Patience as I wait online at Verizon - New clothes from Macy's - Poem: In Factories Far Away

My new wardrobe from Macy's at Willow Grove Park mall. $70 gift card from Greg and Carole Hodges, head of our Loved Ones' Group.

Finally had the energy to sit on the floor -there must be a French term for this - assied-toi sur le sol - and cut off all the tags and those little plastic twigs. There must be a name for these.

Tagging barbs. There are rants about these from pregnant women. One got stuck under her fingernail. Ouch! Another stepped on one and bled.

With my new philosophy Never Hurray, I just sat listening to jazz and cut off all the tags.

Finished my short story Rendezvous at The Lake. I can actually picture the main character, an Italian woman by the name of Carmella Calabreze. She's all of 97 yrs old.

Suddenly I remembered Suzanne Roberts. Used to watch her years ago when I had Cable TV. 

This is Suzanne Roberts of Comcast fame. 

She has a lovely adventure her late husband Ernesto would have approved of. When Scott read it, he thought she was gonna drown herself at the lake. Rem, from our writing group, thought the story was surreal. Freda just plain loved it.

Spent hours and hours on the phone. I was very patient - Never hurry! - knowing it would take hours.

Spoke to the following people at Verizon: Marla - thanks Marla for transferring me to a number that didn't work - Ronnie, a female who just sounded smart - she got rid of me right away - and Krystal, who was an immense - yes! - help.

I've gotta be able to view my account online so I can get reimbursed for my two phone lines from Montgomery County. I established a new user ID and passcode, and put em in a safe place, in the pocket of my PJs.

I also returned the knob for my washing machine. The mailing cost less than $3 at the Hatboro PO. The knob was $54.

First I went to the Sears at the mall and Larry, the manager told me what to do. I could not believe he knew what to do.

Thanks again, Larry!

Just spoke to Mom and told her about my new clothes. She told me that after she washes em, she puts em in the dryer for a few minutes, so that's what I've done.

I've got the timer right here next to me so I don't forget. Also told her I checked outa the libe two films.... one on the man who plays Big Bird, the other the movie about Steve Jobs.

We discussed his alternative way of treating his pancreatic cancer.

Longevity is usually no more than 5 months. He did live much longer.

   Ella, you are doing a magnificent rendition of Kurt Weill's Mack the Knife.

Swing it!

When I went downstairs to get the close outa the dryer, I pulled out the lint filter. A thick padding of lint adhered to the filter, which I removed by licking a finger and throwing the thick stuff into a nearby wastebasket.

What might we do with this lint? A blanket? A new wig for me? Or for you? See how much I care about you, Dear Reader.

And now at last! What we've all been waiting for. My poem about my new clothes. Pardon me, while I go offstage and compose.

The factories are in

Bahrain - Middle East

Sri Lanka -near India

Vietnam - read story of twins w different fathers

Malaysia - today, March 8, second anniversary of disappearance of Malaysian Jet

Jordan, not to be confused with Jordache Jeans once popular


But first, a message from our sponsor.

IN FACTORIES FAR AWAY

In factories far away
the brown-skinned
beauties who barely
know the wider world

Sit at their Singers
and with swift fingers
pull material thru
tiny tracks, their
eyes glassy with

Boredom and dreams.
To be seen in this
pink blouse with
black dots, these
khaki capris

And walk with him,
arm in arm, in the fancy
cafe, he orders you a
pineapple daiquiri
and says What a pretty
face you have

I want to know your
deepest thoughts, your
dark ones, too. I care
so much for you.

Jazz plays in the
distance. Mood Indigo
by Ella. Then Hoagy
Carmichael's The
Nearness of You.

She tilts back her
head and smiles.
Refusing, simply
refusing to return
to the factory.

Writers' Group - Great turnout, great work - Welcome Anne!!!

This is me in my blogging suit. PJs from Dinkney, as I call them. DKNY.

Just spoke to mom and told her I ate delicious Chinese food at the Giant. Cost was $6. I used my Cost for Causes Card from Pennypack Trust.

  Harris, these are the first pics I've seen of coyote at the Pennypack. OMG are you good! Will sign your guestbook later. I like to be part of the conversation as Tavis Smiley would say.

Don't tell anyone but Scott had coyote scat in his backyard that I almost stepped in and only today in my front yard.

I consider it an honor.

Speaking of which, our new member Anne really liked Rem's novel chapters and used the word "strange" or "odd" or "unique" to describe it.

We certainly agree. The narrator described himself as a Nerd among Nerds.

After reading, he said he thot his work was boring. We all disagreed. His first page was filled with all the radio stations - clear channels - you can hear around the world. Authentic and fantastic.

Radio Moscow, Teheran, and his favorite, Australia.

His old nemesis, his school counselor Mr. Flecks - Rem's alter ego - challenges him, as usual, and tells him how to get to Australia. All he needs to do is leave his classroom, take a few turns, and he'll be there.

He wants to see flocks of parakeets in the wild.



And there they are, like our own geese on wing.

Problem is, after he gets to The Land Down Under and wants to go back home, the door is locked.

Listen to the song here, Allan. Missed ya!

You know it pays to sit here with the phone on the red couch. Greg just called. He checked the ND phones and said no callers. We got a new Saturday caller. Wonder if she remembered to check the phones.

That's why Greg is our backup.

 Here's Anne from Minnesota who is visiting her brother in hospice. Brain tumors. Last week in group we were talking about folks we knew who died from brain tumors, including my dad, dead at 59.

I've outlived him by 11 years and counting.

Beatriz is doing okay with her cancer, weak days and more energetic days. We made the Maxwell House coffee.

Thanks, B, for hosting us!!!

Anne has been in a writing group for 5 yrs. Oftentimes they use a "prompt" such as "shoe" which gets the group off to a good start. I think they've got about 8 people who meet at one another's homes.

She writes short segments which is the way she proceeds with her memoir. You could tell as soon as she began reading she knows how to write. She wrote about how, as a kid sleeping over other people's houses, how nervous she felt, you didn't know the rules.

We all could relate, said Marf. The picture that comes to mind for me is sleeping at Betty and Leonard Wolf's in Cleveland. I think my parents conned me into it. I did like my cousin Rozzy but not her snooty sister, Iris, who ended up marrying a lawyer. Rozzy married several losers. And ballooned up like her mother.

Linda Barrett read a stunner of a poem. She called it an epic and it was.

She's been working on it for months but finished it last nite at 11:30.

THE BRIDE OF TRAYHLEE was based on a short story she'd written. How many people would think of that? To transfer from one form to another.

In short, The Bride was a monster in disguise. The bride of Eammon, an Irish name I'd never heard of.  She wrote it in small segments, which built upon itself. Heartbroken was Eammon's original love who wanted to die she was so unhappy.

After the monster was outed and the original girl, whose name I can't remember, was engaged to Eammon, she begged him not to take revenge on her, as she'd already been punished enough. She checked into a nunnery.

Oh! See the box of doughnuts? Bob brought those. When Anne opened em up, I saw my former favorite - an all-chocolate with a slight glaze of sugar.

I had my Will-Power flowing thru my veins, plus I had brot me own Triscuits.

Donna Krause had breast cancer 10 years ago. She gets regular checkups and just had one. Everything was fine.

Fine lines in TO BREATHE AGAIN  included "black veil of breast cancer" and "like moths flying around."

She also wrote a terrific poem A SECOND CHANCE AT LOVE about her late husband John and the dissolution of their marriage, his sudden death of a heart attack, and meeting Denny, the kindest most loving man she's ever met.

We all know Denny and heartily agree.

I turned toward Anne and asked if she were married.

She laffed and said, "I had to think a moment."

She married a wonderful man much her senior. He died a couple of years ago, in his 90s.

Donna's brother Bob seconded everything she said about John and Denny.

He read a tale of fiction that was so real I thought it was about someone he knew. DEVON'S DILEMMA was about two high school friends, Devon and Brett. Devon got a football scholarship and Brett would be left behind. He would terribly miss his friend.

What will happen next?

Martha read the next chapter in her novel about Jaz, a journalist, and her reporting at a rodeo. Everyone is in love with this b'ful sexy woman - Scott! You better stay away from her - and various macho men try to have sex with her.

She's very independent and delivers a swift quick in the groin. Ouch! However, she and Mace are terribly attracted to one another and yep, for sure, it's gonna happen in the next chapter.

The novel is a romance novel and probly as good as a Harlequin, tho I've never read one. My Aunt Selma in Cleveland, 96, listens on audio books.

Wanted to get a close-up of Floyd's glorious mop of white hair. He had me read another chapter of his memoir, this one called Counteroffensive.

Floyd kept a daily diary while at the water plant, as did many of the employees. It was a way of sorting things out.  Or, as Anne said, "of managing his managers."

28 years of diaries.

This segment was about a performance review he took issue with.

Dyou know the great Dr H Edwards Deming advised against performance reviews? I am a Deming in name only. I married and divorced a Deming.



PhD from Yale.

Found this very warm sweater in my drawer. Was looking for something I got at Chico's - a blue long-sleeved shirt - but can't find it anywhere.

When I spoke to Mom and was sitting upstairs in my bedroom changing into my PJs, I told her about the story I call Rendezvous at the Lake. Got the idea last night. An 87-yo woman would make a trip, something she would always remember, as her mind was leaving her, bit by bit. Mom said she could identify with that.

Am gonna look at the comments I got and then fix up the story and email it to my friend CC who liked my story Tucker and The Holocaust Survivor.

The birds return to the bird bath - Zucchini Roast - Poem: Trucks and Vans and What Color Shall We Call You (nail polish)

We had a deal, or so I thought.

The birds would eat at Scott's - he spends almost as much money on birdseed as people food - and then they'd come over here for their morning ablutions.

After the bird bath spouted a slow leak, I went to Hatboro Hardware and the fellow sold me GOOP. Scott mended it in his basement, tested it out, and then proudly presented it to the world of birds.

Not a one came.

They needed a few days to get used to it.

Two days ago dozens of birds arrived, with mourning doves in the lead. 

Last nite I spoke to my friend Judy D from Niwot, COLO. She loves the chaos in the Republican camp brought about by Donald Trump. She's a "Bernie" person herself and is one of the smartest people I know. A political junkie as was my old deceased friend Bill Cardinale.

I still have some true stories I wrote about Bill that I never published. He picked me up in his white Caddy convertible and we drove to Ocean City.

"I'm a fast driver, Ruthie," he said. He was fast and good.

We also met in Manhattan where he took me to see Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
I knew Bill couldn't understand a word of it cuz he wore a hearing aid.

I'll tell ya, I have such good stories about Bill that maybe I'll do a first-person for our writing group on Saturday.

We're hoping the snow melts so we can make it.

Here's a little ditty I wrote about these lovely new nails. Hmmm, wonder who they belong to.

WHAT COLOR SHALL WE CALL YOU

Tangerine?
Orange Slush?
Amaryllis Red?
Or how about
Pearly Mabel?

The nail salon
with smiley
Flora at the helm
tells me Nice Fingers
I hold them out
as if they were
feathers from a
peacock

A fresh coat of
paint, Coastal
Paradise for my
Aqua Bedroom
or this invention
of stunning color
in a laboratory
far away

Makes of me a
new woman, who
looks good while
sipping tea, pinkie
lifted, and dunking
the last of the
Thin Mints inside.

 Scrumptious dish I made with fave veggies. Zucchini, mushrooms and onions, smothered with Swiss Cheese.

Told Mom about the meal when I visited her today. Swiss cheese, she said, is very tasty. I sat near her as her hearing's not too good. I read from the autism book I checked outa the library.

These must be the authors.

Returned the book today to the libe. I was one-eighth finished and will request it again.

Donald Triplett was 20 in the part I read her. The town he lived in, a southern town, got to know and respect him. They called him DG and considered him a math wizard. Instead of calling people by their names, he gave everyone a number.

His friend on the football team he gave 179 (I think).

Later they learned that was what he weighed.

Mom really enjoyed hearing it.

I was so tired I took a nap on the purple couch.

Aunt Ethel's couch. The entire lower level is a museum to Aunt Ethel.

Wrote a letter to Judy Diaz this morning, trying to get it finished before Mailman Justin delivered his load of junk to me.

Decided to write a new poem.

Lemme run upstairs and email it down to me.

Before I post the poem, wanna finish this by 9 pm as there's a PBS show about astronaut Scott Kelly's year in space.

Watched part of it last night but fell asleep. He and his Russian colleague each had their own part of the capsule, which seemed pretty large.

When danger lurked, they got back into the 'driver's seat' for protections, in case they had to take off. Say, if they were attacked by Klingons or pieces of rubble from other space launchings, where the astronauts left their garbage in deep space.

I told Scott before he walked to the train station that the astronaut Scott Kelly said that deep space has a certain smell.

Metallic burning smell, he said. Probably bc of all the rubble from other space crafts.

What? It should smell like Manhattan Clam Chowder?

TRUCKS AND VANS

They arrive every morning when

the sun comes over the roof of

Charlie's house

Trucks and vans of every kind

A white van brings home baby

Mirolee from the hospital

A dazzling white van with

orange sun announces

I'm coming to fertilize

that drab green lawn

of yours

What I want to see is

a woman's face on the

side, smiling at us,

with dangling

earrings at a slant

The message is written

all in caps

Forever young

Get it here

Get it now

From this moment

on, you can choose

whatever age

you want to be.

Your pleasure, please?

 

Hello Donna Cartagena! She liked my Butternut Squash Onion Dish

My sister Donna was surprised to find me lying on my couch this morning. Spent the entire nite there, sleeping well. When I woke up in the morning the YouTube video was playing a bio of Vivien Leigh.

I always knew she had manic depression, but she only got it after her miscarriage. She was carrying Sir Laurence Olivier's child. She had one child by a previous marriage.



Click here to watch the fascinating vid viewed by half a million people.

Donna's a great cook so I was pleased she liked my dish.

She also met Flushy The Magic Toilet for the first time. My poem and others I sent to Velvet Tale, I think that's the name, were all rejected.

That doesn't stop me of course. We discussed this at The Hatboro Dish Restaurant.

 Donna decides what to order.

Here's my forced smile.

Oh, look who's there! Tom. He meets his friend George at the Dish a couple times a week. We talked about the presidential race, the right to bear arms, the FEMA-buyout of condos from Woodwinds, where Donna used to live.

We drove past it before breakfast.

We also talked about our need for changes. That's why I was trying to get a Breakfast Club going with my friends. No one could go!

Good food with a couple of exceptions.

Terrible coffee... tasteless - I had two and a half cups.

The cheese on my huge omelet tasted from preservatives. Yuck! Taters were good. I injected 12 at the table and will walk off my breakfast outdoors in a bit.

Wanna post something on Craigslist. A laptop carrying case I found on the curb. Maybe I should try FB first.

Told Donna that if she'd slept over last nite, as planned, we'd have had Thin Mints for dessert.

They're still in my car. Some people can't be trusted.

And no birds sing.

The birds still haven't returned to the bird bath that Scott fixed with GOOP.

C'mon, my feathered friends. I misses ya!!!