Screendoor's open, c'mon in - Meet the candidate: Susan Worth-LaManna / Poem: Help Save Raytharn Farm

Haven't had a sign on my lawn since Obama. It was stolen the day after the election.

Susan Worth LaManna (never heard of her either) stopped by. She's running for Ward 6 Township Commissioner. There are 6 commish's, 2 of them Democrats. She hopes to unseat the Republican Sam Valenza.

She's got my vote. And Scott's too. When Scott came over we told her he works for SEPTA, as an electronic specialist on the El, and that we're pro-labor, pro-union.

Susan said she's got the union symbol on her sign. It's called a union bug, said Scott. Each printer has a separate union number.

Here's Susan. We spoke about the importance of making door-to-door visits. That's how Jim Martin defeated the solidly entrenched Henry Jacquelin, realtor.

Susan arrived w/ old friend Kevin Hoke who appears in my poem Moon over Davisville Road. Don't ask me to find it.

I asked Diane and Kevin to sit down on the opposite couch and to just push the stuff off to the side.

Then I called Scott and asked him to come over to meet the politicians.

Susan is a psychologist. Her twin boys will graduate from Upper Moreland High School this June. She's got two other children, one a daughter who's a marathon runner in New England.

As President of the Upper Moreland Home and School Association, she and her colleague Eileen contacted SEPTA, our transportion system, and asked them to paint the famous railroad bridge.

Their first phone call in March was rewarded by a free bridge painting by SEPTA by the end of August. Beautiful job, purple, the color of the football team, with big golden footprints on it.

I actually photographed it in another blog post, cuz I so love our town.

The bridge had been an eyesore for a year or two, often a victim of really ugly uncreative graffiti.

Where are the Keith Harings of Willow Grove?



We did have Mike Essl, a wild n crazy friend of Dan and Sarah, whose 'tag' was Nefron, is that right, Dan? Mike now co-owns a graphic design company in Manhattan.

I asked loquacious Susan how she differs from Sam Valenza. She's not a businessman, she said, and represents everybody, not just big business.

Valenza has only been in office four years, she said.

Well, I said, then it shouldn't be terribly hard to win, should it?

She thinks not.

A big issue around here is Storm-Water Management.

I was oblivious!

She said that's why our street is so crumply, b/c storm water is coming up from the depths and crackling the asphalt.

Do tell! I'm impressed. She had to learn about all that, just as I had to learn about:

RUTH GREENWOLD DEMING FOR COMMISSIONER
Expert on New Kidney and Diabetes Management

She also wants a nice downtown Willow Grove.

Hey, we have one! Burger-King is the centerpiece.

When Susan was a Girl Scout Leader, she brot her troop to the Upper Moreland Jail. They got locked inside so they could see what life was like behind bars.

Good job, Susan. (Good job, Navy Seals, said Obama.)

Both Susan and Obama have my vote.

Ready for a Nature Walk?

Scott and I were scheduled to go on the 1 pm Pennypack Trust Tour given by Dr Millie Wintz.

Unfortunately, I forgot to look at my Calendar, so when we got there, the walk had already concluded since it began at 11 am.

Darn!

I was planning to take a Percoset an hour before the walk, but my sciatic pain was only a 2 on the 1-10 scale. Thanks for keeping track of me, Roberto. When will I see you again?

Scott and I walked nearly an hour at Pennypack, visiting my favorite Raytharn Farm and Meadow Crossing and revisiting the pond where three turtles were sunning themselves.

I was overjoyed to be walking again.

Here's my friend Ann Gaugler, a volunteer at the Trust. She's an RN who helped out at Katrina.



We parked on Edgehill site of the June Fete, Abington Hospital's biggest fundraising event.

Imperative to bring binoculars.

Quite a few horseshoes. Hey, who's gonna win the KY Derby today? Wonder who Scott's dad is betting on.

The well-dressed hiker, Boyfriend Scott. B/c he's a weighlifter, he has huge lats.

Ya wanna see some lats, I asked him? And clicked on this photo of a Navy SEAL from the Times.



Finally got rid of my awful bozo-the-clown red hair. Now it's just a wind-tossed brown. I like it, I like it. Amber cut it thother day at Hair Cuttery. It cost $15. I gave her a $10 tip and told her it was a maternity present. Nathan will be born next month.

I dyed my hair yesterday afternoon w/ Clairol No. 112, one of the most odious tasks known to woman.

Can you ask for a better day than this? Or a better life?

Click to enlarge and see the Rainbow after the rain. And for godssakes, read the poem below.

HELP SAVE RAYTHARN FARM: Call this toll-free number

We did save Raytharn Farm in 1997, thanks to members of the community who donated money and the hardworking staff of Pennypack Trust on Edgehill Road in Huntingdon Valley, PA.

That this too must fall,
perish under the shining blade,
Raytharn's farm,
passed from father to son,
that sunlit meadow,
hills much used
stunned by thunder
and by stars.
When this goes, I go too,
the better part of me, anyway.
Where then to put my song
or gather berries off the vine.

Who would want to
kill a hill
or make extinct the
violet's purple show?

Maybe I can pack my bags
and move away from here
find some flat country
where it's
easy to forget
that hills and sky
came together
and silver water
ran down from
pathways innumerable
to converge at a
single drinking point.

Until then
I will bow to
the unthinkable
will trail my fingers
through Raytharn's
silver grasses
will not pout
nor complain
just gaze as he
sends five of his finest horses
across the grazing plain.

Your friendly neighboorhood police officer - rewriting Yes I Can - flowers - organizing my pills

Oh, you're a police officer, I said. A handsome young cop in shorts was walking up my steps to give me a handout prepared for houses on "Greyhorse to Terwood, Cowbell to Turner, Davisville to Division, Overlook to Everett."

Click a couple times to see the officer - see reflectors on the back of his shirt - telling Neighbor Nancy to lock her car doors. She parks in the garage. Many of us, including moi, don't have garages.

Last week TWENTY-FOUR unlocked cars in the neighborhood were burglarized.

Guess where I just went? I said to the officer.

Went outside to lock my doors!

Worked nonstop on a revision of my booklet. I'll hand it out at two presentations I'll give on bipolar d/o this month.

Now. I could not stand the first graf of the book. Had tried to rewrite it last October, during my second revision, but couldn't think how.

Last nite, I finally figured it out. Here is the new first paragraf:

This book of reflections discusses the 20-year period when I suffered from manic-depression, also known as bipolar disorder. Though the illness was difficult – “highs” and “lows,” and suicidal depressions that tried to defeat me – the love of my two young children I raised by myself kept me alive and in love with life. They are now healthy adults, happily married, and my son has given me a beautiful grand-daughter.

I've adapted to that obnoxious terminology - given me a grandchild - what? - they dropped her on my doorstep and said, Here! She's all yours?

Objection duly noted, your highness.

I also added my entire Kidney Article from Patch.com. Since the booklet had to come out in folios of 4 pages, I increased it from 32 to 40 pages, adding many new poems (!)

(It took me 15 seconds to remember the word 'folio.')

Stopped at Stutz Kandy Kitchen to buy some Mother's Day candies.

From top to bottom:

- Milk chocolate Milk Cows filled w/ peanut butter. Those go to The Demings: Dan, Nicole and Grace.

- Truffles to Dorrie and Norman Hawkes

- Chocolate-covered cashews to Mom and Ellen

A very take-charge young man rang them up at Stutz. He was, in fact, a boss.

Hmm, I'd love to write about the shoppe for Patch.com. Thing is, they're in the borough of Hatboro, and I cover Upper Moreland.

Turf issues! I think I could persuade my boss to let me do it.

After the boss rang up my order, I asked him if I could have some 'crumbs.'

We walked over to some almond bark - woof! woof! - and he gave me some that had fallen away.

Yum! (That's all I wanted since I have to watch my blood sugar.)

My friend Carolyn Constable gave me these sweet woodruff which showed no signs of life for two years until this year, the year of the Kidney T'plant. Here they are, having jumped 12 yards to my new tree stump.

Speaking of beautiful gardens, the Hawkes have a magnificent garden in Hatboro. Their son died last year of too much Valium in his bloodstream. Friends of Justin and his family gave New Directions thousands of dollars of donations, even though we couldn't save him.

Justin, we shall not forget you!!! Never ever and we shall be ever vigilant when a person is in a depression.

On the left are strawberry plants that re-seeded themselves from last year. They didn't produce a single flower last year, but look at em now. Water em, Ruthie, water em!

Qu'est-ce-que c'est? Very beautiful, n'est-ce pas? This is a shot of my screen door. I was trying to photograf the cop across the street but my camera thot I wanted to photograf the screen.

So I hadda step outside where he could see me. Hey, I'm a photographer, and you gotta do these things, embarrassed or not.

New way of organizing my pills. I put them in little hats which are really colored envelopes.

Got permission to take the generic of the antirejections Cellcept (mycophenolate) and Prograf (tacrolimus).

My new pharmacy - Giant - only carries the generic.

Happy B'day Dad - Poem: Hizzoner's Glasses

I'd be remiss if I didn't celebrate my dad's 90th birthday today, at least for the five minutes it takes to blog about him.

Rest in peace, dear ole dad. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, died in Huntingdon Valley, PA. Buried in Cleveland. Reminds me of the nursery rhyme Solomon Grundy.

In his Marine Corps days. He was a staff sergeant stationed at the now infamous Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (Hello Susanna Ojalvo, a friend who wanted to marry dad, but he was engaged to my mom Bernice.)

B/c he was a fast typist he was the paymaster and never saw combat.

Altho I've wrin lots of poems about him, I can't ever find them! There must be a good way to organize poetry but I've never figured it out.

Let me send a quick email to Edgar Allen Poe, who wrote The Raven, Eulalia, The Bells, Annabel Lee, among others.

Gee, I can't believe my mind still works at age 65. Oh, those are the EARLY memories. Those are the ones we remember.

Here's one I fetched from the depths:

HIZZONER'S GLASSES

on the yahrzeit of my father's death

it wouldn't be fair to call you vain
you wore your hair short
so women would not think
of running their fingers through it
but did anyway

a master of disguise
you never showed your
freckled arms
beneath your proud uniform
of suit and tie of the day
o refugee from
a barefoot childhood of
torn pants and never
a bicycle of your own

nor did you think to
remove your eyeglasses
to show your keen eyes -
how they swept across a room
unbeheld
gleaning grains of knowledge
free to the daring observer

eyeglasses
at rest on ears like
succulent apricots
not like now
when they are no longer seen
nor used as cushions as
they were back then
to rest those very same
eyeglasses I hold now
in my hand

who deemed it thus
that eyeglasses
desk chairs with arms
Country Squire station wagons
and Schaeffer fountain pens with
refillable ink bladders
are all that's left
after the man is gone?

Wasps and bin Ladens must be destroyed before they destory you!

No, I am not a Quaker or an Asian Indian who practices ahimsa. I am also a product of my culture, tho I harbor the illusion I think for myself.

I proudly exterminate stink bugs and their cohorts mosquitoes and tics.

One time when Sarah and Dan were lil, we went for a walk in the woods and came home w/ 48 tics all over our bodies.

We showered em off and tweezed the rest out.

Aside: My sciatica pain in my left butt and leg has mysteriously diminished. It's only a 2 out of 10. Could it possibly be from starting to take 1000 mg of fish oil twice a day?

Doubtful but possible. Remind me to tell you how I learned of this treatment.

So, I go outside to put a letter in the mailbox for Mailman Tom to take.

Imagine my shock when I find Mother Wasp building a nest for her young 'uns.

Click to enlarge.

I quickly closed the mailbox, thot a moment, and grabbed a soup spoon to loft the nest outa the box.

One safe mailbox.

Success! Then I found it on my walkway and squooshed it to death.

I immediately thot of the co-chairman of my Hahnemann program, the late Mike Vaccaro, MD, who said, Go for the jugular, when you're trying to 'destroy' someone.

On a brighter note, Scott saw a Woodpecker for the first time at his birdfeeder. He bought 50 lbs of birdseed yesterday at our lovely walk at Pennypack Trust.

My leg was killing me at the time.

I wrote one poem w/ a woodpecker which I will lose no time in posting. Well, I lost an hour of my life, since it took me that long to find it.



THE BLUE GLASS

dedicated to The Kiernans

(One morning I woke up with that feeling of “ugh”: I haven’t written a good poem in nearly a month.)

Only yesterday
I called and invited myself over.
Slipped on my black clogs
and walked out the front door
to the wild cheering of
birds – a woodpecker going at it -
o, succulent insects! I love you so -
a dog barking
at some
real or imagined threat
to his master.

the wind was rising
as I crossed Cowbell,
you couldn’t see it,
only its emissaries
the northwesters
and southeasters
blowing my hair and
light spring jacket
as I walked up the hill that was
the Kiernans’ front yard

As I stood awaiting entry I turned around
and looked at our street from
their point of view.
The Kiernan slant. Could be the name
of a magazine.

Neil’s garden, across the street,
a horticulture student at Ambler, who
in a greenhouse far away
devises hybrids of daylilies,
Neil was a wonder, a man with
a red pick-up, but his
day lilies? Whoa, back to the labor’atory with ya, Neil.
The colors are dismal.
Not on the ROY P VIG spectrum,
as we know it,
though don’t you really wonder madly
about the colors our poor eyes can’t see?

A quick glance at my own house
tucked in among the others
lovely, yellow, flowerless in March,
the little kitchen
they’d put on sticking out like
a shoebox of marvelous windows,
you should see how lovely it looks at night when you
round the bend in the darkness and the
kitchen is all lit up with Dan in there
heating up his processed food in the microwave

Hello! said Patrick opening the screen.
You knew them from afar.
And went into their house the first time.
A thrill. Almost as good
as sex. Perhaps even better. I couldn’t jog
my mind to remember what that was like.
(Vague remembrances of some rapture
and ultimate security. Of captured belonging.
Once I said to someone,
It feels like I will never die.)

The living room was on the left.
They let me sit anywhere I liked.
I chose a big leather chair with studs.
You had to lean way back
it felt like I was falling backward
like Alice

Wow, I said laughing, this is some
chair. Sue came in with the baby
and placed him, in the way that
mothers have, in a special rocking cradle.
I went over to say hello and see
what he thought of me.
He lifted a see-through eyebrow
and blew bubbles from his fat little lips.

If you were looking for the Dalai Lama
you need look no further.
Babies, I told them. I love them.
I didn’t say I’d
have another in a minute, the wife might get
suspicious and think I was after Patrick.

“Can I get you something?
Orange juice? Coca-Cola? Iced Tea?”
“Water is my favorite,” I said.
“A glass of cold water, please.”

It was one of those deep blue glasses
she brought me, blue like
old-time medicine bottles.
“A blue glass!” I said in wonder
stretching out my hand.
It was heavy. A very deep
blue. With octagonal lips.
What manner of people were the Kiernans
the People of the Blue Glass.
People who knew the meaning of things.
I’d never drunk from a blue glass before,
and as I was drinking I looked down the glass
with my nose inside
drinking and looking at the same time.
Good as sex. Possibly better.

I stayed for an hour.
Couldn’t pick up any clues whether they wanted
me to stay or go.
We’d just met and I was waiting for them
to kick me out.

I stood up to go and we went over to the living room window.
So they were into windows too.
It had panes like mine did. Once, I took the panes out
just for fun
and couldn’t stand the way the world looked without panes.
Panes gave focus and security, they sharpened Charley’s house
and allowed the dogwoods to take on immense importance.

“I write poems about my neighbors,” I said.

I thought it best not to tell Patrick I’d written
seven about him and his little white dog, Wesley.
Played it safe and told him I’d
written more poems about Charley
than any man I’d ever met.

Sue was on the couch with her legs
curled up. “Why would you write
about Charley?”

She was coming out of her shell.

I thought a moment. We all disucssed our
impressions of Charley. To Patrick,
Charley was an old man always
outside clipping his bushes. Patrick would
come upon him and try to start a conversation.
But Charley was stone deaf without his
hearing aids. “I just gave up,” said Patrick.


“Now you’re going to write about us,” said
Sue with certainty.
“No, no,” I laughed. “You’re far too normal.”

“Too boring,” she and Patrick said together
like a singing duet.

“Yes! Aren’t normal people boring?” we agreed.

“Actually,” I said with narrowed eyes
gazing down Cowbell
speaking in the kind of voice
you use when you’re alone and
think no one’s listening,

actually, I said peering out the window
at all the houses and lawns and trees
and flowers ready to burst into bloom:
not a one of them’s a bore.

Pennypack here we come: My first walk since transplant - Last poetry class

An elementary school in Cheltenham. I always pass it on my way to the high school, where I had my last (sob sob) poetry class with Chairman Bill.

Everyone brot in a favorite poem. Three people brought in Emily Dickinson: "After great pain, a formal feeling comes," Edie brot in Billy Collins (oh if only I could find my Billy Collins book - my instinct tells me it's in the lefthand corner by my bed) and Boris Putterman brot in Rumi.

Sarah introduced me to Rumi, a 13th century Persian poet, totally in love w/ god.

Our teacher gave brief discourses on all the poets. I guess you learn things when you have a doctorate.

I sipped some of love's sweet wine,
and now I am ill.
My body aches,
my fever is high.
They called in the doctor and he said,
drink this tea!
Ok, time to drink this tea.
He said,
Take these pills!
Ok, time to take these pills.
The doctor said,
And get rid of the sweet wine of love's lips!
Ok, time to get rid of the doctor.

From Rumi: Actually it sounds like a rock n roll song by the Coasters.

I brot in a poem I saved from Bartleby.com, a mystical chant attributed to Saint Patrick in the 7th century when he was sent to Ireland. Irish bandits sought to assassinate him but he rode by on horseback and instead of seeing St Paddy they thot they saw a heard of deer go by.

The poem is called St Patrick's Breastplate.

Here are my fave lines:

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the threeness,
Through confession of the oneness,
Of the Creator of Creation.

Next day, Scott and I head to Pennypack Trust, our favorite nature center. He always notices things I don't.

Quiet, he said, there's three turtles on a log. Sure enuf, they were sunning themselves on a log in the pond. Off to the right lily pads were growing.

Dyou think these are the Turtle Daddy, Turtle Mommy and Baby? Baby wants his independence so he's facing thother way. Look how dirty the pond is.

Double-click once or twice for larger view.

Arriving at the pond.
Outside the office is this lovely rhododendron. To the right are some newly blooming buds.
This is the barn w/ the gift shop. It's rarely open. When my kids were lil, we used to visit the bee colony who lived behind glass in the barn, and then would fly free to forage. We loved it!
This huge ole tree may be a gum tree.
May apples do indeed begin bearing apples in May. Peek underneath and you'll see one. That's Scott heading toward the bird blind.


Find Waldo. That's a children's book. Find the geese here. We wanted to see if they were heading toward their nest.

One of the great green meadows of Pennypack.

Dig the strange black stain in the middle of these leaves. Is it there by design? Or is it a disease?

I'd been outa commission for so long I wanted to visit some of my fave places. Five minutes down the road is this beautiful house that looks as if it were built in a former church.

You know what my church is? Nature. Nature is the grandest cathedral of them all.

Celebrating Terrible Things: Where were YOU when bin Laden went down - Holocaust Remembrance Day / Poem: Cleveland My Home

NOTE: Some of the info about Osama bin Laden, below, is incorrect, due to recent updates.


I was at Scott's watching Das Boot, a German film directed by Wolfgang Peterman, a riveting, technically accurate movie about a German U-boat - a submarine - chased by a British destroyer. Turning the tables, the submarine then gives chase to the destroyer.

Small models of submarines are used in the film, which shows the sheer terror faced by the men as their submarine shakes and pitches and makes deafening noises when hit.

Scott, who spends his weekends catching up on his sleep, was snoring next to me.

When the movie was over, I turned on my laptop, about 10:30 pm, checked the NY Times and saw the headline:

BIN LADEN IS DEAD, SAYS OBAMA.

I woke up Scott to tell him and sent an email to my kids.

I'd like to put a photo of bin Laden but I don't want him sullying the pages of my blog.



I think Obama and the SEALS handled everything well, including wrapping the terrorist's body in a sheet and putting it in a weighted-down bag and tipping it into the ocean.

According to Internet sources, his health was not that good. He walked w/ a cane, had low blood pressure, and had had kidney stones. Not dialysis.

From Wikipedia:

Osama was antisemitic, and delivered warnings against alleged Jewish conspiracies: "These Jews are masters of usury and leaders in treachery. They will leave you nothing, either in this world or the next."

Shia Muslims have been listed along with "Heretics,... America and Israel," as the four principal "enemies of Islam" at ideology classes of bin Laden's Al-Qaeda organization.

How can a religion have enemies? I thought 'God is Love.'

Apparently bin Laden believed in an afterlife. Maybe he'll meet Hitler and Stalin there. And Adolph Eichmann, only following orders to annihilate the Jews, will also be on the welcoming committee.

Today is the 50th anniversary of Eichmann's trial in Israel.

Coming home from Kidney Clinic at 11:30 am, I heard a wonderful interview on Channel 12's Radio Times w/ Deborah Libstadt, author of The Eichmann Trial.

I am steeped in history today. I read everything in the Times wrin about bin Laden. There's constant updates. Here's a great Times photo of Obama's National Security team waiting tensely for the results of the helicopter attack on the compound:



At 6 pm, I was on a nonmanic buying spree at the Giant, when suddenly I remembered I had my last poetry group tonite.

Had to leave home at 6:30 to get there on time.

Quickly I drove home, shot up, ate leftovers, and then finished off a poem I'd started yesterday.

Cleveland's Old Arcade, built 1890

Cleveland Public Library on Superior Ave., downtown

CLEVELAND MY HOME

we were thrilled by the bounty
of our house: how we loved things!
we built it ourselves, visited it when
it was on a plain of mud and walked
planks to get inside
the girls and i running round –
this is my room, no mine!
why does the basement smell funny, dad?
that’s where the workmen pee.

the house was huge: we learned the
words powder room and library
pink naugahyde and jalousies
we played in the grassy fields
along green road
i carefully stashed my glasses near a
rock while we played baseball
but howard cohen couldn’t find them
mary truby did, two months later,
i kissed her!
but had already gotten a better and
a stronger pair:
blue, like polished marbles.

as a nearly friendless teenager
i chose books over boys and the
mindless girls who chased them
my one and only date – david silver –
had thick questioning eyebrows and
backed into a curb
dying at ohio state in a vehicular accident

but i had discovered downtown
downtown cleveland
my new home
how i belonged
don’t talk to me about new york
this was the place with
the legless beggar selling
pencils from her cart
her face like the laughing lady
at the amusement park
a dollar for you from this
awkward little rich girl
in bobby socks and full skirt
monogrammed blouse from daddy’s
factory – RZG in lavish font -
and what’s your other one called
cracked frankie in homeroom

if the beggar was the showstopper other
attractions filled my longing heart
wide avenues and noises:
sirens, taxicabs, delivery trucks
smells from the nut vendors, salted
cashews, roasted peanuts, malteds from
the basement stand at higbee’s department
store, go through the revolving door and see if
tv star dorothy fuldheim goes round with you
downtown cleveland, how i dream of you forty, no,
fifty years later

such people on the sidewalk when you’re only
seventeen, letting you pass in choreographed
motions, black people with wide eyes and hats
and that lovely dark skin that got them in so much
trouble, i wanted them to know i saluted them,
as i crossed at the green light, finding my way,
not to the auction block or underground railway
but through the turnstile of
the main library on superior avenue

do you have a night in the luxembourg?
by remi de gourmante?
a small leather-bound volume was placed
in my hands, an everyman’s imprint by
random house,
can you see me sitting alone with my cats-eye
glasses beneath a huge window?
the corners of the yellow pages are falling in
my lap like teardrops
in the silent reading room of my life.

Eating well - The Cost of Being Sick / Poem: Rustle of his Skirts

Right outside my front door are these fragrant white bushes. Shhh! You can hear the buzzing of the bees.

Judy Lipshutz came to visit. She's a librarian at Beth Sholem synagogue, the Frank Lloyd Wright one in Elkins Park, PA.
Judy told me amazing stories of people she has 'saved': People on the verge of suicide whom she stopped in their tracks.

Not only does Judy have a master's in library science, but she has another one in Dance Therapy, which she got from Hahnemann, where I got my master's in group process and group therapy. We studied under many of the same teachers!

Speaking of the other kind of 'saved,' dyou believe they are beatifying Pope John Paul II after his horrific record protecting priests and bishops who were pedophiles!

Pope John Paul II, Karol Józef Wojtyła, 1920 - 2005

This is disgraceful and a blight on any religion.

That said, he wielded an enormous amount of power and was truly a pope of the people. He published Apologies to many people - including Galileo - and groups that the Catholic Church had hurt since its founding, including the Jews.

Now that takes chutzpah and conscience!
What's for dinner, Ruthie? My friend Pam London Barrett, the psychiatrist, was almost gonna come over for a home-cooked meal but she decided to go to the movies instead.

I asked her to be a guest speaker at New Directions in June and she said Yes!

Pam singing at SweetBytes Cafe, at one of our Fundraising Serenades.

Back to the phood:

Shrimp and cocktail sauce. I buy enuf for three days.

In front on L, is my delicious Lima Bean Soup, sweet soup from the beans which I soaked overnite and then cooked w/ low sodium chicken broth, sliced carrots, onions and mushrooms.

I sprinkled w/ parm cheese, left over from when Sarah was here in early April and made a scrumptious dinner.

Spoke w/ her last nite. She's hard at work as research asst for Steve Friedman on his book about Xtreme Sports.

Before every meal, I take my blood sugar. The lil strips on the right cost 80 effing dollars for a box of 50. I am experimenting on how to reuse the strips. After breakfast I ran to the kitchen sink, washed off the strip w/ water, and will re-use before lunch.

The machine on the left is the lancet, the thing I prick my finger with. Ouch! But only for a second. I re-use the needles once or twice.

Before I inject, I wash my hands w/ Purell, including every precious side-of-my fingertip, plus a spot on my - take your pick - belly, arm or thigh (the visiting nurse taught me this)- prick my finger, write down the result in my notebook, and then select an insulin site.

Novolog is the preloaded insulin in the BLUE container.

Lantus is in the gray container.

Scott's grandfather, his dad's dad, named Sy (short for Seymour), had insulin-dependent diabetes. He went blind. And had foot wounds.

That's one of the reasons I've gotta wear good shoes, like the new sandals I'm wearing now. You'll see em later.

On my front porch are daisies and some strawberries that I planted last year which never bloomed. Hopefully they'll produce sweet strawberries this year. Note to myself: remember to water them! Oh, there are my new sandals, made by SAS (never heard of em either) for $126.

This is my new tree stump. To get to the train, Scott cuts thru Keystone Screw, and he saw a bunch of trees they'd chopped down. We drove back there and I picked out this b'ful stump for my front yard. My old stump was falling to pieces.

Stumps are wonderful in nature. Insects eat them and the birds come and eat the insects. Then they can drink from my birdbath.

In my back garden are my pink bleeding hearts and ferns which grow like weeds.

After Pope John II died in 2005, I composed an ode to him. Unfortunately I can't find it. Hmm, I may have a printout of it.

Found this poem instead:

RUSTLE OF HIS SKIRTS

I always thought it was the dying
I was scared of,

The final blast of light, sputtering
but a few seconds longer

before its headlong rush into eternity.

Then I learned it was not the dying but
the getting there that scares me more,

The measuring out of days in shards of light
Hitting the backyard fence

The seamed brow weighted down by passing religious moments
that never truly declare themselves.

One summer I met a red-robed monk

traveling from Tibet.

We passed on the stair,
I going down for water,

He up to lecture in the Far East Room.

I could not help but smile

when out of the silence

I heard the rustle of his skirts:

A most pleasant and joyous sound
That lingered long after

he was gone.