Hurry with this blog since The Story of Bluegrass will be on at 9 pm

 Thanks, Mom, for unwrapping these Papermate pens. Impenetrable plastic I cut open for her. Ellen explained how to do it. There's a little plastic piece at the bottom which must be removed first.

First I had no combs, which I bought, and now the pens which I bought this morning.

Yes, lady, stop staring at my blue hair. What can I do about that?

I could sic Harlan Coben on him.



I think it's about serial killers.

Hold on. Gotta lock my front door and side door.

AND my Verizon line doesn't work.

Enter your pin number, it says.

Ellen said she was tired of buying food for mom, so I picked up the slack.

Chinese food from Helen - broccoli and beef - fried rice and pork - we stopped eating chicken as we think it gives us UTIs. My newest problem is an inability to ....

I'd like to write a poem about it, if I may.

Any talented poet can do this.

DAY NUMBER FOUR

With the Times Chronicle spread out on the floor
- thanks, Sharon Dietz for having it delivered into
my mail box - while eating black cherry Chobani,
favored by Mary Ann Mower, I counted the days
on my fingers.

The fingers on the left went into spasm, why we do not
know. Picture the duodenum, packed solid with
lamb burgers, mushrooms, watermelon and honeydew
Lovely but for the morphing of horse manure

Tomorrow is another day, another serial killer
of Jersey-born Harlen Coben, how I'll dance
to the bluegrass as my body readies itself
for a hoedown in the nearest barn.

Contest: Who can take the worst photo of a hummingbird

It's August already, so they're gearing up for their flight.

Where will they go?

Click here to find out.

• Hummingbird Anatomy
  The anatomy of the Hummingbird is very fascinating. Even though they are extremely small creatures you don’t want to count them out.
• Hummingbird Habitat
  You will only find Hummingbirds living in South and North America. There are several species found in areas of Alaska.
• Hummingbird Reproduction
  Mating is a very interesting time to observe the behaviors of the Hummingbird. Most species are mature when they are just a few months old.
• Hummingbird Feeding
  It is very interesting to watch the Hummingbird feed. They will eat up to 8 times per hour. However, each feeding session is only going to last from 30 seconds to 1 minute at a time.
• Hummingbird Predators
  Hummingbirds don’t have much protection in the wild. They are able to fly quickly and they often blend into their surroundings.
• Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and constitute the biological family Trochilidae. They are the smallest of birds, most species measuring 7.5–13 cm (3–5 in) in length. The smallest extant bird species is the 5 cm (2.0 in) bee hummingbird, which weighs less than 2.0 g (0.07 oz).
  They are known as hummingbirds because of the humming sound created by their beating wingswhich flap at high frequencies audible to humans. They hover in mid-air at rapid wing-flapping rates, which vary from around 12 beats per second in the largest species, to in excess of 80 in some of the smallest. Of those species that have been measured in wind tunnels, their top speed exceeds 15 m/s (54 km/h; 34 mph) and some species can dive at speeds in excess of 22 m/s (79 km/h; 49 mph).^[1][2]
  Hummingbirds have the greatest mass-specific metabolic rate of any homeothermic animal.^[3] To conserve energy when food is scarce, and nightly when not foraging, they can go into torpor, a state similar to hibernation, slowing metabolic rate to 1/15th of its normal rate.^[4]
• Oh, I HATE that bullet point.
• What a breakfast I had. In my lamb fat I sauteed mushrooms, spinach, cheese, zucchini and ate it while watching THE GOOD PLACE, a hilarious but tiresome TV show.
• Ted Danson starred - not to be confused with Ted Bundy, who I watched on Mindhunters which mercifully ended.
• Last night I watched a new production of Verdi's La Traviata with commentary afterward as well as rehearsals. 
• 

Diana - it took forever to die - but with the Maestro's help it was an incredible moving experience.

Ah, the bullet went away.

You know what? It is not unthinkable to throw out my lamb meat!

Guess who finally got in touch! Poem: Lake of Fat on Copper Skillet

I had it all planned out. Woke up Scott who told me how to get to the Willow Grove Mall.

IF I could follow directions I would've seen Dan, Max and Grace in the Food Court near Chick Filet.

I brought the kids stickers from the library of The Planets.

What's the status of Pluto? Has he been resurrected?

What Is Pluto?

The New Horizons spacecraft helped us see Pluto and its largest moon Charon more clearly than we could see them with telescopes.

Credits: NASA

This article is part of the NASA Knows! (Grades K-4) series.

What Is Pluto?

Pluto is a dwarf planet. A dwarf planet travels around, or orbits, the sun just like other planets. But it is much smaller.

Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930. He was an astronomer from the United States. An astronomer is a scientist who studies stars and other objects in space. Venetia Burney named Pluto that same year. She was an 11-year-old girl from England.

Pluto is not very big. It is only half as wide as the United States. Pluto is smaller than Earth's moon. This dwarf planet takes 248 Earth years to go around the sun. If you lived on Pluto, you would have to wait 248 Earth years to celebrate your first birthday. One day on Pluto is about 6 1/2 days on Earth.

Pluto is about 40 times farther from the sun than Earth is. Pluto is in an area of space called the Kuiper (KY-per) Belt. Thousands of small, icy objects like Pluto but smaller are in the Kuiper Belt.

*

Gonna tell you this in confidence.

Something changed about my library and I do not like it any more. Dunno half the library aides there.

While waiting until 12:25 to drive to the Mall, I bought a book. YES, I actually did.



Really good! The book cost all of three dollars.



*
I went wild at the Giant Supermarket.

Pumpkin Spice Latte, which I sipped while I shopped.

A pound of LAMB from Australia.

Combs. I couldn't find one comb this morning to show off my gorgeous blue hair.



Dustpan and brush.

BLUE pods for a clean toilet.

"Where are the Baggies?" I asked two men who worked there.

Turns out I got something like a two-year supply.

AND, I'm gonna make a lamb-burger right now.

Shall we listen to great music while I cook?

Click here for the Lippy Kids.



Am cookin the lamb burgers in this olive oil.

Dunno if you can tell how SHAPELY the bottle is.

The burgers are as greasy as a pitcher who wanted some extra spin on the baseball.

*

THE LAKE OF FAT ON MY COPPER SKILLET

Strap on your skates, Hans Brinker, and we'll go for a ride.
Tho my skates are a bit scuffed, they'll do for a spin or two.
Is that one of the Astairs - Fred or Adele - twirling so fast
you can barely see them, preserved forever on the celluloids
of Turner Classic Films, though our stone-faced Ted
our brilliant Ted Turner is coasting slowly downhill.

*

Notes: Mary Mapes Dodge, an American, wrote Hans Brinker and The Silver Skates.

Shop, then Jazz

SHOP, THEN JAZZ

Walking to my car - I think I feel some
raindrops, said cart pusher blonde Amanda
All I wanted to do was eat, chew, taste,
roll around the cheese and broccoli between
my teeth and then

Joey Alexander, 15-year-old jazz man, head of a
trio, pokes his head in my living room, as I crunch
a green pepper and spear a black olive before
surrendering to the beat upheld by Joey's piano and
a huge polished bass and doo be doo drums

A sip of fresh tangerine juice, perhaps,
Fond applause and memories of The King and I
at Severance Hall in Cleveland, Van Cliburn
playing next door to a three-ring circus and
trumpeting elephants, the little rider in pink
on top is little me.

The ancient spheres above can barely
hear the woodpecker's aggression against
the old sycamore tree.

The Jumping Spider Returns in the Basement - FINDING KRAMER published in Adelaide Mag

Note to RZD: Remember to buy cheese at the grocery store

 This lovely mirrored broken cabinet is out in the trash

 Love the grey color of the corner house.

 Heading on foot down the street. Hoping to see that McLaren car again.

My new million dollar roof. I'll say one thing for Bob Walmsey's work: EXCELLENT. The roof doesn't leak.

 In my way back yard Scott spotted a male deer with broken antlers. He was probly munching on mulberries.

RZD.

Watched a great Netflix last night. I've temporarily given up on Mindhunters due to the violent tho fast scenes.

Last night was up until four watching DIAGNOSIS.

About the jumping spider, Scott merely said, Squash him.

FINDING KRAMER was published yesterday. As Coach Iris said, she likes how I combine the truth with fiction.

Gotta decide today it I wanna continue reading VAGABOND about the trip around the USA with Henry Ford and Thomas Edison.

I did finish THE TEA PLANTER'S WIFE by Dinah Jefferies. Must read commentary about it.

More on Loneliness - Poem: Loneliness is like a cup of cold coffee

I woke up to the sound of the PBS children's channel and got caught up in the story line. The writers are terribly clever. They've gotta know what's going on in the entire world plus the heavens above. In fact they took a rocket to some unknown planet.

As I changed into my clothes for the day - pink striped shorts and black tank top with fake rhinestones - I had a revelation.

First, though, lemme tell you what I watched last night - the intro to Ken Burns COUNTRY MUSIC. It was all about great voices and great ambition.

Dolly Parton came from

Dolly Rebecca Parton was born January 19, 1946, in a one-room cabin on the banks of the Little Pigeon River in Pittman Center, Tennessee, a very small community in Sevier County in the Great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee.^[4] She is the fourth of 12 children born to Avie Lee Caroline (née Owens; 1923–2003) and Robert Lee Parton Sr. (1921–2000). 

She was determined to leave town and become 'someone.'

*
So here I am in my striped shorts and tank top ready to sip on my coffee, sitting on my fan, along with last night's Earl Grey Breakfast tea.

I'm just not ready yet for my breakfast which includes taking four different vitamins. Often I skip a day.

*

When I woke up I realized I'm ALL ALONE, I don't live with anyone. I don't have a mommy or daddy or grandma to take care of me.

Whoa!

When did that happen?

Obviously, Scott would find me if God took a notion to striking me dead.

*



When my late friend Judy Diaz left for Colorado, she tried to sell some of the items she and her ex, Andy Diaz, bought in Pakistan.

More coffee please.

I'd like to write more about living all alone in a big beautiful house.

Who can I tell? Who can I tell?

I mean, I just lay there in bed, thinking, thinking.

All sorts of distractions, of course. Gotta finish a library book by Sunday. I've renewed it the maximum amount of times.

What I want is a meaningful job.

Any ideas?

AS LONELY AS A COLD CUP OF COFFEE

Strange sounds hover in the distance
a faraway airplane
the clack of the railroad
sipping sounds which make the coffee
taste better
a young man come tromping thru my yard
football practice at the high school
watch them brains of yours, sonny,
dementia at thirty ain't no fun

Glumsville outdoors
But suddenly, suddenly

A parade comes down the middle of our street
on one of them Macy-like floats
Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, a cardboard cutout of the
late Patsy Cline, and Patrick Stoner the ringmaster
holding out his hat for contributions.

The reeds sway in the breeze
And the hummingbird quivers with delight.

Presenting THE BELSH WOMAN - live and in person

One-woman show. Here in Our Town.

Produced by Scott Sherman who figured out how to get Ms. Belsh onstage.



Narrator:

You traveled so far, the wind in your face, you think you found that one special place,



Come on down and see him to the east of the sun and the west of the moon.

Listen here to this Romeo.

View schedule here.

BTW, we had a bar here in Willow Grove PA called Romeo's.

It closed down.

Garcon, pour me a gin and tonic.

Loneliness and The Maiden

 The Girl with the Blue Hair

Cream of Mushroom Soup. Mushrooms are smothered with almond milk plus a long sprig of peppermint from my garden right outside my front door.

Whenever I awake in the morning, I feel lonely. No advice PLEASE!

Is it the empty house with not even a pet?

Well, George Schuler at the end of the street died. And Wayne's wife Carol died of a brain tumor.

Ah, Father Sunshine keeps me company.

FATHER SUNSHINE

The depth of his mercy is unfathomable
My yellow house fills with mysterious
golden bangles, soundless, his journey
but 156 days until he enters like
a resurrected cat
thousands of loves has he
Kareem, Bill Bradley and a new one
barely six years old but in the starting
pen.

He has his own reasons for the atrocities
The surgeries that kill on the table
The beehives round the corner that
pierce the dainty white foot

And all the while they think
they've found Amelia Earhart
an atoll to launch another war.

Just recovered from Mom!

First-graders at Taylor School in Cleveland Heights, OH, make ceramic bowls. Little Ruthie is in the middle with my hands shaped like a ceramic bowl. How I loved that class. Miss Katherine Allen was our teacher.

Sitting behind me is Rita Abrams. We were gathered on a carpet.

Now I'm gonna throw away - recycle - the newspaper clipping.

Newspaper clipping of Ruth Greenwold.

The syndicated column below the article is by Drew Pearson.

Read about his great salesmanship.


Pearson with LBJ.

Pennsylvania Philharmonic comes to our Middle School in Upper Moreland

Okay, paddle through all these photos, if you please.

Doubles all of them.

 My traveling companion was Rachel, who drove all the way down from Morrisville, PA, which she didn't mind at all.

She and Sarah went to Abington Friends, so Sarah knew it's hard for me to drive at night and off we went!

 Michelle Cann was the piano soloist. She wore a lovely flowered dress. Her solos took place low on the keyboard. My partner Rachel said she loved how Cann danced over the keys.

Read about her here. She's often a co-host on From the Top.

 Dunno if you can see Maestro Butterman, who energized the orchestra and the audience. The place was, oh, about one-eighth filled. OMG, these young teens are so adorable.

 What you don't know is that the auditorium was FREEZING.

 At one point I went up the steps - very easy to fall - and told an important looking man, who said he would tell someone.

Mommy, what does an important looking man look like?

I'd say it's his bearing and the fact that he feels he's important.

Rachel and I finally moved.

Before that, a breeze was blowing my hair as if I were visiting Bill Hess in Wasilla AK.

Read about Maestro Butterman here. Photo is further down.

Michael Butterworth.





No relation.

LIVE MUSIC.

BE A PART OF IT.

SUPPORT MUSICIANS WHO MAKE THIS WORLD A BETTER PLACE.