Just watched the British Baking Show while I rode my bike for 25 minutes. They were making all sorts of breads, including flat breads.Liked the show on Facebook and left a comment.
First started making bread from Joy of Cooking when I first got married. Interesting I thought that was something I ought to do. Mike loved the bread. Of course we were divorced 5 yrs later.
My friend Lynne Henrion bought me the Tassajara Bread Book, which I still have, by Edward Espe Brown, a monk. I wrote him but the letter came back in the mail.
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Saw the film THE BIG SICK this morning at the Huntingdon Valley Library. Interminable. I'd give it a C+ or B-minus. Wanted terribly to watch it - glad I did - and knew if I didn't see it today, I'd never see it.
Just guessing that Roger Ebert, my most trusted film reviewer, liked it a lot.
Hold on.
They loved it. I'll read the review later.
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My hair smells delicious. Bought Revlon dye. The instructions were as big as fitting a needle through a camel's eye.
Trying to read em, I sat at the kitchen table. It was still light outside. Then got my red flashlight and painfully read the directions.
Oh, yes, those plastic gloves you must wear. They were affixed to the directions. You pour the bottle of auburn dye into a large white plastic bottle, after snipping off the top.
The top is somewhere in the kitchen. Doubt the mouse will be interested in it.
Decided to perform the operation in the downstairs stall shower. Bc it's small, it wouldn't get the dye all over. Sadly, tho, I couldn't calibrate the temperature so it was like I was burning at the stake.
Now that it's over my hair does smell delicious.
Am gonna look in the meer now. Am upstairs in the my study. Hold on.
Looks good! There's still bald patches that show thru.
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Ate at TNT in Hatboro, PA around noon. Spag and meatballs and tapioca for dessert. I love talking to the folks in there.
Tim used to be a roofer. I asked him what it was like, as my short story for tomro's Beehive may involve getting a new roof.
OMG, these unsalted nuts are really something! Truthfully, they haven't much flavor, but they're awfully fun to chew.
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Rem introduced me to the band Mission in Burma. Click to listen to em.
Here's their info.
Rem will burn me a copy, which he'll give me the morrow. It's punk rock, whatever the hell that is. The lead singer had to drop out on account of tinnitus.
You know what? I take 81 mg of baby aspirin per day and I don't have tinnitus. End of June I'm off the bruise-making Plavix.
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Thursday night, Garbage Day, I attended a Toastmasters Meeting at the Willow Grove Giant. I read about it in Patch.com.
Maryna and Vitaly, married couple from Bellaruse, gave me a warm welcome. Let's get the spelling right.
Belarus.
Beautiful place, said Maryna (pronounced Marina).
Last year she gave the opening speech at an IT conference in Brazil. They loved her.
I did a couple of talks at my first event. Really enjoyed it. Told Mom about it bc Daddy used to attend Toastmasters.
No he didn't. He took the Dale Carnegie course.
As a prize, they gave him a pen. Me, I'm a Bickster, but now I prefer the American Heritage Credit Union pen.
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So, after Toastmasters, I was in an unbelievably FANTASTIC mood. I mean, there's no explanation for this, is there?
C'mon, folks. Leave me a comment. What dyou think?
For sure, I did a superb job.
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Ready for the poems?
HEAT
94 says the weather forecast
Here's how I'll celebrate
the hazardous weather where
people always die of heat stroke
Home's no place to be.
Gulping down wawa from the
tap, I'll set off for my
favorite places, Wegman's Grocers,
where I'll order some Chinese
rice noodles, then hydrate with
wawa in a tall blue bottle
Off I go to the Upper Moreland
Library. "Hot enough out there?"
someone will say.
"Oh, I love the heat," I'll say,
wondering if it's true or if that's
just the contrarian in me.
Way into the back I'll go
plop myself on a soft padded chair
hold the book "Milk" by Mark Kurlansky
in front of me, close my eyes and sleep.
Silent screams of the separated families
resound through the room and all of the
rooms of America.
THE RAIN
Did you know the last of the five steps of grief is
acceptance? She was a homely woman that
Dr Elisabeth Kubler Ross. My friend Dotty
who I've lost touch with, was invited by
Ross to assist on her healing farm
in Virginia. I wouldn't have gone either,
Dotty. Death talk stiffens me.
Today when I got in the car, I wore
my wool coat and wool beret, made in
China, and all the little papers I keep
in the little pouch on the driver's side
were slapped hard by the rain. Stop it!
I yelled. I need to read the damn things.
They're directions. At my age, and I'm
still young, I can't remember places.
I drove to Hatboro to mail my income
tax returns. "You can't get wet,"
I whispered, or they might get
suspicious and audit me. I raced
indoors, holding the two envelopes
aloft, like a squealing baby. Plop, plop,
they went, one after the other,
down the chute, like the sliding
board at my grandkids' house.
The rain removed an enormous branch
from "my" tree, which fell onto the
neighbor's plot. The fellow mows his
lawn, with gusto and whistling, any
time he pleases. That's men for you.
So, I must-needs remove the damn branch
and the little branchlets that went
down with Mama, so I squatted in my
pink socks and Birkenstocks, and
carried them all to my backyard
and gave them a good horseshoe toss
into the weedy little forest
behind my house, always expecting
to see Hansel and Gretel with their
sweet little anguished faces.
Shall I build a house of twigs
and branches and straw from
grass clippings and live
there de temps de temps?
Tell me. I value your opinion.
***
RED TOENAILS
Jessica at my volunteer job
with the elderly marveled at
my red toenail polish.
I have only this morning
taken another look at them
as I lay in bed and held them
straight up toward the ceiling.
Magnificent's the only word
to describe them. Still, they're
hard to view, so I've hit
upon an idea.
Why not?
A toenail party.
Bring your toenails with.
I insist, though, you prepare
them well, whether polished
or not.
For the first time, many of you
will pay deserved attention to
the little fellers, and their
undersides known as the
soles of our feet.
Although attached to our bodies,
feet do have souls all their own.
Time at last to celebrate.
UNLIKE ME, MY GARDEN HAS A GREAT MEMORY
In my blue pimpled gardening gloves,
I sprinkled the expanse of our jardin
spread all over our land.
Delight was separating the new fig tree
from Creeping Charlie, with a snip of
my silver shears.
That creep had even invaded the blue hydrangea
my friend Barry had saved from smothering weeds.
Its one blossom, the size of a
popcorn ball, trumpets "I am here. I am here!"
Moving over to the azaleas - and I wear my favorite
shoes, which, like Michael Phelps, love to get wet -
the beanstalk has popped through again.
Oh, lovely, faithful beanstalk what shall I
do with you?
It should take me no more than a day. If you
don't hear from me, my will is in my passport drawer.
FEE-FIE-FOE-FUM.
I smell the blood
of an American woman.
But he don't know I've got
the silver shears in my hand.
THE MISS BISSELL BALLET
Steps going upstairs
steps going downstairs
living room round the debris
on the floor: envelopes, a
shirt or two, the Imelda pile
of shoes, near the Ikea desk
I bought at a rummage sale
down the street
In the upstairs hall
the red dragon rug
stolen from sister Donna
pressing with Miss Bissell
each and every fringe
just so
In my upstairs office
afloat with ideas pinging
off the yellow walls, birdsong
from outdoors, and a blue mug
from the inlaws from Disneyland
filled with surprises - Hello
staple remover, pens, scissors
and a tiny sign on the bottom
you will not believe:
Do not microwave.
Shall I try out for the Bolshoi?
For the Balanchine? Or Alvin Ailee?
Or shall I just stay home and dream.
CLICK ON Alvin Ailee above and we'll dance together.
Cha cha cha.
Ailey kept his life as a dancer a secret from his mother for the first two years.[5]
Ailey died on December 1, 1989 at the age of 58.[11] To spare his mother the social stigma of his death from HIV/AIDS, he asked his doctor to announce that he had died of terminal blood dyscrasia.
Okay, in the new tradition of ending my blog posts with inspiration....
DO IT NOW or YOU'LL NEVER DO IT.
Okay, I'm gonna go downstairs, open the front door, step outside and feel the rain.
John P Creveling and his wife Christina Robertson.
