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Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Migraine
8:58 pm
Monday, July 30, 2007
Haircut
10:53 pm
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Pulitzer PrizeJust when I realized my hours are planned out not by myself but by some unseen forces within
me and I couldn't find any more fresh Billy Collins on the shelves (but had recently come to my senses and given up on wading through Bukowski's whores
and horses to get to a little good stuff,) yes, just when I thought poetry
was over, I met Stephen Dunn in a small paperback on the bottom shelf at the bookstore
not ten minutes from here.
So maybe life's not so bad after all!
Friday, July 27, 2007
TeacherMy fifth husband Mel only mentioned his first wife once, rolling his big brown eyes to say she'd
been a skinny violin teacher from Dallas with a mayhem of blue-black curls, a razor sharp tongue and
a penchant for pool boys named Chuck. I guess when Chuck #3 stuck that was the end of the blue-black curls, and
of Mel's heart for the next ten years.
After Mel and I moved from my rooms over Jenny's Flowers to his ranch in the hills, even after his right
wrist had begun to seize up and his left cornea had started to go, one night each year when his pumpkins and apples
were all safe in the barn, he'd pull out his old 3/4 size Heberlein Jr from its beat-up case near the pantry
door, hobble it gently to his rocking chair on the back porch and glide that old bow across those four lonely
strings to set free the most beautiful mirage of melodies I've ever heard or will probably
ever hear again. Silk scarves of music made up on the spot, rising and falling and soaring to take flight
and disappear through the pines of the Buckshot County hills to a world beyond of people we would mostly
never meet who were going about their lives beneath the same moon and stars that danced for us each night. Sometimes
he'd go for an hour. Sometimes for two. I think maybe he missed something about her on those nights but
I never asked him and he never said. Either way, it was alright - for Mel to be mine I could share his heart for
an hour or two a year.
First Violin Lesson With Brenda
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Jae's HungerI went the silly route with mine but you gotta read Jae's, if you read nothing else today, an Oh-Mi-God from start to finish.
HungerMy fifth husband Mel's third band was almost called The Pickled Pipers until one moonless
night when Jim, the fretless dishrag whipper-whapperer and his wife Doris, on their seventh honeymoon at the Motel Six
in Chickaboo, TX, via a simultaneous dream heard a voice eerily like Elvis' repeat, "Sticky Pickles...
Sticky Pickles... I hunger for Sticky Pickles." And anyone who's ever had a simultaneous dream (or a sticky pickle,)
will tell you - don't be ignoring what's dreamt simultaneously, especially when Elvis is doing the talking!)
The Sticky Pickles it was.
Destiny.
Doris, excited about the band's name, stencilled a gherkins border on Kodak paper and tried to run copies
off her old dot-matrix printer but the new-fangled stock was .005 mm too thick and kept jamming up so she grovelled
over to Bob the-scrub-bucket-banjo-player's wife, Martha, for help because Martha'd won an honorable mention in the annual
Buckshot County "Excellence In Ad Artistry" contest for her bean supper flier for the Church Of The Enlightened Perpetual Hopers.
Martha'd done up said flier on her new HP 6250 copier/printer/fax, an open box special she'd scored for
20% off at Jimmy-Jack's because it had a couple of slight nicks on the left side of the paper tray and a coffee stain
on the HP logo. Reaching as far as they could past their long-standing flower-arranging feud, Martha
and Doris were able to combine their talents for the good of the fledgling Sticky Pickles and designed quite a nice
little 8 1/2 x 11" ad they posted in the front windows of the dozen or so businesses around greater Glitcherton and
in the restrooms at Miriam's Miracle Massage out on FM69. An ad that read,
Introducing...
"The Sticky Pickles" Band
Sunday from 3:00 to 5:00
At
The Bandstand
(Behind Yolanda's House Of Mops)
Family
Show
Be There!
(All this I learned later when Doris and I were becoming best friends, because the April Sunday of
The Sticky Pickles world debut show I was still a few months away from officially meeting Mel.)
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Another Quartet
Shannon Heather
Kelly Ellie
12:50 am
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
QuartetMel's wooden spoons rounded out his quartet's washtub bass, scrub bucket banjo and fretless dishrag whipper-whapper
quite nicely. And folks, mostly groupie women, would flock on Sundays from sometimes 15 miles away
to the bandstand behind 'Yolanda's House Of Mops' to lose themselves in Mel's signature spoons-on-the-peg-leg-Star-Spangled-Banner-House-Of-The-Rising-Sun-Hello-Dolly
medley, which he'd been written up in the Glitcherton Gazette for, with his picture in color and everything. But
I'd just smile at the push-up bra brigade elbowing it's way to the bandstand because I knew one day Mel would be
mine. And I had the plan to get him.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Kitty Can Climb!
And he can get himself
back down again, so that's a plus!
10:37 am
Sunday, July 22, 2007
DabblerMy fifth husband Mel was a dabbler of course. Collecting mostly - guns, antique crosswords and raspberry
farming manuals. Some sewing too -
buttonhole repairs in November, sock-darning towards Easter. A bit of cross-stitch on the
back porch in April if there was rain, where I'd lounge in the swing across from him with
my letters or travel magazines, lulled by his rocking chair's repetitious creeeak-bonk, creeeak-bonk, creeeak-bonk as
his peg leg hit the old wooden floor. Often he'd be smoking his pipe or eating fried bananas, just cross-stitching,
rocking and listening to far-off whipporwills and the rain like popcorn popping on the tin roof. Once when
he cross-stitched some yellow roses on a dry April evening, the next morning we had to rush him to Buckshot Co. General
with fits of asthma, phlebitis, and acute appendicitis. Knew better than to try cross-stitching on a dry night
again! Poor Mel, he'd almost finished his Princess Diana placemat / napkin set when he stepped into that
phone booth that morning. Here today, gone tomorrow. You just never know, do you.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
What Do You Do On A Rainy Day...?
Well..... Some Of This.....
And A Little Of This.
But Mostly This...
This.....
Friday, July 20, 2007
Crab
My fifth husband Mel was crazy for crab sandwiches with pickled beets, salami and cream cheese. Loved to top
those off with corndogs and a can or two of beer nuts. Which reminds me - whenever he had a new audience
at bowling he'd never fail to regale that the difference between beer nuts and deer nuts is beer nuts cost between $1.09
to $1.49 but deer nuts are always under a buck. That Mel! As hard as he was to get along with about many
things, like lightbulb colors, sock thicknesses and the correct way to pronounce the word 'interesting,' he did
have a comical spark that drew you in.
10:12 am
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
FossilI spied a Fossil watch I knew was a piece of junk but it had that Western look my fifth husband Mel
loved to see me all decked out in and would be just the thing to set off my silver-blue stretch pants so I
snatched it from the sale bin the first Wednesday Doris and I ever met for tomato soup. Well, It's been four
years since Mel's phone booth accident and I've tried to move on but seeing that ad last night for the new
'Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific' (the only shampoo Mel ever used,) brought all these things and more from our nine
years together rushing back. Like the summer he won sixty bucks on the scratch ticket and treated me
to a day at the zoo where a rutting zebra jumped the fence and broke his remaining big toe. The winter
he fell off the roof. The spring he got his arm stuck for three days under the hood of his Dodge. Oh, the
precious memories. All the souflees he burned and the beer bottles he shot with his 22. How he
could gargle while singing and prune his brows with a shears. How he looked so mysterious in
green. I guess I do miss him a lot but I really wonder whatever happened to that watch.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
WingsHaving to write on wings has put me in a bad mood. All that comes to mind is Bette
Midler all happy about the wind beneath them, that show from the early 90s I never watched and the hummingbirds
who haven't come even once to our new feeder (my fault for putting it up after more on-the-ball
gardeners had already lured them in.) Wings on angels, not buying that one today. Roots and
wings? Happy horseshit. Now my chest is all tight and I want a chocolate cupcake. I need a haircut
and to lose 7 lbs by tomorrow and it looks like a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day is well on its way to taking
flight here in paradise.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
We're Pretty Fond-a Our Little Used Honda
6:07 pm
Saturday, July 14, 2007
BuzzerHad a Bermuda dream again last night. The usual scenes, yet shifting like the sands that won't
get out of my head. (And bed.) First we approach over schools of minnows in fishing dories that
took only a half-hour to get from NYC to the Paget beach where everyone's dressed in 1890s costume and drinking Tang
in fine china. Next, up and down Winchester staircases in the pink hotel with the wedding-cake cottages I am always looking for pizza in.
And around and around and around on foot to the souvenir and postcard shops that often smell mysteriously of frangipani
and something old like Model A leather seats or magazines found behind hundred-year-old walls. Then out of the shops with
crinkly bags of cards to streets streaming with soft but questioning eyes and flocks of nuns tapping on cobblestones
where the cruise ships are docked and everybody's naked. And of course, the illusive twins woven
in and out - this time as 3-year-olds on 50s home movies projected onto the surf. (Go figure.) And finally, the
jolt of the clock radio's buzzer.
Bermuda, Bermuda, always with the Bermuda dreams. When will the Paris ones return?
Thursday, July 12, 2007
YoyoWriters work in such mysterious ways. One author, after jogging ten miles and whipping up a blenderful
of wheat grass and tofu, might weave sparks of the yellow yoyo he or she saw in a shop window into
a 796-page New York Times Best-Seller that Scorcese whirls into a pop culture phenomenon starring
Tom Cruise and Mandy Moore (and Meryl Streep, of course,) which wins 16 Oscars, and four sequels
- each better than the last; while another writer might wake at noon to gorge on apple crisp, go
back to bed until Oprah, then swill scotch until he or she can no longer hold a pen, let alone see one.
Personally, I find it really hard to write when I could be eating apple crisp.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
First Piano LessonKelly LOVED her piano lesson yesterday and practiced at home last night without prompting, sitting for
about two minutes to play the notes from her index cards, then whirling around the room on her bicycle, then piano
a bit more, then biking again, then piano. And so on. Mind and body - you go, Kel!
I am amazed how Brenda plunged her right into reading music the first lesson - took her through middle C, D, and E on the treble
clef and A, B and C on the bass in whole, half, quarter and eigth notes. Of course Brenda's an amazing
music teacher anyway, I shouldn't have been surprised.
Today we'll be off to rent a wee violin. We'll probably split her weekly lessons into 30 mins violin
/ 30 mins piano.
I'm really impressed. With both Kelly and Brenda.
Monday, July 9, 2007
DoorknobBrass is my favorite followed by wrought iron, followed by cedar. Have you ever seen one in teak or
rosewood? I can't imagine. I should try Googling Marble Doorknob but maybe I'll just Google Alabama.
Or Oompa-loompa. Probably get some "sponsored site" first anyway, even the Net's gone to the dogs.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Snow White Down On The Farm!
On a break from
castle life, Snow White kicks back at the ranch.
2:39 am
Friday, July 6, 2007
AirplaneBoring Version:
Later this month 3 airplanes will carry Kelly and me to my home and native land. We already picked out all her window seats online! Austin-Houston, Houston-Newark, Newark-Moncton.
And verse-visa. Pretty decent way to travel. Gonna have my laptop all charged up. Won't have any sounds
on it but I can work on lyrics.
Less Boring Version: Later this month on our way to a 14-day drunk, I'll ripple through
various airports wearing only my blue chiffon, pink ropers and a slab of eau de pine bark. Maybe we'll get
to see N.Y.City from our windows! Maybe we'll get to see The Grand Canyon but hopefully not as that's West and
we'll be going East.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
And Nothing But Rags To Wear To The Ball
11:42 am
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Bovine FlatulenceWith all the other evils in the world, I'm not going to worry too much about it today. Are you?
Monday, July 2, 2007
ColanderThe old colander's probably still there. And the pots I could draw from memory, if I
could draw, that is. (Rosie's got that gift, not me.) The colander, the 4-quart pot with the broken
black handle, the 2-quart one with the lid that flew into the cake batter that time and the old cast iron one Gram
boiled her donuts and Mom now almost fifty summers of wild strawberry jam in. Tucked in with the meat grinder
that clamps on the side of the table - all items probably in those cabinets when Mom and Dad married in '59. And
how long before? When Gram moved in? When her mother did? Will Kelly one day have a daughter musing
on the pots and pans in my cupboards?... If so..... Grand-daughter, I bought the 3 aluminum nesting pots at
Walmart for $20, the good 4 and 8-qt ones at Dillard's with some of our wedding money and the colander at a yard sale
for a quarter where I bought your grandfather the beachscape that's hung over the kitchen door since 1996.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Kelly's Music Camp
Song-Writing
Cello 101
A Little Bit Of Opera
Teen Guitar Wonder
Kelly's New Idol
Grande Finale Concert
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