Loads of photos! Poem: Right Here in our Neighborhood, Better than the Circus - In honor of Stephen King I walk Around the Block

 Front windowsill.

 Click to enlarge photo of hummingbird on feeder.

Say goodbye to Helene's tea kettle. Bought a new one at Giant by Bradford.

This girl is very satisfied.

Will have a cuppa tea right now. Hold on while I fill it with water.

To the left is my new copper skillet. Shtuff don'd shtick to it.

 My top of the hostas which I brought to Second Home are still going strong. Today I brought more flowers. My friend Helene had a friend we called The Flower Lady.

 My tea is cooling. You don't wanna ruin your day by burning your tongue!

New lamp bought at Home Goods. Google it and surprise yourself by who owns Home Goods.

Told myself last year I'd never go there again.

Wisdom is saying it's okay to change your mind.

Scott asked me Why dyou call them poems? They're like little stories.


RIGHT HERE IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD
BETTER THAN THE CIRCUS

Slow down.
Park at Kremp's Florist.
Pack a picnic lunch
if you so desire.

Feast your eyes, with
or without binoculars
across the dust-filled
street.

A crane is reaching for the clouds.
It has no wheels, but treads like
an armoured tank.
It can go as high as
a 20-story building.

Will it tip over?
Nay, the back is weighted
down. The job of the day
is putting in the parking
garage. Pre-fabricated
panels make it easier.

Chorus: Oh, the men in orange
hard hats and glowing orange
vests. Oh, their Igloo containers
filled with water and Orange Crush
and Italian hoagies from Wawa

Crows - count em! - fly high
and squawk over the scene,
thinking Humans are so complicated!
We just use twigs, cigarette stubs, and innards
of seat cushions for our comfy nests.

Max, get your daddy to drive you over.
A sight like this you will never forget
I can just see you jumping up and down
and catapulting over and into the
swiveling crane, to help while the driver rests.

**

IN HONOR OF STEPHEN KING
I WALK AROUND THE BLOCK

He was on Fresh Air this morning
and I listened to every word.
He loved to be frightened
even as a young man

Like a story from Mr King, the famous writer
was walking along the road near
his home in Maine.

A man in a van was struggling
with his Rottweiler who'd
jumped in the front seat.

King's candle almost went out
but the fates of horror kept him
alive to write many more books.

Out of the house I went
longing for fresh air. I took
the long way, my arms swinging,
neck swiveling to catch what's
new in the neighborhood.

Fast-moving cars made me
feel vulnerable. Walking
is positively dangerous
around here.

Disgusting! People throw things
in the street like in the
days of Oliver Twist.

My eye lit on a smoked Tiparillo
And then, M. Proust, I remembered.

When I worked as a therapist
I'd come home and stop for
refreshment at the Wawa.

Outside in a wheelchair was
a little man in a little
wheelchair, smoking a
Tiparillo.

I always said Hello,
but could think of
nothing more to say.
Where are you now,
Little Man?

Dinner with the Demings - Poem: Let's Play Go Fish - Egg Rolls - Watching Mr Rogers

Went to Dan n Nicole's. Wrote a poem about it.

LET'S PLAY GO FISH

After a dinner of Chicken and Rice
and Strawberry Ice Cream with
Chocolate Sauce for this
recalcitrant diabetic

We sat on the carpeted floor
of the den. Max insisted we play
the new form of Go Fish, the old
one was too boring.

If a kid gets bored, there's hell
to pay. Each card had a picture
on the other side: butterfly, clown,
vehicles. Oh, I wish you could have
heard the way 6-year-old Max pro-
nounced vehicle.

As carefully as if he were singing
in the choir at Mount Carmel Church.

Cards were spread out on the floor
pictures as beautiful as tattoos. Max, I would
ask, do you have a fire engine?

Or, Daddy, do you have a helicopter?

Mommy and Grace cheered us on from the sidelines.

Something grabbed me about Max's face. Not his
fancy pajamas or laughter during our watching
of Train Crossings on YouTube. (The Greyhound
Bus and FedEx truck slid off to the side -
hilarious!)

A face at once young, at once ancient, at once
knowing, pensive, beautiful.

A face for all ages and epochs. A face
from The Odyssey or The Iliad.

***

Just got home from Scott's. He chose a great film to watch on Netflix called DECEIVED.

He slept thru most of it, but I only slept thru half.

At one point, I woke up with a loud scream.

Something in the film frightened me. Goldie Hahn starred in this 1991 film.

After I publish this blog, I'll read about what it was about. I think Roger Ebert was alive when he reviewed it. WE LOVE ROGER EBERT and Chaz too.

***
Nicole lent me the book SHARP OBJECTS. She directed Grace upstairs to find it.

I also brought over old pix of Dan and Sarah when they were little. Our last dog Triscuit was also in there. The story of Triscuit was published in Creative Nonfiction, 1998, I believe.

***
Thought I could make the Leeway Foundation deadline but I could not bc I needed info from one other person. Robin Franklin at the Giant.

Perhaps next year when we're in the Promised Land.

***
Gotta recreate a poem about my buddy Ray at Second Home. Now, if I type it on my downstairs computer it remains in single space. Not so with the upstairs. The damn thing refuses to single space.

Boooo!

Have I told you I'm reading THE WORLD AS IT IS, a Memoir of the White House Years, by Ben Rhodes. Three days overdue from the library. He's a brilliant writer and very candid.




Scott had surprised me by buying shrimp egg rolls from the Giant. Fresh! His belly's been bothering him, I told him to stop taking his supplements, and he was starving so he bought a total of 6 egg rolls from Helen.

Three were for me.

I ate all three while we watched movies.

***
Woke up this morning to Mr Rogers. What a treat! We visited a factory where they make fortune cookies.

"Here's my favorite part," said Mr. Rogers. It's when the machine inserted the fortune.

There was also a brief argument between King Friday and Mr Rogers. Feelings were hurt. Mr Rogers showed how to show compassion and and how to make up.

Leeway Foundation Calling - New insurance - Poem: On the Way Home from the Hatboro Post Office - Literary Yard publishes LORI IN LOVE

  Just watched the British Bake-off. They made pudding, my very favorite dessert. Paul Hollywood is really rough on the bakers, and Mary Berry isn't far behind.

Rode my stationery bike for arf an hour, with the fan on me.

My new insurance agent stopped over to have me sign the paperwork. "It's like buying a new car," said Dave. I'm gonna save a lot of money.



Nice-looking guy, full head of hair, who coaches his daughters' soccer games. He looked like the man across the street, Bob Masser, who I rarely see. I did tell Masser he got nice new windows. "It's about time," he said.




Umm, umm, umm.

In 1998, I won a Leeway Grant for $5,000. The Edna Andrade Emerging Artist Grant.

View it here.

In honor of Leeway's twenty-fifth anniversary, they wanted former recipients to submit items to their library.

I wrote them a letter on my New Directions stationery, which says, "Changing the lives of people with depression, bipolar disorder and their loved ones"  and enclosed our 2018 Compass.


Also put in a brochure, printed by

Ibrahim at Copies to Go

  a business card and my Guest Column, Yes, We Can Prevent Suicide.

I'd entered two other Art and Change Grants from Leeway but they dismissed them. Unfairly, I thought.

Shall I try it one more time?

Deadline is August 1.



Here's Edna Andrade. Edna Andrade (January 25, 1917 Portsmouth, Virginia - April 17, 2008 Philadelphia) was an American abstract artist. She was an early Op Artist.

She lived until she was ninety-one years old. Good for you Edna!!!

ON THE WAY HOME FROM
THE HATBORO POST OFFICE

Windows flung wide open
the aromas of late July
penetrated my car, where
dead bees and wasps lay
in their crypts in the
area above the back seat.

The perfume of flowers
found and embraced me
Petunias which look like
tiny dancers,
Zinnias, messengers from
the Sun,
and Pine Needles,
where the deer bed down
in our back yard.

What smells so good,
I wondered as I walked
in the house.

Oh, it's the aroma of
my new insurance agent
mixed in with the noodle
soup I never tire of making
in the once-lonesome
crock pot.

***

Now the Hummingbird Feeder out front has been visited frequently by Scherazade.



Her name, btw, is very difficult to spell.

She goes to the feeder when birds are in the bird bath and doesn't mind at all. She's also visited Scott's feeder many times.

Scott said he saw her sticking her long beak into the flowers of the hosta plant.



We've created a perfect environment for her.

When it was nearly dark outside, I brought a spray can of Black Paint outside and painted my iron railing. When your agent comes over, you view your house anew.

***
As my faithful readers will remember - O Come All Ye Faithful! - my car was in the shop as I needed a new starter.

I thought it made a strange sound, but Scott turned it on and said it was fine.

***

Is it possible for me to start my new short story now?  I thought of it when I drove down Chelsea Avenue in Fulmor Heights. See photo below which is on Wiki, for pete's sakes.

***

Went on YouTube and listened to a story by Edna Ferber, who wrote Giant. The story was called The Homely Heroine.

Let's give it up for Edna Ferber!

 

Read about her here.

She was very popular in her day and won many awards including the Pulitzer.



Click here to read LORI IN LOVE in Literary Yard.

See, I'd originally published David in Love on Haggard and Halloo which is out of business. It's a great story. But where is it? Can't get to it.

Should I go outside and look at my newly painted railing? Dyou suppose any bugs are stuck to it?