find as many of my old friends I can

My father died last night. I’m not sure how to process this. I wanted to be close to my sons today and I got it. I wanted Ms. R’s words and thoughts and I got them. Thank you. They help. A lot. and I didn’t have to ask.

But I’m still emotionally wandering, especially after speaking with Mom, who isn’t what she used to be, and after writing an obit for my hometown paper, not the one I wanted to write, but the one I thought he might want, I felt like I made small potatoes. It wasn’t much, not really him or his life, but a small list of dates and names and relatives who love him. It wasn’t enough.

Ms. R is right: it is ok to ask for a bit of support. So I am. I am at sea and need…more.

to mind the gardens and girls for a few days while H is off to the Hitchin’ Post. I’m glad this event will finally end, for it is a bit much listening to details of dresses and flowers and whatnot for several months.

Ms. Z is older, more deaf, her eyes a bit more cloudy, and didn’t hear me, see me coming the way she used ta. She’s also got an odd, small ugly tumor at the top of her skull but remembers me anyway. I’ll have to ask about that tumor. I wouldn’t want it. She doesn’t seem to mind. Though she is 14 she is vigorous and in fine fettle and still demands play time, attentions. Ms. Gray loved me up too, meowing hard against me until she thought of other places to be.

He was the manager of the Blue Jays last year. This year he is the manager of the Red Sox, having been a Sox man for a long time before he was a Blue Jays man. When Boston came looking, he married up and last night he came back to Toronto for a three night stand.

The crowd was appropriate, and fun, and not wrong. The Boston players loved the atmosphere with grace and humor, as it was offered. Thank you Toronto fans! And the Sox won. This time. Go Leafs!

I used to say that Harvard people called their school the New Mexico of the East, being a proud and literate alum of UNM and living (fer a while) in and about the Harvard world.

I went to read what Harvard kids might be saying about their school’s men’s basketball program. I got a bit more than I expected. The article was straight forward, a bit hopeful but also realistic. Unfortunately they called UNM the University of Mexico, however. (Pulls our atlas.) Nope. It’s still there, this 48th state.

And then the student comments about getting out of the Ivy League and into the world of illiterates and what not. (LOL!!!!)

They did correct their errors when UNM folks and others kindly pointed them out. Go Lobos! Teach Geography!

“Projects Begun But Not Finished”

I’ve a number of lingering goals, efforts, projects like the alternative book and the fish boy fish, a heavy duty easel, and other what-nots that are far far along. I don’t want the projects as old friends. I want them done and before me.

I’ve been asked to pour beer for consumers of beer at baseball games, a side job for fun and introspection and to be around a baseball stadium off and on for a season. I want to get ALL of the lingerings accomplished and focus on the literary opportunities of beer pouring for a season. Like George Plimpton but better.

repose. I gained self awareness in the first dark, then second light. An inventory of the senses unfolded. First the scent, slight, of perfume and shampoo and body wash with human richness. The scent is sillage and as it merged into me, into my own scents, it blossomed, enriched, deepened. Then the light behind my closed eyes found pink edges, turning to violet where it lingered upon the brown and speckled that came before the dark warm center. When the vision merged with my memories, clusters of starlight emerged, gently swirled, and spun into pin-point whiteness.

The tastes flowed over me, warm and neutral, clear, milky, bright red, dusky to purple, sweet, pure, hints of savory moving through too. My mouth watered for more as the flavours increased, brightened, and I added my own history of bud knowledge to horizons and worlds of the mouth and nose and of all until music rose in the syncopated rhythms of quiet pacing, became complex, split into chords, then arpeggios, until I added my harmonic ways and the equities of tribal drumming and Gregorian chants, both, and all the rest filled the air around me, a symphony.

I can’t tell you what I felt. There are no words, from me, for that. My feelings defy my ability to describe. But then the gypsy words, old friends all, escaped from my early adulthood where I dreamed and gloried in possibility. The words rose up from their own quiet repose where she had breathed upon them, offered kindredness, a home forever in thoughts all our own, and I felt, felt, felt… perfect.

I was walking into a facility from a parking lot and was near the entrance. Somebody was dropping someone else off and as that person closed the car door the driver hit the gas while watching her dropped off person. She didn’t look forward till the thump.

I happened to be in front of the car. Then on her windshield. I fell off and when I stood up I saw her face, looking appalled. Then she left. In a hurry.

No harm to me. Just an incident and not much to be done, I thought. But she got away with something. She really did. She coulda, shoulda, at least inquired as to my well being but didn’t. It was more important to her to flee.

Ms. R has encouraged me track her down. Maybe even report her. I was more willing to let it go but she is right. And she cares about me in this cold cruel world. So yes, I’ll take what I know and ask around and see if I can meet this old friend, in some fashion.

So is her husband. But they are nice people and she was glad to see Ms. R up and thriving after all she’d experienced. Jane got her friends in a prayer circle to send notes and cards and followed up with phone calls and other acts of care. Ms. R. appreciated it all because she wanted to pull through like a draft horse and any means possible is ok by us. Thanks Jane, for caring as much as I do but in different ways.

New is silver, but old is gold!

stretched out, snoozing, in the dappled shade of my chile pepper garden. When she heard me she opened one eye but did not stir.

She’s taken up residence somewhere nearby but spends her days and nights in my backyard and has become an old friend. Thank you, Flopsy, for the intrigue of your companionship.