Happy Mother's Day

 Published this on AWeber. com

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

Mom, this is my first Mother's Day without you

The woman everybody loved

Why then don't I weep?

Yours was a life lived for others

The echoes go on and on

Off into that vast universe

And my tummy filled with

my favorite breakfast

a mushroom omelet

and tall glass of water. 

When I turned on the TV this morning the old Mr Rogers Show was on.

He had a very special guest - Eric Carle - the GREAT children's illustrator.

I watched in fascination as Eric made his work.

I decided to try it in the near future - and maybe you'd like to, as well.

Here is his website. 

Gonna do a little reading now.

Don't mind me. I was always like that, as was my late husband. We could be in the middle of the Titantic or Andrea Doria and he'd be oblivious.

Back Porch Still Leaks - Neighbors come home from Disneyworld

 Scott called up Walmsley again and told him the porch still leaks. He explained exactly what needed to be done. Bob had not listened to him but did say he'd come out again.

Just finished my short story which I call ON THE ROAD. The names I gave my neighbors are KATE AND DAVE. Dave is named after Scott's late father. Kate is simply a name I like.

I am happy with the story and sent it off to my writing group THE BEEHIVE. At 6 pm, Scott will make us lentil pasta.

What a racket the birds are making outside.

I swear I saw a real eagle the other evening.

This may be our Hanover Eagle.

Now, in the mail, I received MORE STAMPS. BUT I had not ordered these stamps. So following the prompts I called them up and spoke to a Louise.

I was on the phone about 19 minutes and in a hurry to complete my short story.

Oh, you're so nice, said Louise, who spoke with what she called a southern drawl as she was born in Arkansas.

I did mention I was working on a short story.

I told her to look me up. Ruth Z. Deming.

Oh, we're not allowed, she said.

Oh, for godssakes Louise, if you're interested you will do it.

Anything else, Ruthie?

Yes, I'll wait to hear what THE BEEHIVE thinks about On the Road, but I will be reading James Patterson who wrote a very long book with anudder guy.

As they say on the PBS Evening News Hour, 

STAY SAFE.  

PS - What should I eat until 6 pm?

First of all, I began making BROWN RICE by LUNDBERG FAMILY FARMS, which Scott bought me.

In my crock pot, of course.

Went out on the back porch with a couple of slices of Gala apple and cheese and munched on those.

Delicious! 

When Sarah and I lived in Texas, we would eat cheese and apples. 

They looked much like these do. 

Okay, back to James Patterson and co-author J D Barker and THE COAST TO COAST MURDERS.

Company coming at noon

 Good morning mes amis.

What a chilly morning it is today, let's see, Friday, May 7.

I know so many people who are unhealthy eaters so I wrote THE ROYAL DIET for them, published on short story. com.

Read it here. 

I had to think quickly and name it something and thought of the Royal Diet. Named after Royal Pudding we used to eat as kids back in Cleveland.

Am having company at noon and gotta make something for them to eat - Ellen Rosenberg and her friend Joanne.

Country style scrambled eggs. 

My Potato Soup is almost done - Hektoen Lit Mag

 Why, you may wonder was I speaking to Kelly of Nevada, a representative of the NY Times, for nearly 19 minutes?

I was signing up - for $42 per year - for recipes from the Times, esp Tara Parker Pope, who is far more interesting than her recipes.  

Tara Parker Pope. 

Could not find the file for my 2021 Hektoen Literary Stories.  Recognized a couple and published them on Short Story. Com.

Here's one called WATER.

Now the wasps are making sounds like little babies.

My letter to the editor about our writing group still did not appear in the Times Chronicle. I sat on my front porch and read all the articles, then popped em in the Tall Bag and put em in the Yellow Plastic Bin.

Yes, we had a nice yellow finch.

Ruthie, why are you always hungry? 

Last night before New Directions zoomed, I ate a delicious Amy's Enchilada. I didn't really have enuf time but I turned up the oven real high and managed to eat the whole enchilada before we zoomed.

What politican said, I can't believe we won the whole enchilada?

Was it George McGovern?

Let's refresh our memory and read about him.

He was a truly great man but he was never the President of the United States in the 1972 campaign. After his daughter died, I wrote him a letter but he never wrote back.

Olympia Dukakis, dead at 89. Star of Steel Magnolias, Moonstruck, and so many other highly acclaimed works. Once a Greek immigrant. Read about her here. 

PING goes the pollen or the wasp at my picture window that reveals the beauty of my street

 PING! Good Lord, scaring me half to death as I sit watching a terrible film on YouTube

whose name escapes me. What is real? And what is in the crock pot?

After removing the eyes of the potatoes, oh dear, they can no longer see, I plunk them in

the crock pot. The petal-sized pieces will be ready when I am. 

Just one more piece of chocolate before I bid you adieu.

...

Hektoen International is an excellent literary mag that accepted none of my work this year.

Not a one. I shall publish them myself. Yes, it will take some work, but I've always been a hard worker, have you?

...

Am reading a James Patterson et al novel up in my bed, Endurance by Scott Kelly, and Noah, given to me by my mother/law. 

AND one more book by a Black Man about the Ku Klux Klan.

Walter, send me a sign if you're still alive. Born in 1918.

Saturday Morning Writing Group - The Wahine Disaster - will add this to my memoirs POEM FOR NEIGHBOR CAROL CARR at bottom

 

THE SINKING OF THE WAHINE

How I love our Saturday Writing Group, featuring Beatriz and her incredible tales of pollinators – wasps, ants, bees, birds – that all come alive in her hand. We also have Barbara Custer, the Balloon Lady, who is working on a novel, featuring characters, including Zombies; Linda Barrett, who invents extraordinary creatures and characters who have unbelievable adventures. And, yes, she has read the late Ray Bradbury of Fahrenheit 451, the temperature that books burn in one of his dysphoric stories. Ken Ivins is either a listener who offers helpful comments, or he comes up with stories that may take place on a train – perhaps he has read Hercule Poirot, with that slender, fastidious moustache – or in the back of a limousine, ooh la la!

Habits die hard. Before I write something and submit it to our group, nicknamed “The Beehive” after our Beatriz, I often watch a disaster film. Why, I’m not sure. Perhaps to cleanse my mind. The video “The Wahine” popped up for me. “The Wahine” was an enormous ferry in New Zealand. On April 10, 1968, the Wahine sunk. Nothing could stop it. I cowered on my Red Couch where I was watching and drinking a 12-ounce can of V-8, through a straw.

I marveled at the snap of the attached can opener.

Snap! Pop! Open! Drink!

Ah! What could be more satisfying?

Getting out of the storm, that’s what.

Storm was the wrong word. It was a cyclone. No one aboard was aware of what was going on. Folks were interviewed in color in 2020. The ship’s captain, Jim Mason, had been asleep, when he was awoken. He called for a cup of tea, which arrived, boiling hot tea, which was tossed across the back wall.

A policeman and his family were watching from dry land and called 111, the disaster line. He viewed roofs being blown off. Driving down the road, so many obstacles kept the officer from rescuing The Wahine in his tugboat. The ferry began transporting passengers for day and overnight trips between New Zealand’s inter-island route between the ports of Wellington and Lyttelton, in 1966. A maximum of 1,100 passengers were allowed on.

What they did not know was they were heading directly into Tropical Cyclone Giselle. Not to be confused with the lovely ballet, Giselle, which had been performed by the Australian Ballet Theatre. Ironically, like the ferry, Giselle, a trusting peasant girl, was sacrificed for love.  

Barrett’s Reef approached at fantastic speeds. The waters churned and churned like the Niagara. Finally, the passengers heard a deafening roar: Abandon ship! Abandon ship!

“Stop!” A man in authority yelled. “Leave your pocketbook behind.”

“Had we not,” said an elderly woman with blonde hair, “we would be dead.”

Fifty-one people lost their lives.

But not me. I was sipping on my V-8 for dear life. Sucking and sucking, till it ran out. Quickly, I ran into the kitchen. I tripped over something and fell onto the carpet.

“How could I do that?” I thought, as I continued into the kitchen with the cold white linoleum and refilled the V-8 with cold tap water.

When I returned to the film, I “liked” it. YouTube would remember me and notify me for the next disaster film. They knew my taste better than I did. 

....

Walking down the street around 4 pm, I encountered Kevin Carr, the son of Carol Carr and her late husband Bill. Bill had put up my jeweled mezuzah on my front door. Have wanted to stop by for ages and finally did. I wore my mask. Carol is quite the talker - she is 87, I believe - and we talked about The Basement Steps, her difficulty seeing since she has macular degeneration, like my late Aunt Selma did - we thought Selma would never die - her son Bruce who lives at a group home. He did come 'home' however several times and she got a great big hug from him. 

He is getting pudgy though as they feed him a lot of junk food. Something called TINY BYTES. I stood up and looked at all their photos and their old Philco Radio. 

Kevin was cutting the lawn and spraying weed killer all over. Inside, we looked at all the puffs floating through the air. Amazing. Dandelion puffs.

In their back yard, I saw humongous WISTARIA BUSHES, like at my late friend what's his name in Hatboro, PA. I'd like to write a  poem for Carol, which I will do right now.

Don't wait up for me.

POEM FOR THE ONE AND ONLY, CAROL CARR

WHAT A LIFE YOU'VE LIVED, CAROL CARR, 86, if a day

A SIMPLE NAME, BUT NOT A SIMPLE LIFE

YOUR YOUNGEST BRUCE, WENT OFF TO A GROUP HOME

AND LOVES IT THERE, THOUGH HE MISSES HIS MOM

AND WHO WOULDN'T!

SHE'S A LADY WITH A SPLENDID PERSONALITY

IF SHE STOPS TALKING SHE MIGHT AS WELL BE DEAD

FLOWERS GROW ALL ALONG THE STEPS

FRAGRANT RED TULIPS, YELLOW ONES AND MAROON

I HOPE TO CLIMB UP THE STAIRS TO HER LIVING ROOM

AGAIN AND AGAIN, OVER THE COMING YEARS.

LOVE, RUTH Z DEMING

Old Glory Pest Control was Here

 GORDON WASHBURN, my exterminator, was here around noon on Saturday, April 30. He checked all the bad spots and pronounced my house free of ants, mice, and termites.

He wore an OLD GLORY shirt, the name of his company. He bought it from someone else. 

What dyou do with all dat money? I asked him.

Pay my bills, he said. He's got a GF he lives with and he showed me pix of their two adorable golden retrievers.

I waited all day long to write my short story for our Saturday writing group. Took me about five hours since I knew what to write about.

It's the true story of when I worked for Symphony Manor, a full service retirement home. Somewhere on my computer - the upstairs one - I have notes on everything I did. Psychotherapists do this. 

Did I mention that yesterday  - oh dear, lost my train of thought as my daughter Sarah called. 

She suggested I change my answering machine message to a regular one, since Covid 19 is not such a problem and many of us, including myself, have been vaccinated.

POEM 

Gordon, even though I pay you 

it's a pleasure to see you.

You're kind, considerate, and of all the unusual things

You ask about my art projects.

We peeked onto the back porch where my art works lie

Many made from Styrofoam, which may take billions of years to crumble

If I don't know I can always ask GRETA THUNBERG 

Who tells the world, and yours truly, what to do.