Jannie Sue

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Tuesday, February 27, 2007

A Poem About Miracles

- by Alden Nowlan (1933-1983)

Why don't records go blank

the instant the singer dies?

Oh I know there are explanations

but they don't convince me.

I'm still surprised

when I hear the dead singing.

As for orchestras,

I expect the instruments

to fall silent one by one

as the musicians succumb

to cancer and heart disease

so that toward the end

I turn on a disc

labeled Gotterdammerung

and all that comes out

is the sound of one sick old man

scraping a shaky bow

across an out-of-tune fiddle.

(Darn it, Alden - another poem you beat me to!)

9:58 am

Dishcloth

Somebody stole the dishcloth. Somebody pilfered the soap. Soon we may not even have the kitchen sink. Spoils of trash compactor I'll never miss but the dishcloth, the dishcloth I'll weep for. Won't be able to flack anybody in the buttocks with it anymore and believe me, it was the perfect heft and height for maximum whackage on moonlit Mondays. I suspect the butler. Possibly the maid. If this starts to make sense, please forgive me, I try only to entertain the howling dog next door. (Again with the howling dogs, oy vey.) But I can't help it. The dishcloth is gone and the screen door has handcuffed me to this computer - it's not even a laptop, just a big old desktop that never gets out. I imagine the scouring pad will go next.

9:26 am

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Light Bulb

Did you know Edison only slept 4 hours a night? For some reason I keep imagining the trays Mina brought him, sandwiches and tea often untouched.

I loved his darkish Ft. Meyers lab with beakers, bottles, burners and beaded pine. Thought I heard his footsteps on the oak floor still faint with linseed oil. Edison, could I have been a moth milling around your candle those 10,000 nights you bore the brunt of incandescent blizzards. Pen to paper. Glasses shunted back up the bridge of your nose. Oh Edison, it's all ones and zeroes now, all smoke and mirrors inside laptops, all lasers and cookies and hammers of plastic. But you'll be glad to know chocolate still tastes wonderful, God still loves us and lilacs still rule every Menlo Park June. (P.S. Say "Hi" to Ford and tell him his cars are alive and well, just don't mention I drive a Toyota.)

I was 6 months pregnant with Kelly when

we toured the Edison-Ford estates.

6:37 pm

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Saturday Photo Hunters Theme: Soft

Nothing soft as bunny fur. But Bun-Bun had to go last week because she'd taken to chasing and biting Kelly. Found a loving home for her with two cats,

a chinchilla and some sugar gliders. Bye Bun-Bun. We'll always love you.

10:57 am

Friday, February 23, 2007

Medal

Medal. Round, flat, shiny. Tasty if made from chocolate. Hot in the summer, wet when it rains. I had medals as a majorette. I think I did. Where did they go? Yes, I had medals on my epaulets! Also had a row of medals for perfect attendace in Sunday school, adding one bar a year under the Year One wreath for a chain down my shoulderblade. Not shoulderblade - I mean clavicle. (Be kinda silly to wear them down my back.) Kept the medals in Mom's miniature spice cabinet in the bottom drawer. For some reason I think they'd still be in that spice cabinet, the way I think Kelly's Social Security card's still in a folder where it's clearly not. Where do things go?

(What the bars look like)

12:32 pm

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Blue # 3

Today I'm a swirl of indigo ashes. I'm the patch of sky nobody remembers until everything's gone to grey. I'm the murky lake in April. The navy night in May. I might just be the bluest shade ever attempted on canvas - a curtain of teal monsoon. Even sleep's darkness would probably sneak jagged sapphires under my skin. Tuesday's not my favorite, but then again no day really is. I should be at The Metropolitan Museum of Art today, alone with the echoes of dead artists' laughter near tables where their teacups stand two hundred years cold. Yeah, that would cheer me up. That or a long hot bath.

10:36 am

Monday, February 19, 2007

Balloon

John Belushi's weight had been ballooning on and off before he died. Pizza especially, I read in Wired. Imagine if they monitored every inch of our excess fat? Imagine the fish bowl. I don't condone John Belushi's drug use but how could he stay that "on" all the time? Samurai Deli. Blues Brother. Lugging bastions of energy batallions with him everywhere? Can't do it. Lightbulbs burn bright then pop. Most of us learn to use our dimmer switch, (which is both good and bad I guess.) Did the same happen to Chris Farley? The class clowns that none of the high school buds were surprised to see make it big. The boys that could drink more, laugh more, be crazier than the rest of us. I wonder where they all are now?

1:29 pm

Saturday, February 17, 2007

eBay Item # 250079445311 Rode K2 Studio As-New Microphone Photos

Because something's wrong with my cookies (used salt instead of sugar?) I haven't been able to upload these pix to my eBay auction so... presto-voila, here they are - photos of YOUR new Rode K2. (By the way, reserve's $459.)

3:28 pm

Saturday Photo Hunters, Theme : Antique

Jim's mom died at age 97 almost three years ago. Up until she was 88 she ran her own antique shop in Mahone Bay where folks used to muse at the "antique" selling antiques! Miss you so much, Ann but see you again some day forever.

(In this photo Ann was 95 and Kelly 13 months old.)

(Sorry, comments box not yet active on this site.)

12:18 pm

Friday, February 16, 2007

Needlepoint

Met her at her yardsale in 1992 where I bought this needlepoint she was sacrificing. Still feel bad about lying to her the fourth time she called for a ride to the store to buy a bottle of wine. Said my car wasn't working to spare myself a drunken re-telling about the guy who'd left her for someone younger and prettier and off to la Isla Mujeres was she next week to find herself again in art (and tequila.) Feelings, nothing more than feelings but how the sinking stomach hangs on long after a lie. Broken-hearted yardsale lady, keeping it fuzzy with chardonnay thirty years after her maiden aunt's dimming eyes

brimmed with love and hope as they stitched these roses and leaves for the bouncy blonde in third grade who would one day become sad little Elise on Isla Mujeres. (By the way, this is a true story.)

7:57 pm

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Thursday Thirteen, Edition 7

Thirteen Things Kelly Likes (By Kelly)

1. Playing with Legos

2. Chicken salad sandwiches

3. To be with my mommy

4. To color Mom pictures

5. To find toy cars and give them to my daddy

6. To have family dinners

7. To watch cartoons if I'm playing hookey or I'm sick or it's a Saturday

or if I'm on vacation in my hotel room

8. To sing and dance

9. My mom to read books to me

10. Orange slices

11. To play computer games

12. My special [show-and-tell] day at school

13. My mom to tell me stories, great stories

Portrait Of The Author Two Years Ago

10:55 am

Brownies

I played guitar and sang 3 of my "lovesongs" then ate a slice of Grace's excellent sourcream coffeecake, a chocolate-dipped strawberry and one of Joann's small perfect brownies at the Jazzercise party this morning. (Then I had a Starbucks and half a Wendy's burger before my co-write with Adrian.)

But what's really on my mind tonight? My anger at 3 twits who have been neither nice nor fair to my family. I know, so stupid being angry at stupid people, might as well be mad at myself. Isn't that what anger directed outwards really is - directed at yourself? Turn both cheeks. Jesus, You wrote the book. Or rather Your Father did, You're both in it pretty close together. So You know I'm going to sin right now by wishing these 3 pathetic ones assorted miseries of bunions, piles, ingrown nose-hairs, itchy eyes, constant hiccups and frequent bouts of insomnia in mangled bedsheets. Yeah, that'll show 'em! I feel much better now and am going to bed.

11:15 pm

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

She Likes It!

Hard at work signing "Kelly" on all those princess notes.

3:55 pm

Shoebox

I hope Kelly won't mind that I got carried away and decorated her whole Valentines box. I was only supposed to do two things: 1.) cover it with red and pink paper and 2.) smear the outside with sparkle glue which would be dry by the time she came home from school to decorate it. My guess is she will be happy with it, I hope so anyway.

2:06 pm

Monday, February 12, 2007

Crown

I finally noticed the crown on the Starbucks gal. After how many hundred cups? Until just a minute ago that logo was but a blur of green circle and nebulous girl to me - no stars, wavy hair, raised hands and thing-a-ma-jigs noted. My poor gestalt mind. Wouldn't be of much use to a forensic artist were I ever pressed to describe a bad guy. Jutting forehead, sunken eyes, size of the nostrils? How thick the lips? Mustache or not? Symmetry? What's wrong with me? I'm probably one of the very few who can't break visuals down. Can you? I tend to remember overall things like height and weight and the tension of the energy between us. The feelings. Or the slopes of shoulders and motion of lips in speech. Ticks and twitches and rolls of the eyes but not the color of them. A scar - I might remember a scar. Or zits.

12:51 pm

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Saturday Photo Hunters Theme:

You'd never dream an eighteen-month-old could fracture her elbow by falling 20" from the sofa to the carpet but mine managed to do it one lovely April evening in 2002. Wore the cast and 3 pins for a month. Parenting Tip 307: If child cries most of the night and the injured area is swollen by morning, you may very well have a broken bone in the house.

8:00 am

Friday, February 9, 2007

Queen Of This Castle

7:31 am

Thursday, February 8, 2007

Capo

Slap one on One and flip your C to an exotic Db. Play in good old G? Your Kyser on Three magically transforms your jazz leanings into Bb. Ever play D at the 7th fret - exquisite B - a whole hand bell choir of Zepplin's sweetest chimes melting out to Pluto. Pluto! Oh My God!! Kellys says Pluto's been downgraded. Not a planet anymore. How can my kindergardner be learning this and I had no clue? Poor Pluto, the shame and dislocation. The PTSD could shock the tequila out of The Big Dipper into Orion's eyes. Funny how things change. But back to capo... if you can play first position open chords in say, 5 keys - you've got it made in the Bach biz. Hot damn! (Just be sure to re-check your tuning on your high E, B and G strings.) G strings? Ahh, a whole other dance, my Friend.

HAPPY 65TH DADDY !!!

7:59 pm

Thursday Thirteen, Edition 6

Thirteen Things Kelly Does Not Like

1. Boring days

2. Getting bitten by a bunny

3. The color green

4. Using the computer all by herself

5. Having to turn on the television

6. Having to turn off the television

7. Having to look at an opossum

8. Having to turn doorknobs

9. To be sad

10. To get hit with flying rocks on the playground

11. Cake with her icing

12. Bad people that throw forks on her head

13. Swinging from the ceiling fan

3:19 am

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Ballet Jazz Montreal

Clunky cogs of machinery. Winter oaks twisting. Bunny fur and kitten tongues. Shocks of silk. White porcelain breaking. Bronze clanging. Isolation. Maple sap flowing. Broom bristles on castle floors. Night mist. Trains in the distance. Andy Warhol cocktail parties. Speed bumps. Tusk. Polished ivory. Whistles and harps. Tangles of cornsilk and barbed wire. Flashes of lemon-spritz and golden caramel. Sparks and fried marshmallow. Velvet on clotheslines. Milk bottles on doorsteps. Corkscrews. Clouds clumping...

Yes, my first time seeing Les Ballets Jazz Montreal was all that and more.

(Note to Jo: It was some freaking good, Mate!)

2:49 pm

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Road Sign

My fears are confirmed - Peach and Sweety, like millions of other dogs in the world, have been sneaking into the fridge and pantry at night and Stealing Food. I knew some steak and cake were missing! Time to send their chubby little behinds off to this place... to teach them fat grams and portion control.

Weight Loss Camps For Dogs! God, what'll be next?

8:45 pm

Sunday, February 4, 2007

Candy

Ah, John Candy, why'd ya have to go so young? Trains, Planes and Automo-

biles one of my all-time favorite movies. But maybe better to die young - blaze of glory and all that crap? (We all gotta go sometime.) I don't know anything about how John Candy spent his personal time, was he married, did he have kids? Better to die at 95 then. I can't wait to be a grand-mother but since Kelly's only 5, I will obviously have to. (She wants 24 kids!) Who will I be as a grand-mother? Still performing and writing songs I'm sure. "Hey, let's go see Grand-ma on Letterman (if he's still around,) although my preference would be Jay Leno of course. "Hope we get good seats to see Grand-ma at The Grammys. And man, can Grand-ma bake great cookies. She let's us help her plant tomatoes and pansies too. And still Jazzercising at 82!"

11:40 am

Saturday, February 3, 2007

Saturday Photo Hunters Theme: Gross