I Hate It When That Happens

Just occasionally, I'll try to watch a late movie, and keep dropping off asleep in my chair. Then get up and go to bed and lie there for a couple of hours, waiting to go to sleep. Finally doze for a few minutes, then wake for another hour or so. When the first dim daylight started peeping through the blinds this morning, I just gave up, got up and made a mug of coffee.

Of course I'll be sleepy by noon, and will fall asleep on the couch, and another night will probably be messed up. But maybe not.

Sorta lop-sided

Mr. Towhee has lost his left tail feather.

Then comes a bird the likes of which I've never seen before. Medium size. Dark gray above, lighter underneath, with a big orange beak like a cardinal, and light ivory-colored feet. Looks like he has a ruff around his neck, but that may be just a disarrangement of feathers.

Would I give $10 for a Coke?

It was my first thought, but I would not really give ten dollars for a Coca-Cola. If I wanted one that badly, I'd get dressed and go to the store, where I could get a whole bunch of Cokes for ten dollars. But when I've slept nearly 12 hours, I want something bubbly, as Cliff Huxstable said.

Seems like the earlier I go to bed, the later I sleep in the morning.

There are a couple of projects that I really want to finish this year. A book of my prize poems. Several quilt tops that need quilting.

Autumn leaf
Basket
Log cabin (2)
Hands all around
Christmas star
Jacob's ladder (2)

I think I'll get dressed and go to the store.

*

The clouds are like snow piled all the way around the horizon. The sky in the middle is so blue and the sun so bright, it makes you want to get up there, get up there! A sky like that made me write my poem "Splendor Before a Storm." And it reminds me, maybe not yet appropriately, of Stevenson's "Requiem."

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie;
Glad did I live, and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse ye grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

 

Guess he was trying to get a better view of that super moon.

The Uglies

I guess I've wasted the morning shopping for clothes online. There used to be such good-looking women's clothes, but now they're very hard to find if you're short and medium-sized. Or any size, for that matter. Even the jeans you can't trust. Even LLBean is not what it used to be.

Maybe it's time to start dressing Native American style. They look sort of hot for summer.

No, today isn't my birthday.

But this is the best birthday card I've ever received--about the best one I've ever seen. It was from Jed, a long time ago. I found it yesterday when I was filling up a trash bag in the office with stuff I can do without. This card I can't do without.

Today, So Far...

I'm almost proud of myself. Before noon, I had fed all the beasts, watered the plants, bathed and dressed, and went and got and brought home and lugged upstairs and put away the groceries.

I've adopted Jed's five-day poster, and hope I can gradually slide into the mode of doing four hours of work every weekday. Does my first paragraph count as work? Commonsense says no, but my back says yes.

According to my poster, Wednesday is living/dining room/porches cleaning day. I think this is Wednesday.

Revisiting Lewis Carroll

You Are Old, Father William

 

"You are old, Father William," the young man said

"And should take care in all that you do;

And yet you defiantly stand on your head--

What the hell is the matter with you?"

Three Notes and a Falling Trill

I dreamed we had bought or rented a house in England. By "we," I mean Mama, Daddy, the girls and me. It was an ugly house but very big and square, sort of rusty-looking brick, and it sat in a field facing banks that looked as if they had been flooded many times. But I was thrilled that we had a real house. I kept hearing this bird call, and I said to Mama, "That's a meadowlark!."

Then I thought to myself something like, "You don't know a meadowlark call from a fog horn. The only bird call you can identify is a crow."

 

*

A tranquil day in the neighborhood:

 

Gretchen with her head jammed against the arm of the sofa;

 

Mo curled up in the litter pan. He has a blanket and a beach towel to sleep on, but this is his choice, clean or dirty.

Don't Cry For Me, Argentina

Just want to go on record, stating that I know my condition--an old hag puttering about a cluttered house, trying to cope with the mess and the animals and still get SOMETHING DONE! It's all there in my head, but my back, legs and hands lose a little bit of headway every day.

Still, something remains, at least in my head. I accomplished something, though we don't yet know what.

I wanted to act. They didn't even laugh. But I did make a big splash as Camilla Ann Dusenberry in "Quit Your Kidding," our senior class play at Leeds High School.

I wasn't born with the ability to dance, but took several years of instruction at Arthur Murray's and in college PE classes. It did nothing for my dancing ability but probably was good for my health.

I wanted to sing, and went around trying to imitate Eddy Arnold and Marian Anderson. In Montgomery they did let me sing in the choir. Once or twice.

I was never pretty like others in the family, but a few ambitious males called me beautiful. The true significance of that emerges these days when, on television shows, even fat women who dress like Green Berets are called beautiful.

But "that's all shove be'ind me, long ago and far away." I'm not still young inside. I'm ooooold, all over, inside and out. And wouldn't have it any other way. Youth didn't seem to do much for me except to get me here. So welcome, octogenarianism, if I make it a couple more years.

". . . And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought." -- Tennyson, "Ulysses"

My Choice For Best Movie

Searching for Bobby Fischer, 1993

I'm not a chess player--too dumb or impatient or something. But this has to be one of the top films of all time, in my opinion. It's full of stars. Besides Max Pomeranc (pronounced Pomerantz), who was a real child chess player, as Josh Waitzkin, it stars Joe Mantegna, Joan Allen, Ben Kingsley, Laurence Fishburne, Tony Shaloub, the real Bruce Pandolfini, members of the real Waitzkin family, William H. Macy, and hosts of champion and amateur chess players. Bobby Fischer complained that he didn't make a thin dime out of this movie, which is hard to believe, as several film clips of him were used.

When I can't think of a single other thing in the house to make me feel better, I watch this movie.

Feeling Rather Smart

I had lunch at Cracker Barrel, then shopped at Walmart. Not a very classy agenda, but I had to get away from this house and find out if I was still human. All the other humans I encountered were nice to me, so I guess I fit in okay.

For the remains of the day, I'm going to let everything go and work on my story.

A Shot In the Arm

Well, I'm in a better mood. I've written two pages of a short story, and I think I'm going to like it. A post on Facebook reminded me of the time Bonnie and I were walking home from school and saw a "dead man" lying in the woods.

If I can just keep the momentum going in my head, maybe I can get some cleaning done around here. I think better when I'm moving and sort of breathing through my mouth.

Trash

When you're old and you've already toted out at least 14,000 bags of trash in your lifetime, you get the feeling that the job will never be done but that you've done your share. Every time you empty a waste-paper basket or the kitchen garbage can, it's deja vu all over again, as some sage remarked.

Deja Vu All Over Again

In 80 years, I estimate
14,000 bags of trash
I've gathered up and carried out
of this or that establishment.

In retrospect, I'd like to state,
if I were paid one dollar cash
for every bag, I have no doubt
that such reward or settlement

would ease the sad predicament
my finances have reached of late.
But history tells me: toting trash
may be what life is all about.

By JRC 06/01/2013