I'm In the Mood to Adopt Fifty Pugs

My aunt gave me a collection of little brightly-colored plastic slide-viewers that contain photos of my grandparents. I was reminded once again how much I look like my grandfather (blue bright eyes) and my sister looks like my grandmother (smile, head gestures).

A neighborhood girl told me she found a half-sister she had never known, aged 20 and pregnant, on myspace.com.

I'm enjoying coffee-mousse-filled chocolate dipped in peanut butter.

Ray, the New Man, got a brand new top layer of teeth, which he proudly showed me when Honey and I walked by the Castle Luncheonette the other morning. He wanted to buy me a coffee, and I accepted. I told passers-by, "We're celebrating Ray's upper deck!"

When I was five, I thought monkeys talked. Now, knowing what I know about people, I realize they do.

One morning I walked by a huge bright yellow tow truck that had red script outlined with blue across the back of the cab. It said, "We don't want your arms and legs we just want your tows."

One drink is too many for me and a thousand not enough.

     - Brendan Behan

Doing the twist at the Brave Combo concert split open the soles of my shoes. They looked like smiling hand puppets. The shoe repair man on the bridge said he'd fix'em for five bucks! They'll be ready in a few days.

Sentiments & Heirlooms

I have never been given a truly valuable heirloom but there are things I have that I call my heirlooms and they are in my everyday life to remind me of my beloved grandparents. For instance, the pink Lady Ace comb from Grandma that is now missing half of its teeth, and my blue terry-cloth robe that was Grandpa's. My aunt and uncle have graciously sent me a coverlet that Grandma crocheted, and my grandparents' fancy stemware. I found a dish at a junk store that I use now to put teabags in. I love it because it's made of the same iridescent ceramic that Grandma's tea mugs were made of. I guess this makes me sentimental.

Cilantro Pesto

I had never heard of cilantro pesto until my sister suggested I make this, and it is fabulous. This is great news because I buy a bouquet of cilantro at the Asian store for a buck and tend to only use a sprig or two on our beans and tortillas before the rest goes bad. Now we can make use of all of it! I used one bouquet of cilantro, rinsed and chopped, olive oil, salt, toasted pine nuts, and garlic cloves. I buzzed everything in my antique Waring blender using a chop stick to mash things down. It made a mighty green goo. I put it on whole-wheat angel-hair pasta and shared it with ten people.

Poem of the Day

Carry me away seeds
is what I like
to call them.
When I examine one closely
it looks like a gondola
for a flea.

Moon Walk

Last night we saw the moon, huge and yellow, while we walked Honey in the dark. We sat on the bottom step of the Pothier monument in the Cimetière du Précieux-Sang (Precious Blood Cemetery) and watched wisps of long thin gray clouds wander over the face of the moon. Afterward, I went to bed at nine o'clock with a good book that my friend Phoebe had told me about: The Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Ehrlich. I'm loving it.

Doctor Poets

We pay our past little honor by pretending we can shed it easily.

     - Robert May

Ask not what disease the person has, but rather what person the disease has.

     - William Osler, as paraphrased by Oliver Sacks

I am fascinated by and love to read about mental and neurological quirks. I am reading a quote from a favorite book today; Hypochondria by Susan Baur, a psychologist. She writes like a poet. Just like my other favorite doctor writer Oliver Sacks, she is a pleasure to read. Poets pop up in many guises. When I read Sacks and Bauer I wish they'd come over for supper and break bread with me at my picnic table in the backyard.

Dog Joy

Dogs are our link to paradise.

     - Milan Kundera

Yesterday I brought a tennis ball in the canvas bag while walking Honey and when we got to the park I tossed it in the pond. She swam after it, and a blond-haired girl with blue lips who looked like she had been swimming all morning in her green cut-offs was all excited to throw the ball for Honey. Her older brother came over. He had a washboard stomach. They were having a blast throwing the ball for Honey. I just enjoyed them all enjoying. Today Honey is clean and content. This is what mothers must feel after taking their children swimming.

The Poets Way

I leave no trace of wings in the air, but I am glad I had my flight.

     - Rabindranath Tagore

So long ago my father led me to
The dark and impounded orders of this canyon,
I have confused these rocks and waters with
My life, but not unclearly, for I know
What will be here when I am here no more.

     - Thomas Hornsby Ferril

My desire for knowledge is intermittent, but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant.

     - Henry D Thoreau

I visited the poet,
Precisely at noon. Sunday.
It was quiet in the spacious room,
And beyond the windows, intense cold.

     - Anna Akhmatova

The Elders have waited for the young people to ask such things.

     - Wawatay Eninew

I regard the Poet as a sentinel warning us against the approach of enemies called Bigotry, Lethargy, Intolerance, Ignorance, Inertia, and other members of that brood.

     - Gandhi

More about The Poets Way at the Boulder CO Public Library can be found here and here.

Music and Mars

We are playing at a library fundraiser for the Chester CT Library, performing on Saturday, September 15th. It will be a tribute to Leonard Cohen. Bill and I are learning ten new songs on bari sax and keyboards. We are rehearsing tomorrow with a bunch of people we've never met. I am packing my jaw harps and accordion along with the bari, and sourdough bread and gazpacho for the pot-luck dinner! Seems like it's all magic this week. Even mars is big and bright in the sky.

How It Is

My friendly neighbors next door on the first floor are moving to the Coventry exurbs because they are so sick of the prostitutes and drugs in our neighborhood. The mom grew up in the neighborhood, and I can see she is disappointed with how things have changed. And the family upstairs in the same building has decided to keep their ten-year-old daughter from going back to school because the kids tease her about being fat! She is smart and special and loves her teachers. Staying home with nine cats in a smoky third-floor apartment with a sick mother, a grandmother, and a grandfather working three jobs is not good. She lives a half-block from the school. School is important and the child's weight problem should be tackled rather than run from. I brought her to the YMCA with me one Monday night and she loved swimming laps. I gave the family the scholarship application, hoping they might join the Y, but I'm not holding my breath.

Quotes of the Day

The trick is to make time not to steal it.

     - Bernard Malamud

Art - the one achievement of man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised.

     - James Thurber

If we are to change our world view, images have to change. The artist now has a very important job to do. He is not a little peripheral figure entertaining rich people, he is really needed.

     - David Hockney

I don't believe in aging. I believe in forever altering one's aspect to the sun. Hence my optimism.

     - Virginia Woolf

People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.

     - Iris Murdoch

Too Loose

People tell me I am way too trusting and open, and reveal way too much about myself. When I was eleven I played theater games in a drama class. There was a game where everyone would make a circle around the person who is supposed to learn to trust the group. The person would climb a ladder to the top rung and fall backwards, to be caught by the whole group. When I climbed and fell backwards I was so loose and trusting my head touched the floor as I was caught. I didn't get hurt, but I always remembered it.

Cucumber Habit

I was going to buy two fifty-pound bags of flour at the baker's supply in Lincoln today. Not surprisingly they keep baker's hours, and had closed earlier than we were ready to go. So instead we walked to the Asian market on North Main Street, opposite Jaime Sullivan's meat market. We got two bags of bean sprouts, 6 blocks of fresh tofu, two bundles of scallions, 8 cucumbers, two packages of mushrooms, all for eleven bucks!! Bill carried it while I walked Honey. On the way home we found four stray tennis balls for Honey on the courts in Social Park! It was a good day.

Music Love Bomb

Justin and I had our two saxes going on stage last night at an outdoor party in Attleboro. I love to be underneath Justin's higher-pitched notiness with big baritone bops and long tones. My sound supports his, and it makes me happy to play a role I musically understand. I was lit up, whoopin' and hollerin' into the mouthpiece, dancing while playing with full energy. My thighs and feet and arms felt electric. Chris joined us on trombone. Bill played Hammond organ, Steve was on drums, Mark Jr on bass. Then at eleven-thirty a local beefy cop (right out of central casting) came and broke up the music.

Quotes of the Day

Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

     -Jalaluddin Rumi

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.

     - Andre Gide

You say nothing is created new? Don't worry about it. With the mud of the earth, make a cup from which your brother can drink.

     - Antonio Machado

Gravity Defying Tomatoes

The little house on the side street behind Sunrise Bagel has a porch with two number-ten cans covered in decorative wrapping paper hanging from the ceiling. Each can has a tomato plant poking out of a hole in the bottom, yet growing up towards the light. I saw them in the spring when the owners first put them up, and I wondered if it would really work. The other day Honey and I walked by, and I saw that one tomato vine was loaded with green cherry tomatoes, and the other had plum tomatoes. Urban farming, how brilliant!

Blue Cow Yogurt

I have been visiting the Randall Lineback blue cows at the dairy farm, and making yogurt from their two-percent milk. I put it on everything; beans and hot sauce, gazpacho, fruit salad. It's my urban harvest!! And a form of cow worship. As a kid I experimented with growing sprouts and making bread, granola, and yogurt. My mother scolded me one day, "You can't eat yogurt for breakfast!" I retorted, Why not? People in India do!

The Scent Creates a Home

I'd be happy to be the village baker, and swap bread for milk and veggies. I'd gladly bake my breads for the town! I have often thought of making one of those clay beehive ovens and teaching kids to bake bread as community outreach. The smell of baking bread is one of the best anti-depressants I know. The scent creates a home!

This Too Will Pass

I am energetic and sensory and feeling very alive. Ragweed pollen has my hands and feet burning up! I don't mind. But in twelve weeks I will be slow and contemplative, quiet and inward, experiencing autumn molds and allergens. The wheel goes round and round.

Gut Rush

I think singing is the highest art form besides dancing. Using the body as your ultimate instrument is most admirable. I have always appreciated the voice. I love opera, and I would love to sing. A friend once said, with your laugh you can definitely sing! Finding a safe place to make sound definitely helps, like singing in the car. Bill suggested I sing along with the sax tunes I know when I'm practicing in the back room, and just sing the notes the way I play my sax. I tried this the other day and was surprised at how fun it was and how well it worked. At one point I felt the sound energy rush from my abdomen and gush up out the top of my head.