First snowfall - Driving Rosemary / Poem: Meeting Bernice at the Dunkin Donuts

Depending on where you live, you either got snow or you got rain.

My poor daisies were smooshed. My colorful pansies were covered up.

Not surprisingly, the pink Buddha took it in stride.

Driving the backstreets to Rosemary's in Abington was difficult. I tried to avoid Overlook Road where years ago I crashed into a schoolbus, but I found myself on Overlook just the same.

There was the house with the persimmon trees in front.

I drove slow, changing gears from first to second, only sliding once a little tiny bit.

"Am I on time?" I asked Rosemary.

"You're early, Ruth!"

By now, we were out of danger. The snow had turned to rain.

Rosemary, a beautiful woman, had become a blond, at the suggestion of her hair stylist. She looks terrific! And of course younger, though she's probly only 50.

We pulled up to her hair salon, a spectacular place in the Fox Chase section of Philadelphia.

She told me that the owner of this most successful salon, which he runs with his wife, has dementia, and he's only in his sixties.

Heartbreaking, we exclaimed.

I spent the next two hours waiting for her down the street at the Dunkin Donuts.



Alternated between two great books:



Scott gave me this one. A fellow worker at SEPTA retired and left all his books in his locker. No one wanted them so Scott lugged them home, gradually. Many are hardbacks.

Can't wait till bedtime so I can get back to reading.

When do YOU do your reading?



This is about Hitler coming to power in 1933 and gradually amassing more power. On a blistering day in the summer of 1934, he had his enemies gunned down. One of his generals was shot in the back as was the general's wife.

Scott knows all about this. I like discussing it with him. He said the best book he read about the Nazis was The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by Wm Shirer.

He was about 19 when he read it and it was the first book he ever enjoyed reading. From then on, he's been a reader. But only on the train.

I have my Xmas lights up already.

And in case we forget what I look like, I took a foto.

I started using GEL in my hair.

MEETING BERNICE AT DUNKIN DONUTS

Told you I’d be back Amanda
ordering a toasted croissant
- it smelled like fake butter -
dunked it in my decaf
watching to see if it would
collapse

My beret still on from our first snowfall
collar turned up
Russians at the far table
old man sitting in the drafty seat
I gave up

Saw my mother enter the store
wipe her feet and smile at Amanda
So nice to see you again, she said,
fiddling in her pocketbook

I hoped she’d sit with me
but, no, she didn’t even glance my way
Bernice! Bernice! I wanted to call out loud
as she took her styrofoam cup reading “Joy!”
into the parking lot
while I thought of my own Bernice back home
tethered to her kitchen table
shuffling papers and trying to decide
what to throw away
letters from my father
old issues of the Cleveland Jewish News
she is ninety
nine-oh
but Foxhall said her heart is strong

Maybe tomorrow I’ll return
to Dunkin Donuts and insist
she eat with me.

For once, I'll pay.