My war vets article published - The Sad Tale of Yogurt - Joni Mitchell and me - Farewell Leather Pocketbook

Here's my story on two veterans from the Afghan and Iraq wars. Be sure to read the captions on the 12 photos I took.

I've had good editors and terrible editors in my 33 years of article-writing.

The Veteran's article was untouched by human hands, other than my own.



I'm a hands-on kinda gal. For years I made my own bread, until insulin-dependent diabetes - due to my antirejection meds, Prograf and Prednisone - deprived me of eating all the delicious carbs that are in bread.

I do make my own yogurt.

One heaping tablespoon of plain yogurt to a quart of milk.

Thother day, I put the milk in the top of this double boiler I fashioned

Since I had it on lo heat, I went outside to visit Scott who was setting up our new and expanded veggie garden

He hammered in four sturdy posts and attached chicken wire all around it. He got the idea for the fencing from Dan's former neighbor, Ed.

Scott is opening a gate that latches snugly with an S-hook.

Then I went over to neighbor Pat's to read him his birfday poem.

Across the street Nancy was outside picking up huge sticks in her yard. I talked to her a bit. We discussed the sorry state of our neighbor Bill, who is dying of necrosis of the liver.

I hadn't forgotten my yogurt but started walking very quickly back home.

What would I find?

A very strange sight.

The white plastic pot above had overflowed into the water below. I couldn't figure out what that meant.

Apparently, the water from below had slowly seeped into the white plastic container.

Fearing the worst, I tried to make the yogurt anyway.

Lo and behold it worked, tho it's half yogurt and half water!

When I woke up this morning, Joni Mitchell was singing "I Could Drink a Case of You" and the birds were twittering.

I turned toward the radio and listened to her beautiful pure voice when she was much younger.

It was 5:30 in the morning. In my sleep I'd been working on a two-page single-spaced story I thought was pretty good.

My childhood friend Nancy Wolen was checking it over in a high school classroom somewhere.

When I woke up, I discovered to my disapptment, that I'd never written the piece at all. There was a theme to it - some mags want a 'themed piece' - my piece was about sounds.

I came downstairs and looked up Joni on YouTube, while I was disentangling myself from the dream.

Tired ot looking at mhy old pocketbook, I decided to clean it out and give it to Impact Thrift on my way to Bux-Mont Stationers to buy new blue Hello Name Badges for tonite's meeting.

I pocketed a $20 bill I found, plus lotsa change, and lotsa good napkins to put in my glove box. There were also some nice hankies in there I put in the washing machine, including one from a lovely outfit I used to wear when I was fat and on lithium.

"Mom, you were never fat," I remembered Dan saying years ago.

When I went to pay Bev for the name badges, I handed her the twenty plus all the change in my pockets.... the total for the badges was $11.79.

I poured out exactly 79 cents from my pocket.

She was incredulous - I told her the story - and I said, Maybe there is a Higher Power.