Saturday, April 30, 2022

Witness Oak Tree outside DC's Mall UNPUBLISHED LETTER TO EDITOR

 

This is the WITNESS OAK, outside the Washington Monument, 179 years old.

That's it for now. Gotta drink something hot now. Just finished omelet with zuccini, mushrooms, 2 eggs and a quarter jar of Paul Newman's Classic Basil and Racing Fumes.

Kyiv Chief Rabbi Yonatan Markovitch was forced to flee Ukraine shortly after Russia invaded. Although the war turned him and his wife, Ina, into refugees, the two continue to spare no effort in helping Jews in the Ukrainian capital with food, accommodations, medicine and more.

The post ‘We don’t have time to be refugees, we have to save Jews in Ukraine’ appeared first on JNS.org.

.........


Thank you for your important column by Maribeth Torchia of the Boyertown Township School district.

We rarely read about mental health issues. Ms. Torchia lists numerous places to get help.

In this crazy mixed up world of "Should we mask up or not" I am grateful for my family doctor

- Dr. James Foxhall and his team at Trivalley Family Care - who have guided both myself and my

boyfriend as we both have Covid disease. We took a take-home test and tested positive.
 
Not to worry. WE DID NOT GO OUT UNTIL WE WERE DONE QUARANTEENING !!! 

Friday, April 29, 2022

TETLEY TEA in the huge green paper box - here is the tea in a big Starbucks cup

 KYLE CONFEHR below at the Michener Museum

I actually have his black and white painting on the wall near where I exit the house. Never gave it much thought until now, when I see the actual artist. KYLE CONFEHR, how do you do? 

Had been napping upstairs when I jolted awake. Must get my mail out, which I did. One was a card to Beatriz, whom I called to get her mailing address and thanked her for hosting our Saturday groups.

Ants are still in my kitchen sink. The sink should be kept dry which is nearly impossible.

That is what Scott does and he's rid of them in both sinks.

WALKING IN PENNYPACK TRUST

Finally, Scott and I were feeling good enough to visit Tony's tree.

We drove over, parked, and searched.

We paid a fortune for the plaque that read OUR BELOVED TONY GAROFOLA

and the dates of his birth and death. 

The Trust had changed some since we were last there

Experimental nesting areas begged us Keep Out

And those rugged stones, black stones that wounded my feet

As I trounced downward, like an unshod pony

Shhh, called Scott as a herd of deer passed by

I stared at the one in utter fascination

Tony, I hope you enjoy the view. We chose it for you.

A man with a sense of humor, an athletic bent, who

felt he did not belong here.

Now you do. 

Thursday, April 28, 2022

ELEGY FOR DAVID

 ELEGY FOR DAVID RICHARD GREENWOLD


David, it took me so long to accept your death

Am so sorry we left you behind

Is it fair to say

Everything I do, I do for you?

Especially the orange juice - you called it "Gree"

I gulped down last night,

Seltzer water with Sister Ellen's oranges

She lives with me now

On windy days like today

And sunny ones 

Your photo adorns Aunt Ethel's 

coffee table, You sit on the

back porch, Izod striped shirt

and your handsome Greenwold face

What a love you were.

What a love!


Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Woodmere Museum in Chestnut Hill, PA

 

Thousands of trees have been painted over the centuries. I have been surfing the 'Net and came across these by one Raymond Theel. 

At 67 inches tall, Interior of Woods is a monumental painting, considered by many to be Theel’s masterpiece. The work envelopes the viewer in a dazzling array of color and bold impasto and conveys the energy of the natural landscape as it springs to life.

--
Image: Interior of Woods, Late 1930s - Early 1940s, by Raymond Theel (Long-term loan courtesy of Marilyn Steinbright)


67 inches tall. 

We visited Woodmere on one of ADA'S OUTINGS.  Shall we find it? 

Sunday, April 24, 2022

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II - Happy 96th

 

Thank you Queen Elizabeth II for posting this photo of YOU and two FELL PONIES.

Ironically, I am watching THE CROWN on Netflix, which is excellent. 

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II poses with two fell ponies for a portrait that was released on her 96th birthday on Thursday, April 21. This year marks the Queen's 70th year on the throne. Check out more moving, fascinating and thought-provoking images from the week that was, curated by CNN Photos


Look Ma! We bought a new car today

 

Dan took Barb (aka Mom-Mom) car shopping and they bought a 2015 Nissan Ultima. 

Just woke up at around 2:30 a.m.

My teeth were filled with peanuts and creamed herring. Brushed my teeth and put an empty cup in the upstairs bathroom. 

Ken Dychtwald is on TV.


  • Ken Dychtwald, a husband, father, psychologist, and gerontologist, is CEO of Age Wave. This essay is excerpted from his new book, Radical Curiosity: One Man’s Search for Cosmic Magic and a Purposeful Life, with the permission of Unnamed Press.


Thursday, April 21, 2022

COVID 19 - Mild cases and Severe Cases

 GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization says it could still take some time to get a full picture of the threat posed by omicron, a new variant of the coronavirus as scientists worldwide scramble to assess its multiple mutations.

Stock markets swooned, some public gatherings got canceled, and countries across the globe suspended incoming flights after scientists in South Africa last week identified the new version that appears to have been behind a recent spike in COVID-19 infections in the country’s most populous province.

Over the weekend, the list of countries that have spotted the new variant in travelers grew. Portugal detected 13 cases linked to the new variant among members of a single soccer club — only one of whom had recently traveled to South Africa.

On Friday, WHO designated it as a “variant of concern,” its most serious designation of a COVID-19 variant, and called it “omicron” as the latest entry into its Greek alphabet classification system designed to avoid stigmatizing countries of origin and simplify understanding.

___

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT OMICRON?

By Sunday, U.N. health agency issued a statement on omicron that boiled down to: We don't know much yet.

Strange new world

By having GIANT DIRECT come between unpopular hours, we get a nice discount. 
Ruth Z Deming in my favorite shirt from The Sweater Mill.    
Sarah, is this YOU?
The ever agile Sarah Lynn Deming.
Shahira who hails from BANGLA DESH
Thanks Sister Donna for a great hair cut !!!
She, like me, has gone ALL WHITE. 
My blue eyed boy, Daniel Paul Deming.
Scott Sherman. We sent his sister Debbie a card hoping she will soon be fine. 








Ethan Iverson. Thanks for visiting on our Kidneyversary !

I am coffing now as I was diagnosed with Covid 1.

As was Scott. 


 Sarah wears a jumpsuit like an airplane pilot. 

Monday, April 18, 2022

Ethan Iverson and mother-in-law Ruth Z Deming

 

Ethan told me to get to work on my memoirs, so I have been writing for about two hours now.

Stand up, Ruthie, and str-e-t-ch.

Done. 

I remember when my writing mentor Nicole Bokat was finishing a novel she would eat chocolate. 

I, however, am not allowed due to my delicate kidneys. 

Instead I eat unsalted nuts from Kirkland, which sister Ellen buys for me, and drink coffee with cream.

Well, Folger's powdered coffee with Almond Milk.

AND I am not even peeking on the NY Times to see about Putin's war, though I did watch, thother night, a Frontline presentation about the war. 

Going to Scott's now. We will watch KING RICHARD which I got out of the library this morning. 

MOVE OVER

Move over, my darling, we will cuddle while watching Venus and Serena's dad

Someone trained them and taught them about the art of competition

So many great tennis champs

Remember Jack Kramer, Ralph Nadel, Chris Evert and Althea Gibson.

Rackets I have all held in my hands. 

And played off walls, the best way to practice

Until they come out and yell at you

the bastards. 


Althea Gibson, 1927-2003. 

To the Fish houses and Coffee with Cream

 Am watching a documentary of Elizabeth Bishop.

Am also eating leftovers of our Mideastern food Sarah ordered for us last night. 

The Bradford Teakettle is on, filled to the brim with tap water. 

The germs will simply boil away.

Let me write a poem now and then I must work on my memoirs.

Vraiment? Oui.

COFFEE WITH CREAM

Here I sit at the lunch counter

in my living room, or perhaps at

Daddypops in Hatboro PA

or Bonnet Lane Diner

smelling the richness of the coffee

cradling the mint green cup in hand

but enough foreplay

just drink the damn thing down. 



At the Fishhouses 

Although it is a cold evening,
down by one of the fishhouses
an old man sits netting,
his net, in the gloaming almost invisible,
a dark purple-brown,
and his shuttle worn and polished.
The air smells so strong of codfish
it makes one’s nose run and one’s eyes water.
The five fishhouses have steeply peaked roofs
and narrow, cleated gangplanks slant up
to storerooms in the gables
for the wheelbarrows to be pushed up and down on.
All is silver: the heavy surface of the sea,
swelling slowly as if considering spilling over,
is opaque, but the silver of the benches,
the lobster pots, and masts, scattered
among the wild jagged rocks,
is of an apparent translucence
like the small old buildings with an emerald moss
growing on their shoreward walls.
The big fish tubs are completely lined
with layers of beautiful herring scales
and the wheelbarrows are similarly plastered
with creamy iridescent coats of mail,
with small iridescent flies crawling on them.
Up on the little slope behind the houses,
set in the sparse bright sprinkle of grass,
is an ancient wooden capstan,
cracked, with two long bleached handles
and some melancholy stains, like dried blood,
where the ironwork has rusted.
The old man accepts a Lucky Strike.
He was a friend of my grandfather.
We talk of the decline in the population
and of codfish and herring
while he waits for a herring boat to come in.
There are sequins on his vest and on his thumb.
He has scraped the scales, the principal beauty,
from unnumbered fish with that black old knife,
the blade of which is almost worn away.

Down at the water’s edge, at the place
where they haul up the boats, up the long ramp
descending into the water, thin silver
tree trunks are laid horizontally
across the gray stones, down and down
at intervals of four or five feet.

Cold dark deep and absolutely clear,
element bearable to no mortal,
to fish and to seals . . . One seal particularly
I have seen here evening after evening.
He was curious about me. He was interested in music;
like me a believer in total immersion,
so I used to sing him Baptist hymns.
I also sang “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”
He stood up in the water and regarded me
steadily, moving his head a little.
Then he would disappear, then suddenly emerge
almost in the same spot, with a sort of shrug
as if it were against his better judgment.
Cold dark deep and absolutely clear,
the clear gray icy water . . . Back, behind us,
the dignified tall firs begin.
Bluish, associating with their shadows,
a million Christmas trees stand
waiting for Christmas. The water seems suspended
above the rounded gray and blue-gray stones.
I have seen it over and over, the same sea, the same,
slightly, indifferently swinging above the stones,
icily free above the stones,
above the stones and then the world.
If you should dip your hand in,
your wrist would ache immediately,
your bones would begin to ache and your hand would burn
as if the water were a transmutation of fire
that feeds on stones and burns with a dark gray flame.
If you tasted it, it would first taste bitter,
then briny, then surely burn your tongue.
It is like what we imagine knowledge to be:
dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free,
drawn from the cold hard mouth
of the world, derived from the rocky breasts
forever, flowing and drawn, and since
our knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown.   
“At the Fishhouses” from The Complete Poems, 1927-1979 by Elizabeth Bishop. © 1979, 1983 by Alice Helen Methfessel. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. All rights reserved. www.fsgbooks.com
Source: The Complete Poems (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1983)

Thursday, April 14, 2022

MRI Machine - Susan Hayward Film

 


The opening on my MRI was far smaller than this. They cover you up and keep you warm. My knees were bent over a cushion.jecMild cognitive impairment, I answered, when asked why I was there.

When I came out at the end, I said it reminded me of Margaret Atwood's THE HANDMAID'S TALE. I did not see the film series though. 

Any refreshments? I asked when I was finished.

Some juice would have been nice.

So upstairs I go. Injected 13 units of Lantus.

CLANG CLANG CLANG went the MRI machine.

It will sound like a jackhammer, said Donna something or other.

I could not wait to come out and tell her she was correct.

Altho I have had a few MRIs in my life, I rarely remembered anything from the enormous CLANGs which I attempted to incorporate into the jazz music I asked to be piped in.

Everything off but your panties.

Put on the robe, my heart dropped, and tie it on the side.

I walked out of the room but forgot to remove my slacks.

Can't even follow instrux, you Baby, I said to myself.

The whole thing took 20 minutes but seemed so much longer.

Your head fits in a neck holder, as if they will chop it off.

I did imagine Anne Boleyn and Henry the 8th, mother of the great Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen.

I had read a lot about her. She always felt betrayed.

INSIDE THE MRI, I felt as if I were in a rocket heading for the moon... or the Ukraine.

CLANG CLANG CLANG

I could barely hear the voices of the helpers. In my hand they gave me something to squeeze in case I wanted to come out.

Nope, I would not do dat.

Ya know those toboggans that go down the slopes so quickly? I also felt like dat.

Was trying to remember a film I watched earlier today. Sentimental with some striking parts. Susan Hayward, the beauty, starred. She was the wife of a reverend who helped everyone, esp b'ful women.

Okay, exhaustion overcomes me. Tomorrow we will talk more.


Susan Hayward was an American actress and model. She was best known for her film portrayals of women that were based on true stories. Wikipedia


Musk Ox poster

 

Just ordered a poster of two MUSK OX. I had watched a nature show on PBS last night and fell in love with the rugged looks of this beast.

When they compete for a female, the musk ox throws his entire body at his rival.

Fearsome !

How do YOU compete for a mate?

HOT OUTSIDE NOW. I walked around block. 

Thanks, Bill Adams, for these tomato seedlings. 

Scott planted them in our fenced in garden and also on his upstairs deck.

Am wearing my favorite shorts now plus a royal blue shirt.

Gonna submit shortly to BLOOD AND THUNDER lit mag. 

My raspberry tea is waiting on the kitchen table.










Garbage Day and The Velveteen Rabbit

 Woke up very early and ran around house looking for items to pitch into the YELLOW PLASTIC BIN and THE TRASH CAN.

Lovely outside.

But WHY does my neck hurt?

Sleeping position, I suppose.

Wrote Linda Marie and told her I was reading an old BLOOD AND THUNDER and her work in there was superb.

Make sure you make this year's deadline, I wrote her.

My sister Lynn was kind enuf to read all my short stories and poems and give me her opinion.

The Motley Crew. 

Ooh, methinks that is the name of a band. 

Tried to load a photo of KAMELA HARRIS, but it wouldn't work.

Vice President Kamala Harris met with Philadelphia labor leaders Tuesday and rallied with union workers, touting the administration’s legislative and regulatory push to support organized labor.

The Inquirer spoke to Harris about a new White House labor task force, diversifying Philadelphia’s unionized workforce, and legislation known as the PRO Act that labor leaders say makes it easier for workers to unionize. We also asked her about inflation and her message to Pennsylvania voters ahead of the midterm elections.

Hope she captured the folks' attention. Did she capture mine?

Harrumph!

GARBAGE DAY AND THE VELVETEEN RABBIT

From here in my composing room 

I heard the thump thump thump

of trashmen emptying out the Yellow Plastic Bin

There will be no regrets for me, once thrown away

I start all over again.

Velveteen Rabbit 


is a once famous children's book

Mired in delight, I read it in bed, wishing I had someone

to give it to.