Saturday, April 30, 2016

Little Nothings - The Straight Story directed by David Lynch - The Last Night of April

 Here's my Heavenly Ham. Scott came over to tell me it was the most delicious ham he's ever had. Half a lb cost about $7.
 Couldn't wait to try on my new socks. They were wet when I put em on but have dried now. Comfy!!!
Scene from the film The Straight Story. Here's Alvin Straight counting up his rolled up money. The 1999 film was directed by David Lynch, but don't expect any Lauras in it with flies swarming on her dead body.

We do have counter scenes, tho. And the FACES in this film are all so interesting. Not movie star faces.


 Cissy Spacek was real good.
She and her daddy, Alvin, were both smokers. He smoked cee-gars.

HarryDeanStanton-1.jpg  Henry Dean Stanton played brother Lyle Straight. Henry was born in 1926.

The dialog was perfect. I paid attention to it since I write dialog in my short stories. And there were so many quiet moments. Not sure if our modern movies believe in silence.... God forbid, the viewers might get bored and check their smart phones.


 Alvin is sitting outside on the property of a kind man who took him in. The man and his wife love each other and were kissing and petting in their kitchen. Lovely scene.
This is the Dave Brubeck album I checked outa the libe. "Just Me."

Fab!

THE LAST NIGHT OF APRIL

In the waning hours of April
I sit by the screen door
the sky a cool blue
the smell of BBQ
tickling my tongue

Dave Brubeck's notes
tumble through the
living room as the
tough green orchid
leaves, shaped like a
Y, and the fading
cyclamen, whose
flowers feel like
cool sheets

nod in silence.

The birds have
vanished and
make no sound

but the tall towering
trees with leaves
so deliciously
green you want
them in your salad

protect us all.


Foliage around my house - Obama on Charlie Rose - Poem: Urges in my neighborhood

 See the purple iris? The rhizomed beauty has been growing ever since I bought it at the now-defunct Wankel's Nursery in Bensalem. Bought it when I had money and worked at Bristol-Bensalem Human Services which is now an upscale housing development with rocking chairs on the front porches.
Went on a spending spree this morning. Went to Modell's and bought 20 pair of socklets for $10 total. Made in China, they are 97 percent polyester and 3 percent Spandex. I hadn't noticed so I called up the store and Danielle gave me the info.

They're drying in my laundry room, or as our family calls it "the utility room." 

Found em as soon as I took the escalator and walked inside. Whew! I detest shopping.

After that I went to Heavenly Ham and bought half a pound. Heavenly indeed. It was $7. Went over to sleeping Scott's and slipped him a couple slices in his fridge.
Am listening to Dave Brubeck right now. A solo tour de force. I learned that word from Rem in my writing group. Hope I don't overuse it.

 Dyou think he dyes his eyebrows?
Believe it or not, Charlie Rose did not interrupt Obama while el president was talking. They stood up and talked the entire time. But Charlie practically had a stroke shutting himself up. They were in a beautiful room somewhere in London.

Obama acquitted himself well about what to do in Syria, about the misled Mr Putin, not trusting Iran, and assuring the Saudis we're their friends. The Saudis who have ISIL within their kingdom.

 Gonna watch this film, in deference to my boxer daughter.
 My house is overflowing with free pads - no, not Kotex - but of paper I receive in the mail to advertise various organizations or politicians.

I always wanted a pad with my name on it and I finally got one. Wonder where it got to.

 On April 7, 2001, Sharon Piercy and I gave a talk at Abington Prez about Mood Disorders. Click to enlarge.
At our next meeting, I'm gonna give it away. It's very informative.



 We're gonna tour the grounds of my house. A real tour de force. Also used that phrase - thanks again Rem - for a letter to the editor I wrote to Courier Times n Intell.
 I spent about 25 minutes outside clipping and throwing things away. Soon, you'll see where. Please pronunce the "wh" like my friend Judy D does from all the way in Boulder.
Pansies round the clock tower in the front yard.


 Here's where I throw em away in the backyard, to the right of the rusty shed.
The shed was here 27 yrs ago when I moved in, 1989.


 Daylillies rising.
 Shed is locked. Wonder what's inside.

 The last maple. There were three when I moved in. Nothing lasts forever.
 Along the white fence of the Adams Family.

 On my rounds I noticed things growing on the roof above the back porch.
 Many branches of the akuba - the one nearest the house - were dead, so I cut em down.
 Azalea time. Amazing how everything knows when to bloom, so our street is synchronized.
What's this pile of rubbish? Why, there's a blue hydrangea coming up. I was almost gonna say what's this pile of shit, but I stopped meself. That's cause I watched this film last nite. Directed by John Singleton, who I saw on Charlie Rose, I got the film outa the libe.

Was almost gonna turn it off as it was filled with violence, but I stuck with it to the bloody end. I'd recommend it to people under 45. My kids would love it. It's a revenge film, a cowboy film, only it takes place in the urban jungle.

Image result for four brothers film


 Crepe myrtle looked dead until yesterday when the blossoms appeared.
Dwarf lilac blooming. Also a backyard lilac that has bloomed.

 First year my lily of the valleys have bloomed. The white is tinged with purple. Heavenly smell.
Scott's dogwood and the lillies to the right.

Finally finished the Sue Klebold book, A Mother's Reckoning. Her son, Dylan, was one of two killers at Columbine H S. Definitely worth reading, but quite repetitious and too long. Then I watched a few minutes of some interviews she gave. The Diane Sawyer one stunk. Sawyer, I thought, was out for sensationalism and out/control emotion from Sue.

Now I've only got three books left to read.

Finally found an audio book for the kitchen when I cook. You wanna get hooked on these books so's that when you hear the voice of the reader you immediately latch onto it like a baby the breast.

Image result for baldacci books   While listening, I thought, Oh no! I should listen to something 'literary' so I can become a better writer.

Forget it, sez I. You need something that will hold your attention as you chop the onions and the mushrooms and the fingers.

URGES IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD

I, too, have the urge
on the last day of
April, or avril, as
we say en francais

To be outside under
the vast dome of
the endless sky

There to introduce
myself to the
glorious pansies

Butter yellow
sundown maroon and
Lake Tahoe blue

And do

Scott's white
dogwood spins
its leaves for
bees and other
tiny beasts to
dine upon, drunk
with ecstasy

How fine it felt
wearing gloves
to scoop up dried
and muddy leaves
on my long lonely
drive

And drop them, nay
toss them, down
a gully behind
the shed

There to become
one with the earth
as we all will one
day, impossible
to think about
on the last
day of April, or
avril, as we say
en francais.

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Alas Poor Yorick: I Knew Him, Horatio (David Robertson) - Poems: The Compost Heap - I Am an Addict


 Emailed the above photos to David Robertson - of Pennypack Trust - for identification. His colleague Kirk identified the critter as a groundhog, which is really a giant squirrel, which shocked Scott and me! Classification "marmot."

Am gonna go caffeine-free for a while. The FB folks are very supportive. Listen to this bold move I made at the Giant.

I bought some new tea flavors including a Chai Spice that had absy no flavor. I tried to give it to friends after our Daytime Meeting - Helen, Jan, Eve and I sat at a table. I was sipping raspberry tea that was so delicious I suspected something was wrong.

Kathy, the barista, asked if I wanted a spritz of Raspberry. Sure, I said.

Well, it must've contained sugar as my blood sugar was over 200 when I got home.

Anyway, I got a box of Saint John's Wort tea, which I'm sipping now. Marf told me it was in the organic aisle, and so twas.

Went up to the counter and asked if I could switch it with the Chai and Colleen said yes. All I had to do was pay her about sixty cents.



As a Jewish mother, I have never made knedlach soup - or matzoh ball soup.

Easy as pie if you follow the direx.

See the scoop-strainer I got from Helene?


Delicious! I added a cinnamon stick for more flavor, por favor.

Rainy day, so I drove Scott to the train station, and then off to the libe to pick up movies.

Nah, I said to Geri, I don't want that book. I'll never have time to read it. I think I have 7 checked out.

Then I thought a moment.

Changed my mind, Geri, I'll take it.

Damn good, too!

Image result for mothering sunday book    My version has a more chaste cover. "Mothering Sunday" is an old British expression ....

Traditionally, it was a day when children, mainly daughters, who had gone to work as domestic servants were given a day off to visit their mother and family.

Definitely erotic.

I submitted one of my fave short stories The Ninety-Nine Steps to a Christian journal and methinks they gonna publish it. Based on a woman I knew when I worked at Cal / Ink in San Francisco. Marian Tyler. My friend DaNa knew her too.

At first I changed her name to Mary Tyler. But Mary was too plain a name, so I put Marian. What a lovely woman. A bout with polio rendered one leg skinnier and she walked with a limp and a cane.

A TRIP TO THE COMPOST HEAP

O waning Gibbous Moon
shine on me
as I hobble like a
Chinese princess with
bound feet, carrying
vessel of what once
was a live chicken
clucking with her
savory sisters in the
morning light

Reduced now to white
bones and white meat
which I toss gently
on the compost heap
with nary a prayer of
thanks

Would they - cluck cluck -
hear me now? Something
hears me, be it fox or
deer or skunk, but silent
stay I, in the morning
dem bones will all be
et, for matter is neither
created nor destroyed

As overseas the sounds
of rifles firing, grenades
shattering skulls and
kneecaps are mourned
by the waning Gibbous Moon.


***

DRUG FREE

Hi, my name is Ruth and
I am an addict.

Not cocaine nor weed
nor Percosets make
me high

It is coffee, I crave
rich and dark, the
aroma settling on every
piece of furniture and
flower in my house

One night I drank
Black Currant Tea
which sent me
rocketing to
the moon

I didn't return
for two days and
placed my vow in
the fishbowl

It's been four
days now. I still
think I smell the
coffee brewing
in my Chemex

One day at a time.
Chai Spice Tea
is nice. The
words caffeine-
free horrify me.

How shall I write?
How shall I live
without a cup of
java shimmering
in the morning light?