Trail mix... broken up pretzels and peanuts.
Just finished my bean soup I brought to B's.
Our Writers Group is also a support group. We all show compassionate concern for everyone.
Donna and Bob are siblings. Just the two of them.
Each have major family problems that may never get resolved.
ANDREA was a thoughtful honest prose piece about his daughter, a nurse at Jefferson Hospital. He reminisced about things they did when she was a child and a teenager, such as shopping at the Willow Grove Mall. He didn't have much money, but would buy her things when he could.
He and his friend Joe, who he's written about many a time, took her to Hershey Park.
He surprised us in the piece by telling us she refuses to see him.... her father!
She has never forgiven him - and perhaps never will - for not spending more time with his wife and her mother - when she was dying of cancer.
We all said we did the best we could.
Me and Marf said we were bipolar moms - I would say outrageous things to my kids when I was manic - things I wish I could take back.
Well, Sarah's forgiven me since she gave me her kidney five years ago. I do everything I can to tell people with bipolar not to take lithium, which killed my kidneys. On the drive home from B's, Judy and I passed a dialysis center. Judy had two friends on dialysis, she said, who both died.
Lithium!
Carly said she watched the evangelist Joel Osteen on TV. He said the words you use about yourself are very important to everyone you meet, esp your family members. Don't call yourself names!
The Power of I Am is an interview he did.
His church in Houston is the largest Protestant church in the world.
Wonder if there's a scandal around him? Go online yourself to find out.
Donna's poem had its usual beautiful images of the happy holiday and then switched to all the horrible things going on in the world.
The terrorism and how people lose their beloved family members and innocent children.
Where is God then, she asked rhetorically.
The eternal question as debated in the Book of Job.
I have no problem with God's whereabouts!
He ain't there! He doesn't exist.
Earlier in our writers group, maybe a couple of years ago, Carly tasked us with the job of writing 50 good things about ourselves.
Carly, night manager with husband Charlie, at Gloria Dei Farms,wrote a letter to the residents YA WANT MORE OUT OF THIS HOLIDAY SEASON?
She had fab suggestions...
Sing - listen to music - turn on your radio
Do something for someone else - your soul will feast on it - and your tummy will not gain a contentious pound
Surprise someone
It was lovely!!! She also gave her thoughtful comments. When we were leaving she said to Rem, You're a great writer.
He demurred.
Martha read the amusing and spiritual A QUIET HOUSE AT CHRISTMAS.
Marf, you don't mind, do you, if I print the whole thing here, since you posted it on FB
I added grafs to make it easier to read.
A QUIET HOUSE AT CHRISTMAS
Silent Night, Holy Night
the Christmas music box plays.
Awakened from my sleep by
troubled dreams
I slip from my bed,
leaving my partner snoring
in his cocoon of warm blankets.
I turn on the keurig and
make a cup of hot chocolate and
wander into the living room
hoping to catch some rest
before dawn arrives and I'm
once again propelled into the maelstrom.
I plug in the Christmas tree with its
colored lights and the
tipsy angel who leans perilously
from the top branches, light the string of twinklers
across the nativity scene,
site of odd characters all come to
worship my version of the Baby,
while his parents watch dramatically
among the sheep and donkeys.
Settling on my favorite recliner
I sip from my favorite mug
and relax into the
time honored traditions of my childhood.
Then,
a fragrance -
my mother's lilac scent.
It often comes to me in
times of trouble.
She's here, I know
with her calming spirit
and reassuring faith in God.
It's the fragrance of her prayers
that linger in this room,
prayers left over from forty years ago,
when trouble would wake her and she would
make herself a cup of tea,
settle into her comfy chair
and pray for those she loved,
me especially,
her wayward child.
I feel embraced here
in the breathless moments
before dawn's dark shades
turn to gray and then to pink.
My eyes drift shut,
comforted by m mother's prayers
that have followed me
***
When B was married for three years to her 'bad husband' Lorraine was the only good thing that came out of the marriage.
B's first marriage to Jim Peters was a great one. He wanted her, he said, b/c you're the tallest woman in Argentina. Later when they came to America, he saw she wasn't so tall after all.
In my new short story, which I read - All American Girl - Irina is six-foot two. Me, I'm 4 eleven and a half.
Lorraine, who's 86, read a joyful letter to her friend Doris.
She hates using the computer.
In 2013, I got rid of my IBM Selectric, the one with the ball.
Lorraine doesn't want a typewriter. She said she'll get another word processor.
ENCOUNTER WITH THE EMPEROR, her fanciful poem, took place on the planet Nexus where "you pulled down the gluten-free pasta."
At first "he" didn't like the narrator but "I noticed a change in your face."
They ended on better terms.
Linda, where'd get the idea for the poem.
"I dreamed it," she said.
KYM read a stunning short poem called CREEPING.
Two unidentified objects had made their way - separately - into her body.
She has cancer.
What were they?
The Universal O.
Blood type "O" which can go into any body. She's O negative but believe me, is the most positive person you've ever met.
She's changed her diet somewhat but no one can take her chocolate away from her.
They were goooooood!
FACES was about a 16-yo kid, not necessarily Rem, who saw 'arrayed against him toothy smiles.'
Quickly he skipped ahead many years and was wandering corridors around and around. We knew where that was.
Asylum!
The doctor came in and asked him Why did you punch your father in the mouth?
That's how it ended.
Good! Leave us thinking.
Now, I've gotta run upstairs and email my poem downstairs to my living room laptop.
Before I print my poem, lemme give you the good news about Beatriz.
Her oncologist received news about a new drug to treat her cancer - myeloma (bone cancer).
It's made in Horsham, PA, by Johnson and Johnson. Folks in the research study were doing so well, the drug was approved four months early.
Side effects were tolerable - that's always the worst part of new drugs.
So, last Thursday, B's stepson Jeff Peters (an actor, scriptwriter, director) flew out from his home in LA - for Xmas - and drove her to the hospital where she stayed from 9 am to 4 pm.
The porthole on her arm was infused with the new drug, called Darzalex, a monoclonal antibody.
First side effect was her face ballooned up.
They gave her Benedryl as an antidote.
That was it. And she was okay by the end of the first treatment.
AND Beatriz has more energy.
Her next treatment is next Wednesday.
Wouldn't that be great if it works!
Never give up hope.
*
Read about Mississippi Grind here.
FRIDAY AFTERNOON
MOVIE
“Would
you mind being quiet?” I asked the couple
in
front of me. He was fat and helped himself
to
cheese and crackers – twice – provided by
by
the library. He kept touching the woman next
to
him. The poor thing kept moving her chair.
Five
times she did this. Upsetting the balance
of
power like the countries in the Middle East.
Each
time she moved, I moved too, so I
could
view
the full screen where Mississippi
Grind
about
gamblers played to a full and impassioned
audience.
As
always, I wondered how I and the others
could
get so involved in the problems of
pretend
people, fairy-tale people. Were we
children?
Were we innocents reading books
on
Mommy’s lap?
Look
at me! Wringing my hands, slumping
in
my seat, the way Curtis learned to “read”
people
on his constantly playing audio tape.
The
movie was as suspenseful as The
Emperor
Concerto with its soaring crescendos.
And
me running my fingers through my
thinning
gloriously pearl-white hair as
I
learned who I was, nearing the age of
seventy
- say it slowly – at the Friday
Afternoon
movie at the library.
Ben Mendelsohn.
Writes Martha about Joel Osteen:
ReplyDeleteThere's always bad news around celebrity preachers. Some christian fundamentalists loath him as he doesn't preach theology. More into bringing the love of God to us and letting God sort out who's right or wrong. I have all his books.