Coffeeshop Writers' Group Seminar - whopping good time!

Our seminar was from 10 am until 4 pm. We met at Beatriz's lovely condo, filled with many of her own artworks. Carly thoughtfully presents Beatriz with a colorful bird print from all of us. She got it at Harvest House on Commerce Drive, Ft Washington, PA.

Sounds like the old Atlantic Bookstore on 309, which has vanished, even down at the shore.

The Jenkintown B&N will be gone at the end of the year.

So many losses!

Met self-published author Christian Barth at the Ocean City Atlantic Warehouse. He wrote a terrific novel about serial killer Ted Bundy.

Here's the bird print of a male and female....cowbird?

Beatriz, a biologist, read a surprising essay about Pennypack Trust on Edgehill Road in Huntingdon Valley.

They employ four-legged helpers to get rid of invasive plants.



Hello furry bearded billy goat. Thanks for enjoying your job as you graze on destructive vegetation. But, don't eat the bark off the trees like the deer do. Otherwise, it's goat soup!

Strong delicious coffee was plentiful. Not just any coffee, mind you. This is Shade-Grown Coffee. 

"Shade-grown" coffee is grown under a canopy of diverse species of shade trees, often on small farms using traditional techniques. Among the many benefits of using shade-grown coffee production methods, in contrast to sun-grown coffee, are that it provides food and shelter for songbirds, as well as habitat for numerous other species of animals and plants.

"Birders," said Beatriz, "drink shade-grown coffee."

We broke for lunch. Food was plentiful. I noshed on some healthy veggie chips Bea got from Whole Foods.

Martha, on the left, read her superb essay called The Good Samaritan. I only wish she weren't so self-effacing. Stop it, Marf, stop it! You write well. Have no doubt!

New to our group was Fran in the purple. Here's her blog, which is going out of business! Mon dieu, what would happen to all my posts if Goggle Blogspot would fold like a circus tent.

Fran thrilled all of us by reading a stunning poem about her seven granddaughters tellingly called Granddaughters are Poetry.

When she read the title, I thought, this is gonna be something!

Fran commented on Carly's laugh.

"I love your laugh," said Fran. What a good observer. I take her laff for granted and never think twice about it. But it's true. You can't be unhappy around Carly cuz she's always jolly.

Carly read a wonderful poem about listening to her husband watch the TV show Taxi. She imparted two unusual anecdotes that were on that popular TV show that some of us had never heard of.  Yours truly, of course, who still thinks the Mousketeers are on Channel 3 in Cleveland, OH.



Carly, who could've been a Mouseketeer, told of a woman who witnessed the "Twin Towers crumpling down" and swore never to return to Manhattan.

She also told the tale of a prostitute who felt she was called by God to minister to men. "Let Momma love you," she wrote.

The element of surprise is very important in poetry.

Linda Barrett, center, ate sushi with chopsticks, and mentioned a family member teaches school in Japan. Her offerings included one of her terrific poems "A Walk Under the Autumn Sky" which had some wonderful lines in it.

Toward the end of the afternoon, she read a short story, one of her best, about the death of Linda's father through the eyes of their dog Queenie. Amazing that she could get into the head of her dog. Takes great skill.

Virginia Woolf wrote the book "Flush: A Biography" about a cocker spaniel's view of his mistress poetess Elizabeth Barrett, an invalid, when she falls in love with poet Robert Browning and elopes with him.



Donna, above right, wrote a marvelous poem of the healing properties of swimming. Widowed in May, her fellow swimmers - who she calls "mermaids" - buoy her up and won't allow her to feel sorry for herself.

Back in the comfortable living room, Fran and Kym share Fran's granddaughter poem.



Kym read some of her Haiku, which she does via Twitter. I mentioned how difficult it is to write short poetry and Kym couldn't agree more.

Here's one of many I snatched off her FB page:

Snuggling to the Heart

They realized it now,
the walls of their hearts melting
No denying it!

I shared a short story I'm working on called The Door of Justice.

Justice, 96, is a man I never met but I was friends with his younger brother Carroll Beame. Here's one of many blog posts I wrote about the late Carroll.

Carly shared this great quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

Success is to laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affections of children, to appreciate beauty and to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition, to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

Grace in wonderland.

Hiking at Pennypack Trust / Poem: Bactrim Mania

Scott and I hike every weekend. My sister Donna joined us, adding a bit of raucous hysterical fun.

Oh amber waves of grain.

Gazillions of these furry black and orange caterpillars were underfoot. Just spoke to Dr David Robertson, head of the Trust,



who said they are Wooly Bears, who grow up to become the
Isabella Tiger Moth. Lovely silk gown, right Gracie?

Donna liked this lawn chair stuck on the tree.

Part of the hurricane Sandy damage. David R said he was very upset by all the huge old trees that had fallen.

Yes, it's like a grand old person come tumbling down.

Milkweed, or what remains of this very valuable plant.

Carl Linnaeus named the genus after Asclepius, the Greek god of healing, because of the many folk-medicinal uses for the milkweed plants. It's the prime food of monarchs before they fly south.

What the heck?

Betty Crocker in the kitchen.

Here's a delicious bean dish I made with kidney beans and chick peas. I took it over to Donna's where she added the final touches....half cup of Israeli spices including cous-cous, orzo, and red quinoa and seasoning including TURMERIC, which gives it the golden color.

The doctor prescribed Bactrim for my UTI. Per my recent post, the moment I took it I began having hallucinations. I wanted to honor this extraordinary experience with a poem.


BACTRIM MANIA

You’ve probably never heard of me
unless you have AIDS or
a tricky little UTI that oozes in
like an adder.

Killing is my calling card.
With gusto, I spread a wide net that has
winged the four-lobed liver,
killed the innocent,
made feet itch unstoppable
and brought a turn of psychedelia to an aging hippie who
has given up her pipe.

The delight I took in playing with her brain!
She saw swirls of color at bedtime
Her shower curtain became a twirling Picasso
a throbbing  Jackson Pollock followed her into bed
where she slept with Cy Twombly on the shores of Ilium.

“I am not myself!” I heard her cry.
“I cannot think. I cannot speak. For the world is too
beautiful.”

Like Dorothy banishing the wicked witch
she tossed me aside
I lost my grip,
fell helplessly through her waterfalls
and heard her whoop and sing when she
flushed me through the long stinking
corridors of sewer pipes of enemies.

Bridget Yanni has climbed many mountains

Bridget Yanni, owner of Amma Center in Glenside, was our outstanding Guest Speaker at one of our Free Saturday Programs at the Willow Grove Giant Supermarket, on Nov. 10.

Topic was "How Yoga and Massage Therapy can help people with Mood Disorders." 

We wanna thank Robin Franklin, Giant Community Coordinator, and Elyse Bonner with all their help.

Our biggest problem about our superb Giant programs is the poor attendance, even though we send out notices to all the right people. One such poorly attended program was on substance abuse.

So when I left for the program, I said, Well, if there's only five people, I'll be grateful.

The room was filled! This is one side of the room.

Bridget began the program by telling us a little bit about her life.


"I always felt different inside," she said.

Over the years, Bridget has had a lot of visions, "divinely inspired visions" which have deeply inspired her to move forward in her life. These are manifestations of The Law of Love...from Creation.

"Each person," she notes, "must learn to inspire themselves." It's not gonna come from outside. You must do it yourself.

She began to study healing techniques with various teachers who became her mentors. She became a massage therapist. While working on a client, she, herself, may experience removal of various blockages in her mind or body.

She talks about various chakras, or points in the body where one can collect or send energy.



In yoga and in massage therapy, many psychological problems come to the fore and can be successfully dealt with, says Bridget.

In several group "OMs" - where we exhaled on the phrase OM - many people have inward shifts. "It did something to me," said Bridget, helping her again to move forward in her journey to love herself and connect with others.

She studied "energy work" including the Japanese Reiki, another form of transferring universal energy.

Through energy work and meditation your mind ascends and descends, upward and downward from the sun, and you reach that cobalt blue space of your essence, a place of peace.

We did the Mountain pose, above.


And another asana (pose) designed to release various burdens we are carrying, using the energy of our thighs.

Lastly, we did a backbend. These asanas stimulate our serotonin or feel-good transmitters, often blunted during depression. Read this report from the Yoga Journal. 


Ah, how the tired ole bodies creaked and cracked and awakened!

I asked Bridget to describe her yoga studio.

"It's red - for compassion and energy," she said, "and yellow for energy."

Like the Tibetan flag, I said,



A woman in the audience said she was a Tibetan Buddhist.

Yanni Studio was the first yoga studio in Glenside.

"I like to watch people transform their lives," said Bridget,  She says her Center has become its own little family.

"It's not just asanas, but it's about connecting to people."

Picasso and Bactrim / Poem: Robert, the Diabetes Man

So I'm taking the pills as directed. Bactrim, it's called. Time for bed. In the bathroom I  remove my contact lenses and the room is suddenly ablaze with hallucinations. My shower curtain, which has various travel-themed designs on it, becomes a canvas of odd things flashing across it.

What the hell is going on? Carl Yeager's photo of a pink tulip has become a live Picasso.

In bed, I see words rolling across the dark room. It matters not if my eyes are open or shut. The hallucinations won't stop.

I had already told myself it must be from the Bactrim and had goggled its side effex. Vision-change was not among  them.

At the pharmacy today, I asked Bobby.

It's the Bactrim, he said.


ROBERT, THE DIABETES MAN

Robert, I knew the moment I entered your darkened hospital room
diabetes had his way with you.
And always has, his death grip starting when you were four.

The madman, diabetes, wrapped his fangs around your kidney,
and bit.

He choked your pancreas and heart,
licks his lips as
he slowly blinds your other eye.

Swooping low, he made your feet numb
I saw them wrapped in hospital socks in the television-loud room.

The tracheotomy lies like a whistle in your neck.
The python tried his death grip but surgeons saved you.

It is best, I think, your parents who adopted you when they were
sixty – cannot see the further damage to their bonny young son

Would I be wrong to compare you, at 54, to a mallard skimming across
a frozen lake, while hundreds of rifles aim to bring down
your feathers green.

What’s next? The madman hadn’t counted on corrections:
two new kidneys, a pancreas, and surgeons at Einstein who
foil the offender again and again.

You enjoy the ride down on Route 73 from the family home in
Boyertown.

Don’t go back to work, the surgeons said, after your first kidney came in.

You worked seven years. In food. Restaurateur, you could not keep away
from your cream cakes and gingerbread.

Which jab will bring you down and force you to quit?
The python pounced. He got you in your legs,
pain so bad you could not stand.

You have not changed, my fun-loving Robert. See you again at Tower
Building, on the transplant floor, Room 8018.

I learn of Obama's victory in the ER of Einstein Med Center

Here are the Obamas as they return to the White House after his victory - 50 percent to 48 percent. Photo from NY Times.

I would not allow myself to think about rollbacks of important services had Romney gotten in, including healthcare for all, repeal of Roe v Wade and banning gay marriage.

Clearly, the Republicans are living in the past. The gay/lesbian life is not a choice. This is the way they are born.

Americans have begun to accept this, but not our Republican ticket who believe everyone is like them: rich and caucasian.

In his concession speech, Romney said the best partner he ever had, other than wife Ann, is Paul Ryan, who lost his home state of  Wisconsin, while Romney lost his in Michigan.

Reminds me of a question they keep asking me here in Room 8004 of the Tower Bldg at Einstein: Are you nauseous?

Only when I think of Paul Ryan and the damage he would do to women's rights. It took so long for abortion to be legalized in the US. Remember the case of Sherri Finkbine? She was carrying a Thalidomide baby and had to fly to Sweden to get it aborted.

* * *

So, on Tuesday, I finally saw my new family doctor, Richard Eisenstaedt. I'd waited two months as a new patient.



Dr E was recommended by my podiatrist Ron Renzi. His offices are at Abington Memorial Hospital, Price Building, where I used to see my former psychiatrist Larry Schwartz.

Naturally I couldn't find my way around the hospital and had to ask for help. The resident in orthopedic surgery (yes, I told him about my back operation) walked me to the Price elevators which were filled with unsightly commercials for the hospital.

I do love decorations but these look grotesque.

Walking down the carpet on the third floor, I remembered a line from one of my Compass mag Odyssey short stories: These halls give me hope.

And that's how I felt.

Eisenstaedt was good, asked me excellent questions and I was happy about my choice of new doctor. The reason I left Foxhall, my alltime fave, is b/c I have such a hard time reaching his practice - North Willow Grove Family Med - by phone.

Look, I wanna make one phone call, not spend the morning dialing and redialing.

Eisenstaedt ordered urine tests for me, which showed "positive" for infection.  Hence my stay at Einstein.

When I was rolled into the Einstein ER I saw a man with diabetic feet. I was in the room opposite him. This is why I said, after my diagnosis of diabetes from my antirejection meds, "This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me."

But not if you take c/o yourself.

Ever seen a pic of a Chinese woman with bound feet? Her feet grow into one thick stump. Who would ever think up something like that? The enormity of cruelties toward women. You can just see Paul Ryan in a former life approving it and Romney hedging his bets.

Plus this man's feet had blisters on it. His A1C was 12.

I discussed all this feet stuff with an Einstein resident Dr Keith Grimes. He's a podiatrist and is rotating in the Infectious Diseases unit.

But what do the feet have to do with infectious diseases, I asked.

Feet get infected, he said.

Aha.

We discussed the man I saw in the ER and Keith said he'd seen far worse.

From diabetes? I asked.

From diabetes, he said.

Dr Grimes thot I'd do well with the disease b/c I take good c/o mythelf.

 I eat no Halloween candy.

 I eat no Mint Bark from Stutz Candy Kitchen. Ah! the aroma of that place is unparalled.



Hello again, Dr Radi Zaki, chief tplant surgeon. So, he and his team are strolling thru the corridors.

What can I do about these frequent UTIs, I ask.

We'll make you an appt., he said, and talk about it then.

You mean there's hope? I say.

Sure, Ruthie, he says.

The problem is that when you get a kidney tplant, they create a new ureter from the kidney which empties into the bladder. Something goes awry in the taken-for-granted operation of peeing.

I had suggested to one of the kidney team members that perhaps a better ureter might be constructed. They didn't think this was possible.

We'll see what Zaki has to say about it.

The care I get at Einstein could not be better. Nurses and aides are FANTASTIC!!!

Ada and Rich drove me here after our New Directions meeting. Sitting in the backseat, I was fiddling with my seatbelt and finally got it on just as we were pulling into big well-lit Einstein driveway at 11 pm.




They helped me carry my parcels inside and then I stoically awaited the long nite ahead. Five hours until I got my room.

I knew what to expect. For reading, I brot a Jack Reacher novel "The Enemy" (I'm now on p 52), brot my laptop and some DVDs to watch. My blogroll features TV shows you can watch online. I brought healthy snack food and packets of tunafish and salmon - the food is TRULY TERRIBLE.

Brot my cellphone and charger and finally figgered out how to answer it - my son was really surprised! - you just open it up and say Hello!

I was wheeled downstairs the Ultrasound Room by a nice black guy named Zeke (short for Ezekiel) who joked that when he and his GF have a baby, they'll name her Zali (my middle name).

I told him that Jews name their kids after deceased ancestors. Zali (pronounced zolly) was my Hungarian great-grandmother's name. 

Zeke and I said goodbye and I'm now in a huge room where I'd get a kidney ultrasound.

Guess what! There was no there.

Finally I called HELLOOO?

Fortunately, a woman who said her name was Shelfi Redy, answered and said she'd be with me soon.

I hopped outa bed and walked around the vast area.



This place is really well-equipped I thot. They had six or seven ultrasound rooms and two huge restrooms.

The ultrasound takes about 20 minutes.



Shelfi compares the results with my last test. Everything looks Great, she said.

Whew! I hadn't lost any function due to my obduracy about coming in.

I was in my room at 4 am, utterly exhausted and hungry. The nurse brot me a snack pack  - tunafish on white bread, graham crackers, and cranberry juice.

EDITORIAL OPINION: White bread should be forbidden in all hospitals.

The most important thing I did today was WASH MY HAIR. The nurse, Princes (pronounced princess) found me some shampoo - and a comb - and I finally look presentable. I was so disoriented when I first came in, my looks didn't matter.

The last time I was here they had a different policy of injecting me with insulin. They only gave me between 2 and 6 units....barely anything.

Now they give me reasonable amounts.

One nurse gave me 18 units, which is more than I've ever had. (My own tops is 12)

She cautioned that I had to eat every bit of my dinner so I wouldn't go low.



This actually looks like the chicken and rice with gravy I had. I also gobbled up the dessert and ate my whole grain pretzels I'd brot with.



I just discovered a quicker way to upload images from the Net. Instead of clicking "Save image as" you click "Copy image."

So that's one good thing that came out of being at Einstein and wasting three whole days of my life.

They always ask you if you're in pain. I am not. But I fantasized asking them for a Percodan, which I took occasionally when I had sciatica, but couldn't enjoy the euphoric effects.

I would like to feel euphoria! I loathed my euphorias when I had bipolar d/o - what? did I really have bipolar? - loathed em b/c you can get way out of control.

But now, it might be fun to feel euphoria thru a pill.

What a b'ful word, feminine.

"Euphoria! Time to come in for dinner!" 

Coffeeshop Writers' Group - Poem: The Wind and the Rain - Farewell Annie

Having written two poems in two hours I didn't have time to eat lunch. So I bought a salad at the Willow Grove Giant Supermarket where we have our writers group.

All the girls had something delicious to eat.

As I'm typing this, tricker treaters are coming sporadically to my front door. I'm always conflicted about Halloween - should I go elsewhere and not pass out candy? - or should I simply allow myself to enjoy the pleasures of the children?

The real reason for being conflicted is b/c my former husband Mike hated Halloween. Called the kids little beggars.

I remember one Halloween at Married Student Housing in Austin, TX, where I baked cookies for the kids.

At the time I could eat anything I wanted cuz I was nursing Sarah and weighed all of  98 lbs. Now I'm up to 142.

And can't eat a single piece of Halloween candy!

We had a nice turnout at the Writers Group - Beatriz, Linda, Donna, Carly and me.

B/c Giant has flavorless coffee I stopped at my sister Donna's Starbux and got a cuppa decaf, plus I gave her a copy of the Times endorsement of Obama.

I spoke earlier today to my friend Ingrid, a lifelong Republican, to see if I could convince her to vote for Obama.

Carly is working on her wonderful story of  "Nails," the roofer. She read about him in an obituary notice and is writing a fictional story about him.

She presented the rewrite of the story. We'd suggested she change his real name, which she did. The female character is named "Sam," and will indeed follow in Nails' footsteps and become a female roofer scampering across housetops.

Carly told an interesting story about when she and Charlie took an Alaskan cruise. In addition to seeing the huge glaciers, there were areas of greenery nearby.

Hummingbirds flew all the way up from Mexico to eat this food!

Speaking of the wonders of nature, that's Beatriz's department. Her nature essay about Native Plants had numerous details none of us knew about.

I see the milkweed flower at Pennypack Trust and know that it's the food that monarch butterflies need before their flight south for the winter.

But did you know that milkweed contains poisonous toxins? Everything in nature has a purpose, so by keeping away pesky insects, there's more food on the table for other critters.

The year 1492, she wrote, is considered the year when native plants began to be counted. She gave definitions of "native plants" which made me, the reader, privy to a golden world I'm not a part of.

My name is Columbus, Chris for short, and I've come to chase you savages off your land. Much of the destruction will be accomplished b/c your immune systems won't protect you from the diseases of the Europeans.

Donna brought in a terrific poem about the hurricane which she named Hurricane Harriet. Absolutely b'ful imaginative descriptions of "leaves exiting the trees" and the "anxiety of the trees" as they awaited the inevitable.

A recent widow, Donna waited out the hurricane all by herself.

This should never happen. If something like this happens again, she wrote, "I won't stand alone."

Linda wrote a poem about a Bonfire! Her imagery, as always, was fantastic. She mentioned that at the Bonfire she's talking about, they usually offer hot chocolate and apple cider - what about S'mores, Linda! - around the crackling fire, and the folks at the table said, "Put that in your poem!"

So she will.

Okay, just got home from Scott's where we had our delicious weekend pizza. I brot my Halloween candy there and we gave it out.

Then I asked to be excused so I could finish up my blog.

I took the Halloween candy with me.

Scott said M&Ms were invented for the soldiers in WW2. Because the chocolate is inside the sugar-coating it will not melt, when your head is being blown off by.....never mind.

And, as we know, they've kept that motto for ages.

At first, I asked each child to take TWO types of candy. But now, I'm panicking that I won't get rid of it so I ask em to take three.

"Three, Mom!" said a little princess. "She's letting us take three."

Yeah, but they're small, kid.

My first tricker treater who asked to use the baffroom - luckily I had just flushed - and told him where it was upstairs - showed me a huge Reese's candy bar a neighbor had given him.

Hey, if this doesn't make your mouth water, see the doctor pronto!

OMG, I just told a little kid, whose dad was taking photos, to take three, but he kept putting more and more into his little pumpkin container.

Don't you frigging know how to count, you little bugger, I screamed.

Of course I didn't say that, but his dad said to put em back. His little brother was sick, he said, so he was taking some for Steve.

Oh, that's fine!

Of all the nights.

Okay, it's 7:02 and of course I'm gonna check FB to see how Grace Catherine is making out.

Here's one of two poems I wrote. My Internet came on about 12:30. I wanted to look up the spelling of "pileated" but the Net wasn't working.

Pileated woodpecker about to eat you, if you're a bug. What a gorgeous creature. I think I'm in love!

THE WIND AND THE RAIN

Musings on Hurricane Sandy, October 2012

All day we wait indoors
for the much-vaunted hurricane
Sandy, they call her,
a woman bent on revenge.

A peacemaker, I stroll outdoors
when the winds shake my little house
the birdbath is on the ground
American flag whirligig twirling off its stem
birds gone home in their feathered nests
stitched with endflaps from Marlboro Lights

My shirt, bearing embroidered leaves from the
Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania
feels ripped asunder
am I standing naked
under the frozen skies?

As I wander down the sidewalk
disoriented and humbled
trousers flagging in the gale-sized winds
I let the power of nature
trample me

I want to feel it
all of it
want to see what the beginning of time feels like
when we were nothing
when the pileated woodpecker
could suck no insects from my backyard maple
or the laptop typed no poetry from the unknown artist
and certainly
J S Bach had not yet hatched
to write for the harpsichord to
soothe ole man Goldberg to sleep.

I am here in the void
- howling! -
hail pelting my shivering cheeks
ears bursting from shock
body hurried senseless down the walk

 Who have I become?
shall I lay me on the ground
and close my eyes in surrend
or shall I take refuge in the warm hut
we call a house

Ah, the luxury of defeat!
I am not brave enough to stay outdoors
and report on the big bang
I sink down on my new red couch
its cushions made from soybeans
and marvel that I'm still alive
that we were not chosen for extinction
as Sandy rolls on,
a simple girl knowing nothing
of the wonder of being alive.

FAREWELL ANNIE

How do I say goodbye to my best friend?
A woman who no longer accepts my phone calls from
her three-room bunker at Rydal Park
she's decided life is over
and refuses to try anymore

We worked together
writer and photographer
at Art Matters magazine
why is it I remember the editor's house
better than the nun's cell you now call home?

I cannot help but think of you every time I brew
my tea in the whistling teakettle you let me have
from your real home in Maple Glen
or eat my peanuts from the tiny green bowl
or the towels and the washcloths and the scarves
that reside in full glamorous color on my shelves

"Never" is a harsh word
but I will not call again
the accusations in your voice -
"You blogged about me!" -
"You'll never understand how horrible it is here" -
cut me open like a filleted hen

Postcards will have to do.
Pretty pictures I know you'll like
A Man-Ray photograph of boys diving into the sea
A Picasso sculpture of a woman pushing a baby carriage
These, dear Annie, will arrive in the mail
surrogate for the woman who still loves you
but will never see your high cheek bones and elegant attire
watch for my next one
stamped with the innocuous words
"Thinking of you."

Our library to the rescue - Con Ed trucks drive in from NY

Altho our three-day power outage is over, I still don't have Internet. So I'm sitting here in the Upper Moreland Library in my pajama bottoms - no one can tell - in the huge community room all by myself.

For music, I have a selection of YouTube videos I listen to - I chose Glenn Gould's hour-long performance of Goldberg Variations - I first discovered these at Goddard College. I minored in piano and sadly I haven't touched the piano since then. We did have great volleyball games I loved.

What have you retained from your college years?

First order of biz at the library was to update the New Directions' calendar. This tedious task could be made easier if the Wordpress website I use had features such as:  Copy this post.

See, when I send out email updates to my group via AWeber.com, they offer this feature. If they'd listen to me, I'd tell them a few other things that would be helpful.

I feel an immense sense of freedom right now. I've got the whole room to myself, I can link any website I please, and I can tell you anything I wish or withhold information.

I just love pretty pictures, don't you? Lemme choose one for the both of us.

We'll both be surprised.

I went straight to the NY Times. This bowl is being exhibited somewhere.

BUT, the Upper Moreland Library would not allow me to visit one particular website I wanted to go on.

They would, however, let me go to the Bahamas and escape in one of these kayaks.

The digital NY Times costs $15 per month. I'm a subscriber. They let you read 10 free articles a month and no more.

But during Harrycane Sandy, they have unlimited access.  Good decision, Ms. Abramson.

I did get on Facebook. My dtr/law Nicole Deming apparently had an ultrasound this morning and found out for certain she's having a boy. She will post pictures later.

Do you believe this?

After I lobbied with them to remember Dan's late father, whom I happily divorced for bad behavior, they're gonna name the young fellow Max Grove Deming.

The dad's full name was Millard Grove Deming.

I have a photo of the two of us during the early days on a glass table at home, wedged between the glass. It makes me very sad to view it.

Millard Grove Deming (1946-2009). This photo was in the Ardmore, OK newspaper.

He died from complications of knee surgery.

 Coming home last nite I saw a flotilla of three Con Ed trucks that came in from NY. The buildings in the background are part of Galbally Garden Nursery.

Terwood Road is now open. You, of course, have never heard of Terwood Road, or Marlindale or Loretta Court or even Cowbell Road.

I've always wondered: are there any streets that are unique to a city and no one else has them?

Lemme quick goggle Cowbell Road.

There's one in England and a New Orleans restaurant called Cowbell. I think there's a rock band called Cowbell but I don't give a good g'dam.

See how much leisure time I have at the library? My back is absolutely killing me, tho. A nice guy is on the phone in this room. He's on Percodans for kidneystones. He spent 7 hrs in the ER last nite.

I too am fighting complications of my kidney transplant. Nurse Kathy returned my call and chewed me out for taking amoxicillan on my own.

I just can't stand by and do nothing, tho.

Glenn Gould (1932 – 1982). In October his 80th b'day was celebrated. The child prodigy died at 50 of a massive stroke.

Here's a wonderful quote by the Canadian pianist, who was first taught the piano by his mother:

The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.

State of wonder and serenity.

I'll take it!!!