Mea culpa

Every day my past sins and offenses return to haunt me, and I hope I've been forgiven. Like the time I threw the telephone book at my son Jack. Fortunately, it hit my favorite milk glass bowl, a wedding gift from my cousin Nora, knocked it onto the tile floor and smashed it to smithereens. I think maybe that was punishment enough, but I'm not sure. If the thing had hit Jack, it wouldn't have hurt him much, as it was paper-backed and fanned out in mid-air. And he was already taller than me.

The time I was talking to someone, my sister Susie tapped me on the shoulder and my hand flew back and knocked her across the room. She says she forgives me, but how can you forget a thing like that?

The time I kicked Bobby Byrd on his sore leg.

The time I hollered at my mother. Oh, God!

Maybe, having set them down in black and white and acknowledged my guilt, maybe they'll let me move on to stuff I have to do.

***

By the way, I hate that Einstein poem. That happens a lot.

New poem

Einstein's Brain

Miss Youds came over from the BBC
to record an interview with Dr. E.
for broadcasting upon the radio.
I acted as her secretary, sent
on many an errand; where she went, I went,
or on occasion merely wished to go.

The date was April, nineteen fifty-five
(some Alabama folk are still alive
who saw the spring of that portentous year)
when I, a southern coed, held Einstein
upon a pedestal, almost divine,
and nothing to his disrepute would hear.

Around the campus broadcast studio,
whence Youds upon her pilgrimage would go,
excitement reigned, not least in my young breast;
for in her train at Princeton I might land,
perhaps to see Einstein and shake his hand—
at least to tread the halls his steps had blessed.

Right close upon the day we meant to leave
came news from Princeton: All the world would grieve
to hear the man had died and was no more.
Miss Youds went into epileptic fits,
cursed Einstein, the United States and its
whole population, smoked and stamped and swore,

and then went back to London in a huff;
of this benighted land she'd had enough.
She asked me to go with her. I declined
in fear of her great temper, stayed behind,
and forty years ahead, in a glass jar
saw Einstein's brain, like pickled cauliflower.

By JRC 2/25/14

*

 

I'm still working on that last rhyme.

Great Weekend

Jed came over Saturday morning and stayed until today. He fixed so many things around the house, I don't know how to act grateful enough. Saturday we had lunch at Logan's, and Sunday dinner at Chili's, and the rest of the time we just "snacked around." Visited Home Depot to look at window blinds and garden stuff for a lot of good ideas, and watched several episodes of Firefly on TV; that was a great science fiction series, which for various reasons got canceled too soon. Made me like Nathan F. as Malcolm, even more than Castle. I loved the Preacher telling River, "You don't fix the Bible," when she had torn out a bunch of pages and was busily editing them.

Jed took a carload of books to deposit in various donation kiosks, and my office looks really decent. He also brought me a laser printer, and fixed the computer so that I can post pictures on my blog.

How thankful it is to have a talented child!

The book has been delayed a little bit, because of adjustments to the cover, which is very beautiful.

Jed asked me what I'm going to do this week, and my mind went blank. But I'll do something, I guar-on-tee.

Quilts

Now that the office mess is just about conquered, and I've done all I can on the book, I'm beginning to want to make quilts. Trouble is, my right hand is so arthritic, it can hardly hold a book, let alone a needle. I'll just have to go the machine-stitching route, I guess. There are several quilt tops in the cedar chest, including the beautiful basket quilt that I made from Mama's blocks. That's the only one I'd really love to get quilted. But I'll think about that tomorrow, or next year.


This has been a long week. Hard to believe that just a week ago we were "snowed in." Downton Abbey ends this-coming Sunday, and Project Runway doesn't have many more Thursdays to go. I guess for entertainment I'll have to watch old reruns of Property Brothers and Castle. I may start reading books again--but that's how the house got in such a mess. If I got hold of twenty new books as good as Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey series, the house could cave in for all I'd notice.

Resolved

Today I plan to finish cleaning up the office. Of course, that means the closet will be stuffed, and there'll be beaucoup bags of trash to be dragged to the trash cart and put on the curb for tomorrow. And stacks of discards all over the house, to be taken to the basement; I may have to wait for a strong guy to come over here and help with that. Well, maybe I'll get it all done this week. But I plan to have this room in shape, dusted and vacuumed, TODAY.


The final version of the book is at the printer!

O Time! etc.

I gave myself two days to clean the office. Monday will start my second week on the job.

More Snow

About six o'clock, the rain turned to snow, and now we've got probably an inch or two accumulation. The white cat appeared on the deck. I put a bowl of cat food inside the door, and left the door open. He eventually came in and ate, but every time I would try to get over there and shut the door, he would dart toward the deck. He finally finished eating and left, when I was about to freeze.


I posted a picture of the snow, and the cat's face peering in the door, on Facebook. But still can't get pictures on my blog.

"Mignonne, allons voir si la rose. . ."

Watched "The Razor's Edge" last night on TCM. It's a good old movie, and is close to the book, since the author Somerset Maugham wrote or supervised the screen play and is represented by one of the characters in the story. But the film itself is mostly a sketchy reminder of the book, and makes one want to read it again. In the book, Isabel is a cold, calculating female, and in the movie, Gene Tierney (incidentally one of the most beautiful women who ever lived) is more like a petulant child. Old Elliot Templeton is one of the delights of the book, but Clifton Webb makes him seem like a feeble-minded fool. Anne Baxter as Sophie is pathetic; reading the book, one thinks of Old Joan in "Rain" instead. The most satisfactory character in the movie is Herbert Marshall as Maugham. But it's a good movie, such as Zanuck and others made back then.

John Wain's Johnson

I love biographers who like their subjects. I'm reading John Wain's biography of Samuel Johnson. I discovered this book some 40 years ago, when I was feeling guilty for never having read Boswell. I still have not read, and don't plan to read, Boswell (I've read a biography of Boswell), but I've read Wain's book more than once. Probably more than twice, but not in the past ten years or so.

Johnson had faults--in his own self-concept, more faults than virtues; but he was a great mind, a mind greater than his huge lumbering, scrofulous, spastically moving, short-sighted body. I am in love with Samuel Johnson's mind, and with Wain's book.

Dr. Johnson called it The Black Dog

I hate to whine, lest it set somebody else off into a bout of the "magentas." But sometimes I need to know when I started back on whatever pill was current. So I guess I'll go ahead and post this. And of course, it takes several days to weeks for the pill to start working, so you have to work your way up as far as you can by yourself. One day you'll wake up with enough spunk to take a shower.