Showtime at the library preceded by Foodtime on Cowbell - Mon jardin / Poem: Audubon's Girl

Here's some seafood chowder I made for Scott and me. Scallops, asparagus, mushrooms, taters, carrots. I steamed the latter two and added it to a big pot on the stove.

I never cook w/ salt so it's seasoned w/ bay leaves, olive oil, rice vinegar, onions, parsley.

Totally full of flavor.



Here's one of the fish mongers at the Giant supermarket: Sultan, pronounced Soo-tahn. Took a bunch of photos for a story I'm working on about Giant. Had to get permish from their corporate office in Carlisle, PA.

When Sarah was here a couple days ago, she needed a mixer to bake Ellen's b'day cake. So Scott got his Dormeyer electric beater down from the attic. It was his gramma Yetta's. She used to run a popular luncheonette in Philly.

Note to Iris: I keep my utensils on my kitchen table so they're readily available. I keep half the utensils in a ceramic pot Lynne Henrion gave me when I lived in TX and the other in the Kremp Florist glass container you sent me after my kidney operation. It's to the right of the mixer.

So, you see, after the blue hydrangeas went into the compost heap, I still have the glass cube to remind me of your gift that keeps on giving.

Time to leave for the Upper Moreland Library where they're showing a DVD of Life was a Lark at Willow Grove Park.

The room was packed - standing room only. Scott n I got there just in time. I snapped away, very annoying, I know. My camera started to fail - I had to hit the button five times for every pic I took.

Could my guilty conscience be traveling down to my fingers? The "jiggling atoms" so charmingly described by Nobelist Richard Feynman.

Jim Moran, children's librarian, introduces the film in his actor-like voice.

The 50-minute film, made in 1991, began with shots of the Willow Grove Park Mall as it looks today. Spectacular footage showed the park when it was completed in 1896 using archival postcards or original photos or films. You felt you were there.

Here's the Swan Ride that sailed in a 10-acre manmade lake on the park grounds. A fountain was in the center of the lake. It cost $100,000 back then.

The entire park was 100 acres along Easton Road. Funny, but when you tell outa-towners to come down Easton Road, like my cousin Lloyd when he was driving in from NYC, he thought it was Eastern Road. No wonder we're still waiting for him.

The park closed in 1976. It had undergone numerous transformations and at closing was called Six Gun Territory.

The many roller coasters - such as the Alps or Thunderbolt - were built by the Philadelphia Toboggan Coasters Co. which still exists in nearby Hatfield, PA.

Of course, growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, we had our own amusement park - Euclid Beach - with its coasters: Flying Turns, Thriller, American Derby. I passed out briefly on the Flying Turns. Who knows? Maybe an incubus entered my body.



These rhododendrons are my next-door neighbors. When I first moved in, I planted fuschia-colored rhodos but they died the first week. They grow naturally in PA forests.

Interesting, crisp fungus growing on a tree stump in the backyard. I mean, you touch it and it flakes off.

I have a rather large backyard and these iris grow in a bed I had Adam plant for me many years ago. Got lots of mail-order iris, via Linda Rooney, secretary of Norm Lamonsoff, when we all worked at the now-defunct-turned into an upscale housing development, Bristol-Bensalem Human Services.

When I first moved in, I scavenged for wildflowers, not realizing they are extremely hard to transplant, unlike kidneys. However, this "money plant" has made it thru the years, as did my daylilies I found at the side of the road.

These fabulous pink iris grow in Scott's sideyard.

I bought this iris at Wankel's Nursery when I worked at Bristol-Bensalem. Had no idea what color it would be but I liked the idea of surprising myself. All colors are beautiful. I don't have a favorite, do you? My former boyfriend, Dave Moyer, who fought in Vietnam, liked purple. Oh, the stories he told!

Got this lovely perennial at Pennypack Ecological Trust. Everything has a name, but I shore can't remember this.

BTW, last night I tricked myself. I sent query letters of my novel to two agents. Am waiting for rejection notices from Boulder CO and NYC.

What? I should be optimistic? Is that gonna affect the outcome? I don't believe it for a moment. There's no rhyme or reason to whether they'll like the book or not. Their perspective is Will it sell?

I needed reassurance.

Scott, I said, what did you think of my book?

It was great, he said. Somebody will want it.



AUDUBON'S GIRL

I once thought
only tall women in straw hats
and tanned shoulders
could tuck a copy of
the Audubon Field Guide of
Wildflowers of North America
under their arms and
use it with impunity.

But the urge for names came so strong
this spring
I sat in a borrowed hat
under the blazing sky
growing brown and freckled
then bought my own
lime green
leatherbound volume
O Audubon, I am yours!

On the kitchen table
I set up a lusty conference
of flowers plucked from
the deep woods.
They drooped half dead
white hooded blue tipped
fragrant pink-walled vessels
that became full again in
my ample vases,
pert as baby birds.

I counted petals
touched light and leaf
breathed color
felt the quick sting
of fragility
then
strummed and hummed
through Audubon
O give them all a name.