This Week

I just threw in this old picture of me, imitating Mr. Lowery, with my hands behind me and looking down at the rocks. The shadow hides my face, but I wonder if I had a straw/weed in my mouth.

Anyway, Monday night I went to the poetry group meeting at the LAC. Frank D. read a poem that I think I may have to memorize, it was so good. Grady Sue made me recite "Marsupial Strabismus," and Joan made me say "Glinda's Brood." Missed Sherry--she was in the hospital having surgery. I hope everything turned out good. I read "W.H. and W.H." and "Naming the Beasts" to the group.

Complaint Dept.

#1. Woke up with turmoil of the tummy.

#2. Because of #1, I missed going to church and lunch with my sisters.

#3. Of course, today is rainy and overcast. What eclipse?

ON THE OTHER HAND:

#1. I dreamed I made a fountain in the back yard for Jack and Jed (little fellows). And all three of us were playing in it.

***

11:00 p.m.: Through a hole in the overcast, I saw a sliver of the moon. But it wasn't red.

My camera reduces everything extremely.

Sorta Proud

The Exchange Club truck came by this morning, and two nice guys who toted my old mammoth vacuum cleaner, with all the attachments and a nearly new package of bags, out to the truck. I can brag about the donation, because I don't really think it's a charitable act, when somewhere in there, money is going to change hands. And I can brag, because I've freed up so many cubic feet of storage space and saved myself sore arms, back, neck, etc. Danged clumsy piece of expensive junk. I'll just buy myself a Shark when I get around to it with a little dough saved up.

I tried (and failed, of course) to give up my "three cigarettes a day" for Yom Kippur. A true case of willing spirit and weak flesh.

Fall Has Befallen Us.

Autumn is really here. The little water-oak leaves are falling like a snowstorm. They're mostly brown, but fluttering in the sunshine, they look golden yellow.

Tally Ho!

Well, I'm off to a good start. Am on page 2 of the novel, or novella, or long short story, or whatever it turns out to be. I started off wondering what would have happened, if I had succeeded in persuading Lawyer Cage to buy that Queen Anne-style house in Forest Park for ten thousand bucks. We probably could have got it for seventy-five hundred.

Pretty Good Substitute

I've invented a drink that's almost as good as Coke: 2 oz. cranberry juice "cocktail," 6 oz. 7up, a few ice cubes.

I've made a pretty good start on the new novel--two pages, which I reduced to two paragraphs, which I further reduced to two sentences. Instead of laboring so much over the rest of it, I'm going to try to finish the first draft in October.

Tomorrow is the deadline for entering the Alabama State Poetry Society's 2015 fall contests. I think I'll send "Naming the Beasts" and "The Ghost Who Walks." "Leaving Shambhala" has never won a prize, but it has been published, so I won't enter it.

Vintage Duds

My favorite shirt of all time (Liz Claiborne, ca. 1990)

"And it wore, and it wore, and it wore..."

I wish I had bought two and saved one.

Our Thursday Trip

Mentone, AL:

 

 

We ate lunch at the Wildflower Café, across the street from the Mentone Town Hall. Then we went to DeSoto Falls and Fort Payne, AL.


DeSoto Falls

 

Ramey


 

JRC

 

Jed

 

Delightful day.

Bye, Bye, Blue Bell

It's baaack!!!

 

I made me a Great Divide milk shake, and poured the last fourth of it out. I'm sure it tastes just as good as ever, but I seem to have lost my taste for it.

If Coca-Cola would make some gesture in recognition of Rosh Hashana, as it did for Ramadan, I would try drinking Cokes again. I wonder if that, too, would be disappointing.

***

I cooked a large amount of fresh spinach for lunch and had some left over. After draining and chopping that spinach for some time, I had about a cupful. So I added a small carton of sour cream, a little bit of salt, a lot of black pepper, a tablespoon of mayonnaise, a squeeze of lemon, and about two tablespoons of ranch dressing, and mixed it well, I assure you. In the pantry I had a package of tortilla chips, and I've been eating ever since.

I really don't think the proportions matter. You'll eat it anyway. You might sprinkle some paprika on top, but I don't especially like paprika. A dash of red pepper would be good. Garlic if you like it.

Blam! Pterodactyls!!!

Panic Attack

Lipitor, a common ordinary statin drug for cholesterol (generic Atorvastatin). A 30-day supply on Walmart's $4 prescription deal is over $60.00. 

I've called Dr. Gruman to see if he will prescribe something less expensive. Only Dr. Gruman is out today.

After I had talked to different people at the Walmart pharmacy twice this morning, I found the med. online. Walmart shows 30-day supply of Atorvastatin for $4 and 90-day supply for $10.  I take 7 other prescription drugs, so what will be my surprise when I need to refill something else?

I think I'll try one more call to Walmart. Why?

Bye Bye

The tree man finally came and got his truck today. It had been sitting there "like an inanimate object," ever since Friday.

I poured about a teaspoon of powdered OxiClean on a T-shirt stain, then wet it and let it sit for a few minutes, then put it through the wash with my other whites. Surprise, surprise! The stain was unchanged.

Resolution.

This is the last holiday I'm spending alone. I'll have a party for people of some kind here, even if I have to coax the mail person or the pest control person to come in and have a cup of tea.

New poem

In Memoriam

 

Last week four of my pine trees

had to be taken down.
One of them was alive,
but had a dangerous flaw.

I wish I could write a poem

about four dangerous trees
that grew so close to the house
they had to be cut down.

Instead, I will write about
the three live pines remaining:
each of them has covered the ground
around it with shed cones.

Maybe they knew that I

felt foolish mourning for trees,
and dropped their seeds for empathy,
and for the only memorial
they knew how to dedicate.

By JRC 09/06/15

"Get off my plane!"

 

Watching my favorite Harrison Ford movie. Off and on.

Happy Days

Jed came over Wednesday, and we planned our Mentone trip for a couple of weeks in the future. He called a tree service and got them to come over on Thursday to take down the three dead pine trees. They also pointed out that the live pine, with a hole in it halfway up, was liable to snap and fall, so Jed negotiated the removal of that tree as well. All of this was a great relief to me. I had decided on the safest place in the house to sleep in case they fell on the house.

Then on Thursday evening we watched an excellent movie, "An Unfinished Life," starring Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman, Jennifer Lopez, and a young girl named Becca Gardner. And Bart the Bear. The film was made (I think) in 2006, and Redford was still mighty good-looking. So was Bart.

Today we went to Walmart, and Jed straightened out the delay in getting my prescriptions refilled--People will pretend a woman is not making sense, but they'll listen to a man. Especially a man with charm, such as J.D. Cage We had lunch at Logan's and both chowed down on our favorite fish dishes and salads. Then Jed had to go back to Atlanta.