A Good Week

This past week, I've got more than one useful thing done, so I feel good about it. One thing was sort of charitable, so I won't brag about it. But I got the chapbook manuscript printed and mailed to the contest chair. And the white cat got a little bit tamer. He came into the house and stayed a while. The matter of the white cat is also sort of charitable, because he is really and inexorably Pat's cat, not mine. When he gets tame enough that I can pick him up, I'm going to put him in the pet carrier and take him home to Hawk Hill.

I forget what else I did this week. I know I ran the dishwasher a couple of times. One thing I didn't get done: A friend of mine who lives up the hill sideswiped my neighbor's mailbox and knocked it cockeyed. That's the neighbor, a young guy, who lives in the little yellow house in the picture above. My friend was on her way out of town on vacation, and she phoned me and asked me to tell him that she'd be back on June tenth, and he should call her and she would pay him for fixing the mailbox.

So all week, I watched out the kitchen window for the neighbor to appear. Yesterday I went over there, while his car was in the driveway, and knocked on all the doors, the wall, and even a window, and called "Hello," etc. But he never came out. Later in the afternoon I saw him in his back yard, so I ran out my back door, and he ran around his house and disappeared, so I gave up. Let him deal with it. I don't know how many mailboxes I've had torn up since I've lived here.

Don't Tell Me I've Nothing To Do

I bid on this plate on eBay and won. It's a Canterbury Tales design, "The Nun's Priest." But the seller refunded my purchase price and kept the plate. I don't really blame her. Win some, lose some.

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This morning I have worked my fingers to the bone, almost, but I've got the chapbook copy done and printed. Every time I have a substantial print job, I always waste at least as much paper as I print successfully. It's better with the laser printer, but I can still manage to accidentally reprint the whole thing, or some such nonsense.

New Chapbook

I'm working on a new book, a chapbook of 20 to 24 poems, to enter in the John and Miriam Morris chapbook contest sponsored by the ASPS. It has to be postmarked by May 30, so it's a biting-the-fingernails deadline. The picture sort of suggests the theme.

I'm not writing 24 new poems, just mainly retitling some of the old ones to fit the book's theme and title, "This Rough Magic."

I don't know if the winner of the contest can choose an image for the cover, but this would be ideal, since it's in the public domain.

Too Hot To Hoot

Been watching some guys and a tree-removal truck trying to cut down a tree in my neighbor's back yard. The branches and leaves were piled so high and wide, I couldn't tell which of the myriad trees they were after. After piling a lot of limbs up against the little yellow house, they wiped their brows and seemed to give up. At least, both the vehicles left, and the neighbor guy wandered around the piles of limbs and leaves in his yard, looking dazed.

Yum!

Yesterday I took a chunk of smoked ham, studded it with cloves, and baked it with pineapple slices. I ate too much, but you have to eat a lot while it's hot. After it's cold and you've eaten all the pineapple, it makes good sandwiches.

Another Good Old Movie

Yesterday TCM showed "The Elephant Man" (1980), for which John Hurt won a BAFTA award as best actor in a leading role. It also had Anthony Hopkins, John Gielgud, Anne Bancroft and Wendy Hiller.

John Hurt must be one of the most versatile and skillful actors in history. He was born in 1940, has had hundreds of stage, screen and TV roles, and is currently in another (filming) movie. The first role I saw him in was Richard Rich in "A Man for All Seasons" (1966), one of the best movies ever made, with one of the best casts ever assembled.

When I was a child, I took it for granted that someday I'd be a movie star. Later accepted the fact that I was just born in the wrong social and economic stratum, in the wrong part of the country. Had to wait for the new millennium even to see some of the best old movies.

The Open Circle

Poetry group met last night instead of the last Monday in the month, I'm not quite clear why. But it was a delightful meeting. Joan and Frank loaded the refreshment table with goodies, and our special guests were Liz and Jim Reed from Reed Books in Birmingham. Everyone was very gracious and complimentary about my book, and I gave a copy to Spurgeon to send to his sister Lois who lives in Indiana, and who was one of my closest friends in high school.

We had a large gathering. Let's see if I can remember all their first names, besides me and those mentioned above. DeWitt was back, praise the Lord, and said he's recovering from his stroke, learning how to walk and talk again. And from my right around the room, there were Sherry, Jeri, Sandy, Sheryl, Linda and Grady Sue. Hope I didn't leave anyone out. We missed Ramey, Doris, Joe and others.

Lots of good poems were read, especially those by the "River Dwellers," (Joan and Frank). Grady Sue passed around a copy of her new book, a hardback with beautiful pictures and passages. My poem, "Portrait of the Artist As a Young Sinner," got a lot of snickers, giggles and guffaws. And my haiku and poem about the hawks were well received.

I overheard Frank tell Jim about my book, "It'll knock your socks off!" I almost cried.

Sherry and Grady Sue, reminiscing, said that this poetry group has been meeting for more than twenty years. I've only been attending for about ten, and we only recently gave it a name, "The Open Circle."

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Lunch today was Ball Park franks and kraut. Yesterday it was chopped spinach and scrambled eggs--sounds like Frasier, doesn't it?

Odontophobia

This is about teeth. What else does a 158-year-old "Sicilian prune" have to talk about?

I never thought I could be entertained by a dental appointment. Is my phobia, inherited from my mother, losing its grip? The hour started off when a young woman arrived in the waiting room with three little kids, two boys and a girl. The youngest, a boy of about two, couldn't talk yet, so he yelled for at least fifteen minutes, happy and smiling, climbing all over the chairs and tables. I hope none of them had chickenpox; I've had my bout with shingles.

Anyway, my dentist is like a little puppy-dog, and you have to smile when you see him. He acts so shy and hesitant, as if you might be offended by his enthusiasm about updating your mouth, but really opens up and makes speeches when you show a little interest. Talks about dentistry being an art, while he shows you before-and-after pictures. And all the assistants are taught to smile and smile, especially your technician who doesn't talk any language you understand.

All their computers crashed before any real work could be done. They said they were probably going to close the office early, so I came home, amused and happy. "Happy" in the comparative sense.
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I'm sure the technician speaks English, but her voice is about the same pitch and volume as my head-noises. So my responses consisted of "huh?" "what?" and "pardon me?"

Ouch!

I have a dental appointment this afternoon. I know it's silly, but I can't help thinking of what King Charles the First said on the morning of January 30, 1649: "I must be up betimes, for today I have a great work to do."

I don't really dread it much. The hard part was making the appointment.

Today I'm going to start listing my dolls for sale on eBay, and maybe some other stuff.

Testimony

Last night I asked the Lord to give me the grit to do the things I needed to do today. So today I set myself four important tasks and accomplished all of them. And I felt good while I was doing them. Hope tomorrow goes as well.

Barbarosaaaa!!!

Sunday evening Jed and I watched this old movie from 1982. It's one of my all-time favorites.

Mother's Day Fun

Had a great visit with Jed on Sunday. He came over from Atlanta, but had to go back Monday a.m. for an important interview Monday afternoon.

On Sunday we went to Ruffner Park in Birmingham. The weather was so hot, and I had on too many clothes to do a lot of walking, but we did see many wonderful sights, and Jed took some photos.

I thought this flower was a pitcher plant, but found it in Alabama Wildflowers, and it's really a Jack-in-the-Pulpit.

 

This pretty plant was blooming all around the parking lot. The best I can determine, it's a wild variety of wisteria.

Their "museum pieces" were old miners' carbide lamps, and charred remains of equipment from the 1970's explosion in the Ruffner mine.

The live wildlife exhibits were snakes, salamanders, turtles, and many others--and of course, possums. An enormous owl stared at us from the corner of a cage. The saddest one to me was a huge old rattlesnake in a pretty habitat behind glass, all by himself.

We plan to go back when the weather's cooler. I want to see (especially) the limestone quarry.

Dumb Dreams

I dreamed Pat and I were in my car, coming out of a parking lot behind a group of little boys, one of whom was Jed. We were all stopped at a traffic light, and I called out the window, "Jed, do you want to get in the car?" He said no, and I said, "Well, you be careful on this old highway." Then I noticed one of the boys, a very ugly little blond, and I said, "I looked just like you when I was a kid, except you've got brown eyes and mine were blue."

Then I was in my living room, talking with Mama and PawPaw about some pictures, framed black-and-white prints that were scattered around the walls. I said, "There are six of them, and they'd look good in a row above the windows." Mama said, "There's eight. We're leaving now so you can take a bath." So they left, and I turned on the water, but I waited and waited, and the water never got deep enough to take a bath, just sloshed around the baseboards at one end of the room.

They say you dream so you can go insane without anyone noticing.

One of Those Days

. . . when you have to "screw your courage to the sticking place," just to get started.

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And some days it doesn't work.

A Wednesday When Life Was Beautiful

One Wednesday, about a million years ago, I was sitting in a back yard in Montgomery, with my father-in-law in a nearby chair, my baby daughter and my dog Monty playing in the grass. I remember thinking, On how many future Wednesdays will I remember this wonderful day?

It all breaks down, but the memory, the picture, does not dissolve.

The "germ" of a poem

Beyond the Rainbow

What if old Noah opens his eyes
on a rainy day in Paradise,
and finds that the bow he was given
was just the tail-end of the spectrum?

JRC 5/4/14

I have seen double rainbows, but there's always a space between them. What if there's more? This may grow into a poem someday.