Tracy-Hepburn Movies

Yesterday I watched "The Seventh Cross" on TCM. Spencer Tracy was, as usual, almost paralytic. But it was a pretty good movie, largely because Hepburn wasn't in it.

I couldn't get to sleep for most of the night, but when I finally did, I slept (and dreamed crazy dreams) until India called me a few minutes ago to remind me of Pat's birthday, which I had forgot for the first time in my life, probably. But now I'm up and running.

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Pat's birthday cake was prettier than this, but I forgot to take my camera. We had a lovely time at her b.d. celebration.

One day this week, Pat took half-a-dozen copies of my poetry book to the library to make a little sale display of it. She said if anybody bought a copy, they would put the payment in a little drawer for me to pick up later.

WDG grocery occupied only half of the old Food World building, but now Ace Hardware has filled the other side of the building.

This morning I dreamed I received a notice that Ace Hardware had received a package addressed to me, but the store was located in Pell City. Major anxiety, because I didn't know if whatever old car I had would make it to Pell City. But Jed (about age 8) and I set out, and when we got there Jed lay down on a couch in the lobby while I went to collect the package. A saleswoman showed me a small mailbox-size cabinet in a wall and said that was where they put packages they received. I opened the cabinet, and found it was really a small box full of sawdust, but feeling around, I pulled out a crumpled up package that had been crammed in under the sawdust, and it was some copies of my book. Then when we left the store, my car had disappeared.

Popeye, the Sailor Man

One of the sad things about getting old is the inability to get rid of all the old tunes in your head.

"I eats all my spinnish,
I fights till I finish..."

The Nick of Time

January and July are close months for me financially, because GEICO takes half of my annual car insurance out of my bank account. This month I had to pay to get the piano moved, and some other crises which I don't remember, and then yesterday the thermostat stuck. A guy came and replaced it; the new thermostat was still under the parts warranty, but the service call plus providing for future service calls ran over a hundred-fifty. So I was biting a fingernail, wondering how to live on $15.16 until the end of the month. But this morning I checked my bank account online, and--incredibly!--my SS check arrived a week early!

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A while ago, I noticed out the kitchen window a cloud formation that looked like a chimney with smoke spiraling out of it. Of course by the time I got back with the camera, it had changed into a duck.

No Jam Today

In an email message from Joan, she suggests that we write a song for the next poetry reading. I probably won't write a new one, but I could take (and sing) "This Old Fox" or "No Jam Today."

No Jam Today: A Holiday With Moose the Cat
[Examples of jam: 1. Traffic jam. 2. Writer's block. 3. Extreme difficulty. 4. Impossible people.]
[Melody: "Genevieve, Sweet Genevieve"]

O Moose, I say!                                                  

Oh, frabjous day!
Come out and play–
No jam today!
Tomorrow jam,
And yesterday,
But now I say,
No jam today!

Oh, listen, Moose,

To what I say:
We’re on the loose–
No jam today!
No gum, no glue,
No sticky goo,
No ham, no spam–
No jam today!

Once in a way,

Some jam’s okay,
But when we have
It every day,
We get so tired
Of jam, we say,
“No way, Jose!
No jam today!”

Though they may pass

The pot our way,
We’ll shake our heads,
We’ll smile and say,
“No, thanks–we had
Some yesterday–
No jam today!
No jam today!”

CHORUS: No jam today! No jam today!

                  No jam today! No jam today!
                  Tomorrow jam, And yesterday,
                  But now I say, No jam today!

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I think I'll make some veggie skewers for lunch. And maybe warm up the leftover steak and gravy I made yesterday.

 

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Today was Flora Cage's birthday. She would have been about a hundred and ten.

Working Again.

Yesterday I printed out about a hundred old poems that have never been published--most of them never won a prize, for good reason. I printed them so that I could sit at the kitchen table and see if I could make them funnier, crazier, or less politically correct.

The down side is, I'll have to retype the whole mess into a new manuscript.

This is for Miss Sue's poetry book contest. If I should win (ha ha), she's welcome to wrestle with them and torture them into any shape she wants. Just so they get into print and the world greatly notes and long remembers that I spent seventy-odd years trying to entertain it.

Royal Flash

All I can think to say right now is, Thank you, Jed, for leaving that book here, even though I said I wouldn't read it. I didn't read the dedication page until I had finished the book, or it would have spoiled the surprise for me. Of course, I tumbled right away to the similarity of people and place names to The Prisoner of Zenda, but didn't really get it until the adventure was well under way, and not totally until the end. I liked Rudi better than Rupert of Hentzau.

I see there was a movie of it in 1975, and old Oliver Reed played Bismarck. Most gratifying, the note about Hawkins (Anthony Hope).

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P.S. Flash is no Rudolf Rassendyll, but he has a pretty good heart.

It's a Mad World, After All

Negative Capability Press in Mobile is sponsoring a poetry book contest with a substantial prize. I thought, why not get together all my crazy poems, such as "Blam! Pterodactyl Time!" and "The Dance of the Ceiling Beams," enter them, and see what happens. So I went through the volumes on the computer, and found there are nearly a hundred of them, just about the right size of a book for the contest. All but ten of the manuscript poems must be unpublished, and I picked a few from Oak Mountain Echoes and The Lightness of the Dark, that sound a bit crazy, to include. If I write any more for this project, they'll probably be based on the crazy dreams.

The title will probably be It's a Mad World, After All. But it may not.

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Every day, I try to have a dish of fresh vegetables. Yesterday it was a large cucumber/tomato salad with ranch dressing, along with my chicken and dumplings. One day I had three veggie skewers--squash, onion, tomato, bell pepper. I think I have enough to make those today.

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Another project I'm thinking of is throwing a contest, either verse or short-short stories, sponsored by Rowan Wood Press, with a small entry fee which would convert to prize(s).

 

"A Lesson Too Late For the Learning"

Seems like every year I plant some flowers, strictly observing the package directions of "full sun." Then along about July, it doesn't rain and doesn't rain, and the flowers that are getting ready to bloom turn into brown sticks.

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The bob-tailed squirrel is the only one I've seen on the lawn for several days.

Guess I need to go to Walmart and buy a bunch of sprinklers, hoses and stuff.

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I dreamed I was driving with my eyes shut, and when I opened them, I was on the way to Mama and Daddy's house in Dunnavant. But the pavement turned into a gravel road, and then just plain dry dirt, and came to an end in front of a shack with a little girl playing in the yard. So I turned around and drove and drove, and finally realized I was lost.

C.G.J. would say the little girl was me.

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My 2010 or 2011 picture (on the blog) looks like a fat lady. I guess I was about 30 pounds heavier. Reminds me of what Flora Cage said once: "I'd rather be a little overweight than look like an old prune."

T.S. Eliot: "Teach us to care and not to care. Teach us to sit still."

Just spent a pleasant half-hour getting my TV to work, since Charter has gone digital. I called Charter, and was walked through a very complicated process. It involved unplugging the TV and waiting a few minutes, then plugging it in again and waiting about 10 minutes while it reloaded. Hard work. Now I'm hungry.

The Day of the Dolphin

I watched this movie on TCM, Thursday night, I think. It's a science fiction film about a scientist (George C. Scott) who teaches a dolphin ("A" or "Baa") to make sounds in English. The only dolphin "word" I could make out was "Baa," until the end. One of the bad guys (John Dehner) asks the dolphin, "Why do you want to stay with Pa?" and it replies, "Baa loves Pa." And of course it made me shed a tear, even though I knew the dolphin voice was really made by a human.

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I think I must have slipped through a crack at The Kirklin Clinic. It's been eight months since my last visit, and they haven't called to remind me of an appointment in all that time. Maybe there aren't any tests left for them to put me through. Lately, a couple of things are bothering me, and I want to tell someone about them, even if it's only an unsympathetic doctor. Mainly, a recurring feeling that my ears are about to explode, which I think is a Meniere's symptom. And you know when you "bump your funny-bone"? That pain occurs spontaneously in my left elbow, more and more frequently, and it sometimes makes me perform curious calisthenics.

Happy Birthday, Pa!

Me and GMR, 1935.

Glad I'm Not a "Writer"

I've been doing this for as long as I can remember, and I'll probably still be doing it for twenty or thirty more years.  I've burnt gallons of midnight oil, and I apologize to the trees for wasting more than my fair share of paper. But my constitution would never hold up to traveling all over the world doing research, signing books and talking till I'm hoarse, and advertising myself like a circus freak. I'd rather be writing.

I'm just grateful to my son Jed for helping me get my best poems in print between covers.

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When I tried to enter the Electra awards contest, all I could get was error messages. I think I'll just go back in my hole.

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Anyway, Tuesday evening we met over at Susan's and watched "Silverado" on her stupendous new TV. That's a good movie. I thought I had seen it before, but I hadn't.