My Scottie got me back on my blog. As you know I've got some sort of virus - achoo! - on my despised HP Laptop.
Yesterday I was organizing my papers and found when I bought it - 4/23/18. Whew! I remembered the date until I got back in my seat.
Speaking of memory I invited University of PA to send out a memory expert. I'd asked Dr Foxhall for a recommendation.
They wanted money for a drive down here. No way. I suggested if they wanted to - they have many interns - they might write a story about memory for our 2019 Compass.
Never heard from them again.
Maybe I should invite Depak Chopra and his sidekick Dr Rudy Tanzi.
Read this fascinating interview about Depak in the HBR.
Am working on the Compass now. Doing the Editor's Corner.
And who's the Editor? Little me, RZD.
Last night at our ND meeting, I became "low." 67.
Reached into my backpack and pulled out some glucose tabs.
They were not enuf.
Walked very quickly into Nelson's office and asked if I could chew on some peppermint candies.
That saved me. Today I stocked my backpack with an entire bottle of glucose tabs and a candy bar.
Scott and I talked about it. His grandfather was diabetic and died at 67.
He always carried a candy bar in his pocket.
I have a Hershey bar in my fridge and am trying not to think about it.
Hell, I'll just hurl it out the door.
Will not, either!
Pure Slush accepted my story JACK BEYOND THE GRAVE about Envy.
Scott and I emailed Matt Potter the release form, from my upstairs computer, an HP.
I'm feeling my neck now, where I have a huge lump of a wrinkle - quick! lemme buy some turtlenecks - and skin tags.
I'd wrin a fab poem about skin tags, rejected by Hektoen, who rejected everything I wrote.
Will run upstairs and see if I can find it.
Coach Iris mailed it to me about three yrs ago.
PUMPKIN SPICED TEA
How I've missed you, Old Friend.
Pumpkins are certainly an odd fruit
Shaped like a planet with downward stripes
Hearty is the word, along with an indescribable
depth. Sip slowly, thoughtfully, and enjoy
the hotness on this chilly day.
***
Can't remember if I published this or not.
I believe I did. Irene Taylor, a cultured woman had never read the Wallace Stevens poem. I wonder if she and her husband Lou are still alive. I believe so.
THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT THE MORNING SUN
Based on the Wallace Stevens poem Thirteen Ways of
Looking at a Blackbird
What's this! My eyes are blinded by the morning glare.
The sun's big as a cheese ball at a New Year's Eve soiree
No one's invited me to.
Visit the man next door who will open with great tenacity
and vigor a glass jar of sauerkraut. The morning glare
is reflected in his hazel eyes and glass door.
Stumble blindly home and give half-assed wave to the
Irishman up the street as he drives by.
Check in dining room mirror to see if I'm changed
in the twinkling of an eye from staring at the sun.
Will I go blind? Or will all go well? I look into Beatriz's
Australian Mate Tea, I've flooded with honey for flavor
and a natural cure for - not pleurisy, nor inflammation
of the bronchial tubes - but a tickle in the back
of my throat.
We cannot throw out the sun but we can water the
philodendron with Austrailian Mate Tea and the
desiccated orchid beside it.
One last look behooves me.
Icarus is falling, falling.
A huge waxen feather has
fallen in my front yard.
The thirteenth way of
looking at a blackbird.
***
WHEN THE CORNBREAD FAILS TO RISE
When I was first married, cooking became my passion.
The Joy of Cooking became my bible. In my stained copy
which resides on a cookbook shelf in the kitchen, you can
see all the things I've made over the years.
Cakes, not so much, but breads of all kind including
Anadama Bread which included Indian Head Cornmeal.
Mastering the art of kneading and proofing and baking
took longer than I thought and my disappointment ran
deep as The Mississippi.
Success finally as sweet as honey.
Whatever was wrong with this second batch of cornbread?
Tasty enough, but flat as The Flat Earth Society.
Took me two days and a dozen units of insulin
pumped into the best place on my body to inject
where it's riding on my bloodstream, red as
the cardinal chirping in my back yard.
Who was Phillis Wheatley?
What a story this is!
Click here.
Again, click here.
As my friend Carl Yeager says, What can I do with this?
SKIN TAGS
I run my hand over my neck
the way a man would feel a
day's growth of beard on his neck,
only I am not a man
and I am not feeling a beard.
Skin tags grow on my neck,
tiny invisible bumps that
proliferate as they please.
These little bastards
go by many names.
"Acrochordon's" the one I prefer
and imagine someone in the Alps
named Heidi in a low-cut
blouse playing the accordion
for customers in a bier garden.
I visit my dermatologist
once a year. She
helps me up on the
tissue-papered table
while I stare at drawings
her grandchildren have done.
On the Internet, Troy writes:
After a year or more of irritation
from a skin tag between neck and
chest, I finally got scissors
and cut that thing off. I felt a
pinch but that's it. Relief!
Good for you, Troy, says I.
But they often come back.
Lying in bed next to my
boyfriend, I say, "Scott,
feel my skin tags."
He does and tells me
"I don't feel nothing."
My doc has removed tags
from my muscular legs
an unsightly one beneath
my elbow on my freckled arm,
and two on my back.
I won't lie to you and
say it doesn't hurt.
It kills! Liquid nitrogen
that freezes them off like
the dead up on Mount Everest.
I'm still with her.
A regal-looking woman
who gives me free emoluments
when we finish and answers
every single question I have.
Yes, it’s okay if I pick them off.
No, there are no special foods
To prevent the little mothers
From returning.
All my bumps are analyzed
by the lab to see if they are
cancerous.
Have no fear, I tell myself,
as I rub Eucerin over my arms
while watching a new crime thriller
on Netflix.
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