A New Poem

The Day We Buried Mama

The priest assured us that she went to heaven,
and who were we, to doubt this welcome news?
We knew she wasn't mean, or sinful, even,
but “aggravating” is the term we used.

She never seemed to like us, yet she claimed
to love us, though we treated her “unkind.”
But how could we be sweet, when we were blamed
for faults originating in her mind?

For instance, she insisted “cheese” was plural,
though she was smart and had excelled in school.
Her eccentricities were intramural:
away from home, she was nobody's fool.

She used to want to help us with our homework—
but she declared that two-times-two was eight,
and was offended when we did our own work,
rejecting her and trusting to our fate.

Since any shade of green to her was blue,
to disagree was stubbornness and vanity.
To challenge her at Scrabble was, we knew,
to dabble in confusion and insanity.

When urged to heed the advice of her physician,
her arguments were sharp as razor blades;
she always took the opposite position,
and made her point by living nine decades.

So now she's with the angels. Heaven help them,
if they suggest she change the way she acts.
We're sure that, if she chooses, she can squelch them
with arguments contrary to the facts.

We miss our mom, though; and when memories reach us
concerning her plaid coats and purple socks,
we wonder if she only meant to teach us
to use our wits and think outside the box.

by JRC 8/17/11

Christmas Projects

I'm thinking of using my pieces of Laurel Burch fabrics to make decorations for Christmas. Don't know yet what or how.
*

Always On My Mind

Top of the Wish List

To me, the second movement of Beethoven's Pathetique sonata is like the calm, creative mind moving sometimes under, sometimes above the ta-ta-ta/ta-ta-ta/ta-ta-ta of the busy, intrusive world and worry. This is Freddy Kempf playing it. Like the Moonlight sonata, it's a simple composition; I think I could play it myself if I had a PIANO!

Once, the Christmas season when I was about to turn five years old, Mama took me to consult Santa Claus at Loveman's or Pizitz. I had on a blue-striped dress and a dark blue corduroy jacket, and my hair was straight with bangs.

"What do you want for Christmas, little girl?"

"A doll, and a PIANNER!"

If I had a piano, I would bang it in the morning, I would bang it in the evening, I'd bang it for justice, I'd bang it for freedom, all over this land.

And annoy the neighbors, I guess. The City of Valor would probably send me a letter giving me a week to stop disturbing the peace. But that would be a blissful week.

Supercat

I wish Jean Mock was on email, so she could send me a photo of her cat. We had book club meeting at Jean's wonderful house yesterday, and this enormous white and orange tomcat was the highlight for me. He curled and rolled around on the ottoman in front of me for most of the meeting. Jean estimated he weighs about 25 pounds or more, although he eats nothing but Meow Mix and not too  much of that. He must have a glandular problem. Anyway, he was the sweetest, friendliest thing, like a little old kitten!

The book club meeting was interesting, to me and Jean, at least. Well, I guess everybody enjoyed talking about Cleopatra. I hadn't read the book selection, but I had read other biographies and plays about Egypt's last pharaoh. I read a few stanzas from my Cleopatra poem. The snacks Jean served were out of this world, especially the marinated mushrooms and artichokes.

Every time I've been to the Mocks' home, I go home disgusted with mine by comparison to that perfect, perfectly decorated house. Maybe I need to get married, so I'll have someone to help around the house and provide money, expecially the latter. On second thought, I think I'd prefer to live down under the interstate. I've lived by myself so long, I don't think I could live with an angel 24/7.
*
4:05 p.m. There's a movie on TV, with Ernie Kovacs in Technicolor. I'm not watching it, because I'm writing a poem about the lady who lived down under the insterstate. But it's a pleasure to look at that man, although he wasn't all that handsome, just sort of delightfully goofy-looking, and beautiful in Technicolor. I don't think he made many films. His wife was Edie-somebody, and together they were a comedy team-side show all by themselves. When Ernie died in a car wreck, Edie worked for years and finally paid off his hundreds-of-thousands in debt, which would be millions today. I remember how they used to recite poems in pidgin-German.

Is it fatal, or does it keep you alive?

I know I've been worried all my life, and I've lived a long time. So "worried to death" must mean worried Until death. And it isn't true that the things you worry about never happen. Most of them have already happened, and you get a new one (or more) every day. Maybe worry is what makes the wrinkles in your brain, so that you can be intelligent.

You go through life thinking, tomorrow everything will be all right. Tomorrow has to be better than today. Every once in a while, when you realize what's going on, you stop and count your blessings. Which gives you a lot more to worry about. Some comedian--Oscar somebody--Levant, maybe-- said that comedians are the most miserable people in the world; they have to make fun of life to keep from kicking it in the shins.

In other words, one of my garage door openers doesn't work, and I can't figure out how to fix it or whom to call.

*

3:30 p.m.: I fixed it, I fixed it! It wasn't the remotes or the inside button that wouldn't work--it was the door. I had accidentally disengaged the door-opener mechanism on the garage door. So I compared it to the other door that still worked, and saw where the difference was. So I got Willis's ladder out of the basement closet and clumb up there and fixed it.

Sleeping Weather

Yesterday Juan and Flavio (Flah-vio) installed the sump pump in the basement. Looks like a well in the floor, including water in the bottom. The house seems to have been built over a natural spring. The basement floor was wet by the time they got through drilling. They still have to bury the pipe outside.

I love to listen to the Mexicans talk--or to Juan. Flavio doesn't say anything. You have to listen to a whole paragraph or two to gather what Juan is saying, with about two English words per sentence in this swift hysterical-sounding patois, with hand gestures sketching the air. He seems to think the louder and faster he talks, the more likely one is to understand him. Which may be true. His English words all seem to be nouns, pronouns and adjectives; I know it's harder to learn verbs, and I guess English verbs with all their ramifications are probably the hardest language to learn.

Anyway, I want to go back to bed, with the thunder rolling and the rain pattering. But I guess there's enough to do today to keep me awake the rest of the day.

Got an email from Jim Reed, a "call for works" for next spring's Birmingham Arts Journal. I think I'll send them a whole bunch of stuff. A poem, a play, a story or vignette, maybe a drawing or a quilt. Maybe some of the remaining junk from the basement. No, wait, I'm thinking of the Exchange Club.

Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da, Life goes on...

I thought of this song and found the Beatles singing it on YouTube. That's what's wrong with the world today, why it's in the shape it's in: There's no such talent and beauty in the world now to make it happy. Bad as the world was in their day, they shone so bright, it didn't seem as bad.



Life goes on, anyway. Bits and pieces of it. Here and there.

Liz Reed's meeting is tomorrow at the Birmingham Public Library. She's going to tell the steps in getting a book published. Nearby at Jim Reed's book store, Barry Marks is going to read poems and sign books. I thought I might try to hit both meetings, but don't know if I'll feel like driving around town, hunting a parking place, in the heat or thunderstorm or both. Anyway, my manuscript is away at the River City judging. I sure would like to see Barry, though.

Well--!!!

I've got a migraine, which hasn't happened in many years. One of those with big blank spots in my vision. This time there is some pain, but not severe. Guess I have to take some Tylenol, which is something else I haven't done since 1980. I think I'll wait it out instead.

A Cup Of Tea

When things go wrong and make the day seem dreary,

It helps to seek a good friend's company;

But in the evening, when alone and weary,

I find real comfort in a cup of tea;

The taste is bland, and sugar scarce improves it,

And by the second sip it grows too cold;

Yet the aroma, rising as one brews it,

Performs a kind of healing to the soul.

A cup of tea can soothe a lot of troubles;

I don't know why--I only know it's true;

The world grows calmer as the kettle bubbles,

With just the promise of this magic brew.

jrc 8/5-6/11

Really, Thank God it's Friday, and no longer Thursday!

Whaddaday! The whole process of Dermatological Surgery was more messy than painful, ending with a huge bandage for 24 hours, that blocked my right eyesight and the right side of my mouth. I'm mighty glad Jed came over and provided practical as well as spiritual support. I tried not to take on or complain too much, so through it all I felt right noble, joking with the surgeon about how he wanted to hear me holler. So now I'm graduated down to a smaller bandage and a Bandaid, so I'm happy once more. More or less. About as happy as it gets in the current political and meteorological climate.

Usually the hot weather breaks a little, sometime in the month of August. I don't think I've ever been gladder to see Autumn a-coming in, than I will be this year. Fall is my favorite season, September through December. And I like pure-dee old winter a lot better than these hot-furnace summer days.

I think the next problem I've got to solve is hair. Yesterday I couldn't put on any makeup or hair spray, and by the time we got to Clinic, my hair looked like a stump full of granddaddies, only not that curly. I wasn't concerned about how it looked, just couldn't keep it out of my eyes, nose and mouth. I guess a short kinky permanent is the only solution, with the bare scalp shining through. I've got a wig. Or two or three. But can't stand to wear one in this weather. "There's always something to be sorry for." I think W. H. Auden said that. He was uglier than I am, but had a lot more hair. So what did he know?

Lovely Party, If I Do Say So!

Yesterday was great! I wish I had thought to photograph Ramey's beautiful and delicious birthday cake (brought by Susan) before it was consumed. But too late now. I also wish I had thought to photograph everyone. I seldom remember the camera while things are going on.

We had a great little crowd. Reed was in high good humor. It was a really fun and enjoyable day.
*
 I hope to get through this week without melting down. I hope I can hold onto the thought that this time next week, or next month, or next year, the surgery and hard time will be behind me.

My prismatic paperweight on the window sill cast this rainbow on the ceiling. I hope I can take it as a good sign.

One Down, About a Thousand To Go

It looked almost this good.

Funny, when you've cleaned out the refrigerator, taken all the drawers and shelves out and washed them, put the milk and eggs back and shut the door--it feels like you haven't done anything. The big jobs are still ahead.

Anne George once wrote a poem about cleaning out the refrigerator. It got published in the ASPS Sampler or something. I hardly ever write poems about nightmares.

I've invited the family over here for a cook-in this weekend--Sunday. So I thought a few clean spots would look good. IDEA: When they get through eating, I could assign each of them a room to clean. Why haven't I thought of this before?

Last night I made the mistake of looking at this thing on my nose close up in the mirror, and like to scared myself into fits. It does look like they could have been a little more speedy in getting rid of it. My appointment isn't until next Thursday. To get to sleep last night, I had to plan a makeover for the dolls' house. When I do that, I never get any farther than the front hall/dining room, before falling asleep.

The offspring of Croupy Ben Lee

Mr. Ben Lee was called "Croupy Ben" because while he was talking, his voice would shift back and forth between tenor and bass. In my novel, there's a story about him, in which he was trapped under a wagon, calling for help, and a passerby thought there were two people under the wagon. My grandma remembered Mr. Ben telling his children's names in that same up-and-down sing-song: "Eskew, Oskew, Bank Hugh and Reevie, and the baby calls itself Naintsy." Ten or so years ago, I used this idea to write an Alabama Limerick:

A family living at Dancy

named all of their boys something fancy;

they had Noel, Patrice,

Gabriel and Maurice,

and the baby girl called herself Nancy.

When Maw Maw would tell the names, she would laugh like anything. As a child, I thought it was really bad of the Lees to put so much thought into their boys' names, and apparently to leave the little girl to think of a name for herself. I guess it used to be a man's world, for sure.

I wish I could have conveyed the unfairness of it all, when I wrote the limerick.

If It's Tuesday, I Must Be Awake

I sure am glad my sister Susie invented Pajama Days--or at least made them respectable. I'm tired out from ironing an outfit, taking a shower, washing my hair, putting goo on my face, and sallying forth somewhere--four days in a row! Today, I don't intend to stir.

Then, just now, it occurs to me how badly I want to make a cake and don't have all the ingredients. And Mo is out of canned food, and I'll probably be out of cigarettes before nightfall. One of these days I'm going to quit smoking. And quit feeding cats. And quit eating cake. I hardly ever eat cake, anyway, but yesterday evening at the Arts Council poetry reading, Joan had brought cake left over from our Sunday night gathering at her house. One little slice of cake made me want more.

Sunday the poetry critique group met at Joan and Frank's fabulous house, which is built around one of the old Moon River Beach cabins on the Cahaba river, off of Highway 78 East. They've been living in it and building onto it for more than 40 years. Besides writing poems, Frank is an artist, and the rooms are decorated partially with his paintings.

Anyway, at that meeting, I read the poems "Sourwood Honey" and "My Twin." The latter caused a lot of amazement, laughter, incredulity. Made me feel right silly, having to explain that it was just an idea, I'm not really crazy, etc. Sweet little Sherry W. read the best poem I've heard from her, full of images that mark her as an artist, which she is.

Then last night at the poetry reading meeting, I read this poem I had just written that morning:

Why I Collect Rocks

Certain rocks remind me of my father.
My father was a rock; he was transparent,
whereas your average rock is mostly solid.
My father, though transparent, was a rock,
the kind called porphyry, or maybe gneiss.
Metamorphic, he was laid down in layers,
my father, and pressed almost into granite.

I have said my father was a rock,
and what I meant was, you could lean on him.
Life leaned on him, and battered him, and broke him,
as even solid rock will break when hammered.
I have said my father was transparent,
and what I meant was, you could see his heart;
he wore it in  his eyes or on his sleeve.

 *

Ramey read a wonderful long poem, of which the rhythm reminded me of Vachel Lindsay's "Congo" poem.

There was a big crowd, the meeting room was full. I felt it was sort of an honor that Jim and Liz Reed came from Birmingham. They have a "Ye Olde Bookshoppe" which is the first place to look when you're hunting a really old or out-of-print book; they publish the Birmingham arts magazine or quarterly, and Liz invited us to a meeting in August to discuss "what writers need," or something. Due to my deafness, I couldn't grasp all the details.

Mr. DeWitt was a return attendee, and I told him my son's middle name is DeWitt, which is true. Michelle, a young woman from New York and Canada whom we met at Joan's on Sunday, also came; and Randall F. who still works in Neurology at UAB, had to remind me who he is, as I hadn't seen any of those folks in more than ten years. Randall's friend, Sherry, Joe W., Grady Sue (Leeds' most famous poet), and a handsome husband and wife who jokingly claimed not to know each other, in all made thirteen people in that little room.

So that's enough excitement for this week. I may go back to bed in a few minutes. Unless I get hungrier for cake.

More on Caxton

Scarcely a hundred years after Chaucer wrote, in a vernacular that we can't read without a glossary, William Caxton wrote, translated and printed works in the English of his day, a form that is much plainer. Once I got into The Game...of Chess, the language presented very few problems. Caxton spelled phonetically, and retained many French words and terms, and the book gives a good picture of the colloquial English of the fifteenth century. They still said "ben" for various forms of the verb "to be." He used the letter u for the small letter v, so that the word poverty was often printed as pouerte.

Another interesting usage was the possessive pronouns his and her. Apparently, "its," meaning "belonging to or done by it," was not used at that time. Also "her" was often used instead of "their." By Caxton's time, the old black letter sign for "th" was represented by the letter "y," so that "ye" or "y'e" was pronounced "the," "th'" or the personal pronoun "thee." When we call it "yee," we're probably wrong except when using it as the plural of "you."

Caxton traveled on the Continent, to Belgium and Germany. In Cologne, Germany, he learned all about the Gutenberg press, and eventually set up a printing press in England. The first book he printed in England was an edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The Game and Playe of the Chesse was one of these first books. It was the first printed in the English of that time, because Caxton translated it from Latin into his version of English.

It was a prodigious task. This was a very long book.

So Long, Big Baby

Yesterday I printed out the novel, prepared cover letters and stuff to go with it, and got it ready to send to River City Publishing's Fred Bonnie Award contest. So when the laundry gets done and I have some clean jeans to put on, I'll go to the P.O. and mail the package. If that doesn't "pan out," I'll see if Mary Chris will read the whole thing and consider it. And if that doesn't, I guess it'll join the others in the bottom drawer.

Next I'll tackle the book of my poems. I'm determined to get this between covers and looking professional, though I'm sure I'll have to have it done myself.
*
 The Game and Playe of the Chesse, by Jacob Cessolis, translated and printed by William Caxton in March 1474, via Project Gutenberg Ebook - It took me 8 days to read this; I finished it today. It doesn't dwell much on the actual game, but it's a great lesson in medieval thought and lifestyles. In describing each chess piece, he identifies them with the particular levels of society and tells the right way for each to act and move, and all the ways not to act and move. This is one of the antique books in Eustace's bookcase, in China Court. I think it was the first book printed in England.

I'm carved.

This morning I divided the novel into chapters. Then I went to the Clinic and got my nose sawed on, and it hurts like the dickens. Well, not that bad, but some. They said I'd get the lab report in about a week. I dread taking the bandage off, and I hope this is the last time I have to go down there until next year.

Feel like I could sleep for the rest of the week.

Should I be scared?

It occurred to me that, this time tomorrow, I'll be out there with those little dermatology gremlins carving on my face. Why don't I feel anxious? More concerned about the weather and the traffic late tomorrow afternoon--my appointment isn't till 3:30 p.m.

Yesterday we browsed the Big Saver thrift store, and I got a couple of jewel-like picture frames, plus these Bremen-town singers on a doorstop:

A quiet, restful weekend--I hope!

Yesterday, after lounging around the Clinic all day, I drove home in a rainstorm again. This is getting monotonous. Went by Alabama Art Supply and got some panels that I hope to turn into drawings for my bedroom, and later went by Walmart and got some things to perk up the guest bathroom.

All my test results were normal. I don't even have to go back on the Fosamax, but just take calcium and Vit. D. I've been off the antidepressant since about Christmas-time, the longest stretch free of medicine in many years. I sort of think it's because of my writing, and staying so busy, with new ideas and projects all the time, that my brain gets healthier instead of weaker. Except for my memory, which sometimes fails me.

I do have to go back Tuesday to Dermatology to get the thing on my nose taken care of. I guess they'll mess up my magnificent nose! Then, like Cyrano de Bergerac, I can dare anybody on pain of battle to say the word "nose" in my presence.

*

The hope of a calm weekend was vain. I've already had one emergency telephone call.

Banquet vs. Stouffer's

About once a week or so, I get a Banquet frozen lasagna and have it for a couple of meals. Today I decided to splurge on the higher-class Stouffers, much more expensive, but what the heck. It was heavier than the Banquet one, had more meat, had the big noodles and a layer of what I suppose was the cottage cheese. It was also nearer to tasteless than I ever imagined a lasagna could be. So I'll stick with the Banquet. It's delicious.

Sturm und drang

I watched a few raindrops making big polka-dots on the deck. This went on for about 5 minutes, and I decided maybe if I came inside and quit watching, it would really rain. But now that I'm inside, it seems to have quit altogether.If it would really rain, I might go out there and do an Andy Dufresne stretch to welcome it.

*

A little later came a storm that knocked out the lights and warped the trees around and blew limbs down in the yard. Needless to say, I didn't go out and frolic in it. The power was out for a couple of hours, long enough for me to thank God and Benjamin Franklin and them for electricity, when the lights came on again.

In the next few days, we're replacing a couple of doors and installing a sump pump and a gutter drain. After that, sometime this summer or fall, I want to get a lot of painting done, inside and out. I know the outside is more important and should be done first, but I'll really be glad when the inside walls are fresh, and maybe some color other than dirty white--and brown, as in my bedroom! Steve said he could use a white stain on the ceiling beams in the living room, so they wouldn't seem so prominent, like they're about to fall on one's head.

I've been trying to read an old book at Gutenberg on the computer, and my eyes are about out.

A walk under the trees

Got so tired of staying in out of the heat, Mo and I went out there and walked around in the shade on the west side of the house for 15 minutes or so. The hickories are full of nuts, but the persimmon tree is dropping them green on the ground. The tree I call a water oak has shivered a lot of its bark off in strips. Some leaves on the dogwoods are bright red, and the hydrangeas have given up and turned olive-green.

So now I've got the laundry going.

Yesterday I cooked a big pot of yellow squash and heated up some leftover cornbread. Then I ate the whole thing, over the course of the day. Wish I had saved some. I did freeze a lot of squash raw, but I don't want to heat up the kitchen to cook anything.

My poetry manuscript is ready to go to a printer. What do I do next?

The Maze and the Lumps

Viewed one way, life is like one of those puzzles, or a garden maze, where you follow one path for a while and suddenly come to a dead end, then have to go back and decide which path to follow next. Some people seem to sail straight through the maze with no, or very few, setbacks, as if they could see the puzzle from above and avoid the dead ends. Such people, if there really are any, must be very, very lucky. Jesus really could see the puzzle from above, and he had to run the obstacle course, anyway, hopping from place to place and listening to the jeers from the sidelines.

The point I'm trying to make is for my friend Deb. Divorce is a major dead end, right? I remember it well. That's one reason I didn't get married again: I couldn't stand the possibility of having to go through another divorce which, given my personality, was more on the lines of a probability. You might say it cured me of marriage.

I wish I had useful advice for a divorced person who takes it hard, for social, economic, political or religious reasons. My reasons were mainly social and economic, and I was thankful that Daddy had insisted I learn a skill so I could get an inside job.

Ancient as I am, I ought to have lots of good advice stored up to pass around when people need it. But I don't remember ever receiving free advice of any kind in that crisis--or any other. Don't even remember anybody saying "Good Luck!" When  you're running for your life, you hear lots of familiar voices baying with the hounds. And ominous silence from corners where you thought you might get a little support. You forgive them, because they didn't know all the details, and wouldn't believe them if they did.

Anyway, all I can say is "Good Luck!"
*
I've got to go back to the clinic this Friday for an ultrasound. I've had one before. It's probably the same old lump.

Writing On and On

Thursday I wrote the first short story using my Writer's Toolbox, which gives suggested ideas and structure. I expect all of the early ones will be 1,000-words-or-less short-shorts. I've never been any good at writing short stories, so I'm creeping into it slowly.

Yesterday I worked some more on my book of poems, and started an appendix for Big Baby. I'm reading through the novel and making a note of anything I think needs to be explained or enlarged upon. These may wind up as additions in the body of the manuscript, instead of an appendix. A map of the Cedar Grove/Dover area could be endpapers or a frontispiece. Since there are so many generations of people in the family, I'm thinking of a genealogical chart as well. I know, I know: it should be written well enough that you don't have any trouble keeping up with the characters.

Jed flew north yesterday for a vacation trip to Chicago.

Glory, glory,--etc.

Steve and Aaron-I-think-his-name-is are cleaning out the basement--no fuss, no questions, just dumping everything blue-taped into the dumpster. I'm up here dancing a jig--mentally, of course.

Fourth on the Third

Yesterday we celebrated Independence Day and Daddy's birthday on Sunday. We had a grand gathering and feast at Sister Susan's beautiful home. Then we went over to the country church cemetery where so many of our forebears and family are resting. Thanks also to Susan for the wonderful photos she took and shared with all of us.

On Saturday, Jed and I went to the silk flower lady's store and gathered up an armload of pretties, and I put together a couple of quick arrangements. I love arranging flowers--I won a few prizes, back in my garden club days.

The work on the roof, and plans for more work on the house, are still in progress.

Pretty roof, good book

We certainly made some good choices of colors and styles of shingles. My house looks new, and the roof matches the brick so well, it looks like they were planned together.

I just finished reading Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Jed read it first, then loaned it to me. This is one of the best books I've ever read in my whole life. It's also the last book I aim to read about the Civil War. I alternately cried and cursed, silently or aloud, all the way through it. I had already wept my way through John Brown's Body. So I think I've had enough education/enlightenment concerning The War.

One amusing incident that Goodwin put in her book: A prominent Chicago politician got into all kinds of ruin and trouble when he spoke out against the War of 1812. Later, during the Mexican war, someone asked him, "Do you oppose this war?" He said, "No. I opposed one war, and that was enough for me. From now on, I am perpetually in favor of war, pestilence and famine."

I already knew that Abraham Lincoln was the best knight of the world. I was glad to learn, though, that William Seward and Edwin Stanton were also good. I had read a book, many years ago, that presented the assassination of Lincoln as a widespread conspiracy, and hinted that Edwin Stanton, Lincoln's Secretary of War, was at the center of the conspiracy, and that Sec. of State Seward might have been involved. I didn't believe in the conspiracy, but that old book did in my mind cast suspicion on the whole cabinet.

Both Walt Whitman and Louisa May Alcott were nurses for the wounded Union soldiers.

Each package weighs 80 pounds.

So said Steve.

I counted/estimated about 60 packages, but they were in such a pile, I couldn't get a good count. They're supposed to put 'em on this afternoon, where they tore the old ones off yesterday. I may be looking at a great big shopping trip for myself to last the afternoon. The idea appeals to me, but would be even more attractive if I had money to spend. It's always something, little Rose Anne Rosanna Danna.

I Love Ya, Tomorrow!

Tomorrow I plan to start the fourth and, I hope, final rewrite of Big Baby. I hope to finish it before the time runs out to submit it to the Alabama publisher's competition in October. Right now I'm about to have a PBRW sandwich for my lunch (peanut butter, banana and raisins on whole wheat). With a big mug of coffee to wash it down.

Temptation!

Well, Steve and Tracy sent over this dumpster which is just about the size of my living room. They said if I have any junk, to throw it in. Hmmm. Looks like it would hold all my old living room furniture, plus all the junk in the basement. They also looked around in the basement, deciding where to put the sump pump.

Seriously, I am about to decide to trash that couch. Mo has scratched one end of it down to the nails. I know, because I scraped my leg on one of them. It looks like Mo might outlive me, so a new sofa wouldn't have much of a chance. I could put Flora's old maple breakfast table in the center of the room and group all the chairs around it, and call it the great hall. The two ancient armchairs could go into the dumpster, too. And the 1950's coffee table, and the piece of junk I'm using for an end table. All the ugly lamps. I love bare rooms.

Steve said they're going to tear the roof off tomorrow, and put on a new one on Thursday.

Shoot!

This morning I ordered a beautiful arrangement for my sweet niece Andy, who has had some really rough surgery. The image of what I ordered showed a square glass container with at least half a dozen pink roses, and some smaller little pink garden flowers. This is what she received:

I guess that teaches me--don't order something you haven't seen in person, unless you know you can send it back. I'll call the place tomorrow and assure them that I won't use their service again. Makes you want to cry.

Bel canto

This afternoon I caught the last few minutes of the Met's performance of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor (on PBS), some of the most wonderful music ever composed by anybody anywhere. The last few minutes are not as thrilling as the whole thing. So I had to go to YouTube and listen to Maria Callas sing an 8-minute-long aria. Then I had to listen to her sing "Mi chiamano Mimi" from La Boheme. Callas and Elvis Presley are the only singers ever documented to sing three octaves. But I think I've said that before. And by now, it may not be true any longer.

The Sound of Snow

Growing deaf, one thing that I really miss
is the sound of falling snow. When I
and Bob-the-cat lived at the very top
of Oak Trail, in a treetop apartment,

it snowed a lot for Alabama.
Bob would hear it and run to the kitchen
where glass doors looked out on a balcony,
and I would hear it and follow the cat.

Together we'd watch through the ice-cold glass,
as someone up yonder seemed to be shaking
a feather-bed with a big hole in it;
and Bob would bump his nose and paws

on the glass; he couldn't figure out why
he never could catch what he saw so clear.
You could hear it best when it started to fall:
Ice crystals blown against the house

rattled or sighed with gusts of wind,
and grew bigger and softer, the longer they fell.
In a while, the world would be full of feathers,
and the air full of whispers. Bob would get bored,

and wander away hunting a warm place
to curl up. I, on the other hand,
I wouldn't leave that lookout point
if it snowed all night (which it never did).

Those were what I call the good old days.
But now, when it snows, if it ever snows,
I learn of it when I pass a bare window,
and sight is the only sense awakened.

By JRC, 6/24/11

Stormy Weather

I drove back from Bham today through the first storm, raining so hard I had to guess where the road was. I thought of one stormy night many years ago, when I drove from Birmingham to Montgomery most of the way between two big trucks, going too fast--65-70 mph--to stay in place but at least knowing I was on the highway. When I got home today, there was a big old sweet gum limb in my front yard, and the storm had stopped for a while.

On the Road Again

I thought my clinic appointments were for Wednesday and Thursday. Wrong. Tues. and Weds. So I went today and got the bone scan, and will get the mammo tomorrow. Then maybe they'll leave me alone for a while, dadgummit! Every time I'm almost making some progress on the poems, Mo hollers for water or something, or the phone rings to confirm an appointment.

I had picked out about a hundred and twenty poems for my book. But every time I look over it, I add a few more. So what if some of them are bad, or silly? Show me a hundred poems by anybody, and some of them will be less than top-notch. Unless it's Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins didn't write many poems, but every one of them, you can just read it over and over and find new magic every time. His rhythm is strange, so they're not easy to remember. "The Wreck of the Deutschland," and those nuns panting, "Where--where was a--where was a place--?!" And "The Wreck" (in my opinion) is not the best of his poems. Boy, if I was going to copy anybody's style consciously, that's where I would start. Or try to start.

Catching Up

This week I finally got a report from the Clinic on my labs: Everything was normal. Surprise!

I took all my Z-pack last week, and I feel fine. My face and throat don't hurt any more, but I still sneeze and cough, so it must be allergies. Like from cat hair, mold and dust. If someone would only clean the place up! My Amazon/Facebook friend Cindy has all this haus-frau energy; wish I could put her in my basement for about half a day.

I've got through the latest batch of alterations to Big Baby, and selected all my poems for my Semi-Complete volume. Now I just have to revise about two dozen of them.
*
Today I'm thinking of Spring. Or Fall, or Winter. Any season but Too Hot.

The Goose-Girl, by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

Spring rides no horses down the hill,
But comes on foot, a goose-girl still;
And all the loveliest things there be
Come simply, so, it seems to me.
If ever I said, in grief or pride,
I tired of honest things, I lied,
And should be cursed forevermore
With love in laces like a whore,
And neighbors cold, and friends unsteady,
And Spring on horseback like a lady.
*
I have an old china vase, with flowers and a girl feeding a goose on it, sitting on the chest in the hall. Every time I notice it, I think of Millay's poem.

High Flight

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings!
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of--Wheeled, and soared, and swung,
High in the sunlit silence! Hovering there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air!
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark or even eagle flew;
And while with silent, lifting mind, I've trod
The high, untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God!

By John Gillespie McGee
*
It's that kind of a day. The kind that inspired my favorite poem that I've ever written, "Splendor Before a Storm:"

Clouds with wings of gold
enfolded pale blue morning,
that a moment died, rose up white noon,
and oh bright cumulus
flung clear around
my unsuspecting stratosphere!

How can even God
behold this gleaming day, yet stay in place
while higher every mile the sky grows!  I
would tumble treeward, rumbling,
"See my wonders! See Creation glowing!
Hear my thunder!"

I myself, although
no god or wing-blessed being,
must fling my senses somehow high enough
to reach and reel among
those sun-dipped fields of light,
dance there, cling there, or of sheer worship
die!
*
I trust that, when I was feeling that, I was worshiping the Creator, not the creation.

Lord, I have loved your sky,
Be it said against or for me;
Have loved it clear and high
Or low and stormy;

Till I have reeled and stumbled
From looking up too much,
And fallen and been humbled
To wear a crutch.

My love for every heaven
O'er which You, Lord, have lorded,
From number one to seven,
Should be rewarded.

It may not give me hope
That when I am translated,
My scalp may in the scope
Be constellated;

But if that seems to tend
To my undue renown,
At least it ought to send
Me up, not down.

By Robert Lee Frost (I forget the title).
*
The camera may not lie, but it's awfully inadequate on a day like this.

From "John Brown's Body" by Stephen Vincent Benet

~~~
"A brief, white rime on a red-clay road."
                                *
I have seen it! I have seen it! I have seen it!
And I have heard the invisible horses charging
wildly down it, dragging an iron-wheeled cart.
So long ago, only the memory of a memory,
but part of me like the sound of my heart in my ears
waked from a dream foreshadowing past and future.

By me 6/15/11

"Thoughts Of an Old [Woman] In a Dry Season"

A few times in my life, I have forgot something on the stove or in the oven until it burned up. So I routinely check to make sure everything is turned off before I leave the house or go to bed. It occurred to me this morning that I'm not the only one getting old and living largely by herself. So I hope Susan and Ramey, and even Jed who ain't no spring chicken, will learn this practice from me, if they don't do it already.
*
I'm working on the book again today, mostly on the time line--trying to make sure I haven't got somebody born before his mama. I've got a file this thick, with calendars for years in the 1940s, histories of Oak Ridge and Redstone Arsenal, wildlife and landscape features I remember on the mountain. I guess I'm just in love with that book. I didn't feel anything like this for the romances I wrote; that's probably why I abandoned them: they just were not my thing.

Deb, who comments here sometimes, said that she writes children's books. Ramey does, too, writes and illustrates them. I want to write one about the Maynards' children, Patsy, Joyce, Ramona, Susie and Franny (I just changed the twin Sally's name to Franny).

They're almost like little stair-steps, born in 1936, 1938, 1941, and the twins in 1943 or '44. Patsy (called Patrick) is the level-headed one, and Ramona the "holy terror." Joyce (Josie) is the "Big Mouth," who offends all of them with her perceptive comments.

I haven't decided whether to write them as little children, or as teenagers. I guess I know more about little ones, because I never was a teenager. At least, not a normal one.
*
So, I need to go to the store today and get the makin's for biscuits. I crave biscuits, although I hate the doughy innards. I just eat the tops and bottoms.

Several years ago, two different people (I think Ramey and Jed) gave me bottles of maple syrup. The bottles are shaped like maple leaves. I ate one bottleful, then opened the other one. The cap on the second bottle was always hard to open, and after a while I couldn't open it at all. It has sat there in the refrigerator for at least two or three years. What I need to know: If I ever manage to get the top off, will the syrup still be safe to eat?

Poem for Sunday

Sourwood Honey

We fanciers of sourwood honey have a theory:
It's what was meant by "nectar of the gods,"
Back when hyperbole was common usage.
Some still claim that it's made by bees and angels;
Too ignorant to argue, I imagine
The keepers of the bees turning around
Three times  and genuflecting toward the east,
Before they loose the bees among the blossoms.


By JRC, 06/12/11

*
6:45 p.m.: I was up very early this morning, and I meant to go to the last performance of "Second Samuel," if it wasn't sold out. But I felt so bad--my cold or whatever is worse today--that I lay back down and slept until it was too late to get to the church at 2:30.  Maybe the antibiotic is just loosening up the congestion, but I've coughed and sneezed till I'm exhausted.

I've spent the last 4 hours going through the Big Baby manuscript, making changes and explanations, including the ones Susan marked when she read it. Her remarks, like Ramey's, were very helpful, and I really appreciate their reading and commenting.

Cats, Cats, Cats

I've been having an attack of conscience, about that old black cat that showed up here last year looking like a Sherman tank had run over him twice. I fed and watered him, and sprayed the peroxide at his wounds, and he's still alive, because he showed up yesterday. He only comes by occasionally, and he really is a mess at this point. I guess if I can ever catch him, I'll take him to the vet.

Ramey said she would come and get this stray, but I forgot to ask if she meant this year or next year. We thought he was a girl, but he said no, he'll look more masculine when he gets some meat on his bones. He really is a sweet baby. If I kept him--which I won't! I won't!--I would name him "Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes," and call him J.D. for short. (J.D. Salinger wrote a story with that title.)

I really can't have another one in the house. I haven't let either black or white cat come in, and don't plan to. There's no mention of cats in the Bible, at least not domestic ones, probably because the Egyptians worshiped them. (That's probably where cats got the idea that they really are, if not deities, at least royalty.) I wonder why the Lord made them so sweet.

You wouldn't think one little animal, weighing 10 pounds or less, could make a retired and solitary person miserable. But Mo keeps me semi-miserable about a tenth part of every day.

Gettin' Better

They finally called the pharmacy and left me a prescription, so I went down this morning and got a Z-pack. Took the first double dose and slept a lot today, so I am feeling better. Amazing how simple it was. I wish I had insisted on treatment two weeks ago; by now I'd probably be feeling 10-15 years younger.

Never apologize!

I have to get over feeling apologetic about my poems. Cuckoo as some of them may seem, they're what pop into my head and have to get out.

I thought my sinus infection or inflammation was better, but today it's much worse. And after two weeks, I still haven't received the results of my labs and CT. So a few minutes ago I phoned the clinic, forgetting that they'd all be out to lunch until 1:30 or 2:00. Anyway, I left Marie a message to get them to call me in something for the sinus, and to let me know about the tests.

I had it made up in my mind to change doctors, unless there was a good reason for "writing me a letter" (which apparently he didn't even do) instead of phoning me the test results. And not doing anything about the misery in my nose. But number one, I've tried to change doctors before, and the HMO wouldn't permit it. And number two--I forget what.

Couple of nights ago, I watched "The Sixth Sense" on TV. That's a very sad movie.
*
The poem today:

On Leaping Into Marlowe's Faust
(and Tiptoe-ing Away)

Least said, the soonest mended: I decline
The merest slight to Marlowe's “mighty line.”

For centuries, men rewrote the Faustus play,
Till how it was to start with, who can say?

I don't deny, one line my fancy grips:
“Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?”

And one more line still sticks with me, to wit:
“Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it!”

Let veils of charity the rest obscure,
And Marlowe's reputation long endure.

Too bad he's not beneath the Abbey stones;
A lonely unmarked grave received his bones.

Poor Marlowe, stabbed to death at twenty-nine!
Who could begrudge the man his mighty line?

By JRC, 6/7/2011

My folks already think I'm crazy.

My Twin
*
A few days before our birth,
I left that body and found a live one
ready to come out.
He needed to be born by himself.
He always rang like Christmas,
but the bells were in my head and came with me.
When his “little shaky leg” shook,
I could hear sleigh bells.
He learned to shiver himself from head to toe
like a wet dog shedding raindrops, and when he did,
I heard the glass balls and bells on a decorated tree
trembling together and ringing.

by Joanne Cage, 6/6/2011

"Second Samuel" was Super!

The play was wonderful. The young guy who played "B. Flat" talked and emoted practically throughout both acts, with a real or assumed speech impediment thrown in. Ramey was the prettiest lady--she played Miss Ruby who worked in the beauty shop. I was fascinated with the players' given names--Omaha Nebraska Madison was the cute blonde who ran the beauty shop. Her husband was Frisky Madison, and one of his kinfolks named their baby after him: Madison Wisconsin.

I was so proud of Ramey--told everybody, "That's my baby sister, you know!"

Jed couldn't come, and India was feeling puny, so I went to the play by myself. Saw George and Sue and Rev. Lynette and everybody whose names I didn't remember. Yes, I feel guilty for not going to church. But crowds confuse me and I can't think or do anything except try to keep a frozen grin on my face. Funny, I've never had that problem when I was on a stage or at a desk and the crowd was in front of me. But when they're all around me everywhere, I'm lost. Maybe because everybody else is so tall.

Just before I left home to go to the play, I had a stomach upset, then I had to scurry to get ready, and forgot my camera. The "playhouse" was cool, but the narthex of the church was hot, and of course it was hot outside. All the temperature variations gave me the "swirl and ache" again, so when the play was over, I high-tailed it to the Tracker and came home.

Sister Susan and Niece Andy were the only other family in the audience. Susan has a synopsis of the whole play on her blog today (Blackberry Creek), with pictures and everything. But no picture of me in my four-year-old summer dress I had never worn before but put on because it made me look taller. But I  understand: Why photograph the "Old Party" in the family, when they're always there and you have to look at them occasionally, whether you want to or not?

I had occasion this week to ponder that theory, and it may have a few holes in it. On Tuesday, I called the clinic and asked Marie (the secretary) to get Onae (the nurse) or Dr. Gruman (the giant) to call me with the results of the tests I'd had the week before. A bit later, Marie called me back and said Dr. Gruman had "written me a letter." A letter? Too mystified to think, I muttered, "Thanks." Then I walked the floor for a day or two, wondering what they found that the M.D. was too cowardly to tell me about on the phone. Always before he has phoned within a couple or three days and told me something, sometimes reading last year's test results.

Based on the tests they did last week, all I could think of was AIDS or a brain tumor. I still haven't received the letter, but have had time to get over the terror.

Last week at the clinic, I had the satisfaction of noticing that he's getting gray-headed.
*
A funny thing happened when I found my seat, B5, at the play. Each seat had a removable cover on the back with the seat number written on it. In my row, the numbers ran B1, B2, B3, B5, B4, B6, B7 and B8. I sat down in B5, and the lady who came and sat in B6 said I had to change because someone had switched the numbers. She was quite officious and seemed to know what she was talking about, so I got up and started changing the covers on the seat-backs. The man in front of me remarked it was strange that "the House" couldn't count to 4, and the bossy lady hinted that I should have figured it out for myself. I said, "I just thought it was some local custom that I'm not familiar with."

The Big Day--Ramey's Premiere

I worked all morning on the poems. Now I've got to eat something and get ready to go to the Play. Can't wait! I called Jed, but he's working on his big Phoenix presentation and can't come today.

Radiology called me and said come June 17th for my Dexascan/bone density test. My mammo appointment is June 22nd. So this, too, is going to be a busy month.

Book Plans

I just had one of those light-bulb moments: I've written and saved several hundred poems--around 400, I guess. Most of them probably aren't worth saving, but have a "germ" of poetry somewhere in their innards. So what I want to do is take each of the doubtful ones and play with it, and try to make a real poem out of it, and deep-six it if it continues to embarrass me. I hope they will all cooperate and come together as a respectable little book of The Complete Poems of JRC.

Tomorrow night!!! Ramey opens in "Second Samuel" at the church "playhouse." I called to reserve two seats, and sweet little Sue-Baby put us in the second row. So maybe I can almost hear a pin drop onstage, not to mention what the actors say. I hope Jed comes over tomorrow to escort me to the theatah.

Last night I watched a PBS "American Masters" show about my all-time favorite orchestra conductor, the Met's own James Levine. Jimmy, like most of us old folks, now looks like a little Hobbit. -- Well, actually, he always did.

George Washington, Chapters 26-28

Somewhere in the clutter, I lost George Washington, The Indispensable Man, when I had only read less than half of it. But a few days ago I found it. It's a long book, crammed with essential stuff you can't just scan or skip, but must go back over, some of it to savor. It makes you proud, not only of Washington but of all the superstitious, cowardly, self-serving, greedy, ordinary PEOPLE who established this nation and this unique government. On the bones of the rightful owners/original inhabitants, of course. But, as the colonists' ancestors had done the dark deed of dispossession, two hundred years earlier, they thought they owned the place.

Chapters 26-28 tell about the writing and establishment of the U.S. Constitution. Unbelievable, but it happened.
*
Anyway, it's a great book, by James Thomas Flexner. As the servant girl told Ripsie in China Court, "He must have all of he names." He died in the first decade of this century, just a few years short of a hundred, one of these long-lived Capricorns--if I am permitted to claim that much of a relationship. George Washington was originally a four-volume National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, and he himself boiled it down to the one-volume paperback that I'm reading. It will have taken me at least two weeks, all told, to read it, so I'll never impose it on our book club, if we continue to have a book club. Although I agree with more than one reviewer who said that every American should be required to read it.
*
Abigail Adams said of Washington, "This same President has so happy a faculty of appearing to accommodate and yet carrying his point, that, if he was not really one of the best-intentioned men  in the world, he might be a very dangerous one. He is polite with dignity, affable without familiarity, distant without haughtiness, grave without austerity, modest, wise, and good."

Getting Things Done

Yesterday I basically finished Jenny's Persian Puzzle/horse quilt top.

It's not a neat job; the white fabric is flimsy and stretched in all directions, and I had to cut a corner from an extra block to piece one corner of the center block. I think I'll use high-loft batting, and only quilt around the design and on the sashing and border(s), if I add any.

Later in the day, Ramey and I went to the used-furniture store downtown, where I found a treasure.

I had in mind using it for a telephone table, but maybe it'll just sit there in the corner by the telephone.

The color I've chosen for the roof shingles is called "Driftwood." It matches the bricks of the house. Steve the Roofer said replacing the roof will only take "2-3 days." So I guess they can start this-coming week, and maybe be done within the month of June.

Jed has had his kitchen remodeled, granite countertops, travertine floor, teal-colored cabinets, the whole shooting-match. I've got to get over to 'Lanta and inspect it.

If I remodeled my kitchen, everything that takes paint would be painted white, with black cabinet-and-drawer pulls. Soapstone counters, black tile floor, black appliances, white table and black chairs. A multicolored glass tile backsplash behind the cooktop or range. Paint the chandelier black. Get those multicolored Fiesta dishes back when Jed gets new dishes.

Black and white and jewel colors for the kitchen. Pink and green for the dining room. Red and green for the living room. That's about as far as my imagination goes. No brown and orange.

Cruising for a Fight

The checkout counter was bare, but an enormous young woman, in most of a pair of shorts and a little shirt, was waiting for the clerk to get through helping a customer load his basket. When I approached to unload my cart, the EYW backed up against my cart, so I pulled back into the aisle. When she moved forward, I started to unload again, but she ran up against my cart and started peering at a display over my left shoulder, so I backed away up into the aisle. I kept backing up, because she kept pushing at a box on top of the display, and it looked like it would fall on me or my cart.

When the clerk turned around to the register, the EYW turned around, but still blocked the lane while she talked at the clerk. Then she finally bought a pack of chewing gum or something and walked away, but when I pushed my cart up and started to unload, she ran back and pushed against the cart and leaned over the counter and laughed and talked at the clerk.

I mentally saw myself doing what I really wanted to do, and wondered what the outcome would be if I were brash enough to pick up my wine bottle and give her one upside the head. The adventures of getting out of the house. Stifling violent impulses. Remembering old Betty J-----t and other pugnacious fat females who liked nothing better than to pick a fight with an old woman or a little kid.

The incident reminded me of a story W.C. Fields told about picking a fight with a fat woman in a bar. He and his buddy almost got the best of her, but she finally grabbed a beer bottle and broke it and cut them both up pretty bad before the cops arrived.

I dreamed Mo was a 1935 Packard.

I dreamed Jed was driving the big black car that's in my Big Baby book, and he stopped and told me to get in the back seat. The seats were enormous. I leaned on the back of Jed's seat to talk to him, and the upholstery was so plush it tickled my face. Then I woke up, and Mo was on my chest with his back against my face.

So today I made it to TKC once again and had my head CAT scanned. After I walked from the parking deck to Internal Med. and then up 28 stairs to Radiology, I had to sit down and rest before I could talk. Looks like I need to go back on all those vitamins and supplements. I guess more hair will fall out, and I won't feel "normal," but I was probably in better physical shape when I was taking all that stuff. But I'm not going to swallow another pill until the doc says to. He hasn't called me about my blood work yet.

Nothing Brown Can Stay

Nothing Brown Can Stay, by J.R. Cage


My room's first brown was taupe,
The hue of sand and rope.
At first it made me smile,
But only for a while.
Then taupe faded to tan.
So monkey sank to man.
So I'll paint it white or gray.
Nothing brown can stay.

Trip to TKC

I went to my clinic appointment this morning because I keep coughing. Dr. G. beat on my face and found a sore spot over my sinuses, and got me set up for a CT scan on Thursday of this week. Then I went to the lab and had 4 vials of blood drawn. Onae called me just now and said I'm scheduled for a mammogram on June 22. Also in the offing is a bone-density scan, and something else, I forget what. So I guess today's visit counts for my 6-month "wellness" exam, since they scheduled another one for November 22. Isn't that Thanksgiving Day? No, the 22nd is the Tuesday before T'giving. There's always something to look forward to.

The poetry reading group meets tonight at the Arts Council. The writing theme is "future tense," and we're supposed to bring a favorite poem to read, one written by someone other than ourselves.
*
(9:28 p.m.) A poem I read at the group meeting:

Future Tense

I shall means that I plan to,
If nothing interferes;
I will means I'm determined,
In spite of fears and tears.

You shall means you must obey me--
I'll beat you if you don't!
But he or she most likely will,
Even if you won't.

I may if fortune favors
And all the signs are right;
And if  you ask me nicely,
Who knows, my dear? I might.
            (By JRC, 5/23/11)

The "other poet's" poem that I read was "All in green went my love riding" by e.e. cummings.

Make Quilts, Write Poems

The meeting went well. Only Ramey, Emily and Frank attended, and Ramey had to leave early for her play practice. But we had a right merry time. We're all pretty doggone good poets, at least at heart. I'm borrowing a leaf from Joe W.: From now on, what I do is make quilts and write poems. And read books, although Walt Whitman would grumble at "living on the ghosts in books."

Right now I'm reading James Flexner's biography of George Washington. That gentleman was more complex than I've always thought, much more of a creative personality than the schoolbooks have painted. He practically had to reinvent warfare for this continent as it was in its primeval state. The last thing the colonists wanted to do was fight. It appears that the last thing Washington wanted to think about was leading an army or a country. But when you've got the alligators in front of you and the crocodiles behind--!

Oops!

I was thinking I had invited the poetry critique group to meet here on Sunday the 29th. But however, an email yesterday from one of the group members reminded me that the meeting is set for Sunday the 22nd--the day after tomorrow! We always meet on the fourth Sunday, and I forgot that May has five Sundays this year. So besides helping the tow guy load the Lincoln onto his truck, what I've done today is clean up the porches and a couple of rooms that were easiest because I halfway cleaned them last week. Tomorrow I've got to get the whole thing spiffed up and do a little shopping besides. Someday maybe I'll rest.

A Very Good Book

Friday at book club, I picked up The Scapegoat out of the boxes of donated books. It had been many years since I read this book, and remembered thinking it was pretty good. So yesterday I read it again, and liked it better than Rebecca or any of her other books. I think duMaurier was one of the best novelists of the twentieth century. Or any other century, for that matter.

The Scapegoat is about a lonely Englishman who, trying not to think about suicide, contemplates going into a monastery. He accidentally meets a no-account French count who looks exactly like himself, and gets tricked into changing places with the count. I love mistaken-identity and identical-twin stories. Mary Stuart wrote one but I don't remember the title, maybe The Ivy Tree. And of course there's Dumas' The Corsican Brothers, and The Man in the Iron Mask which I haven't read but have only seen the movie. I like The Scapegoat better than others of this type that I've read, because the Englishman has no close friends or family and hardly knows the meaning of the word love. Then he gets thrown into the middle of a really messed-up French family and falls head-over-heels in love with the whole bunch.

Oh--Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey is one of the best doppelganger books; I guess I like it even better than The Scapegoat. Dickens had Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay, and Joseph Conrad The Secret Sharer. Even old Dostoevsky wrote one, but I haven't read it. And probably never will.

A good movie on this theme, I think the title is "Dave," stars Kevin Kline as a stand-in for a U.S. president. And probably the creepiest story of this kind is The Picture of Dorian Gray.
*
Jed will be here tomorrow and Wednesday and will be working in Birmingham. Also tomorrow, they're coming to take the Lincoln away. I hope Jed gets here before "they" do, to help me get the trunk open and cleaned out.

Start Over With Master and Commander?

Today I finished the last of the Jack Aubrey books, Blue At the Mizzen. I think they could as accurately be called the Stephen Maturin books. In the penultimate volume, The Hundred Days, Napoleon was put down, and Stephen lost his wife and never said a word about her more--the incomparable Diana Villiers ignored Jack's warning about her reckless driving and eclipsed herself. Maybe Stephen was, while grieved, also a bit relieved. At any rate, scarcely a whole book later, he proposes to a widow. Jack is awarded his blue flag of the admiralty, and everybody is rich and more or less mollified.

I wouldn't pick out any one book of the Aubrey series and say it's the best book I've ever read; but the whole bunch of them made one of the notable reading experiences of my life. The Bible was better. Otherwise. . .

I've been sort of wandering around, lonesome and at loose ends, since Big Baby is truly done. Now it's even worse, with all the Aubrey books finished. Yesterday I had a lot of business to keep me busy--pay bills, get insurance on the Tracker, I forget what-all. Tomorrow I'll probably get the Lincoln towed out of the garage and donated. Friday is book club day, and I'm about halfway through the book, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand.

TGI Sunday

Yesterday I made another trip to Wal Mart and came home in the foulest of foul moods, with a crick in my neck from trying to read the overhead signs. Then I slept off and on until nearly ten o'clock this morning. I think what I need to do is never to buy food at Wal Mart. I can find most everything else pretty easily, with no more than an hour of searching. But groceries--I make a resolution not to go there any more for food, unless I just see something I want/need in passing by the produce department.

The reason I was grocery-shopping, anyway, is that I had to buy funace filters, curtain rods, and other stuff. By the time I found those, it seemed I would save time by picking up what food items I needed. Bad guess.

Our Wal Mart wastes so much space with flowers and seasonal displays, jewelry, baked goods, racks of candy and greeting cards--and the aisles are so narrow you have to negotiate space for a buggy. They need about twice the space for the goods they've got--which are hardly ever the right brands, providing you can find the category you're looking for. And if the store was twice as big, I'd never go there, period.

That's my Wal Mart speech for the month. Or for good, I hope.

Today was somebody's birthday. Douglas's, I think.

Hopefully

I've like a fool volunteered to  host the critique group here on the last Sunday this month. Yesterday I wrote myself a plan to get the house dolled up before that date. So today I started working on it, and I'm already 2-3 days behind.

The picture (from Country Living) is just a simple color- and fabric- suggestion to me, when I start to make a cover for my cat-clawed sofa. I've probably got enough muslin to make the whole thing, and then make covers for all my throw-pillows out of all the red prints I can scrape up. Wish I could get a room or two painted this month. I don't know why it's so important to get it all done for the meeting, because there'll only be 4-5 attendees, if any. But it's an incentive to get some spring cleaning done.
***
Approximately the last half of "My Fair Lady" was on TCM, and I made the mistake of standing there looking at it for a minute, which stretched on until the end. There'll never be another Rex Harrison, another Stanley Holloway, and I'm sorry for that. And I've never cared all that much for musical comedy, or any other kind of screen comedy. But this movie is incomparable, even in its faulty restored condition.
***
I had an email from Jack yesterday. He said he's doing all right, that he and his boss had been riding around viewing all the storm destruction.

Blackadder!

On the Front of My Monitor

Aggravations--or challenges: (1) There's a limb on top of my house. I can get ahold of it, but it won't come loose. Tracy is across the street, working on Charlotte's lot, so if I can get his attention, I'll see if he'll deal with it.

(2) Trying to print out my manuscript, I put in a new cartridge. Now it says "cartridge missing or undetected," and won't print except off of the Tricolor.

(3)  I have to go for my annual checkup tomorrow. Decided I'd just turn myself off till it's over, but I'm hungry, and I didn't want to eat much until they draw my blood. Don't want Dr. G. talking about statins again.

Other than those little pesky points, I'm okay.

Will It Ever Be Done?

I've added quite a bit to the novel, and this morning I was almost ready to print a proof copy, but then I seemed to hear Mary Loggins say, "Phil, I'm afraid of them old Ku Klux."

I just have not got the stamina to get the KKK in gear because Mary and Philip have harbored the draft dodger. With all the subsequent changes I'd have to make in the manuscript. And the trauma to poor old Philip. A really big mess this time that Mary has got him into. If I decide to do it. Maybe I can save it for another book. I'm tired of this one.
*
Pat called a few minutes ago and said their electricity is off again. They only had it on for a few hours.

Betty Jo hasn't called me back, so I guess she hasn't been able to get in touch with Sandra. There are so many missing from Tuscaloosa, it's terrible.