mouth shut.
*

6:30 p.m. Last night Ramey helped me move the dolls' house onto the living room table. Today I finished all the demolition I needed to do--removed the old kitchen cabinets and the warped remains of "boards" from the floor of the hall/dining room.

Next I need to sand that floor--there was wood under the veneer of plastic or whatever it was--and repair/replace the inside moldings and the "bricks" on one of the chimneys. And buy or build a staircase. Then paint, decorate and furnish it.

A New Poem

2011-08-18T01:34:00.004-05:00

The Day We Buried Mama

The priest assured us that she went to heaven,
and who were we, to doubt this welcome news?
We knew she wasn't mean, or sinful, even,
but “aggravating” is the term we used.

She never seemed to like us, yet she claimed
to love us, though we treated her “unkind.”
But how could we be sweet, when we were blamed
for faults originating in her mind?

For instance, she insisted “cheese” was plural,
though she was smart and had excelled in school.
Her eccentricities were intramural:
away from home, she was nobody's fool.

She used to want to help us with our homework—
but she declared that two-times-two was eight,
and was offended when we did our own work,
rejecting her and trusting to our fate.

Since any shade of green to her was blue,
to disagree was stubbornness and vanity.
To challenge her at Scrabble was, we knew,
to dabble in confusion and insanity.

When urged to heed the advice of her physician,
her arguments were sharp as razor blades;
she always took the opposite position,
and made her point by living nine decades.

So now she's with the angels. Heaven help them,
if they suggest she change the way she acts.
We're sure that, if she chooses, she can squelch them
with arguments contrary to the facts.

We miss our mom, though; and when memories reach us
concerning her plaid coats and purple socks,
we wonder if she only meant to teach us
to use our wits and think outside the box.

by JRC 8/17/11

Christmas Projects

2011-08-16T13:10:00.002-05:00

I'm thinking of using my pieces of Laurel Burch fabrics to make decorations for Christmas. Don't know yet what or how.
*

Always On My Mind

Top of the Wish List

2011-08-14T12:52:00.001-05:00

To me, the second movement of Beethoven's Pathetique sonata is like the calm, creative mind moving sometimes under, sometimes above the ta-ta-ta/ta-ta-ta/ta-ta-ta of the busy, intrusive world and worry. This is Freddy Kempf playing it. Like the Moonlight sonata, it's a simple composition; I think I could play it myself if I had a PIANO!

Once, the Christmas season when I was about to turn five years old, Mama took me to consult Santa Claus at Loveman's or Pizitz. I had on a blue-striped dress and a dark blue corduroy jacket, and my hair was straight with bangs.

"What do you want for Christmas, little girl?"

"A doll, and a PIANNER!"

If I had a piano, I would bang it in the morning, I would bang it in the evening, I'd bang it for justice, I'd bang it for freedom, all over this land.

And annoy the neighbors, I guess. The City of Valor would probably send me a letter giving me a week to stop disturbing the peace. But that would be a blissful week.

Supercat

2011-08-13T13:53:00.002-05:00

I wish Jean Mock was on email, so she could send me a photo of her cat. We had book club meeting at Jean's wonderful house yesterday, and this enormous white and orange tomcat was the highlight for me. He curled and rolled around on the ottoman in front of me for most of the meeting. Jean estimated he weighs about 25 pounds or more, although he eats nothing but Meow Mix and not too much of that. He must have a glandular problem. Anyway, he was the sweetest, friendliest thing, like a little old kitten!

The book club meeting was interesting, to me and Jean, at least. Well, I guess everybody enjoyed talking about Cleopatra. I hadn't read the book selection, but I had read other biographies and plays about Egypt's last pharaoh. I read a few stanzas from my Cleopatra poem. The snacks Jean served were out of this world, especially the marinated mushrooms and artichokes.

Every time I've been to the Mocks' home, I go home disgusted with mine by comparison to that perfect, perfectly decorated house. Maybe I need to get married, so I'll have someone to help around the house and provide money, expecially the latter. On second thought, I think I'd prefer to live down under the interstate. I've lived by myself so long, I don't think I could live with an angel 24/7.
*
4:05 p.m. There's a movie on TV, with Ernie Kovacs in Technicolor. I'm not watching it, because I'm writing a poem about the lady who lived down under the insterstate. But it's a pleasure to look at that man, although he wasn't all that handsome, just sort of delightfully goofy-looking, and beautiful in Technicolor. I don't think he made many films. His wife was Edie-somebody, and together they were a comedy team-side show all by themselves. When Ernie died in a car wreck, Edie worked for years and finally paid off his hundreds-of-thousands in debt, which would be millions today. I remember how they used to recite poems in pidgin-German.

Is it fatal, or does it keep you alive?

2011-08-12T12:18:00.001-05:00

I know I've been worried all my life, and I've lived a long time. So "worried to death" must mean worried Until death. And it isn't true that the things you worry about never happen. Most of them have already happened, and you get a new one (or more) every day. Maybe worry is what makes the wrinkles in your brain, so that you can be intelligent.

You go through life thinking, tomorrow everything will be all right. Tomorrow has to be better than today. Every once in a while, when you realize what's going on, you stop and count your blessings. Which gives you a lot more to worry about. Some comedian--Oscar somebody--Levant, maybe-- said that comedians are the most miserable people in the world; they have to make fun of life to keep from kicking it in the shins.

In other words, one of my garage door openers doesn't work, and I can't figure out how to fix it or whom to call.

*

3:30 p.m.: I fixed it, I fixed it! It wasn't the remotes or the inside button that wouldn't work--it was the door. I had accidentally disengaged the door-opener mechanism on the garage door. So I compared it to the other door that still worked, and saw where the difference was. So I got Willis's ladder out of the basement closet and clumb up there and fixed it.

Sleeping Weather

2011-08-11T11:39:00.000-05:00

Yesterday Juan and Flavio (Flah-vio) installed the sump pump in the basement. Looks like a well in the floor, including water in the bottom. The house seems to have been built over a natural spring. The basement floor was wet by the time they got through drilling. They still have to bury the pipe outside.

I love to listen to the Mexicans talk--or to Juan. Flavio doesn't say anything. You have to listen to a whole paragraph or two to gather what Juan is saying, with about two English words per sentence in this swift hysterical-sounding patois, with hand gestures sketching the air. He seems to think the louder and faster he talks, the more likely one is to understand him. Which may be true. His English words all seem to be nouns, pronouns and adjectives; I know it's harder to learn verbs, and I guess English verbs with all their ramifications are probably the hardest language to learn.

Anyway, I want to go back to bed, with the thunder rolling and the rain pattering. But I guess there's enough to do today to keep me awake the rest of the day.

Got an email from Jim Reed, a "call for works" for next spring's Birmingham Arts Journal. I think I'll send them a whole bunch of stuff. A poem, a play, a story or vignette, maybe a drawing or a quilt. Maybe some of the remaining junk from the basement. No, wait, I'm thinking of the Exchange Club.

Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da, Life goes on...

2011-08-09T11:58:00.000-05:00

I thought of this song and found the Beatles singing it on YouTube. That's what's wrong with the world today, why it's in the shape it's in: There's no such talent and beauty in the world now to make it happy. Bad as the world was in their day, they shone so bright, it didn't seem as bad.

Life goes on, anyway. Bits and pieces of it. Here and there.

Liz Reed's meeting is tomorrow at the Birmingham Public Library. She's going to tell the steps in getting a book published. Nearby at Jim Reed's book store, Barry Marks is going to read poems and sign books. I thought I might try to hit both meetings, but don't know if I'll feel like driving around town, hunting a parking place, in the heat or thunderstorm or both. Anyway, my manuscript is away at the River City judging. I sure would like to see Barry, though.

Well--!!!

2011-08-07T16:09:00.000-05:00

I've got a migraine, which hasn't happened in many years. One of those with big blank spots in my vision. This time there is some pain, but not severe. Guess I have to take some Tylenol, which is something else I haven't done since 1980. I think I'll wait it out instead.

A Cup Of Tea

2011-08-06T09:56:00.001-05:00

When things go wrong and make the day seem dreary,

It helps to seek a good friend's company;

But in the evening, when alone and weary,

I find real comfort in a cup of tea;

The taste is bland, and sugar scarce improves it,

And by the second sip it grows too cold;

Yet the aroma, rising as one brews it,

Performs a kind of healing to the soul.

A cup of tea can soothe a lot of troubles;

I don't know why--I only know it's true;

The world grows calmer as the kettle bubbles,

With just the promise of this magic brew.

jrc 8/5-6/11

Really, Thank God it's Friday, and no longer Thursday!

2011-08-05T14:16:00.000-05:00

Whaddaday! The whole process of Dermatological Surgery was more messy than painful, ending with a huge bandage for 24 hours, that blocked my right eyesight and the right side of my mouth. I'm mighty glad Jed came over and provided practical as well as spiritual support. I tried not to take on or complain too much, so through it all I felt right noble, joking with the surgeon about how he wanted to hear me holler. So now I'm graduated down to a smaller bandage and a Bandaid, so I'm happy once more. More or less. About as happy as it gets in the current political and meteorological climate.

Usually the hot weather breaks a little, sometime in the month of August. I don't think I've ever been gladder to see Autumn a-coming in, than I will be this year. Fall is my favorite season, September through December. And I like pure-dee old winter a lot better than these hot-furnace summer days.

I think the next problem I've got to solve is hair. Yesterday I couldn't put on any makeup or hair spray, and by the time we got to Clinic, my hair looked like a stump full of granddaddies, only not that curly. I wasn't concerned about how it looked, just couldn't keep it out of my eyes, nose and mouth. I guess a short kinky permanent is the only solution, with the bare scalp shining through. I've got a wig. Or two or three. But can't stand to wear one in this weather. "There's always something to be sorry for." I think W. H. Auden said that. He was uglier than I am, but had a lot more hair. So what did he know?

Lovely Party, If I Do Say So!

2011-08-01T14:50:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was great! I wish I had thought to photograph Ramey's beautiful and delicious birthday cake (brought by Susan) before it was consumed. But too late now. I also wish I had thought to photograph everyone. I seldom remember the camera while things are going on.

We had a great little crowd. Reed was in high good humor. It was a really fun and enjoyable day.
*
I hope to get through this week without melting down. I hope I can hold onto the thought that this time next week, or next month, or next year, the surgery and hard time will be behind me.

My prismatic paperweight on the window sill cast this rainbow on the ceiling. I hope I can take it as a good sign.

One Down, About a Thousand To Go

2011-07-29T12:58:00.001-05:00

It looked almost this good.

Funny, when you've cleaned out the refrigerator, taken all the drawers and shelves out and washed them, put the milk and eggs back and shut the door--it feels like you haven't done anything. The big jobs are still ahead.

Anne George once wrote a poem about cleaning out the refrigerator. It got published in the ASPS Sampler or something. I hardly ever write poems about nightmares.

I've invited the family over here for a cook-in this weekend--Sunday. So I thought a few clean spots would look good. IDEA: When they get through eating, I could assign each of them a room to clean. Why haven't I thought of this before?

Last night I made the mistake of looking at this thing on my nose close up in the mirror, and like to scared myself into fits. It does look like they could have been a little more speedy in getting rid of it. My appointment isn't until next Thursday. To get to sleep last night, I had to plan a makeover for the dolls' house. When I do that, I never get any farther than the front hall/dining room, before falling asleep.

The offspring of Croupy Ben Lee

2011-07-28T14:22:00.001-05:00

Mr. Ben Lee was called "Croupy Ben" because while he was talking, his voice would shift back and forth between tenor and bass. In my novel, there's a story about him, in which he was trapped under a wagon, calling for help, and a passerby thought there were two people under the wagon. My grandma remembered Mr. Ben telling his children's names in that same up-and-down sing-song: "Eskew, Oskew, Bank Hugh and Reevie, and the baby calls itself Naintsy." Ten or so years ago, I used this idea to write an Alabama Limerick:

A family living at Dancy

named all of their boys something fancy;

they had Noel, Patrice,

Gabriel and Maurice,

and the baby girl called herself Nancy.

When Maw Maw would tell the names, she would laugh like anything. As a child, I thought it was really bad of the Lees to put so much thought into their boys' names, and apparently to leave the little girl to think of a name for herself. I guess it used to be a man's world, for sure.

I wish I could have conveyed the unfairness of it all, when I wrote the limerick.

If It's Tuesday, I Must Be Awake

2011-07-26T12:32:00.004-05:00

I sure am glad my sister Susie invented Pajama Days--or at least made them respectable. I'm tired out from ironing an outfit, taking a shower, washing my hair, putting goo on my face, and sallying forth somewhere--four days in a row! Today, I don't intend to stir.

Then, just now, it occurs to me how badly I want to make a cake and don't have all the ingredients. And Mo is out of canned food, and I'll probably be out of cigarettes before nightfall. One of these days I'm going to quit smoking. And quit feeding cats. And quit eating cake. I hardly ever eat cake, anyway, but yesterday evening at the Arts Council poetry reading, Joan had brought cake left over from our Sunday night gathering at her house. One little slice of cake made me want more.

Sunday the poetry critique group met at Joan and Frank's fabulous house, which is built around one of the old Moon River Beach cabins on the Cahaba river, off of Highway 78 East. They've been living in it and building onto it for more than 40 years. Besides writing poems, Frank is an artist, and the rooms are decorated partially with his paintings.

Anyway, at that meeting, I read the poems "Sourwood Honey" and "My Twin." The latter caused a lot of amazement, laughter, incredulity. Made me feel right silly, having to explain that it was just an idea, I'm not really crazy, etc. Sweet little Sherry W. read the best poem I've heard from her, full of images that mark her as an artist, which she is.

Then last night at the poetry reading meeting, I read this poem I had just written that morning:

Why I Collect Rocks

Certain rocks remind me of my father.
My father was a rock; he was transparent,
whereas your average rock is mostly solid.
My father, though transparent, was a rock,
the kind called porphyry, or maybe gneiss.
Metamorphic, he was laid down in layers,
my father, and pressed almost into granite.

I have said my father was a rock,
and what I meant was, you could lean on him.
Life leaned on him, and battered him, and broke him,
as even solid rock will break when hammered.
I have said my father was transparent,
and what I meant was, you could see his heart;
he wore it in his eyes or on his sleeve.

*

Ramey read a wonderful long poem, of which the rhythm reminded me of Vachel Lindsay's "Congo" poem.

There was a big crowd, the meeting room was full. I felt it was sort of an honor that Jim and Liz Reed came from Birmingham. They have a "Ye Olde Bookshoppe" which is the first place to look when you're hunting a really old or out-of-print book; they publish the Birmingham arts magazine or quarterly, and Liz invited us to a meeting in August to discuss "what writers need," or something. Due to my deafness, I couldn't grasp all the details.

Mr. DeWitt was a return attendee, and I told him my son's middle name is DeWitt, which is true. Michelle, a young woman from New York and Canada whom we met at Joan's on Sunday, also came; and Randall F. who still works in Neurology at UAB, had to remind me who he is, as I hadn't seen any of those folks in more than ten years. Randall's friend, Sherry, Joe W., Grady Sue (Leeds' most famous poet), and a handsome husband and wife who jokingly claimed not to know each other, in all made thirteen people in that little room.

So that's enough excitement for this week. I may go back to bed in a few minutes. Unless I get hungrier for cake.

More on Caxton

2011-07-24T12:02:00.003-05:00

Scarcely a hundred years after Chaucer wrote, in a vernacular that we can't read without a glossary, William Caxton wrote, translated and printed works in the English of his day, a form that is much plainer. Once I got into The Game...of Chess, the language presented very few problems. Caxton spelled phonetically, and retained many French words and terms, and the book gives a good picture of the colloquial English of the fifteenth century. They still said "ben" for various forms of the verb "to be." He used the letter u for the small letter v, so that the word poverty was often printed as pouerte.

Another interesting usage was the possessive pronouns his and her. Apparently, "its," meaning "belonging to or done by it," was not used at that time. Also "her" was often used instead of "their." By Caxton's time, the old black letter sign for "th" was represented by the letter "y," so that "ye" or "y'e" was pronounced "the," "th'" or the personal pronoun "thee." When we call it "yee," we're probably wrong except when using it as the plural of "you."

Caxton traveled on the Continent, to Belgium and Germany. In Cologne, Germany, he learned all about the Gutenberg press, and eventually set up a printing press in England. The first book he printed in England was an edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The Game and Playe of the Chesse was one of these first books. It was the first printed in the English of that time, because Caxton translated it from Latin into his version of English.

It was a prodigious task. This was a very long book.

So Long, Big Baby

2011-07-22T12:57:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I printed out the novel, prepared cover letters and stuff to go with it, and got it ready to send to River City Publishing's Fred Bonnie Award contest. So when the laundry gets done and I have some clean jeans to put on, I'll go to the P.O. and mail the package. If that doesn't "pan out," I'll see if Mary Chris will read the whole thing and consider it. And if that doesn't, I guess it'll join the others in the bottom drawer.

Next I'll tackle the book of my poems. I'm determined to get this between covers and looking professional, though I'm sure I'll have to have it done myself.
*
The Game and Playe of the Chesse, by Jacob Cessolis, translated and printed by William Caxton in March 1474, via Project Gutenberg Ebook - It took me 8 days to read this; I finished it today. It doesn't dwell much on the actual game, but it's a great lesson in medieval thought and lifestyles. In describing each chess piece, he identifies them with the particular levels of society and tells the right way for each to act and move, and all the ways not to act and move. This is one of the antique books in Eustace's bookcase, in China Court. I think it was the first book printed in England.

I'm carved.

2011-07-19T19:04:00.000-05:00

This morning I divided the novel into chapters. Then I went to the Clinic and got my nose sawed on, and it hurts like the dickens. Well, not that bad, but some. They said I'd get the lab report in about a week. I dread taking the bandage off, and I hope this is the last time I have to go down there until next year.

Feel like I could sleep for the rest of the week.

Should I be scared?

2011-07-18T16:20:00.000-05:00

It occurred to me that, this time tomorrow, I'll be out there with those little dermatology gremlins carving on my face. Why don't I feel anxious? More concerned about the weather and the traffic late tomorrow afternoon--my appointment isn't till 3:30 p.m.

Yesterday we browsed the Big Saver thrift store, and I got a couple of jewel-like picture frames, plus these Bremen-town singers on a doorstop:

A quiet, restful weekend--I hope!

2011-07-16T11:12:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, after lounging around the Clinic all day, I drove home in a rainstorm again. This is getting monotonous. Went by Alabama Art Supply and got some panels that I hope to turn into drawings for my bedroom, and later went by Walmart and got some things to perk up the guest bathroom.

All my test results were normal. I don't even have to go back on the Fosamax, but just take calcium and Vit. D. I've been off the antidepressant since about Christmas-time, the longest stretch free of medicine in many years. I sort of think it's because of my writing, and staying so busy, with new ideas and projects all the time, that my brain gets healthier instead of weaker. Except for my memory, which sometimes fails me.

I do have to go back Tuesday to Dermatology to get the thing on my nose taken care of. I guess they'll mess up my magnificent nose! Then, like Cyrano de Bergerac, I can dare anybody on pain of battle to say the word "nose" in my presence.

*

The hope of a calm weekend was vain. I've already had one emergency telephone call.

Banquet vs. Stouffer's

2011-07-14T19:19:00.000-05:00

About once a week or so, I get a Banquet frozen lasagna and have it for a couple of meals. Today I decided to splurge on the higher-class Stouffers, much more expensive, but what the heck. It was heavier than the Banquet one, had more meat, had the big noodles and a layer of what I suppose was the cottage cheese. It was also nearer to tasteless than I ever imagined a lasagna could be. So I'll stick with the Banquet. It's delicious.

Sturm und drang

2011-07-13T19:11:00.000-05:00

I watched a few raindrops making big polka-dots on the deck. This went on for about 5 minutes, and I decided maybe if I came inside and quit watching, it would really rain. But now that I'm inside, it seems to have quit altogether.If it would really rain, I might go out there and do an Andy Dufresne stretch to welcome it.

*

A little later came a storm that knocked out the lights and warped the trees around and blew limbs down in the yard. Needless to say, I didn't go out and frolic in it. The power was out for a couple of hours, long enough for me to thank God and Benjamin Franklin and them for electricity, when the lights came on again.

In the next few days, we're replacing a couple of doors and installing a sump pump and a gutter drain. After that, sometime this summer or fall, I want to get a lot of painting done, inside and out. I know the outside is more important and should be done first, but I'll really be glad when the inside walls are fresh, and maybe some color other than dirty white--and brown, as in my bedroom! Steve said he could use a white stain on the ceiling beams in the living room, so they wouldn't seem so prominent, like they're about to fall on one's head.

I've been trying to read an old book at Gutenberg on the computer, and my eyes are about out.

A walk under the trees

2011-07-12T14:36:00.000-05:00

Got so tired of staying in out of the heat, Mo and I went out there and walked around in the shade on the west side of the house for 15 minutes or so. The hickories are full of nuts, but the persimmon tree is dropping them green on the ground. The tree I call a water oak has shivered a lot of its bark off in strips. Some leaves on the dogwoods are bright red, and the hydrangeas have given up and turned olive-green.

So now I've got the laundry going.

Yesterday I cooked a big pot of yellow squash and heated up some leftover cornbread. Then I ate the whole thing, over the course of the day. Wish I had saved some. I did freeze a lot of squash raw, but I don't want to heat up the kitchen to cook anything.

My poetry manuscript is ready to go to a printer. What do I do next?

The Maze and the Lumps

2011-07-11T12:37:00.001-05:00

Viewed one way, life is like one of those puzzles, or a garden maze, where you follow one path for a while and suddenly come to a dead end, then have to go back and decide which path to follow next. Some people seem to sail straight through the maze with no, or very few, setbacks, as if they could see the puzzle from above and avoid the dead ends. Such people, if there really are any, must be very, very lucky. Jesus really could see the puzzle from above, and he had to run the obstacle course, anyway, hopping from place to place and listening to the jeers from the sidelines.

The point I'm trying to make is for my friend Deb. Divorce is a major dead end, right? I remember it well. That's one reason I didn't get married again: I couldn't stand the possibility of having to go through another divorce which, given my personality, was more on the lines of a probability. You might say it cured me of marriage.

I wish I had useful advice for a divorced person who takes it hard, for social, economic, political or religious reasons. My reasons were mainly social and economic, and I was thankful that Daddy had insisted I learn a skill so I could get an inside job.

Ancient as I am, I ought to have lots of good advice stored up to pass around when people need it. But I don't remember ever receiving free advice of any kind in that crisis--or any other. Don't even remember anybody saying "Good Luck!" When you're running for your life, you hear lots of familiar voices baying with the hounds. And ominous silence from corners where you thought you might get a little support. You forgive them, because they didn't know all the details, and wouldn't believe them if they did.

Anyway, all I can say is "Good Luck!"
*
I've got to go back to the clinic this Friday for an ultrasound. I've had one before. It's probably the same old lump.

Writing On and On

2011-07-09T16:07:00.000-05:00

Thursday I wrote the first short story using my Writer's Toolbox, which gives suggested ideas and structure. I expect all of the early ones will be 1,000-words-or-less short-shorts. I've never been any good at writing short stories, so I'm creeping into it slowly.

Yesterday I worked some more on my book of poems, and started an appendix for Big Baby. I'm reading through the novel and making a note of anything I think needs to be explained or enlarged upon. These may wind up as additions in the body of the manuscript, instead of an appendix. A map of the Cedar Grove/Dover area could be endpapers or a frontispiece. Since there are so many generations of people in the family, I'm thinking of a genealogical chart as well. I know, I know: it should be written well enough that you don't have any trouble keeping up with the characters.

Jed flew north yesterday for a vacation trip to Chicago.

Glory, glory,--etc.

2011-07-05T10:34:00.000-05:00

Steve and Aaron-I-think-his-name-is are cleaning out the basement--no fuss, no questions, just dumping everything blue-taped into the dumpster. I'm up here dancing a jig--mentally, of course.

Fourth on the Third

2011-07-04T12:35:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we celebrated Independence Day and Daddy's birthday on Sunday. We had a grand gathering and feast at Sister Susan's beautiful home. Then we went over to the country church cemetery where so many of our forebears and family are resting. Thanks also to Susan for the wonderful photos she took and shared with all of us.

On Saturday, Jed and I went to the silk flower lady's store and gathered up an armload of pretties, and I put together a couple of quick arrangements. I love arranging flowers--I won a few prizes, back in my garden club days.

The work on the roof, and plans for more work on the house, are still in progress.

Pretty roof, good book

2011-07-02T15:24:00.000-05:00

We certainly made some good choices of colors and styles of shingles. My house looks new, and the roof matches the brick so well, it looks like they were planned together.

I just finished reading Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Jed read it first, then loaned it to me. This is one of the best books I've ever read in my whole life. It's also the last book I aim to read about the Civil War. I alternately cried and cursed, silently or aloud, all the way through it. I had already wept my way through John Brown's Body. So I think I've had enough education/enlightenment concerning The War.

One amusing incident that Goodwin put in her book: A prominent Chicago politician got into all kinds of ruin and trouble when he spoke out against the War of 1812. Later, during the Mexican war, someone asked him, "Do you oppose this war?" He said, "No. I opposed one war, and that was enough for me. From now on, I am perpetually in favor of war, pestilence and famine."

I already knew that Abraham Lincoln was the best knight of the world. I was glad to learn, though, that William Seward and Edwin Stanton were also good. I had read a book, many years ago, that presented the assassination of Lincoln as a widespread conspiracy, and hinted that Edwin Stanton, Lincoln's Secretary of War, was at the center of the conspiracy, and that Sec. of State Seward might have been involved. I didn't believe in the conspiracy, but that old book did in my mind cast suspicion on the whole cabinet.

Both Walt Whitman and Louisa May Alcott were nurses for the wounded Union soldiers.

Each package weighs 80 pounds.

2011-06-30T12:34:00.002-05:00

So said Steve.

I counted/estimated about 60 packages, but they were in such a pile, I couldn't get a good count. They're supposed to put 'em on this afternoon, where they tore the old ones off yesterday. I may be looking at a great big shopping trip for myself to last the afternoon. The idea appeals to me, but would be even more attractive if I had money to spend. It's always something, little Rose Anne Rosanna Danna.

I Love Ya, Tomorrow!

2011-06-29T12:32:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow I plan to start the fourth and, I hope, final rewrite of Big Baby. I hope to finish it before the time runs out to submit it to the Alabama publisher's competition in October. Right now I'm about to have a PBRW sandwich for my lunch (peanut butter, banana and raisins on whole wheat). With a big mug of coffee to wash it down.

Temptation!

2011-06-28T13:55:00.000-05:00

Well, Steve and Tracy sent over this dumpster which is just about the size of my living room. They said if I have any junk, to throw it in. Hmmm. Looks like it would hold all my old living room furniture, plus all the junk in the basement. They also looked around in the basement, deciding where to put the sump pump.

Seriously, I am about to decide to trash that couch. Mo has scratched one end of it down to the nails. I know, because I scraped my leg on one of them. It looks like Mo might outlive me, so a new sofa wouldn't have much of a chance. I could put Flora's old maple breakfast table in the center of the room and group all the chairs around it, and call it the great hall. The two ancient armchairs could go into the dumpster, too. And the 1950's coffee table, and the piece of junk I'm using for an end table. All the ugly lamps. I love bare rooms.

Steve said they're going to tear the roof off tomorrow, and put on a new one on Thursday.

Shoot!

2011-06-27T18:33:00.000-05:00

This morning I ordered a beautiful arrangement for my sweet niece Andy, who has had some really rough surgery. The image of what I ordered showed a square glass container with at least half a dozen pink roses, and some smaller little pink garden flowers. This is what she received:

I guess that teaches me--don't order something you haven't seen in person, unless you know you can send it back. I'll call the place tomorrow and assure them that I won't use their service again. Makes you want to cry.

Bel canto

2011-06-26T17:36:00.003-05:00

This afternoon I caught the last few minutes of the Met's performance of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor (on PBS), some of the most wonderful music ever composed by anybody anywhere. The last few minutes are not as thrilling as the whole thing. So I had to go to YouTube and listen to Maria Callas sing an 8-minute-long aria. Then I had to listen to her sing "Mi chiamano Mimi" from La Boheme. Callas and Elvis Presley are the only singers ever documented to sing three octaves. But I think I've said that before. And by now, it may not be true any longer.

The Sound of Snow

2011-06-24T21:25:00.002-05:00

Growing deaf, one thing that I really miss
is the sound of falling snow. When I
and Bob-the-cat lived at the very top
of Oak Trail, in a treetop apartment,

it snowed a lot for Alabama.
Bob would hear it and run to the kitchen
where glass doors looked out on a balcony,
and I would hear it and follow the cat.

Together we'd watch through the ice-cold glass,
as someone up yonder seemed to be shaking
a feather-bed with a big hole in it;
and Bob would bump his nose and paws

on the glass; he couldn't figure out why
he never could catch what he saw so clear.
You could hear it best when it started to fall:
Ice crystals blown against the house

rattled or sighed with gusts of wind,
and grew bigger and softer, the longer they fell.
In a while, the world would be full of feathers,
and the air full of whispers. Bob would get bored,

and wander away hunting a warm place
to curl up. I, on the other hand,
I wouldn't leave that lookout point
if it snowed all night (which it never did).

Those were what I call the good old days.
But now, when it snows, if it ever snows,
I learn of it when I pass a bare window,
and sight is the only sense awakened.

By JRC, 6/24/11

Stormy Weather

2011-06-22T18:50:00.000-05:00

I drove back from Bham today through the first storm, raining so hard I had to guess where the road was. I thought of one stormy night many years ago, when I drove from Birmingham to Montgomery most of the way between two big trucks, going too fast--65-70 mph--to stay in place but at least knowing I was on the highway. When I got home today, there was a big old sweet gum limb in my front yard, and the storm had stopped for a while.

On the Road Again

2011-06-21T19:00:00.000-05:00

I thought my clinic appointments were for Wednesday and Thursday. Wrong. Tues. and Weds. So I went today and got the bone scan, and will get the mammo tomorrow. Then maybe they'll leave me alone for a while, dadgummit! Every time I'm almost making some progress on the poems, Mo hollers for water or something, or the phone rings to confirm an appointment.

I had picked out about a hundred and twenty poems for my book. But every time I look over it, I add a few more. So what if some of them are bad, or silly? Show me a hundred poems by anybody, and some of them will be less than top-notch. Unless it's Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins didn't write many poems, but every one of them, you can just read it over and over and find new magic every time. His rhythm is strange, so they're not easy to remember. "The Wreck of the Deutschland," and those nuns panting, "Where--where was a--where was a place--?!" And "The Wreck" (in my opinion) is not the best of his poems. Boy, if I was going to copy anybody's style consciously, that's where I would start. Or try to start.

Catching Up

2011-06-18T13:33:00.003-05:00

This week I finally got a report from the Clinic on my labs: Everything was normal. Surprise!

I took all my Z-pack last week, and I feel fine. My face and throat don't hurt any more, but I still sneeze and cough, so it must be allergies. Like from cat hair, mold and dust. If someone would only clean the place up! My Amazon/Facebook friend Cindy has all this haus-frau energy; wish I could put her in my basement for about half a day.

I've got through the latest batch of alterations to Big Baby, and selected all my poems for my Semi-Complete volume. Now I just have to revise about two dozen of them.
*
Today I'm thinking of Spring. Or Fall, or Winter. Any season but Too Hot.

The Goose-Girl, by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

Spring rides no horses down the hill,
But comes on foot, a goose-girl still;
And all the loveliest things there be
Come simply, so, it seems to me.
If ever I said, in grief or pride,
I tired of honest things, I lied,
And should be cursed forevermore
With love in laces like a whore,
And neighbors cold, and friends unsteady,
And Spring on horseback like a lady.
*
I have an old china vase, with flowers and a girl feeding a goose on it, sitting on the chest in the hall. Every time I notice it, I think of Millay's poem.

High Flight

2011-06-16T16:17:00.001-05:00

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings!
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of--Wheeled, and soared, and swung,
High in the sunlit silence! Hovering there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air!
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark or even eagle flew;
And while with silent, lifting mind, I've trod
The high, untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God!

By John Gillespie McGee
*
It's that kind of a day. The kind that inspired my favorite poem that I've ever written, "Splendor Before a Storm:"

Clouds with wings of gold
enfolded pale blue morning,
that a moment died, rose up white noon,
and oh bright cumulus
flung clear around
my unsuspecting stratosphere!

How can even God
behold this gleaming day, yet stay in place
while higher every mile the sky grows! I
would tumble treeward, rumbling,
"See my wonders! See Creation glowing!
Hear my thunder!"

I myself, although
no god or wing-blessed being,
must fling my senses somehow high enough
to reach and reel among
those sun-dipped fields of light,
dance there, cling there, or of sheer worship
die!
*
I trust that, when I was feeling that, I was worshiping the Creator, not the creation.

Lord, I have loved your sky,
Be it said against or for me;
Have loved it clear and high
Or low and stormy;

Till I have reeled and stumbled
From looking up too much,
And fallen and been humbled
To wear a crutch.

My love for every heaven
O'er which You, Lord, have lorded,
From number one to seven,
Should be rewarded.

It may not give me hope
That when I am translated,
My scalp may in the scope
Be constellated;

But if that seems to tend
To my undue renown,
At least it ought to send
Me up, not down.

By Robert Lee Frost (I forget the title).
*
The camera may not lie, but it's awfully inadequate on a day like this.

From "John Brown's Body" by Stephen Vincent Benet

2011-06-15T14:27:00.007-05:00

~~~
"A brief, white rime on a red-clay road."
*
I have seen it! I have seen it! I have seen it!
And I have heard the invisible horses charging
wildly down it, dragging an iron-wheeled cart.
So long ago, only the memory of a memory,
but part of me like the sound of my heart in my ears
waked from a dream foreshadowing past and future.

By me 6/15/11

"Thoughts Of an Old [Woman] In a Dry Season"

2011-06-14T13:07:00.002-05:00

A few times in my life, I have forgot something on the stove or in the oven until it burned up. So I routinely check to make sure everything is turned off before I leave the house or go to bed. It occurred to me this morning that I'm not the only one getting old and living largely by herself. So I hope Susan and Ramey, and even Jed who ain't no spring chicken, will learn this practice from me, if they don't do it already.
*
I'm working on the book again today, mostly on the time line--trying to make sure I haven't got somebody born before his mama. I've got a file this thick, with calendars for years in the 1940s, histories of Oak Ridge and Redstone Arsenal, wildlife and landscape features I remember on the mountain. I guess I'm just in love with that book. I didn't feel anything like this for the romances I wrote; that's probably why I abandoned them: they just were not my thing.

Deb, who comments here sometimes, said that she writes children's books. Ramey does, too, writes and illustrates them. I want to write one about the Maynards' children, Patsy, Joyce, Ramona, Susie and Franny (I just changed the twin Sally's name to Franny).

They're almost like little stair-steps, born in 1936, 1938, 1941, and the twins in 1943 or '44. Patsy (called Patrick) is the level-headed one, and Ramona the "holy terror." Joyce (Josie) is the "Big Mouth," who offends all of them with her perceptive comments.

I haven't decided whether to write them as little children, or as teenagers. I guess I know more about little ones, because I never was a teenager. At least, not a normal one.
*
So, I need to go to the store today and get the makin's for biscuits. I crave biscuits, although I hate the doughy innards. I just eat the tops and bottoms.

Several years ago, two different people (I think Ramey and Jed) gave me bottles of maple syrup. The bottles are shaped like maple leaves. I ate one bottleful, then opened the other one. The cap on the second bottle was always hard to open, and after a while I couldn't open it at all. It has sat there in the refrigerator for at least two or three years. What I need to know: If I ever manage to get the top off, will the syrup still be safe to eat?

Poem for Sunday

2011-06-12T05:55:00.010-05:00

Sourwood Honey

We fanciers of sourwood honey have a theory:
It's what was meant by "nectar of the gods,"
Back when hyperbole was common usage.
Some still claim that it's made by bees and angels;
Too ignorant to argue, I imagine
The keepers of the bees turning around
Three times and genuflecting toward the east,
Before they loose the bees among the blossoms.

By JRC, 06/12/11

*
6:45 p.m.: I was up very early this morning, and I meant to go to the last performance of "Second Samuel," if it wasn't sold out. But I felt so bad--my cold or whatever is worse today--that I lay back down and slept until it was too late to get to the church at 2:30. Maybe the antibiotic is just loosening up the congestion, but I've coughed and sneezed till I'm exhausted.

I've spent the last 4 hours going through the Big Baby manuscript, making changes and explanations, including the ones Susan marked when she read it. Her remarks, like Ramey's, were very helpful, and I really appreciate their reading and commenting.

Cats, Cats, Cats

2011-06-09T16:38:00.000-05:00

I've been having an attack of conscience, about that old black cat that showed up here last year looking like a Sherman tank had run over him twice. I fed and watered him, and sprayed the peroxide at his wounds, and he's still alive, because he showed up yesterday. He only comes by occasionally, and he really is a mess at this point. I guess if I can ever catch him, I'll take him to the vet.

Ramey said she would come and get this stray, but I forgot to ask if she meant this year or next year. We thought he was a girl, but he said no, he'll look more masculine when he gets some meat on his bones. He really is a sweet baby. If I kept him--which I won't! I won't!--I would name him "Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes," and call him J.D. for short. (J.D. Salinger wrote a story with that title.)

I really can't have another one in the house. I haven't let either black or white cat come in, and don't plan to. There's no mention of cats in the Bible, at least not domestic ones, probably because the Egyptians worshiped them. (That's probably where cats got the idea that they really are, if not deities, at least royalty.) I wonder why the Lord made them so sweet.

You wouldn't think one little animal, weighing 10 pounds or less, could make a retired and solitary person miserable. But Mo keeps me semi-miserable about a tenth part of every day.

Gettin' Better

2011-06-08T21:52:00.000-05:00

They finally called the pharmacy and left me a prescription, so I went down this morning and got a Z-pack. Took the first double dose and slept a lot today, so I am feeling better. Amazing how simple it was. I wish I had insisted on treatment two weeks ago; by now I'd probably be feeling 10-15 years younger.

Never apologize!

2011-06-07T12:38:00.005-05:00

I have to get over feeling apologetic about my poems. Cuckoo as some of them may seem, they're what pop into my head and have to get out.

I thought my sinus infection or inflammation was better, but today it's much worse. And after two weeks, I still haven't received the results of my labs and CT. So a few minutes ago I phoned the clinic, forgetting that they'd all be out to lunch until 1:30 or 2:00. Anyway, I left Marie a message to get them to call me in something for the sinus, and to let me know about the tests.

I had it made up in my mind to change doctors, unless there was a good reason for "writing me a letter" (which apparently he didn't even do) instead of phoning me the test results. And not doing anything about the misery in my nose. But number one, I've tried to change doctors before, and the HMO wouldn't permit it. And number two--I forget what.

Couple of nights ago, I watched "The Sixth Sense" on TV. That's a very sad movie.
*
The poem today:

On Leaping Into Marlowe's Faust
(and Tiptoe-ing Away)

Least said, the soonest mended: I decline
The merest slight to Marlowe's “mighty line.”

For centuries, men rewrote the Faustus play,
Till how it was to start with, who can say?

I don't deny, one line my fancy grips:
“Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?”

And one more line still sticks with me, to wit:
“Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it!”

Let veils of charity the rest obscure,
And Marlowe's reputation long endure.

Too bad he's not beneath the Abbey stones;
A lonely unmarked grave received his bones.

Poor Marlowe, stabbed to death at twenty-nine!
Who could begrudge the man his mighty line?

By JRC, 6/7/2011

My folks already think I'm crazy.

2011-06-06T12:10:00.004-05:00

My Twin
*
A few days before our birth,
I left that body and found a live one
ready to come out.
He needed to be born by himself.
He always rang like Christmas,
but the bells were in my head and came with me.
When his “little shaky leg” shook,
I could hear sleigh bells.
He learned to shiver himself from head to toe
like a wet dog shedding raindrops, and when he did,
I heard the glass balls and bells on a decorated tree
trembling together and ringing.

by Joanne Cage, 6/6/2011

"Second Samuel" was Super!

2011-06-04T11:42:00.009-05:00

The play was wonderful. The young guy who played "B. Flat" talked and emoted practically throughout both acts, with a real or assumed speech impediment thrown in. Ramey was the prettiest lady--she played Miss Ruby who worked in the beauty shop. I was fascinated with the players' given names--Omaha Nebraska Madison was the cute blonde who ran the beauty shop. Her husband was Frisky Madison, and one of his kinfolks named their baby after him: Madison Wisconsin.

I was so proud of Ramey--told everybody, "That's my baby sister, you know!"

Jed couldn't come, and India was feeling puny, so I went to the play by myself. Saw George and Sue and Rev. Lynette and everybody whose names I didn't remember. Yes, I feel guilty for not going to church. But crowds confuse me and I can't think or do anything except try to keep a frozen grin on my face. Funny, I've never had that problem when I was on a stage or at a desk and the crowd was in front of me. But when they're all around me everywhere, I'm lost. Maybe because everybody else is so tall.

Just before I left home to go to the play, I had a stomach upset, then I had to scurry to get ready, and forgot my camera. The "playhouse" was cool, but the narthex of the church was hot, and of course it was hot outside. All the temperature variations gave me the "swirl and ache" again, so when the play was over, I high-tailed it to the Tracker and came home.

Sister Susan and Niece Andy were the only other family in the audience. Susan has a synopsis of the whole play on her blog today (Blackberry Creek), with pictures and everything. But no picture of me in my four-year-old summer dress I had never worn before but put on because it made me look taller. But I understand: Why photograph the "Old Party" in the family, when they're always there and you have to look at them occasionally, whether you want to or not?

I had occasion this week to ponder that theory, and it may have a few holes in it. On Tuesday, I called the clinic and asked Marie (the secretary) to get Onae (the nurse) or Dr. Gruman (the giant) to call me with the results of the tests I'd had the week before. A bit later, Marie called me back and said Dr. Gruman had "written me a letter." A letter? Too mystified to think, I muttered, "Thanks." Then I walked the floor for a day or two, wondering what they found that the M.D. was too cowardly to tell me about on the phone. Always before he has phoned within a couple or three days and told me something, sometimes reading last year's test results.

Based on the tests they did last week, all I could think of was AIDS or a brain tumor. I still haven't received the letter, but have had time to get over the terror.

Last week at the clinic, I had the satisfaction of noticing that he's getting gray-headed.
*
A funny thing happened when I found my seat, B5, at the play. Each seat had a removable cover on the back with the seat number written on it. In my row, the numbers ran B1, B2, B3, B5, B4, B6, B7 and B8. I sat down in B5, and the lady who came and sat in B6 said I had to change because someone had switched the numbers. She was quite officious and seemed to know what she was talking about, so I got up and started changing the covers on the seat-backs. The man in front of me remarked it was strange that "the House" couldn't count to 4, and the bossy lady hinted that I should have figured it out for myself. I said, "I just thought it was some local custom that I'm not familiar with."

The Big Day--Ramey's Premiere

2011-06-03T13:42:00.000-05:00

I worked all morning on the poems. Now I've got to eat something and get ready to go to the Play. Can't wait! I called Jed, but he's working on his big Phoenix presentation and can't come today.

Radiology called me and said come June 17th for my Dexascan/bone density test. My mammo appointment is June 22nd. So this, too, is going to be a busy month.

Book Plans

2011-06-02T11:56:00.005-05:00

I just had one of those light-bulb moments: I've written and saved several hundred poems--around 400, I guess. Most of them probably aren't worth saving, but have a "germ" of poetry somewhere in their innards. So what I want to do is take each of the doubtful ones and play with it, and try to make a real poem out of it, and deep-six it if it continues to embarrass me. I hope they will all cooperate and come together as a respectable little book of The Complete Poems of JRC.

Tomorrow night!!! Ramey opens in "Second Samuel" at the church "playhouse." I called to reserve two seats, and sweet little Sue-Baby put us in the second row. So maybe I can almost hear a pin drop onstage, not to mention what the actors say. I hope Jed comes over tomorrow to escort me to the theatah.

Last night I watched a PBS "American Masters" show about my all-time favorite orchestra conductor, the Met's own James Levine. Jimmy, like most of us old folks, now looks like a little Hobbit. -- Well, actually, he always did.

George Washington, Chapters 26-28

2011-06-01T14:18:00.010-05:00

Somewhere in the clutter, I lost George Washington, The Indispensable Man, when I had only read less than half of it. But a few days ago I found it. It's a long book, crammed with essential stuff you can't just scan or skip, but must go back over, some of it to savor. It makes you proud, not only of Washington but of all the superstitious, cowardly, self-serving, greedy, ordinary PEOPLE who established this nation and this unique government. On the bones of the rightful owners/original inhabitants, of course. But, as the colonists' ancestors had done the dark deed of dispossession, two hundred years earlier, they thought they owned the place.

Chapters 26-28 tell about the writing and establishment of the U.S. Constitution. Unbelievable, but it happened.
*
Anyway, it's a great book, by James Thomas Flexner. As the servant girl told Ripsie in China Court, "He must have all of he names." He died in the first decade of this century, just a few years short of a hundred, one of these long-lived Capricorns--if I am permitted to claim that much of a relationship. George Washington was originally a four-volume National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, and he himself boiled it down to the one-volume paperback that I'm reading. It will have taken me at least two weeks, all told, to read it, so I'll never impose it on our book club, if we continue to have a book club. Although I agree with more than one reviewer who said that every American should be required to read it.
*
Abigail Adams said of Washington, "This same President has so happy a faculty of appearing to accommodate and yet carrying his point, that, if he was not really one of the best-intentioned men in the world, he might be a very dangerous one. He is polite with dignity, affable without familiarity, distant without haughtiness, grave without austerity, modest, wise, and good."