The Virtues of Keeping Quiet

Beech tree at nearby Pennypack Ecological Restoration & Trust of which I'm a proud member.

My hearty chicken stew w/fresh veggies, seasoned with cinnamon stix. I curry favor w/my Lebanon-born nephrologist by telling him I cook w/cinnamon.

Note from Judge Lisa Richette (1928-2007)

God deemed the Sabbath as a day of relaxing. That's what I'm doing today. Put my soup on to cook after I woke up, then went back to sleep until 11 a.m. to begin my day.

Spoke to my friend Denis who is recuperating at Jefferson from an adverse effect to one of his lifetime meds for his kidney transplant. He is my mentor since I'm hoping to get my own transplant but at Einstein. While talking to Denis I was outside clipping my weeds and bushes which are doing very well in this rainy weather. I know, I know, I've gotta keep busy.

The presence of death grows closer with the realization that you may be on the operating table under the care of people trying their best to save your life. Two surgeons attend the operation. They follow you afterward in the all-important dispensing of meds.

Until such time as my operation, don't you worry, I am supremely enjoying myself. Yesterday I began reorganizing my son's old bedroom -- and Simon's old office -- creating a Reading Room. I removed all the business stuff from the bulletin boards ready to trash them.

How long can I keep a note from the late Lisa Richette? I decided to fotograph it for this blog and then toss it.

Couldn't.

I hid it under some papers. My kids can throw it away after I die. "Who the F is Lisa Richette?" they'll ask.

We LOVE cursing. I carefully taught my kids how to curse when they were little. (BTW, this chicken stew I made is OUTSTANDING! I added a lil lemon juice & I'm a total noodle lover!)

We'd be at the Upper Moreland Library, they'd be seated at the little tables and chair reading their books, and I'd come over and say, "Okay, guys, let's get the F outa here."

I'm gonna bring the chicken stew to mom's house later today. She's 87 and a half. She lives with my sister Ellen. In a quiet moment last nite, when I wasn't reading, or watching the last episode of Lost, or watching the movie Sounder on TCM, I finally had a chance to THINK.

How I've missed you: the power of thought. I'm always so busy DOING I never have time to think. I wondered what it must be like to be my mother, my truly beloved mother, growing older and closer to The Inevitable.

She has no one to talk to about this mind-chilling event. All her friends are in Cleveland. Ruth Katz, still alive at 88; Lenore and Nate Oscar, who spend winters in Arizona; and her best friend Caroline Berkman, a distant relative of Bernard Berenson, whose adopted son was a troubled man who ended up working in a carnival.

Once I attempted to broach the subject of Death with Mom but she wasn't interested in discussing it. Neither was Simon when he was diagnosed w/terminality.

My dad, on the other hand, after the initial denial, spoke freely about it. Like me, he believed in what I call The Thud of Nothingness after death.

I think I'll have some watermelon for dessert. That soup, man, wow! It was really good.