A Happy Thanksgiving

Jed returned to Atlanta yesterday, after a delightful Thanksgiving holiday. Ramey and India invited us to their house for dinner on Thursday, and I must say, I've never enjoyed a meal more. I could have kept on eating dressing, gravy and cranberry sauce all day. Buffy, Reed and Philip's older daughter came, too. Then on Friday, we returned to Hawk Hill for leftovers. Yum. Jed and I had a delicious lunch at Logan's on Saturday. Or maybe that was Friday.

Some time ago, Ramey had given Jed a copy of Firmin by Sam Savage, and he brought it out Thursday morning. I finished reading it before dinnertime. Last week I read The Martian, which is our book club selection for this week's meeting. Two very good books.

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The last day of November, 2014. Gad! Makes me feel even older than I am, and that's a lot.

"In Xanadu did Kublai Khan / A stately pleasure dome decree. . ."

 

I just spent about 15 minutes reading titles in my bookcases. Started out looking for The Travels of Marco Polo, and finally decided I must have sold it. I'm not particularly wishing for it, but it would be wonderful if there were enough time left to read them all again. Except the Britannica; I wouldn't tackle that again, although I've only read the eleven blue volumes.

Need more coffee.

Another Fifteen Minutes of Fame

Last night, Ramey and I attended a meeting sponsored by ASPS, at the Andrea Lucas Studios in Irondale, and each read a couple of poems to the group. Neither of us fell on her face.

 

From now on I'm going to carry my camera everywhere I go. Jerri H. shot these with her phone.

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Prof. Alan Perliss of UAB attended the meeting, and I slyly reminded him that many years ago, he critiqued two poems of mine, saying that one wasn't worth anything, and the other had possibilities. I regret that I didn't tell him he was right about the second one; it has won several prizes and has been published at least twice.

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The main reason I wanted my camera at the meeting was Andrea's dog. This isn't him, but very much like him.

I said he was a Great Pyrenese, but I could have been mistaken. Andrea's dog wasn't this furry, and his head was shaped more like a German Shepherd. Maybe he was a little mixed, but he was such a bee-yutiful dog! I almost cried. I had a mental flash of several ways to take him home with me--make him like me so much they'd have to give him to me, offer them a large purchase price, or just outright come back and steal him. It was hard to remember "Thou shalt not covet."

 

 

From "Millennial Critic"

". . . When Mom herself was teased among her peers
for speaking nineteen-seventies graffiti,
she said it was irony, and that she knew the difference
between outdated slang and literature.

"With time, she talked less and less, trashed the TV,
and swapped her iMac for a rocking chair;
she says she moons the world (in the new sense),
and reads dead poets in English, a dead language."

By JRC, June 25, 2000

White Birds

Today I saw a small flock of white birds flying (south), pretty low over Montevallo Road, maybe a couple of dozen of them. They didn't look big enough to be geese, and anyway, I didn't think wild geese were white. I thought they might be pigeons, but I've never seen a pure white pigeon, just those pretty brown-and-white ones on the Southside. It was a lovely sight.

Magic Cauldron, Boil and Bubble!

The cooler weather caused me to make the Good Soup again yesterday. I thought I brewed enough to freeze for the future, but there's just enough left for lunch today. Just threw a bunch of veggies in the pot and let them cook a while, this time with some little red potatoes. Then added a can of cream of chicken and a can of cream of celery, and some water and spices and stuff, et voila! Too bad I didn't have an eye of newt or 2 cuppa white wine. Today I think I'll stir in a dollop of Daisy. And make some buttered biscuits to spoon it over.

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Last night I dreamed about Granny Satterfield looking confused while Mitch Miller sang to her.

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It's now very late, but I was thinking about Uncle Sherman Isbell, and sat up to write my memories of him, which I'm copying below.

The most fascinating Isbell I ever knew was a son of Marion Isbell and a brother to Missouri Ella Isbell. He was older than Ella, he was very old when I was a little kid. Someone said he had joined the Confederate army when he was just a boy. We called him Uncle Sherman, and he was very tall and had a lot of wavy white hair. In the face he looked like pictures I've seen of Hugh Marion Isbell, only handsomer. I think he lived somewhere else, not in Shelby or Jefferson County, so he's probably not buried around here. I remember three incidents about Uncle Sherman.

One Christmas my aunts and uncles got together and bought Sherman a leather jacket. He stayed with my grandparents that Christmas, and he put on that leather jacket and zipped up the front of it. When bedtime came, he couldn't get the jacket unzipped. Everybody tried but failed, my grandpa even got the pliers and pulled on it, but it wouldn't come unzipped. Sherman slept that night with the jacket on. I don't know when or how they got the jacket off of him. I wasn't around at that time, just heard the old folks tell the story and laugh like crazy.

When I was shedding my baby teeth, one Christmas I was running around the house with a long string tied around a loose tooth and the string hanging out of my mouth. I wouldn't let anyone pull the tooth. I passed a little too close to Uncle Sherman, and he grabbed the string and jerked it, and my tooth flew across the room. (Lots of the relatives gathered at our house every Christmas when I was little.)

The best memory I have of Uncle Sherman is of him singing the old English song “Barbara Allen.” Only he called it Barb'ry Ellen. He and Granny Ella still used some of the old English expressions with a southern twist.

“. . . He turned his face unto the wall

While death was o'er him swellin'.
'Adieu, adieu, to my kind friends all—
Farewell to Barb'ry Ellen!'

“. . . 'Oh, father, father, dig my grave,
Go dig it deep and nah-row!
My true love died for me today—
I'll die for him tomorrow!'

“. . . They laid her in the old churchyard,
They laid her true love nigh her.
Upon his grave grew a red, red rose—
On hers there grew a bry-yer!”

It still makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, when I remember him singing that song.

“Reed,” he used to say to my paw paw, “these younguns will grow up knowin' more than you and me have ever dreamed of.”

Anticipation

Mentally checking over some of the good things that could happen today:

The mail person could deliver the fuzzy stuffed toy dog that was promised when I made a donation to some charity. Last month.

I might receive the prize certificate and check that I won in the poetry contest last month, although that was nearly three weeks ago, and the email I sent requesting information has not been answered.

It's within the realm of possibility that I'll get a phone call saying The Kirklin Clinic has closed down,  and my appointment for next Wednesday is canceled.

Fun Facts

The book club meeting on Thursday was fantastic. We discussed Dale Short's fantasy-science fiction novel The Shining Shining Path, about a group of Tibetan monks and a cool American (Alabama) guy they chose to save the world. We decided that the size of our group is just about right.

 

 

 

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Bama 20- LSU 13

The Crimson Tide doesn't have to prove itself to me every season. I've always known they're the best. I remember in 1993, I overheard some friends discussing Alabama's chances against Miami, and I blurted out, “Why, Alabama will cream Miami!” This didn't show any predictive power on my part. It just showed how I've always felt about Alabama.

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I went to the kitchen for coffee, and there was a wasp on the inside of my east-facing window. I said, "Hey, Ms. Wasp. How did you get into my house? I would open the window and let you out, but you'll have to get on the bottom part. If I raised it up, it would trap you between the panes, and you'd be in worse shape than you are." The wasp then trotted up to the top of the window, under the valance, out of sight.

Anyone who lives by himself will appreciate the opportunity to talk to a wasp. Or anything else.

Trouble-shooting--Hit and Miss

Yesterday the service man came to convert my phone to Charter. After he left, I couldn't get on the internet, so I spent the rest of the day restarting, un- and re-plugging, etc. Then I bothered Jed by phone with it--when my phone would work--for a couple of hours last night. This morning I phoned Charter, which is what I should have done to start with, and now I'm back on the internet.

Also yesterday, I watched the President's press conference until I started crying. The poor man, and the poor country, have at least two more years of torture ahead, and nothing can be done about it.

And if Hillary Clinton should run in 2016, I suggest it should be the other way. If by some fluke she got elected, think what "they" would do to her.

Through the Wringer

I feel like I'd been run through one of these, several times. From about 2 o'clock until 6 this morning, I was really most sincerely sick, probably from eating too much yesterday. I'd tell you what I made in the crockpot, and about the other irresistible dishes, but I can't stand to think of food.

In spite of my lingering indisposition, I plan to call on my reserves of grit sometime today, and go vote.

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That Pesky Doorbell!

I think I may have a nervous breakdown today. My doorbell rang around 4:00 a.m. I lay there wide awake until I got ahold of myself, then got up in the dark, turned on the porch light, made coffee, paced around the house for a while peeping out the windows, and now I'm sleepy.

I think what I'll do today is call the police dept. and ask if anyone else reports their doorbells ringing in the middle of the night. If they ask me if I'm crazy, I'll try to think of a good lie to tell. That is, if I don't have the nervous breakdown first.

Posted on the ASPS site:

Under winners of the Fall 2014 Contests, #3 "The Yellow Brick Road Award," 1st prize $50.00:

1st Place "The Wiz: Back in Kansas" by Joanne Ramey Cage of Leeds, Alabama