Like any person with diabetes lusting after the perfect pretzel, I found these on the Web and then on the shelves of the Giant.
"Anyone want a pretzel?" I asked the writing group.
A few people enjoyed them and so did I.
I had two measly pretzels. When I got home my sugar was an outrageous 181. Hey my Hatboro PO Box No is 181. Please mail checks made out to Ruth Deming to Box 181, Hatboro PA 19040. Thanks in advance.
Excellent work presented today. We reviewed poetry and three short stories.
It is fan-tas-tic. I hate eating alone, but YOU, Dear Readers, are keeping me company.
Almost there, Linda, almost there.
"Should I submit it to Ellery Queen mystery magazine?"
"Sure," I said. "When it's ready."
There's no person named Ellery Queen. Who was Queen? Only The Internet knows.
Other lines were "Job would hurry to the door." And the great finale which he read with great speed is "Lord, it's happening, my arms and hands hurt and my fingers are Stiffffening!"
He uses the software program Dragon. When he asks for a new paragraph, it prints the words "New Paragraph."
When I drove Allan home to the Moreland Towers - landscaped beautifully - I heard him say Hi to Brian, not his real name.
"Does he have schizophrenia?" I asked.
"Yes," said Allan.
"I think I know him," I said.
I parked and went over to Brian. Asked if he used to play volleyball at Masons' Mill Park. He did not. He used to live with his folks on Wheatsheaf Lane, he told me. He also has a job, I believe at a bowling alley.
Allan's autistic brother does very well. It's b/c the family is so smart. He walked into a restaurant and asked if they needed a dishwasher. He's been working at the place for 30 years. He's also married.
She wrote a beautiful poem about her brother Bob. She hadn't seen Bob for many years. But when her dtr Mariel died, they re-entered one another's lives.
Donna was very honest in her poem when talking about her late manic-depressive mother. She would get very angry with her mom, while Brother Bob was able to comfort her. Donna ended up with the disorder herself, as did I.
When her mom was ill - manic or depressed - the children would be shuffled off to stay with various relatives.
The group learned that Debbie is part-Russian. The moment I heard this I thought about a paragraf in my short story "On a Good Day I Remember My Name." The main character, who lives in a nursing home, hypothesizes that Valentina, the blond Russian aide, stole her alpaca sweater.
Deb's great grandparents stole out of Russia. Altho not Jewish, they wanted to express their religion, and had buried their Christian cross in the back yard. If you're following the news, Putin had a Catholic church dismantled as it was too close to a major highway. He prefers Buddhists to Christians.
Jews he loves.
Off to Siberia witcha.
The Jarrettown Hotel. I ate there once and have never forgotten it. Scallops on forbidden rice.
B/c it was a surprise party, Carly had to go thru a lot of machinations to get her husband there. "I should have won an Oscar for lying," she said.
His brother Larry flew in to be there.
Charlie was indeed surprised.
She read us the beautiful poem she wrote for her man, To My Husband.
Excerpts:
No, you aren't just my love,
Not merely my soulmate.....
But you are the dreams of my younger years
My rock for the ages
Without you in it
There would be no life.
*
How many people can say that about their husbands? That's why we have divorce!
Carly has two children - Eric and Jason - and one darling grandson, Cooper.
My first cousin is Cooper Begis who lives in TX. He's 43, according to the Internet, and I haven't seen him in 42 years.
Carly's son Eric can't seem to meet a girl. Hence, her terrific poem:
How to Lose a Girl in Ten Seconds
Tips include "Talk about yourself the whole time" and "Never ask her any questions about herself."
The people across the street from are the same way. Their daughter just got married. I pump them for info about themselves and they have NEVER asked me a thing about myself.
I made a donation to The MMRF which has come up with four new drugs to treat this form of cancer. Beatriz's prognosis is quite good.
Beatriz picked up the tab on our drinks. I had my usual "hot cinnamon spice tea." Its strong flavor lingers.
RHODOS
Tried
to grow them when I first moved in
the
magenta ones
sticky
to the touch
but
like a child destined to die
they
soon wagged their pretty heads
folded
over and wept to the earth.
But
what’s this sitting on my desk?
What’s
this sticky magenta flower
far
from its home?
Tiny
purple tendrils
like
proud soldiers
arch
toward the ceiling
they
seem content
in
their new home
far
from the buzz of bees
and
the breezes of late May.
Patience,
they say.
Patience
and faithfulness.
Trust
yourself and the
seedling
you once were
after
sliding home.
Definition of Sibilant - making or having a sound like the letters s or sh.
MANUEL FAR FROM HOME
The
expensive people on the street
would
hire Bill Johnston
His
truck would swagger by
loaded
down with
devil-may-care
mulch
and
loamy wormy dirt
this girl could never afford.
When
I called
the
secretary said
he’d
call me back.
Instead,
Bill came out
in
one of those big cars
I
think are called SUVs
be
precise, and call it
like
it’s spelt
suv,
with a nice
sibilant
S
like
in some of my favorite things
sleeping,
sleeping with
sleeping with
soaking
in a Jacuzzi down
at
the shore
and
imagining drinking
a
delicious sibilant soda
how
about a root beer float
back
at Rexall’s drug store
in
Cleveland?
“Tastes
so good at the back
of
your throat,” my sibilant
boyfriend
Scott would say
“I
got these terrible weeds,”
I
told Bill Johnston. In his
swept-back
gray hair
he
looked like a country
western
star,
but
I never did hear the
stations
he played on
his
SUV
Picking
up a tuft of
foul-smelling
weeds
that
are actually fleurs,
I
shoved them in his face.
Get
rid of em, I said.
Use
poison, if you want,
I
hate them so.
Naturally
I thought of
the
lethal injections
in
Texas that
had the
banditos
twisting with pain.
But
weeds aren’t sentient
beings,
I thought. Best not
to
discuss this with Bill Johnston.
Want
to maintain his respect, for
this
“rich woman” on Cowbell Road.
He
told me he’s sending out his best man,
Manuel,
who backs his truck carefully
into
my slightly cracking driveway.
Who
has money to pave it?
Tiptoeing
from the house lest I
scare
him – who knows what travails
he
had coming up from Meh-hi-co? –
I
watch his lined face, yes, he has
seen
hardship,
he lifts
a wide shovel
and
exposes the dainty
white
roots of the evil weed.
Weeds,
Bill Johnston has reminded
me,
are anything you don’t want.
Good!
I say, nodding my head,
speaking
not a word of Spanish.
Good.
Good.
A
black tarp is spread across
my
drive and in go the weeds,
the
lava rocks my last gardener
put
in, and the maple tree that
was
growing there.
“Weed!”
Manuel had pronounced it
in
English.
Fragrant
black mulch
which
smells like licorice
has
been shoveled over
the
bed, which now contains
a
tall green plant that in Fall
will
attract monarch butterflies
that
like Manuel are migrants
I
tell Bill Johnston the check
will
be in my mailbox.
Far
more than I can afford.
But,
upon occasion, it’s fine
to
be a rich woman.
Ants.
I have had an ant colony in the same place for 25 years.
Am gonna go and check on them now. It's fun to watch their purposeful lives.
L'chaim we said touching glasses many times. Donna is expecting her first great grandchild.
Here he is, Chuck Carr, retired postmaster at the Bryn Athyn Post Office, 19009.
