How I Celebrated Compass Fini - It's important to reward yourself for a job well done

Mark Amos of Bux-Mont Stationers, Hatboro, PA.

I emailed the 48-page Compass to Boggs Printing in Hatboro to be formatted and designed. Then I drove over, stopping first at the printer's.

"My two favorite people in the world," I said, walking in. Mark and assistant Bev of the great personality were in the main room. I had emailed Mark the two pix that would appear on the front and back cover.

He printed out the one I'm calling "Autumn comes to Willow Lake." It's a privately owned lake near a doctor's office. I was surprised my sister Donna knew where it was.

Then I drove down to Boggs and said hello to Bunny and Renee, who will do the actual design. That woman knows exactly what she's doing. She said the swan photo was terrific, which made me feel good. Since I'm the photographer, I can't appreciate it objectively.

After my Hatboro visit, I wanted to celebrate.

A perfect opportunity for me and sister Donna to get together. I figured I'd reward myself by shopping with the no. one great shopper of all time.

I told Donna I wanted to get a small radio to put on my nightstand.

"We'll go to Walmart," she said. "They have lots of cheap radios."

"I don't want a cheap one," I said. "Not a $500 Bose, but there must be something similar, but cheaper."

"Sam's Club," she said.

If you must know, shopping is my most dreaded task. I'd rather have surgery any day than shop. But with Donna at my side, perhaps it might be fun.

Well, not exactly.

Once she gets into a store, she can't drag herself out.

We got me a Sony radio and CD player - with an alarm clock yet! - and many other winter essentials, like boots, which are the single hardest worst thing for me to find.

This is an expensive pair of

but super-cheap at Sam's.

Here's my new bedroom radio. The sound is terrific. In the morning, before I go to work, I lie in bed, listen to the radio and READ!

Finally finished Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, a difficult book to get thru b/c of the way the characters treated each other. On page 314, I couldn't stand it anymore, so I skipped 150 pages to the end, and then kept reading backwards until I found out what happened to everyone: Patty and Walter, Jessica, Joey and Connie, Richard Katz the womanizer, and poor Lalitha.

Some winter clothes I bought. On the left are pajamas, on the top right is a warm CuddlDud. Readers! This is not my world. Confession: I am not a shopper. I do not know brand names, except for Majestic Specialties, where my dad worked a million years ago. It's defunct, kaput.

Donna and I were trying to think of the name Jones of New York. All I could think of was Jones. Our Uncle Don worked there. Donna said the full name would come to her. I'd bought a real Jones of New York at Steinmart, the worst store I've ever been in, and the Eddie Bauer shirt above - camouflaged on the rug - was equally cheap and delicious.

The real reason I wanted it is b/c it reminds me of the shirt poet Chris Bursk wore when I met him and he validated me as a poet.

Who will validate me now? Well, my daughter Sarah did last nite when I emailed her the revision of my poem "Nameless Boy" for my poetry contribution to the Compass.

What time is it? Oh, 9:17 already. Gotta finish up fast since I've got another assignment, a paid one, to work on tonite. Should I drink a little coffee? Possibly. Decaf, of course.

Sister Donna leaving for home.

I looked through the last issue of the Compass. This issue is much better.

My fever broke today around noon. I stopped at County Line Pharmacy and brought in my two digital thermometers. Couldn't figure out how they work. I put one of em under my tongue and Linda said, "I can see it's working. The numbers are rising." My temperature was 98.6.