Gotta keep busy when we cancel because of the snow - Poem: Eating my cheese omelet in the dark

Ada called and we cancelled New Directions bc of the snow.

And yes it is coming down, slowly.

She said it's snowing in DC and heading our way.

I phoned the usual suspects who attend. And lastly called Nelson who will head over to the church.

Thankfully I have everyone's phone number.

For dinner I made lentil pasta and marinara sauce. Let's find it online, shall we?



Earlier today I went to CVS. My insulin cost $503, the beginning of a new insurance cycle.

On Friday I will run out of tacrolimus, the generic for Prograf.




My kidney doctor called it in but did not list my diagnosis.

I went there twice, before and after I visited my friend Beatriz from our writing group.

Here's our Beehive Writing Group.

C
Hello Ethan!

It was so good to see Beatriz again.

She has lymphoma, I think it's called, and didn't think she'd be alive for this long.

Her doctor called Fox Chase Cancer Center and they came up with an old drug that works!

At recent meetings, Barbara Custer came, as did Martha Hunter, Linda Barrett and Ken Ivins.

EATING MY CHEESE OMELET IN THE DARK

Tired of reading,
the words made no sense at all,
I slipped on my fraying clogs
and walked carefully down the stairs.

You will not fall.
You will not fall.

Stood a moment on the slippery porch
Not a sound pierced the air
and stared at my snow-covered car

Silence
total.

Went in kitchen
clop of two eggs on counter
Psh! In the pan they go
Then add mushrooms, garlic,
and thick piece of Cheddar
on top.

Sit on red couch, stare out window
at Patrick's lamp post twined
with spectacularly colored
Christmas lights

and dig in.

The chili powder on top
is the icing on the omelet.

Welcome to my home, Joan!

Joan Effel visits her cousin Nancy across the street and then comes over to see me,

She lives in a mobile home and worked at Disney World, the Animal Kingdom, until she was 88.

Then sciatica struck.

She's very outgoing and talks to everyone,

Remind you of anyone you know?

She's gone back home. First she visits her three sons, who promise to call her but never do.

Sound familiar?

Just got home from Scott's where we watched a series of crime fiction on YouTube, including THE HITCHHIKER.

Now THE SHOOTIST is on. Gonna give it a shot, so excuse me.

Wrong name, dang!

Visitors to my Mini-Barnes Museum - my newest sculpture - Study in Aqua poem

 Neighbor Eileen stopped over with her friend Jill

 Jill loved all my artwork but said she was too conservative to follow suit. Oh c'mon Jill.

 And, in answer to your question, I don't get tired of my previous work. If I do, I simply toss it,

 I spread out a sheet on the floor and assemble what I'd like to consider and then affix them all.

In the center is Aunt Sylvie and Uncle Maury. I broke open, with a scissors, a turquoise laptop box. What a great color!

Robin Franklin from the Giant gave me a lovely b'day gift - many different items - which I used - like this tissue paper.

BTW, it took me nearly half an hour to find where to download everything onto me blog.

What shall I title the mobile?

Certainly not Donald Trump is an a'hole who is putting us all in danger in the Middle East.

Study in Aqua is the name of the mobile.

You'll wanna know what I had for dinner. Salad with American cheese yellow, spinach, two slices Tavern Ham.

Simply delicious.

Gotta write Rem and see if we're having our Writing Group tomorrow.

I have anudder deadline - from The Bookends Review.

STUDY IN AQUA

Down goes the sheet
on the carpet
It's been a good four years
since I fashioned artwork
to surprise myself and others
from the far reaches of my mind.

With scissors, stapler, Scotch tape
and half a dozen colorful flex straws
I hold it high above my head and gaze.

Need a star photo from Siggi's Yogurt,
there und
there
Scott bustles over
We march through the house
deciding
deciding

The Family Travis left hooks
and we found one in the kitchen
Scott climbed up my painted ladder
and with his agile hands
hung it on the ceiling
of The Vatican.

An Awful Allergy - ah ah ah ah-choo!!!

CEDAR FEVER from The Rivard Report

Eyelids feel like sandpaper? Sneezing nonstop? Welcome to “cedar fever,” an annual malady that plagues San Antonio and Central Texas every winter.

Ashe juniper trees, commonly known as “mountain cedars,” cause the seasonal affliction. As part of their reproductive cycle, male trees produce small pollen cones, while the female trees produce small seed cones that look like blueberries, explained Estelle Levetin, PhD and a professor of biological science at the University of Tulsa who has studied Ashe juniper for decades. Upon maturity, the male trees release billions of pollen granules into the wind –usually on a cold, breezy day. That yellow pollen dust, filled with myriad allergenic compounds, can travel up to 200 miles.

The bushy evergreens are native from southern Missouri to northern Mexico, but are especially dense in Central Texas and the Hill Country.

Cedar fever season typically starts after Thanksgiving and continues through February. But climate change may cause those who suffer its effects to adjust to a longer, more intense season. Warming temperatures appear to be extending the trees’ reproductive cycle and boosting pollen counts, according to the Fourth Annual Climate Change Assessment released earlier this year.

“We are early into the season,” said Dr. Eliseo Villalobos, an internist and Fellow of the American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI) at the Allergy Institute of San Antonio. Villalobos said that conditions this season seem pretty typical, but that the highest allergy counts are coming earlier in the season.

“Usually it peaks mid-January, but the counts last year peaked around late December … which it seems to be doing again this year,” he said.

The AAAAI pollen counter has listed San Antonio in the red zone with pollen counts rated “very high” every day since Dec. 23.  

....

After my marriage Mike and I moved to Houston and then Austin TX. Shockingly I got the worst allergy of my life, so bad I went to the doctor.

Cedar Fever was the diagnosis. My eyes were so swollen I couldn't see out of them. 

I suppose Dr Wooten prescribed meds which I readily took, tho the allergy never left until the yellow pollen dust was mostly out of the air.

....

And now upstairs I go to watch a Midsomers Night Mystery with Barnaby. Hope it's good.



SHANGHAI CHINA. 

LOVELY LOVELY LOVELY, but don't ask what they're doing.

New Year's Day

Brought these over to the Bill Adams house HOURS AGO. They are still sitting outside on the porch in the freezing weather. He just responded via email that his daughter will take them to college.

Israeli coffee is made from coffee powder that is smooth as silk. Look how it fits so nicely in a coffee cup that used to belong to my friend HAR. Wrote a poem about her for Adelaide Review.

I used to have these Johnson Brothers plates with a Laura Ashley design. The paper-white narcissus are losing their oomph.

The omelet was - contrary to its looks - delicious!

First I took it outside on the porch steps to eat. Steam was rising in the air.

Hello everybody, I shouted. But no one except God heard me. And I don't even believe in God.

Yoo hoo, God, if you can hear me Heal my friend NJP.



Oh, good god, where's the most important picture of all... Joan Effel. Scott will find it in the morning.

I hate to rely on Scott but

From Rem Murphy:

I rang in the new year four times: at 7 listening to Ireland, at 10 listening to the Falkland Islands (2 hrs ahead), at midnight watching Channel 6, and at one listening to WSM, Nashville.

.....

THE CREATURE FROM MARS

Tiny as an elf
Nekkid, we think
skin pink as a pig
floats into our neighborhood
on Garbage Night

Our Yellow and Green Plastic Bins
our regular garbage cans
lids on tight as a tuna can
don't want no critters
no masked raccoons, no scurrilus squirrels
no stinkbomb skunks nosing around where
they don't belong

The creature from Mars
lies atop my large plastic bin
staring up at the inky black sky

And the silver crescent moon
where he leaps in one bound
to ride this huge rocking chair 

.....

Would YOU take the plunge? The Polar Bear Plunge?



I just found this amazingly brave woman who got cancer in her twenties!

Must see how beautiful she is.

What eateries are open on New Year's Day?

Giant Food store. Forget it.

How about Dunkin? I got a gift card from my friend Tree.

Off I drove.

Ordered a small iced coffee with a bit of cinnamon in it.

A handsome gent named - Kuman ? - served me.

Also got croissant with turkey sausage, egg and cheese.

All delicious.

As I stood waiting for my order to be processed an older gent stood there too.

He made a couple of remarks and I said, How come you're so smart?

We sat down and began to chat. He loved to talk.

I tried not to get a stiff neck from looking at him.

His age, I guess,is about 82. Never been married. Has many friends and rides his bike in the warm weather,

Just bought a new car and is paying it off. Hopes it's his last car.

It was a grey sedan that gets good mileage.

I asked what restaurants he liked. Bonnet Lane. YES! I mentioned my friend Walter Straus lived in Regency Towers right behind us, but he moved out, and in with a Muslim family in Germantown. Wonder if my Walter is still alive. His photo is on the side of my fridge.

Look me up, I said to Michael, and told him my name. Ruth Deming. I run a support group. His own mother took her own life. As did many people in his family.

People are afraid of being alone these days, he said.

BTW, I did get an invoice from Adelaide Review, which I paid with my credit card. $65.

Never would've entered the contest if I didn't think I had a chance of winning.

Gonna write a poem about my name:

MY NAME

Plain as a bagel.
Ruth Deming.
No pizzazz.
Does it do me justice?
Meet me in the Starbucks Cafe at the Giant.
I'll be sitting alone, sipping on hot peppermint coffee
Reading a book, all alone, the way I like it.

New Year's Day, 2020

Woke up late, 9 am. I'd been submitting to Adelaide Review, none of my readers were able to help me, except for the next day, when they said they really liked Whatever Happened to Judy Diaz?

Your writing will be thrown out, said the editor, if it isn't accompanied by payment.

Yum,this hot tea - Earl Grey - is delicious and kept warm in my sister Lynn's pink thermal mug.

It's important to use the gifts we receive, unless they're still going thru our duodenums now. Which is what happened when I just walked around the block - 7 mins - and made it home on time.

Last night I changed the New Directions calendar to January 2020.

All these codes I've gotta remember.

Then the AWeber codes.

In this dry weather I put on Jason's Cream, I think it's called, from Barb Toohey - I needn't call her Mom Mom, right? - or St  Ives from Harriet. What does Charlotte call her?

I got one Happy New Year call last night and came racing downstairs. It was Blanch Lipshutz.

She told me that I got myself better from bipolar disorder.

I liked that.

Her daughter Judy is in our writing group, o most beloved.

Ya know, I could never get into the writing of Toni Morrison.

Am absolutely starving now.

Get ready, you fine intestines you, you'll have a New Year's Day treat!

Love, Ruthie