Help Is Where You Find It.

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

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

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

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

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!

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.

Book Club and Other Stuff

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

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...

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

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.