Shark vacuum - asparagus salad - Fred Garber / Poem: For Walt

 Asparagus salad is made the same way as potato salad, but with lo carb count. Seasoning was mustard and mayo. Also chopped up pickles for extra zing.

 Cleaned off my winter-weary living room window sill. Eschewing fleurs, which die and make a mess - altho the forsythia were a lovely mess - I put strips of last week's New Yorker mag in the lovely vase I bot from an estate sale.

 Fothergilla, a beautiful early-blooming shrub I bot at Meadowbrook Farm.

Ah, the lilac blooming in the back yard. A sprig will definitely make its way into the house. An aroma beyond compare. Walt knew that smell too.

Hied over to Kohl's Department Store in Warminster to buy a new Shark vac. My old one broke in half for no reason at all.

For some reason, they give you a new one when your old one breaks.

The only bad thing about getting a new vac is that now I'm forced to vacuum all 23 rooms of my mansion. The dirtiest place is right here in the living room, where I take all my meals. In fact, I just dropped a sunflower seed in my laptop keys xywe ye siwba;r aawwb ri affect the typing at all!

While at Kohl's, I met Fred Garber, from the days when our morning meeting met at the Willow Grove mall. He goes there every day of the week at 8:30 a.m., talks with his friends, and walks around the mall for exercise.


Fred is on the right. Post about the mall is here.

Will send this to Helen, leader of our daytime meeting, to see if she remembers Fred.

He was waiting for his wife, Nita (short for Juanita) at Kohl's. I did meet her for the first time. She's from Louisiana, tho I couldn't detect an accent.

When I mentioned our meeting is for folks w/ depression and bipolar, Nita said, "You don't have bipolar do you?"

I told them the story, that mine went away, they said the usual, oh, it's not sposed to go away, and then they said they have a friend in Allentown who's got it, she's a mom and grandmother, and does not do well at all.

She could use Helen's group!


Terrific spy action thriller I watched today at Naptime. Scott slept thru the whole thing but I was wide awake, heart beating with the suspense. Originally wrin with a male in the lead role, director Boyce wanted to change it to a female, so he got Angie on board. Wonderful cast.

And now, I've gotta think of my next brilliant move.

FOR WALT

O bearded man from across the Delaware
a godlike man who roamed the earth
after the gods went home and left us
in chaos as big as the Civil War and all
the other butcheries that followed

How kind you were to the fallen soldiers
holding them in your arms as they sank
into the cold reaches of death
never to see their mothers
who dreaded this day
or another lilac blooming
in the door yard with the
hope of spring

Did I plant my lilac because
of you?
Because I held that book of yours
in my arms when I was seventeen
and lonely
lonely, wanting confirmation that
I was somebody, a girl no one
understood

Half century has passed
Am I understood?
I spose so. You and I
what a pair.
I’ll have you over for tea
or spirits. Whatever you prefer.
We’ll sit on the back porch
as the lilac rises from its wintry nap
we’ll inhale the blooms
and each other.