What a great assortment of memories.
The tiny iris plant is below the Tavenor's Drops.
Just finished walking around the block and then doing my back and leg exercises on the mattress downstairs.
Very difficult.
Oh, the house at 172 Sleighride Road sold.
Who dyou think bought it?
Columbian drug lords?
Nomads, from the film NomadLand, who have 17 people living in there?
Folks from a cat house?
I get a call from the office of my physical therapist. Clare wants a complete medical history of me plus the Pain Survey I had already filled out.
Listen, Clare, I say. I don't have time for all this. Thank you for your help. And I hang up.
Turns out my back and legs have turned the corner, so to speak. Much Much Better. Scott was here this morning and he was helping me do the exercises on my soft downstairs mattress.
I thought I would never get better.
Then I walked around the hilly block in a thin blue shirt and never warmed up, but knew I'd be home soon.
Home to my potato soup which I just finished. The crock pot is soaking in the sink. Actually I just cleaned it with plenty of elbow grease.
POTATO SOUP
My new specialty
like peasants of old
these underground tubers
gathered strength and nourishment
Lord God be told
So satisfying with brown rice
mushrooms, garlic and melting cheese
we slurp it up bowl after bowl after bowl.
Hold on. My nephew Miles is graduating from Columbia Law School. I sent his mom a note to send me the link.
Went in my fridge and brought out the bagel and lox Lynn had brought me yesterday. It was as frozen as an Eskimo Pie.
Since the dog was barking across the street, I sat on Scott's bench and ate most of it, then took it to our compost heap and tossed out the remains of the day, a book by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Anthony Hopkins received best actor award last night - at 83 he is the oldest person to win one - for his portrayal in THE FATHER. I think he has dementia in the film.
Please don't wait for me, but will look it up now.
AND the award ceremony, the little I saw, was annoyingly terrible.
In the mail I received a solicitation from the Muscular Dystrophy Foundation. I wanted to donate $15 b/c when my son Dan was little, he had a boy in his class with that terrible disease.
Went online and it was UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE to donate anything.
Just now I finished watching an hour long presentation from the PBS News Hour about the book and the film NOMADLAND.
Fascinating. The author Jessica Bruder was interviewed by Jeffrey Brown, who did an excellent job.
We gotta check this out!
Refreshments included two Krewstat muffins.... z very best. Thother day I made an entire panful of them but had no one to share them with, so I stuffed myself. Mom loved Yogurt, covered over with plastic and in Helene's bowl, lox and bagels in a quiche pan that may have been Moms, my diabetes apparatus in the background.
That lox was damn good. Lynn perfected her half a hardboiled egg. She read the direx as did Scott.
Lynn goes up to people and tells them this. Good for you, Sister Lynn!
Oh, here we are again, open for business.
Link for bald eagle camera.
Just got home from Scott's where we had a delicious BBQ, chicken franks, sauerkraut, Mr Moutarde sharp n strong, the way I like my men, as you shall read when I publish my daring new short story THE INTRUDER.
The narrator on the jazz station WRTI FM said it's gonna be warm and beautiful and then rain some.
Am gonna relax tonight altho I napped for an hour at Scott's house.
He received an email early this morning about the time to receive his second Monderna vaccine.
Got a Water Bill addressed to my mother. No way am I changing it to my name.
In fact, in the middle of the night with my light turned on, I examined on Gramma Lily's marble bed table a small writing pad written by Mom and telling of where to turn off all faucets, all power, and the dimensions of all the bedrooms.
Ma, I know you can't or didn't live forever - you were only 97 when you passed - but you love love loved houses and were happy to buy me this in 1990 I think. I have it wrin down in my long living room desk I found at the end of the street.
Wanted to give a small donation to the muscular dystrophy foundation. When Dan was a small boy a child in his class was dying of this twisty turvy disease. Wrote a poem about it. Somewhere. Wrote it from the point of view of the janitor who helped carry the boy.
That's it. Gotta get off as I'm afraid of losing everything.
Just checked on a suicidal woman in our group. Told her I would write her back after I had written a poem.
TRYING NOT TO LOOK IN THE MIRROR WHILE I BRUSH MY TEETH
Once men would look at me
A full brunette with shoulder length hair
like Pier Angeli
Now my eyebrows are slashed with white hairs
like Dale Evans' horse Buttermilk
A little smile plays upon my lips
as hairs jut from my chin
Could it be
Could it be
That I am still here
Till the world is done with me?
...
Brought in the Yellow Plastic Bin from the street, the one that had turned over on its side in the winds. Scott came and told me.
The last thing I put in there was a foil packet of Salmon, rinsed out, I made a feast with it while listening to Brahms on my kitchen radio.
...
Was doing my back and leg exercises downstairs in the basement. Helene's SONY radio was on. Suddenly I saw myriads of dead insects. Scooped em up in toilet paper and flushed em down the toilet drain.
Y U C K
...
Ah, the breakfast gong goes off at the Ponderosa.
DRAMA ON COWBELL ROAD AND THEN SOME
Yesterday, April 20, 2021 was the first Memorial Gathering for my Mom. It was held at Donna's house in Clarksboro, NJ. 08020.
Donna changed the date as today is supposed to be very windy.
In fact, though hard to believe, my YELLOW PLASTIC BIN toppled over in the street. It's nearly as tall as I am.
The reason I stayed home is bc there were unvaccinated people there. I felt terrible but I can't risk getting Covid-19.
Everyone there took turns talking about her, remembering her with great fondness. I will write a poem about her now.
MOM, EVERYTHING REMINDS ME OF YOU
If there is one word to describe my mom, it would be
Giving. Look around my house. Aunt Ethel's fancy table is covered with a B&W
Batik Tablecloth from Melissa. Photos of this beautiful white-haired woman with black eyes
solemnize my house. Ever curious, she would want to know the verdict in the Derek Chauvin
trial. When I visited, I would wear clothes of mine she had never seen. I dressed up for her.
My mother. Her meals were divine. Gefilte kraut, Sweet and Sour Meatballs, and Lime Jello with sour cream I requested for my birthday.
She was a licorice lover, a chocolate lover, and a man lover. She got her man and the two of them
rule the heavens, hand in hand.
