Do you carry your Library card?

 I was reading an article from, I think AARP, about what NOT to carry in your wallet.

It said the usual things, you know- not too many credit cards, not your SS card or even your Medicare card. but this one stopped me dead in my tracks

My Library card.

They went on to say that a thief might steal the card, go to the library and check out a boodle of books and sell them.

That's a stretch, even for me.

Frankly if my wallet was stolen one of the first things I would do- after freezing my credit cards, would be to report it to the library.  Not for fear of theft but I can't get by without my card!  My little ancient orange and blue beauty holds pride of place in my wallet. LAPL, where I not only work but have had a card since I could write my name (which was the standard for "membership" in the 1960s) is more than JUST a card.  I can use it to go to local attractions, stream movies, take classes.  Well, you get the picture.

If I lost it I would ALSO have to memorize a new number and THAT would suck.  I can rattle off the number like a grade-schooler reciting the alphabet.  I wonder these days if my brain has the bandwidth.

So what do YOU think?  I personally have a hard time thinking ANYONE would snag someone's card and use it for nefarious purposes, but I haven't worked in a branch since 1982 and times HAVE changed.

Let me know it the comments!

Sunday. Follow me down the rabbit hole that is my brain this morning

 I have been thinking about stuff lately. Trying NOT to have every waking moment consumed with what is going on politically in this country.

The aim is to exhaust you so you stop fighting back.

Not doing that.

So, I am goin to theater, museums and to the local garden for walks among the trees.  I don't know why trees seem to calm me, as if they are speaking to my soul.  There is a bench, among the trees that sits on a stream. It's my favorite place there and when I walk across the garden, I always hope the bench is empty and waiting for me.  I know it's selfish, but it is my relief.  There are other benches placed in the area , but that one, donated by a couple named Jack and Sallie, is my favorite.

But on this quiet Sunday morning, there IS something that is bothering me.

I read a column by Sean Dietrich a writer who is a fiddle player, or maybe a fiddle player who is a writer- not sure which. He mostly writes what they used to call Human Interest Stories, about people or places he encounters in his daily life, either in person or in the letters people send him.

This week he is in Gettysburg and he spoke of ghosts.  Old towns that suffered the type of trauma are, in my opinion, very likely to hold the spirits of those who died suddenly.  They either stay because they want to or can't leave.  I don't know too much about that side of things, but it makes some sense to me.  I just got a book written by my friend, Russel Chan called "the White Light Meets the Thin Blue Line" about his journey to Mediumship.  I need to sit down and just read it- I read the first Chapter but then all my library books came in and you know how THAT is.  I enjoyed the first chapter.  He has a good voice. When I finish it- hopefully this week I will post reviews.  I owe a few reviews anyway.

Sean posted today that he got hate mail about his ghost column. I can expect nothing less from people who claim to be Christians and although I follow that faith, I am glad I am no longer going to church.

Case in point:  

Recently there were supposed to be floods in Hawaii and there was some talk about Oprah Winfrey having a private road and people saying she didn't open it so people could escape.  I read on one page of someone who is particularly religious about the misinformation and the VITROL of the supposed Christians was- I have no other word for it- evil. They gleefully consigned her to Hell and eternal damnation.  When I found a link to a news article that this was NOT true, I posted it.  Thankfully, the originator of the post, upon being informed, took it down, but I still recall these supposed church-goers and their judge-y Hellfire-and-Brimstone reactions.

I was also recently told that I would NOT be going to heaven, since I did not follow a certain branch of Christianity.  The person I was talking to was ABSOLUTLEY certain I was going to Hell.

As my mom used to say that's ok  all my friends are there.

I don't think I want to spend eternity with some of these people. That WOULD be my idea of Hell.

Now before you jump off on me, please know that whatever YOU believe that helps YOU be a better human is just FINE with me.  Just don't try to tell ME what to believe.

I'm off this morning to meet a friend for lunch and a museum visit. I'll tell you about it later.

200 pots of coffee

"I have measured out my life with coffee spoons" T.S. Eliot

 I just opened a fresh pack of coffee filters.  There are 200 of them.  Often, when I open a fresh pack, I wonder where I will be when I use the last one- you know, what will I have done, how will the world and I have changed.

I often make a wish on the first one, that things that are going wrong will go right. I think about the cups of coffee I will gulp down on my way to work, or savor with friends,

I know. I'm Weird. Deal with it.

200 filters is 200 pots but not necessarily 200 days, I think that a pack of filters lasts me around 8 months.  I make a pot every morning I am here, but if I have friends in for dinner, or someone needs to talk, I make a fresh pot.

My family calls my coffee "wake the dead juice"  This comes from my daughter, telling my son-in-law who was working a double at his job, to "get some coffee from Mom. Her coffee could wake the dead"

When I was staying with my Dad after my mom died, he complained that my coffee was too strong and I told him "look, you KNOW I make it this way. I can't drink your weak coffee. Add hot water to it. There's nothing that makes weak coffee taste better."  He took his coffee black and after a few days , he was just drinking it the way I made it.

Coffee is half again as expensive as it was a month ago, It went from $17 to $25 overnight. I believe I have Mr. Trump to thank for that.  But I will keep buying my Sumatra beans and brewing a pot in the morning, or whenever someone needs a cup. Coffee has been my morning go-to since I was in Junior high. it's my last "vice" Even my doctor said two cups are ok. I really only drink it in the morning or on an evening occasion when a friend and I share coffee and conversation around my dining room table ( I have a "dining room table" but no dining room, but there we are.)

So did I wish on this first filter?  You know I did. But like Birthday Candle Wishes, Coffee Filter Wishes need to stay secret, or they won't come true.

Regret- a poem

 

Regret

I hear a song you loved

think about the time you told me why 

you loved that song

It's too late to talk about it now

Too late for anything

but imaginary conversations

But I try

I talk to you all the time 

but my conversations are mostly

one-sided

I imagine what you might have said

how we might have 

laughed and sang

drank and danced

I just miss the times that should have been

the future we should have had

and wonder if  where you are

you miss me too

Dear John Fetterman

 Dear John Fetterman

Please stop sending me texts and emails asking for money.

Seriously.

I have unsubscribed and "STOP'ed you a number of times and somehow I am still getting missives from you.

John. You lost me as a supporter a LONG time ago.

When you came into national attention, I DI support you.  Although I live in California, my Pennsylvania roots go back to the beginning of the state (yes, they do) and I thought you were a fresh breath of air.

Past tense.

I'm sitting here, trying to think just when I decided you were just like the rest of the wolves in sheep's clothing.

After your stroke, when people said you should step down I supported you. I thought that we should give you a chance to see if you still had it.

I was wrong, John and I must admit that you snowed me.

 I am trying to determine the exact moment I had an epiphany about you

Was it when you went to Mar-a-Lago and bent the knee to the Felon-in-chief?  Did you sell your soul then?

Maybe it was when I was sitting in my living room, a mile from an evacuation zone, with my go-bag packed, while my friends lost their homes and were fleeing for their lives during the Altadena fires in January.  I got a text from you. Was it a message of hope and support ( my area code on my phone should have indicated a California connection to you and your staff) Nope.  You were asking for a donation.

It think that did it.  You are just as soulless as your Dear Leader.

This morning, despite having numerous request for you to STOP, your "team" sent me another missive.

As my dad, a proud son of Chester PA would have said, "take a long walk on a short pier"

Haiku and other musings

 

I remember going to a presentation by a Haiku master, who said the following rules apply

• 5-7-5 syllable pattern
• The first and second lines form one thought, the second and third another 
• Most are about Nature

I am going to play with the format a bit

As man attacks her

Nature hurls back her defense

The Earth is awake

Walking on the path

We do not see the flower

Blooming for no one

I miss the craft of poetry.  It can be work or it can just fall out onto the page, it is never clear which way the poem wants to go.  

Often I approach them with the same idea a painter I knew in college took- something to the effect of  just doing it and not editing it ( I think she said she was taught that her work needed to be completed in 7 minutes, but it was a LONG time ago and I may be mis-remembering it) sometimes, a poem will sit in draft for a long time and I will either edit it or delete it if I cannot remember just what I wanted to say.

I was talking to Chris today about really focusing on my art.  Art is the thing that restores us and in these dark days in this country, we need to remember to make space for it.  I fear the Fascists will only endorse what THEY like ( hideous things, monuments to themselves, covered in gold)  It is only a matter of time until the Kennedy Center is rebranded the Trump Center, isn't it?

Keep making art, whatever you do. Let us not sink into despair, as long as we can fight back.

Get your girls checked

 

Update.   There is a problem.  I have to go in for more tests.  I keep telling myself it's nothing.

I have an appointment this morning for a mammogram  I am not looking forward to it, but I am not dreading it ( the same cannot be said for some of the other "fun" exams that women need to have done)

I have been having them every year since I was 48  I should have started when I was 40.  My mother developed breast cancer in her 70's and they caught it early enough so she just needed a lumpectomy and radiation.

The reason I went is that I ran into a friend on the subway, who causally told me that she was better and that they had gotten all the cancer. alarm bells went off in my head and I scheduled a mammo.  They found "something" and that something was getting ready to turn.  I saw her on the subway a few weeks after my surgery and told her she saved my life.  I stopped riding the subway a while after that and never ran into her again.  So, wherever you are Shari, thank you,

I have had the "the doctor needs to see you" appointment three times.   I have had three biopsies ( those FREAKING HURT) and two lumpectomies. Both were on the verge of becoming cancerous and I had a mammo every six months for two years after each surgery.

I am on top of it.  

If you are reading this- and you ARE- please get your "girls" checked ( I call mine "the twins") If you have a friend who hasn't gone , encourage them to do it. It is uncomfortable, sure I am a particularly "voluptuous" girl and  getting my tatas flattened is not my idea of a good time. I am fairly short and sometimes standing in one position is hard for me, but it's worth it.

I generally get my mammo in April.  I am reminded by T.S. Eliot that "April is the Cruelest month"  so I go. Today was the earliest convenient  appointment. I'll let you all know how it goes.