Snow Tree

The dogwood is so thick with blooms, it looks like it's covered with snow.

An Old Head

So little hair is there! Within reside
great pompadours of hair, French braids, chignons,
neat powdered queues, full-bottomed periwigs,
and baby curls in rose and azure ribbon.

While outside, here and there begin the hairs
to sprout and businesslike to grow and curl,
but strayed from up to down--on chin, pure white,
but dark beneath the nose--pursued and tweezed.

Recall how Caesar shaved, plucked hair by hair--
painful necessity! The Roman relish
for anyone's discomfort, yours or mine,
we must adopt. Rue hair, remember Rome.

(By JRC 4/16-17/08)

Fronk-en-shteen and Smart Alec

I watched Alec Baldwin interviewing Gene Wilder. Good show. Learned stuff I didn't know. For instance, Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner were married when she died. Wilder will be 75 years old in June; he looks about 95. A.B. has grown so fat, you can hardly see his eyes.

Steve came today and mowed the lot. He said he means to put some topsoil and grass seed on the low spot in the yard so the grass will grow. I didn't tell him not to; need to discuss with Jed.

The Good, the Bad, and the Scary

The good was the book club meeting yesterday afternoon at the library. Mable, Peggy, Susan, Pat and Jean attended. Great meeting. Afterward, I went by the P.O. and mailed a book. I started selling books on Amazon in August 2006. I've had 300 sales, and have more books now than when I started. That just doesn't listen right.

The bad was how totally exhausted I felt after the meeting. I slept from ~5 o'clock until the lights went out, and then spent an hour or so wandering around in the dark, finding the flashlight, lighting candles, then blowing them out when the power came back on, then sleeping until nine or ten this morning. The storms were the scary part; they were all over Alabama last night, and the Fox News site has hundreds of photos of clouds, rainbows, hail, and damage.

After heavy rain here, my lot is well drained except for the very lowest spot in the back yard.

Chopin Etude Opus 10, No. 3

This is the best recording anyone had posted of this piece on Youtube, although the old guy looks and moves like a zombie. He plays it as Chopin wrote it down. Mrs. Rogers always said that was the best way to play any composer's work. I had heard this etude (in a Cornell Wilde movie), but didn't know the name of it, when I was taking piano from Mrs. Rogers, and I tried and tried to communicate to her what it was, and to get her to get the sheet music for me, but she couldn't recognize my picking out the melody on the piano.

I'm all uptight about having the club meeting at the library--what can I serve them for snacks? Have no idea. All I can think of is cheese and crackers and wine. I could live on those three items, myself, though I don't know for how long. Mable is coming and is reading the book for the second time. I love Mable, although her accent reminds me of Mary Riley {{{{shudder}}}}. Actually, I loved Mary, too, but we had some merry go-arounds in my early days with Social Security.

Mary was the office supervisor in Selma. One day I was hunched over my desk, totally absorbed in a file, and ker-bang! Mary slammed a stack of files down on my desk. I caught myself, standing with the Scotch-tape holder drawn back like Tom Glavine about to deliver one at her back as she walked away. All eyes except Mary's were on me, when I realized, uh-uh, we don't clout the supe. Mary read "Gerth" (that's how she pronounced Goethe; I've never pronounced it myself, and don't plan to).

The picture is of me in Selma, about 1978.

Is this still Wednesday? I better go to bed.

Feeling Pretty Good Over Very Little

I've got this upbeat, sort of expectant feeling, like something good is going on. All that has happened lately is that I've removed about three bushels of old papers and magazines from my office, and put all my books in alphabetical order by author or editor, and am getting ready to clean the carpet or call old Dave to clean it. Also thinking about losing these old plastic window blinds. Got to call old Steve to come mow the weeds. Am I cleaning because I feel good, or do I feel good because I'm cleaning? There's a tune that fits that question. From Gigi, I think.

Small Cozy Club Meeting?

Monday, Apr. 7, 10:30 a.m. - Well, I got sidetracked last night when I started this post. What it is, Saturday I notified the Bookmarkers that our meeting this week will be at the library meeting room. Betty White said she'd be out of town, and she doubted that Jean could come because of her husband's problems. Nell said she couldn't come, Mary U. called and said she and Walter are going camping. That still leaves enough for a quorum, I guess. The book is that pesky (fascinating) Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, and I hope Susan and I aren't the only ones who read it.

I've started reading December 6 by Martin Cruz Smith. Apparently it isn't about the Russian guy but an American no-good named Harry Niles, sort of ex-patriated to Japan.

The library still doesn't have A Season of Fire and Ice, and it isn't on Amazon. Maybe I dreamed it.

Re: Mozart's "Musical Joke" - Explanation

In the explanation that I found on this Mozart piece, it's stated that he was imitating the way starlings sing, including the flat notes and the changing tempos. (He had a pet starling that died, and this piece was written shortly after he threw an elaborate funeral for the bird.)
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I've heard a different and more plausible possible explanation, which is that he was making fun of other composers' musical styles. This may have been in the movie "Amadeus," but I don't know where it came from. Maybe Richard Hoover.
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Either explanation works, considering who composed this crazy, funny piece.
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Speaking of funerals for pets, Lord Byron forced all his servants and guests (read hangers-on) to attend the funeral of Boatswain, his Newfoundland dog. The inscription on the headstone is a long boring poem, ending with these lines:
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Ye! who perchance behold this simple urn,
Pass on--it honors none you wish to mourn:
To mark a friend's remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one,--and here he lies.

Painting the roses yellow...

Not just the roses, everything around here has a thick coat of pollen. And my sinuses feel like I've been breathing mud instead of air, not to mention the drip, drip, drip. And not to mention the temperature going up to 80 today and adding to the discomfort.

I'm reading a book called American Indian Mythology. Just finished Twisted Hair, a Cherokee story--I read it quickly today, because I got an order for it and hadn't read it yet. It's amazing how the different tribes had (or have) different myths, but they all seem to have a Grandmother Spider. Maybe it was the displacement of so many tribes by the palefaces that mixed them all up, plus the mixing in of Christianity. Twisted Hair was a wandering stranger whose long hair was twisted into ropes and bound with buckskin; he traveled the Southeast warning the people that the end of the world, i.e., the coming of the white man, was imminent. This book didn't offer any references, so it may just be something the author made up. It's OK with me, because I sold it for thirty-something dollars.

This afternoon, Mo and Wilder were under the deck howling like banshees at a pretty blue-gray short-haired cat, who finally walked calmly out to the back of the lot, sat down under a tree and refused to budge. My neighbor Rev. Mark was picking up dead limbs and twigs under my west-side trees, I don't know why. Anyway, we remarked on all the stray cats in this neighborhood, and he mentioned the orange cat that I called Conrack and Mark's wife called Cosmo, who disappeared I think it was two years ago. It's nice to know someone else who likes cats well enough to remember the name of a stray for two years after it moves on.

The story of the Rainbow Bridge comes to mind. How sweet it would be someday, to see Monty, the black mama cat, Carly, Chink, Bob, Bear Bryant, Socks, Mus, Misty, Griffin, Conrack, and little Darcy come running to meet me. Bob would lag behind, trying to pretend it wasn't a big deal to him. (I would probably be carrying Mo.)

Think about Doug, if Tony met him.

The Thirteenth Tale

Wow! I think I need to read it again, so I'll at least have an opinion about who was who.

4:45 p.m. - I read over the last part of the book, and I think I've got "Emmeline" figured out.

Like Bel Canto, the denouement to this one doesn't ring true. The ghost of Margaret's twin was always just her reflection in a mirror or other glass. All the other "ghosts" in the book turned out to be real people. Margaret (the narrator) didn't show any signs of being touched in the head until the end, when the real ghost of her sister walked in. Maybe she was dreaming. Go figure.

Wishing for Grandchildren

With all these beautiful grandchildren springing up all over the place, looks like I could have at least one. This here is Danika, granddaughter of my friend Kat. She's wearing a pretty smocked dress her mama wore 28 years ago. Danika and her parents live in Alaska, so Kat and David don't get to see her often, but at least they know she's there.

Got a notice from Veolia yesterday that they could roll off a dumpster to fill up when one is spring-cleaning. I need to order four or five of their 40-yard ones, and maybe I could get this place in shipshape. They say (I've said) that time goes faster, the older you get. But really it goes slow enough that you can collect a lot of barnacles and flotsam and jetsam that need to be scraped off at some point.


Ulysses

The lure of the open sea is my discontent;
Too long at anchor in this shallow bay,
I have seen time sift into sediment
And over the past its leveling strata lay,
Changing remembered storms to gentle rain.
Sailor, some morning at dawn as you watch the main,
You’ll see this old barnacled ruin heave into sight again.

By JRC, June 7, 1973

Musings, and The Moze

Spent some time yesterday on my knees in the rock bed picking rocks off my poor tulips. If they bloom, I'll consider it a miracle.

Today I need to be sewing, altering some of my summer clothes to fit my burgeoning (is that a word?) physique. But I sold a set of DVDs yesterday, so I'll have to go to the P.O. again today. That usually takes all day, speedy as I have become.

One day this week I found some of my favorite music on Youtube. I didn't know the titles, but somehow found them anyway (links to a couple or four are on the left).

Did you ever?

Photo by Agan

The Twelfth Fairy's Wish: That he'll always be as sweet and happy as he looks today.

Who Is Me?

"My sinuses," "my brain," "my tree"--who is talking?
~
Me Again

Must I be me again today?
Why can’t someone else take a turn?
I know how an actor feels in a play
That runs so long, he begins to yearn
For a different role, would like to learn
How someone else would handle his lines,
And yawns to think he has to say
The same words for the hundredth time;

But clinging to his small success,
He walks through the part, remembering when
Safe boredom would have seemed to bless
The days before his ship came in.
So I, though wondering now and then
How someone else would handle the lines,
I put aside my wistfulness,
And play the part for the thousandth time.

By JRC, June 17, 1974

"I measure myself against a tall tree..." - Wallace Stevens, Opus Posthumous, 1930-something.

Happy Good Friday, and a Very

Happy Easter Sunday!

What a Morning!

It's amazing how good I feel on cool, dark, windy, rainy days. Normal people feel better, or so they say, on hot dry days with the sun blazing down and no clouds in the sky. When the wind is blowing and rain is falling, my sinuses clear up, I can see better, and the wheels of my brain go around and around. Of courses, this is all aside from being scared a storm is going to blow me away.

Could this be a weather-controlled form of a bi-polar disorder? Depressed on "pretty" days, comparatively manic on dreary days? Though I don't know how you could call a day like today "dreary." Everything outside is moving, including the limbs that have blown down into the street. If people could only live in harmony with the weather, and safe from its ups and downs, we could enjoy stormy weather without qualms.

A Wee Bit Lopsided, But Cute

My mother made this little quilt top, or large quilt block, and I quilted it over this past weekend (it's about 30" square). It wasn't sewn together quite securely, so I didn't stretch it in a frame but just did a few repairs and quilted along the seams. I have several much bigger, better and prettier quilt tops that Mama gave me, but I need to practice and get used to holding and manipulating a needle again so I can finish some of them. There are several miniquilts in the cedar chest, made by Jenny and me, that I can practice on.

Here are some of my doll quilts that I made years ago. If you click on them, they'll enlarge, all except the pinwheel one--which is my favorite, and I wish you could see all the little doll and animal prints. I don't know why it won't enlarge. The Easter basket one is approx. 18" x 24"; the others are smaller.

Did St. Pat miss a few leprechauns?

No, I guess he was only chasing the snakes.

Maybe this Little Person was watching Steve's crew "stoning" the flower beds. I myself was oversleeping, but they did all right without supervision. Maybe I only dreamed the episodes of discussing natural colors/gravel/pea gravel/large pea gravel--or maybe it was real, and the only word that stuck was "large." Whatever, I'm satisfied. And the reason I'm satisfied is that I learned a long time ago not to expect more of the human race than they're capable of; after all, 90% of them have IQ's of 100 or less, God love 'em.

What you want to bet that when the back-yard drains are installed on Wednesday, they'll be covered with a layer of brown pea gravel?

Rock Sample

This is rock sample Steve left yesterday, of rocks to cover the drains in the back yard. I tried all this morning to get the picture into an email to Jed, but couldn't get the picture to reduce from about 3-page size. I want smaller, smoother rocks--gravel, I think. The sample rocks are pretty, but some of the broken ones have very sharp edges, like this quartz chip.

Today is Susan's Birthday!

Dear Suze - Happy 39th (or whichever)

Old Poem (Oct., 2000)

A Pear Year, A Bare Year

The third year that the pear trees didn’t bear,
She cursed them, and poured salt around their roots.
“If you won’t bear fruit,” she said, “then, damn you, die.
I hope I never see another pear.”

Of course, you know what happened: the next year
There were so many pears that limbs broke off;
Some of them weighed a pound and a half or more,
Those big hard sweet ones that make good preserves.

She claimed she had known exactly what they needed,
Something in salt that worked like lime or potash.
The orchard had the last word, though; next spring
Every pear tree was dead as four o’clock.

Party Night

The Friends of the Library pre-sale get-together gets together tonight, so I'm hoping to find a book or two worth reading and/or selling. I mean, most of them are worth reading, but I meant ones I haven't read before. I think I'm in the mood to read another one of those David Poyer books; really excellent reading, and I keep wondering about the boy with the lung infection, and the girl who stepped off the ferry.

My beautiful niece Angela had surgery this week, and I'm wishing her a swift and easy recovery. She must be camera-shy, because my only pictures of her are little snapshots and school pictures. I had to steal this one from her mom's blog, so if anyone wants to sue me, my personal net worth is only slightly in excess of $1.365 US dollars.

Uncle Obe's Tale

“Boys,” said Deacon Boley, “these meetings of the Sourwood Men’s Temperance Union are mighty slow getting off of the ground.”

The Union was formed back yonder during the Great Depression, and there was about a dozen of us when it first started, but after a few weeks we had dwindled down to five or six regular members.

“Instead of just telling how our old ladies decided we was to quit drinking,” the deacon went on, “why don’t we take turns telling the most amazing drinking experience we ever had? Maybe something that got us to consider turning over a new leaf?”

Uncle Obadiah Purvis spoke up.

“I can tell you what happened to make me quit drinking, and the old lady didn’t have nothing to do with it.”

Uncle Obe hardly ever said anything at one of these meetings, so everybody looked towards him setting in a cane-bottom chair in the corner, and he told this story.

One day back in the summer, when the plant whistle blowed for quitting time, me and Stevie Lee stopped by the saloon for a beer. Stevie had more money than I had, so I left first. Still, I was maybe three sheets to the wind when I started home up the gravel road. When I got to the quarry on top of the mountain, all of the trucks and workmen were gone, and I set down to rest on a big sandstone block at the edge of the quarry.

I was thinking of getting out my pipe and pouch and lighting up, when out of the corner of my eye I seen something move. You know when you’re hunting, you get the habit of not moving too quick, so I turned just enough to get me a clear sideways view towards the bed of the quarry. Moving slow, about knee-high offen the ground, was something shiny, shaped like a football and maybe six foot long. All of a sudden it settled down in the sandy bed of the quarry and stopped. Flabbergasted though I was, I knowed it was real. I had been a lot drunker before and never saw things that wa'nt there.

A hole opened up in the side of the thing, and a little man maybe a foot high slithered out. Soon as that one hit the ground, another one come out right behind him, and both of them stood up and looked straight at me. Their eyes looked like little shiny dots from where I set. I tried to jump up and run, but my legs wouldn’t hold me up. I decided I’d just have to bluff my way out of it. Maybe a big noise would scare them away, so I give a whoop like you holler at the dogs when they’ve treed a coon.

“Whoooo-eeee!” I yelled. “What are y'all doing upon this here mountain?”

The little men jumped about a foot and grabbed onto each other. They looked more spooked than I felt. They didn’t open their mouths, but I could hear something in my head like regular talking, only real proper, like a radio announcer.

“If you please, sir, could you tell us what sector of the galaxy this is? Some of our navigation instruments have failed, and we are not sure how far we are from home.”

“Lost, are ye?” I said, real bold-like, beginning to get over my scare. I pointed to the gravel road going down the mountain. “Down thataway is Selby.” Then I pointed east. “And if you go far enough yonder way, you’ll hit old Mount Cheaha.”

The two manikins put their heads together like they was jabbering at each other, but their mouths still didn’t move.

“Speak up, there!” I hollered. “If y'all expect any help, ye’ll have to say so.”

I heard this voice again in my mind or my brain.

“Sir, we would like to know where we can find an instrument to aid us in our journey home.”

All I could think of that might help them was an old carbide light that I take along when I go hunting, and I reckon they heard me thinking, because the voice in my head spoke again.

“No, no, not a light. We need an instrument, to calculate the angles and distances between the stars.”

“Why, I’ll be!” I thought. “I bet I’ve got the very thing, right here in my jumper pocket som’ers.”


I felt around in my jacket and pulled out a slingshot whittled out of hickory wood, with black inner tube strips and a leather pouch for the rock. My cousin Tom had made it for my oldest boy, I was taking it home to him. I chucked it across the sand and it landed by the men’s feet.

“See what you can do with that, boys,” I said. “Sight through the fork of it at any star you want to shoot at. I gyarntee hit’ll work.”

Which was a lie, but I just wanted to get shut of them and go home.

The two men looked at each other kind of hopeless like, but one of them stooped over and picked it up. This is the spookiest part of all. When he stood up with it in his hand, the slingshot was the same size in proportion to him as it had been to me when I was holding it. They handed it back and forth between them, and every now and then one of them would hold it up and pull the rubber strips back, or look through the fork towards the evening star that was shining brighter every minute. Finally one of them nodded his head at the other feller, then both of them looked
at me.

“The device looks simple enough,” said the voice. “We believe it will take us where we want to go. Once we are beyond the distorting effects of your atmosphere, we should be able to make the necessary calculations. What will you take in exchange for this instrument, sir?”

I figured the slingshot was worth at least three beers.

“Well, now,” I said, “hit’s a real good sling, ought to fetch at least seventy-five cents. Maybe eighty.”

“Sir,” the voice said, “we are not familiar with your barter system. Perhaps an artifact would interest you. Would you care to have a small memento which we picked up on a satellite of your star system’s largest planet?”

I was disappointed but wanted to be good-natured about it.

“Shore,” I said. “If yens have got no money, any little thing will do. I can see ye’re in a tight, and I always stand ready to help out a stranger in trouble.”

One of the men knelt in the sand beside his little blimp and slid through the side of it. Then he crawled back out, dragging a big shiny doo-lolly shaped sort of like a watering can, with a spout on one side and a handle on the other.

“This,” the voice says to me, “is a relic of the civilization, now extinct, that once flourished among the satellites of the great mottled planet. Its function, we have discovered, is to turn things backward. There is evidence that its most recent effect was to turn one of the great planet’s satellites backward in its orbit. So whenever you wish something to go backward rather than forward, simply point this nozzle toward the object and press this lever down.”

Whilst he was talking, he aimed the nozzle at a lightning bug that was flying around and flashing its little light. When he pushed the handle down, that bug went zooming backwards down the tram track and out of sight.

He set the shiny thing down in the sand, and before I could hardly blink my eyes, both of the little men jumped through the side of that blimp, and it shot up in the sky like the wolfeener was after it. Before it disappeared I heard the voices again in my head. They was laughing like hyeners, and the laughing conjured up a lot of pictures of things going backwards that I didn’t like to think about.

I walked over to the shiny thing and looked it over. Hit was a lots bigger than it had looked before, about the size of a five-gallon bucket. Under the handle was a gap so the handle could move up and down. I picked up a piece of flint from the ground and wedged it into the gap so the handle couldn’t be moved by accident. I looked around the quarry for a place to bury the thing, but between me and the blasted out rock cliff I spied the sinkhole. The water was still and shiny as a black mirror. Y'all know that the quarry men say the sinkhole is a bottomless pit.

I picked up the outlandish thing by the sides, not touching the spout or the handle, and toted it the hundred feet or so to the sinkhole. When I let it down into the pool, it disappeared, and the black water just bubbled once and lay shiny in the twilight again.

I don’t know if anything could make a world whirl backwards, or a tree grow down instead of up, or any such doings. And I don’t know if two beers, or even three or four drinks, could cause a feller to make up a happening like this in his head. But I know I aint had a drink since then, except at the shivaree last month for the wedding of one of the Stracener gals.

Books? What Books?

There have been years when I read 200-300 books. There have been a few years when I read hardly half-a-dozen. This year is looking to be one of the latter kind. They don't seem to hold my interest, especially big long books that I've read before. There are so many other things I want to do (and I don't do them, either), like redecorating the doll house...

Getting a real haircut at a beauty shop (I'll spare the picture)...

Making a quilt based on the angel painting...

~

Using my two boxes of 10 years worth of broken dishes to learn how to make mosaics...
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Making new clothes for all my dolls...

And FINISHING THIS BLESSED NOVEL!

Stormy weather

I had no idea the storm had torn up the town, until just now reading Susan's and Buffy's blogs. Luckily, I had grocery-shopped Monday so haven't been out riding around since then. During the storm, while I was floundering around, all the outside lit up with orangey-red lights, and I thought something was on fire, but decided it was the fire truck going up the road toward Pat's area, so there was probably some damage up that way. My boom box had batteries, for once, and the weather news was straight-line winds and heavy rain. Mo and I mostly stayed in the center hallway away from all the windows and doors until it was over. My electricity came back on soon after the storm.

Last night I had left the hallway lights on, because I can't sleep unless there's a light somewhere. Before I went to sleep, the hall light went off, and Mo and I both jumped, and I thought, Oh no, not again. But then the light came back on.

I can't think of anything useful that I did yesterday. Guess I'll get out this afternoon and look around.

4:00 p.m. I've walked around the lot, got the mail, etc., and didn't see any damage. Was going to drive up Rowan Road, but the Fox News vans (2), and a couple of utility company trucks, went up that way while I was out, and I was kind of scared I might not want to see what was going on. One of my near neighbors, whose lot is even lower than mine, has had a tree blow down on their house twice since I've lived here. But they had finally removed the tree closest to their house, and today I couldn't see any damage down that way.

I called Mary Anne, who lives on Julia Circle, and she said the only damage she knew about up there was a tree down on Lynn Avenue, the part that's close to her. We agreed we couldn't remember Leeds ever getting badly hit before by a storm.

The Mists of Avalon

This is a book to be read slowly, to savor it, and to remember the crags of Tintagel, to remember standing at the top of the rise and seeing the remains of the castle covering acres and acres, with the grass spreading green all between and around. The grass stopped at the lip of the precipice, and the stones went down the cliff to an impossible landing-place in the Celtic Sea.

~

When I read this book before, I was calling the castle Tin' ta gel, with a hard g, a beautiful name to me. Imagine my disappointment to find that it was really Tin ta' jel, an unimaginative, unpoetic pronunciation, which took away the magic and left only ruins. I had to get to Old Sarum, to Salisbury, to find any abiding magic, and to Stonehenge for a whiff of horror.

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These are the bests pictures I could find on the internet, and not from the perspective I remember. It's unbelievable that we didn't take any pictures of Tintagel when we were there, but I can't find any.

Spring has sprung...

Such as it is.

This tiny little daffodil, about four inches high, is blooming out on the edge of my front yard, where I've never planted one. It's the only one that has even stuck its head up out of the soil, and everyone else in the neighborhood has crowds of daffodils. Embarrassing.

~

I just called Steve Atchison and told him this would be a perfect time to look at the back yard to see what needs to be done--the west side is flooded, and water is in the basement. He said he looked at it the last time we had a substantial rain (when was that?), and that he's right now in the process of putting together an estimate. Said he would email it to me or Jed, and I told him to send it to Jed.

~

Also just got back from the P.O., where I mailed a book to an Amazon customer and two to Bookins customers. February has been a dismal month on Amazon; I've only had nine sales.

Bookworming

Yesterday I took time out from The Mists of Avalon and read Kabul Beauty School (which I kept embarrassing myself at the library by calling "The Kabul Beauty Shop"). Some books, and not always the ones you love, seem to get inside your skin and become part of you from then on. The KBS is one of those, and the lingering images from it promise to be disturbing far into the future. So was Kite Runner, which is the reason I quit reading it near the beginning.

Books that don't matter, such as horror (aux Stephen King, Thomas Harris, etc.) and most ghost stories and the like, don't affect me this way, because every word has the author's style which fails to open up the empathetic door into my brain. The KBS is real, written in the author's real, slap-dash, very mod conversational tone, and it gets to you. Well, it would get to you, even if the author's style were different, because it's true. One of the most poignant images is that of the little cow; you'd think there were enough human images to grieve or shiver over, but no, she had to throw in the little cow.

I'm feeling much more alert and less sleepy lately. I'm sure this morning exercise bit has a lot to do with it. I haven't done it absolutely every day, but most days, and it's helping my feelings. The downside is that it, or something, is making me eat more. Seems like I about live from one meal to the next. I do persevere in having oatmeal for at least one meal a day; it's supposed to help keep the cholesterol level down.

Yesterday I received The Mists of Avalon from Bookins, and am looking forward to reading it again, after twenty years or so. The only thing I remember about it is that I liked it. Also, the library is holding The Kabul Beauty Shop for me, and I've got to go pick it up. Hope the lib. is open tomorrow.

Another thing I've got to do tomorrow or Tuesday is to take Wilder to the vet. Looks like something bit him on the side of the head, and it has made a bad sore. (Wonder what the other combatant looks like!) Lots of luck to me, getting him into the car, into some kind of carrier. I may just have to wrap him up in a blanket, or make him a straight jacket.

Happy Day To All!

(Thank you ver' much...)

Carolina Lily

And for lunch, the best corn casserole I've ever made, with crunchy brown bottom crust. For supper, I'll probably have the last of yesterday's chicken soup.

I'm feeling much better today.

Starting yesterday, I'm getting up in time to watch Denise Austin's 30-minute exercise show on TV--and not just watching, but also doing the exercises. Of course, on some of the exercises, I'm a bit slower than Denise and don't last as long. After that, it's to the showers, and then breakfast (oatmeal or dry cereal with skim milk).

This blog award was passed to me by Susan, from Anita at Take Joy. Thanks, Suze! I treasure it.

Also yesterday, my cousin Betty Joyce phoned, and we talked for a long time. The excuse for the extended conversations is that we only talk about once a quarter. She always reminds me of some event or person from our childhood that I hadn't thought of in many years. I'm so glad that she and her husband Charles visited here last year before Charles ("Cooter") passed away in the summer. He was a dear person up until he developed the dread Alzheimer's disease. He and I were once in a math class together at UAB, in which both of us were lost dogs in high weeds!

~

I wish people would wait until I get through reading a book before they ordered it off of me! A few days ago, it was Thunderstruck, and today it's Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee.

Tragedies

The storms last night killed at least 50 people in southern states, injured and left homeless many more. This was worse than April of 1974. I feel for everyone affected, and pray for them.

Alabama voters went for Obama and Huckabee. Huckabee doesn't stand a chance; John McCain is so far ahead of the other 3-4 candidates, they can't catch him. Obama will probably win the Democrat nomination; he and Hillary Clinton just about split the delegates between them, although Hillary has a slight lead. But when the remaining states vote at various times this spring, he's almost sure to catch up and probably surpass her. It's just hard to believe. Even Ted Kennedy supports him.

I might have to hold my right hand with my left hand in November, to force it to vote Republican for the first time in my life. I like John McCain, but I'm afraid he's too old to be president. And a Republican victory would most likely put us right back where we are today.

Late this afternoon, I noticed/realized that this is Ash Wednesday. I should have gone to church. I regret not going.

Good weekend

Last night I watched "The Robe" on television. Extremely good movie. Burton was a fine actor, although vertically challenged.

It's almost lunch time; my mind keeps showing me that quart of beef stew in the refrigerator. Then I've got to pack books and go to the P.O.--had three orders this weekend! Jed brought me a big boxful of bright pink bubble wrap. Say that three times.

A Fine Stew

My soup this weekend turned out to be beef stew, very thick and extremely spicy. Thing is, I used 2 cans of diced tomatoes, and one can was Italian style, which means it had garlic and olive oil and all kinds of stuff I can mostly do without. It smelled so strong cooking, I almost decided to take the pot out to the back of the lot and dump the stuff. Sure glad I didn't. It was truly scrumptious. I hate to admit how much I ate.

Jed's going to stop by here today on his way back from Mississippi, and I'm trying to get awake enough to shovel out the house a bit. I wish I were an instinctively neat housekeeper, but it's a little late in life to be worried about it. If I can just stay awake long enough to get this novel finished, then I'm going to sleep all summer. No, actually, when I finish this one, I'm thinking about rewriting that first "romance novel" that I wrote when I lived up on Oak Trail.

I've been trying, for two days, to read Stephen Ambrose's book Crazy Horse and Custer, but it's too disturbing, so I think I've given it up. I've requested several from Bookins that I want to read, including Bel Canto and The Mists of Avalon to re-read. I also want to read A Season of Fire and Ice, but Bookins doesn't have it, so maybe I can get it from the library. I've forgotten what the book club book for February is. Maybe that was A Season of Fire and Ice? I took We Took To the Woods off my Amazon listings. I couldn't possibly sell it; that's one of the best books anyone like me ever wrote.

I keep going back to look at the snow pictures. The poet Conrad Aiken wrote best about winter, and rain.

Winter for a moment takes the mind; the snow
Falls past the arclight; icicles guard a wall;
The wind moans through a crack in the window;
A keen sparkle of frost is on the sill.

and

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...

I recommend memorizing poetry. Or what I do--read stuff over and over for years, until it sticks in my head. It's one of life's surest comforts.


I noticed yesterday that the hard wind we had Monday night blew down a tree in somebody's yard down on Rowan Road. Thankful none of mine went down.

Mercury in Retrograde

Mary Margaret Truman Daniel, Feb. 17, 1924 - January 29, 2008. Like her dad, a tough old bird. She had several careers, and was admired and successful in all but the first one.

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I went by the P.D. yesterday and picked up my billfold. Sgt. Reeves (a beautiful young woman) had it and all contents, wet and soggy, in a plastic bag. When I got home, I threw the old leather wallet (age: ~10) away. Everything essential was there, even one of the credit cards. The officer said she took pictures of all the contents, but didn't have time to dry them out. She said I probably won't have to do anything more, unless the girl asks for a court trial, which she isn't likely to do.

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I'm going on record with this, so if I didn't do it, I'd be ashamed, demoralized, and thoroughly transmogrified.

FEBRUARY is REWRITE month. I even get an extra day to tie up the loose ends. By Friday, February 29, 2008, my book will be as ready as I intend to get it, to submit to an agent in hopes that he/she/they will peddle it somewhere. Matter of fact, I get five extra days, counting what's left of January.

What it is, I just had a flash of what to do to fix the book. In case, a hundred years from now, someone wants to write my biography, here's what my flashes are like (not my hot flashes; that's another kettle altogether):

After I've mulled something (in this case, a story) to distraction, I get totally bored with the whole thing and am almost ready to shred it.

Then I can be playing solitaire on the computer, drinking double-strength coffee in an effort to wake up, lighting a cigarette when I've already got one burning in the a.t., and the flash comes. Or maybe I'm in the shower singing "Sourwood Mountain" or some such, and water goes down my goozle and the flash happens.

It's signaled, or accompanied, by a spark of light, like the asterisk above but sparkling, in my extreme northwest visual field, whether my eyes are open or shut. And all at once, the solution is laid out in my head like a road map.

"...More in the Letting Go than in the Loving"

~
(That's a line from one of my old poems, for all you fans!)
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Today I sold (online) my only copy of Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess. In the 1970's, how I studied this book, and how many times I fell asleep over its cryptic mazes! When I worked in the space program, all the guys were enamored of Bobby Fischer and floated around on clouds when he beat Spassky or any of those Russians with unpronounceable names. I admired him, too, and followed his erratic actions, consistent only in beating any player that stuck its head up.

However, "the chesse" just wasn't my game. As a matter of fact, no game is my game. They have always bored me squirmy. When I was 15, I visited my aunt in Chicago, and we played Canasta every day for hours and hours. Just thinking about it makes me want to go back to bed. Not to mention Scrabble!

When Caxton or Dame Juliana Berners, or whoever it was, wrote The Game and Playe of the Chesse, he might as well have handed me one of those tiny fine necklace chains, in one big knot, to straighten out. If I went into a trance, I could tell you where and how each piece moves and all that jazz, but please don't ask me to play!

Anyway, this was supposed to be about selling my old books. Each one of them brings back a big chunk of the past (as in see above). Now and then, selling one brings a lump to my throat. But money talks loud, n'est ce pas?

P.S. I'm re-reading We Took To the Woods, by Louise Dickinson Rich, before somebody grabs it.

Wilder

He's three feet long from the tip of his tail to the end of his nose. I think he must be one of those wild cats come down off the mountain, masquerading as a domestic short-hair. He comes to the top of the stairs and tries to meow like a regular cat, but sounds like a woman in the throes of labor pains. Maybe his daddy was some old feral tomcat, and his mammy a thing of the wild. Whatever, he's not your ordinary stray. Try to pick him up or pet him, it's like you had a big old snake in your hands, before he slithers away.

And a Funny Dream - This was several days (or nights) ago. I dreamed that someone had twin babies, a boy and a girl. Another woman kept the boy, and they gave the girl to me to raise. Sometime around the second week, I was so proud of myself: the girl baby was clean and fat, done up in one of those improved Pampers they make nowadays, sucking on a clean sterilized bottle of formula. I flattered myself that I had almost taught her to talk, because when I talked to her she smiled and grunted, etc. I told her, "Your brother's mom is going to be jealous when she sees what a good job I'm doing!" I was about to change her diaper, when the little boy twin came to the door, grinning and bowing. I thought, "What the--!" He was dressed in tiny jeans and a tee shirt, and asked in perfect English if my little girl could come out to play.

The Torn Curtain

I go along thinking nothing bad can happen to me, as if there's a protective shield between me and harm. Well, somebody found a hole in it yesterday about 5:30 p.m. I was coming out of CVS into the near-empty parking lot about dark, with my keys and wallet in my left hand and several bags in my right, when a tall skinny person in an Alabama jacket and red cap came up and said, "Do you have a few dollars I can have to buy gas?" While I stood there with my mouth open, she snatched my wallet out of my hands, broke two of my fingernails, and skedaddled around the back of the stores.
~
All that rigamarole, the police are pretty sure they know the person, blah blah, and I'm using a copy of the police report as a driver's license. I'm thankful she didn't slam me upside the head with something, and I feel like it was all my fault. If I had gone to Quilt Guild with Susan yesterday,--no, it could have happened anyway, because I'd probably have gone to the store after we got home. Well, into each l. some r. must fall.
~
A pretty picture or two to mend my mood:

Snow memories

I made a tiny snowman yesterday and put him in the freezer. But he turned into a pillar of ice and broke in two at the waist.

The sky is falling!

"I saw it with my eyes, and heard it with my (good) ear, and some of it fell on my head!"

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Robert James Fischer

March 4, 1943 - January 17, 2008

"...the old men know when an old man dies."

If we had some eggs, we could have some ham and eggs, if we had some ham.

Why is everything so slow today? I've been sitting here since 9:00 trying to list a few books, and it takes forever to get the internet to do anything, and then half the time I've asked for the wrong thing. On days like this, I should just go back to bed, but I did that yesterday. Now I've got to pack one book and go to the post office. I'll drive slow. Slowly? No, slow. Well, slowly, too.


9:08 p.m. I made the jumbo skillet full of cubed steak and gravy, just because Monday in an unwary moment I bought about 3 pounds of the beef. Well, it was pretty good--of course, I didn't eat it all. After all, it isn't apple pie. Anyway, I've got food now for a few days, so let it snow! Did you hear that, weather man? Snow!

When I went to the P.O., after driving about a block, I saw ice accumulating at the end of the wiper blades, and after that, sleet and/or frozen rain peppered me all the way there and back. I love it. I especially love it when I'm inside this nice warm house.

I fixed the cats a facility in the basement so they don't have to go out in the weather. Mo understands, but I'm not sure about the Wilder; he came in shaking rain and ice off his fur.

I watched Brubaker this afternoon on TV. Disturbing. Apparently it was based on a true story. I had never watched it before. Morgan Freeman was so young. And there was a guy in it that I thought was Patrick Swayze in his youth, but it was another fellow with a similar face.

Food

I was mistaken on the whereabouts of the Masolino painting: It's in the National Gallery in Washington, DC, and I did see it. It's in the set of art books I bought there in 1960. But I don't remember seeing the real painting.

Today I've done laundry, mostly, and a dab of necessary shopping. Last night I made soup for dinner, with chicken bouillon, lots of vegetables, a few bow-tie pastas, and lots of spices and Louisiana hot sauce. It was good, but somehow not as tasty as the potful I made last week. I make enough soup to last two days, usually on Friday evenings. The week after Christmas, I made cream of chicken soup: potatoes, carrots, broccoli tips and onion cooked in seasoned chicken broth until they came all to pieces and just made thick soup, then added a cup of skim milk. That was THE best soup I've ever made. When I make something good, I ought to sit down right then and write down the recipe, so I'll know how to do the same thing next time.

I could always cook pretty well (after I got married and observed my mother-in-law's cooking for a few years), but I didn't especially enjoy the act of cooking. Since retiring and living by myself, it has been a relief not to have to cook. But lately I want to cook something almost every day. Last week I made a medium-sized apple pie and, with extraordinary restraint, ate the whole thing in two days. That's why I haven't made the orange layer cake I've been intending to make ever since before Christmas; I'm afraid I'll eat it all, and gain another ten pounds.

Daddy used to like what he called orange cake. I don't remember if it was actually orange cake, or just white cake with orange filling and glaze. Man, I wish I could see him now. I would make him eggs over-easy, fried potatoes with tomatoes on top, at least half a pound of bacon fried crisp, fried bananas, fresh coffee, about a quart of orange juice, and I can't remember if it was biscuits or toast--this is a breakfast I cooked for him one time in Huntsville, when he stopped by on his way to Kentucky to pick up Mama from Pat's house. I kept cooking and setting food on the table while we talked ninety-to-nothing, the longest conversation he and I ever had, and he ate every bite and drank every drop.

2008 Project

I've always wanted to make a quilt based on this, one of my favorite paintings. So tonight I'm going through my voluminous scads of cloth and scraps, trying to find suitable fabrics. This is Masolino da Panicale's idea of the Archangel Gabriel. I wish I could see the real painting, but it's somewhere in Italy and I'm here.
~
Sometimes when I'm doing something else, I suddenly get the urgent desire to quilt. Then I usually get out that leaf quilt that's almost finished, and I pull it and tug it, trying to smooth out an unquilted area that I've managed to bunch up, with stitching on both sides. I've even pulled out a lot of stitches, and I still can't get it smoothed down. When I get irritated with it, I fold it up and put it back on the stack, and wait another few months.
~
But I think the thing to do is go ahead and quilt my other tops, or make something new, and just go around the snag of the leaf quilt.
~
Our book club selection today was The Time Traveler's Wife. Susan remarked that the older a person gets, the more his life is compacted and the faster his time goes. "I know," she said, "that I don't have as much time in a day to do things as I used to have." I heartily agree with that. Sometimes I try scheduling things I want to do, like writing or sewing or sketching, like "do this for two hours without stopping." But before I can get well started, I find I've been at whatever it is for four or five hours and haven't made much progress.
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In the past, I have made several mini-quilts in two days (each), doll quilts in one day; made clothes, including shoes, for a doll in a couple or three evenings after work. Now, some days, I can't even hold a needle; it feels as if my finger have about doubled in size. Besides that, sewing machines have always hated me, and lately they positively try to hurt me, and often succeed.
~
Anyway, I'm going to try very hard to make this angel quilt, because I've thought about it for so long.

You never miss it till it's gone.

I watched Judge Judy while eating lunch, because that's the only TV channel I could get. The Charter man came this morning and installed the converter box. He handed me a new remote and a brochure of instructions, and said, "Do you have any questions?" Duh!

All I could puzzle out was how to put new batteries in the remote, should it ever need them.

I'll just have to wait for my electronics tutor's next visit from Atlanta.

He touched my heart

He would be 73 today.

Cold piercing gaze of the artist

Way to go, Reed Daniel!

(Is this his Chinese period?)

OK, now I'm ready.

This afternoon I made a run to the store for four of the five basic food groups: cat food, cigarettes, Coca-Cola and coffee (the fifth is Vlasic kosher dill sandwich stackers, but I'm pretty well stocked up on those).

During the trip, I realized I'm hankering to get to work on the rewrite. I've divided the Ms up into what I hope are manageable chunks, and tomorrow I'm going to work on Chunk 1. I know pretty much how to do it, having spent about six weeks chasing it around and around in my head. Thanks to Ramey and Jed for reading the first draft and making valuable, thought-provoking comments--and even just plain provoking comments.

Post-holiday blahs

Almost reminiscent of post-partum blues. Keep telling myself, all you have to do is get a bin and put it in the living room, and every time you go through there, put something in the bin. But all that wrapping, and deciding what to put on the bottom and what on the top. Better idea: Put every-other item in the garbage can.

At least I'm exercising every day. And selling a few books. And the kitchen floor has never been cleaner since First Man walked on it.