Let's Party! Let's Celebrate the First Anniv of our Kidney Tplant / Poem: Purdue Chicken Livers

Latex gloves I wear for gardening. Thanks, Rich, for picking them up for me.

Sarah is a bundle of energy when she makes a party. Me, I went upstairs at 10 pm, and napped to the movie "Hoosiers," woke up after half an hour, and then exercycled to the late Dick Proenneke's life in the Alaskan wilderness.

At first I wondered, How can he stand being alone so much? But then I saw how he kept busy and was outdoors half the time looking at animals and guarding against bear. At nite, he would write in his journal.

Could you do dat? For 22 years?

Sarah and I drank loads of hot tea, water, made two trips to the Giant, two trips to Feeney's Nursery to buy:

"Mountain rocks 3/4" - found this foto on the web. We spread 12 bags across my lamppost garden and could use two more.

When we walked around the tremendously hilly block - my legs are still learning to walk after my back operation last year - I looked at all the rocks in people's gardens. Fortunately no one has rocks like mine.

We are a proud people and want to be individualistic, exemplified by Ai Weiwei's 100 million hand-painted Sunflower Seeds:

Hired Ginny Stiles and her two high school sons to spruce up my garden. They did a great job. My nephrologist, who I invited to the party - along w/ our police chief - told me to wear gloves when gardening so I wear the above. Reluctantly. Oh, dirt under my fingernails no more....OR no more kidney!

Hey! It's the first anniversary of our kidney transplants and we are celebrating in a big way.

One trip to the State Store! Wot's dat, you ask. In PA, liquor stores are owned by the state. Sarah picked out an assortment of wines and sparkling wines.

I took one teeny-tiny sip of a CA wine called Petit Sirah. Oh, Diabetes, how you kill my fun!

We started cooking around noon, each of us sleeping late.

Nitie-nite, Sarah. She didn't want me to read her Goodnight Moon or Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. I guess some things change when you're all growed up.

Sarah in her office on Cowbell Road.

One of my massive tasks before going to bed tonite is cleaning off this desk so we can turn it into a table for food. Maybe I'll wait till tomro.

Where will I put all these magazines? Why, under the table, Darling!

Here's my real darling, Sarah Lynn Darling Deming, giver of life to her ole mum.

Note Oster glass blender on table's edge. I bot it when she was a baby and we lived in TX. I made her baby food in it.

PURDUE CHICKEN LIVERS

Note: I gave up liquor, except for tiny sips, when I went on the drug lithium.

They are frying in the skillet
Even though in this ever diminishing household
I shall be dining alone tonight.
Never let it stop you, said my grandmother,
Who simmered her fatty marrow bones
Till the pot frothed over, then ate them
On the upstairs porch.

As the chicken livers darken toward completion
I catch a whiff of wine.
How can it be? There is none. A racial memory perhaps?

Perfection would be to pour it on - an inexpensive Paul Masson
would be lovely - straight from the bottle into the pan
Sizzling and smoking and creating a great sensation.

Is it possible that ten long years have passed
Since my drinking days came to an end?
Ten years in which I have not set foot in a
Modern serve-yourself package store, save to salvage cartons?

Never since that day
to buy
nor sniff
nor sip
nor swirl
nor heft in the crook of my arm
a bottle!