Where were you when the 5.8 magnitude Earthquake quaked? / Poem: Stormy

The Rebels were storming the Gaddafi compound.

Dan called and told me about it. He and his colleagues in Huntingdon Valley, PA, felt it around 1:50 pm. Five seconds of a shaking floor.

I sent a tip to Patch.com, the paper I write for.

Sarah was in her living room in Brooklyn. "It was really scary," she emailed me.

She and husband Ethan have huge floor-to-ceiling book-cases in the living room.

"I was scared they'd topple over," she wrote.

Well, I didn't feel nuffin. Read about it on the Times.

Actually boyfriend Scott, who lives next door, felt it. He was lying in bed catching up on his sleep since he works graveyard at SEPTA, and his bed began to shake and the metal clasps on his dresser began to jingle.

When he came downstairs, he saw my visitor Joan at my birdbath. She was giving Kalie, the miniature husky who lives across the street, a drink from the birdbath!

Joan, a visitor from Florida, was locked out of the house. She came over until Nancy came home to unlock the door.

They stayed outside while I was on major phone duty for my support group, helping one lovely woman in particular with her son.

She said our talk was very helpful. Her husband, who's a very successful businessman, and she are flying to the republic of Singapore next week.

Why?

Because he can't find any work in America, thank you very much, don't be bitter, Hillary-lover, Republican-hater, don't be bitter.

I AM BITTER. Fortunately we don't have riots here anymore like in Europe. Not yet.

So I help make Joan comfortable on my new benches outside. Bring her a glass of ice water and a bowl of water for the dog.

She pours her ice into the dog's bowl. Kalie loves chewing it.

I'm also making potato salad inside and fielding phone calls.

Every time I go inside I do a lil something more to the potato salad, stirring in the mayo-mustard-garlic dressing along w/the fresh-picked basil growing on my porch.

Finally assembled, I take a huge bite. Delicious!

Rob, if you like potato salad, I'll make you some next time you come over with your fob. Yes, he has the same 'key ring' as the Mini-Coop we talked about earlier. (This is one long book I'm writing on here.)

Pas vraiment. Every time I post something, they ask me if I wanna make a book of it.

Google Blogger: I will write my own book in my own time.

Funny you should mention this. Just signed up today for a Non-Fiction Writing Class at Temple University's Fort Washington campus. Teacher is Richard Bank. I wrote and asked him if I could work on my kidney book with him.

Yes, he said. The project is viable and salable.

The woman Joan who was locked out across the street has lived in Florida for 53 years and has a PT job at DisneyWorld.

Boy, you have a good memory, she said.

And, I said, you had a German Shepherd named Stormy. She was flabbergasted.

I had written a poem about her. I spent 25 minutes going thru many of my poetry files. They are in every room of the house except the kitchen. Totally unorganized. Is it worth it to get them in order? They're probly unpublishable, unless I sneak them into the kidney book.

STORMY

It mattered not
where we lived
so long as we had each other,
and settled in hurricane country
traveling the narrow corridors
of our purring
Winnebago.

How we enjoyed
sitting outside with our coffee
invincible
till the hurricane brought down
the awnings one year.

No matter.
We gazed at each other grow wrinkles
just the touch of his hand
as if all those years never passed and
he'd never die

like he did one morning
over a bowl of cornflakes
face went blue
body heaved forward
no longer a man
an oak uprooted.

Have you ever smelled the perfume of
the harbor and the oranges drifting
your way?

I couldn't smell it anymore.
Friends kept me going.
I pushed myself out of
that bed where he
put his arm around me and said
You look prettier this morning
than the day we met.

As if he knew his demise was at hand
he brought me a puppy.
"Stormy" from the pound.
That dog rescued me.
Became my pal. Drove with me
everywhere, eyes watching mine.
Stormy led me out
of the lonesome new land:

the land without Edward.