Fireworks Popping

The Christmas decorations are all hidden away. This is my 80th New Year's Eve. I would do it all again if I could, and would try to be a better trooper next time around.

 

***

Here's a little poem I found on a scrap of paper under a pile of books. I wrote it about a year ago. It's about a photo I saw of Leeds poet Grady Sue S., who was holding a little bird in the palm of her hand:

 

What storm or flood untimely orphaned you

and flung you tumbling forth on unfledged wings,

she does not ask, but only offers up

her hand, where you can lie and rest awhile.

 

by JRC 2013

Lovely Christmas, Lovely Birthday

Someday I shall regale the world with an account of the symptoms of withdrawal from the codeine in cough medicine. Or maybe not. But in between those, I had the most wonderful week of celebration with family. Even received a card from my lovely and famous niece on the other side of the world in far-off Rhode Island.

Jed got me set up with a new paint set, rainbows of colors in oil, acrylic and water, bunches of brushes, canvas boards and water-color pads, and even a portable easel for the small work. So I take it as a mandate to paint pictures, however limited my expertise and inspiration. Lovely gifts and good wishes from all my kin. Many thanks.  I'm going to paint something, as soon as I finish reading The Far Side Of the World by Patrick O'Brian. This is one of the best books ever written by anybody anywhere. Of course you have to know a foretopgallant mainsail from a jib boom.

Christmas Scenes

 

I hunted up some of my angels, wise men, shepherds, lambs and crèche figures, and set up a little Nativity scene in the foyer.

 

 

My best blown-glass wise man got dropped and smashed into smithereens, a long time ago.

And while I was hunting, I got most of my paperweight collection together in one place. Couldn't get down low enough to photograph the whole bookcase at once.

And of course my old Father Christmas.

 

Light At the End Of the Tunnel

After a bit of decorating and a lot of sewing and running to the post office, I'm looking forward to tomorrow when all the stuff will be done. Then I can relax and start cleaning up the house, all the messes I've made while trying to prettify the place. Can't wait to see Jed and the other folks next week, when somehow we all will be together. "Until then, we have to muddle through somehow."

Susie may be too pooped to have soup supper, and I haven't heard anything about Christmas dinner. Maybe we can all just bring some beans and cornbread and pork chops or something, and choose a place to gather quietly and play Yahtze or sing Christmas songs. Sing them quietly.

Hit the Floor Running

I couldn't sleep, so after lying there for two or three hours, I finally got up, hunted up materials, and started making Christmas gifts. When daylight comes, I'm going to try to shop for a few boy presents that I can't make something for. So I plan to spend today making Christmas gifts and curtains, after I go to the P.O. and (sigh) Walmart. I'll probably fall asleep in the middle of it all.

Maybe It's Time To Get Some New Decorations.

 

 

Wishing Him Justice and Freedom

 

Card Sent To Leonard Peltier, In Prison

 

"Warmest Regards, Leonard! Working and Praying

For You To Receive

Justice and Freedom."

 

***

 

Last Chance For Christmas Decorating

 

I would love to put up a 10-or-12-foot tall pre-lit tree, with all my ornaments on it, and lots of icicles, tinsel garlands and things. But it's not going to happen. And if it did, it would have to be taken down and stored after Christmas. Does that sound like me?

 

***

Sunset Show

 

Near sunset, the sky was loosely covered with clouds in shades of gray-blue, peach and rose, with streaks of silvery-white. So beautiful.

Not As Good As It Looks

Lunch was meatloaf, rice, green beans and cornbread. I ate all the beans and cornbread, some of the rice, and a couple of bites of meatloaf. Why I bother to make meatloaf, I don't know. Gretchen and the stray cat don't even like it.

About the poem I posted yesterday and deleted today: It was meant to be satire, and at first I thought it was so funny. But then I began to hate it and feel guilty. Goodbye to "Naming the Beasts." Maybe satire offends most of all. At least it suggested man (male) as a poetic type instead of a pragmatist.

Jim R. posts an announcement on Facebook. On a day in January, all our great (published) Alabama poets will gather at the Museum of Something-Or-Other to sign and/or read from their books. With an "open mic" after the program. Part of me (the social being) wants to be one of them, but most of me (the hermit section) knows I never shall. If I publish my book, it will endure or (more likely) it won't, without a lot of showing off by me. And when the roll is called Up Yonder, I don't suppose it will matter one way or the other.

Winter Sunshine

Sometimes I want to curl up, like a cat, in the sunshine on the living room carpet. If I ever give in and do this, I will consider myself either truly free or finally insane. Which of these, remains to be seen.

When I was a child, I wrote a poem about a cat lying in the sunshine. It seemed to me the height of luxury.

A Night In the Lonesome October

A fantasy novella by Roger Zelazny.

At first I thought Jack was Jack the Ripper. But when the blade went zip! and the woman screamed, it seemed that all that Jack took was a strip of the green cloth from her dress.

I kept picturing Jack as Castle and the witch Jill as Beckett. They both seemed as alternately smart and dumb as the TV characters.

An interesting little Halloween tale.

So Long, Facebook?

It has become plain that some of my Facebook "friends" enjoy and wallow in shocking and revolting images. It's bad enough when they project their hatred and nightmares in written words, but at least you can feel sorry for them. But some pictures are worse than a million words, and early in the morning, when I'm still on my first mug of coffee, when my hair is already standing on end from a restless night, it's almost unbearable to confront some previously unimaginable horror on Facebook.

Of course I could "unfriend" these people, but one of them is a distant cousin and one is a "fellow poet." I don't want to offend them, regardless of how many times they offend me. One wants to tell them to get help, but they would probably take that as the worst of insults. I have tried the "show me no more posts" from them, but this only lasts for a day or two, and then they reappear.

I know that horror exists, and I know that it's important to be able to face a certain amount of it without losing one's cool. But one hopes to have to face it only accidentally and from some enemy or force of nature. Not at random with one's morning coffee.

***

New Favorite Movie
I had never seen it before, because I wasn't crazy about Humphrey Bogart and thought "Casablanca" would be about as exciting as "The Maltese Falcon" or "Key Largo." But I watched "Casablanca" last night, and think it's one of the best movies I've ever seen, regardless of (or maybe because of) the corn and ham.

Bogart: "This gun is pointed straight at your heart."

Raines: "That is my least vulnerable spot."

Now Inhale

 

****************************

 

". . . My Clay with long oblivion is gone dry;

But fill me with the old familiar Juice--

 

 

Methinks I might recover by and by."



Worse and worse

 

"If I feel tomorrow, the way I feel today,

I'm gonna pack up my bags, and make my get-away!"

More accurately, if I don't feel better by this afternoon, I may call 911 and get myself transported to the ER. I remember taking azithromycin several years ago: It doesn't seem to be doing anything as long as you're taking it, but after you finish the course, you begin to feel a wee tiny bit better every day for about a month, until you almost feel normal.

And I get a teaspoon of "cough medicine" every four hours, which keeps me drowsy and makes me doze off every time I sit down, if I can keep from coughing long enough to fall asleep.

I did manage to sleep nearly four consecutive hours last night, on the couch propped up in a half-sitting position.

I hate to whine, but this is ridiculous.

Still here but just barely

Another Tree

***

 

I haven't slept much the past two nights, because of the coughing. Today I have really felt bad, so I called the doctor's office. So now I'm working on a Z-pack and a bottle of delicious cough syrup, and hope to feel better eventually.

O Christmas Tree!

There are so many little Christmas trees around the house, I thought I'd see if I could post one for each day of Advent.

I'm recovering, and feel much better, but the last stages of a cold tend to hang on until you get plumb tired of it.
*

1 Corinthians 13

King James Version (KJV)

13 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

² And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
³ And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
⁴ Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
⁵ Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
⁶ Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
⁷ Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
⁸ Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
⁹ For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
¹⁰ But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
¹¹ When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
¹² For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
¹³ And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.