Life · Writing

A Trip to Maine

Sally1 Comment

This is my response to this week’s Writer’s Workshop prompts

12 things I learned and/or grew to appreciate this month week (because I’ve been in Maine for the week):

  1. I now know the difference between a tadpole, polywog, and froglet. This is a polywog:

          A tadpole doesn’t have any legs and a froglet has all four. This polywog, as you can see(maybe), only has two legs.

          2. Maine blueberries grow low to the ground and are tiny, compared to our New York blueberry bushes. They are harvested with special rakes. They have blueberry bushes in Maine, too, but those teeny berries from the ground plants are PACKED with flavor. Who knew?

          3. There is more than one Fort Knox. My dad was stationed in Fort Knox, KY, and it’s known for all the gold there. But before that Fort Knox, there was a Fort Knox in Maine built in the mid-1800s. It’s a massive granite fortress built on the edge of the Penobscot River.

          Fort Knox outside wall
          Fort Knox — the inside compound

          4. Perspective is always important. When you’re looking from the outside, you can’t see in very well (see top Ft. Knox photo). But when you’re looking from the inside out, the world just seems to open up.

          From inside Ft. Knox.

          5. The Penobscot Narrows Bridge is one of only five bridge observatories in the world. The other four are in China, Thailand, Slovakia, and South Korea.

          Looking up at the Penobscot Observatory from our car.

          6. Perspective is always important. (Yes, I already said that.) Looking down and looking up are totally different views.

          Looking down from the Penobscot Observatory at our car.

          7. Beaches hold amazing surprises.

          We found this crab shell on the beach full of… we didn’t know! It turns out they are Marine Springtails, a relative of the snow fleas I’ve seen at times in New York. They’re an important part of the beach ecosystem, part of nature’s clean-up crew.

          8. Museums are fun.

          We stopped at the Penobscot Maritime Museum, mostly because of this guy beckoning us in. I learned more about sardines than I thought possible.

          9. Sometimes kids don’t appreciate museums.

          “Boring who needs fishermen dont prezerve fishing”

          This was in a box of comments that I looked through. It made me laugh — and feel a little sad for the kid who wrote it.

          10. Museums can be very funny for kids (big and small) who engage with them.

          Captioned: Which animal is not stuffed?

          This photograph was hanging in the ladies room at the Penobscot Maritime Museum. It was taken by a turn of the 20th century photographer, Charles Coombs, who was also an undertaker and taxidermist. The picture made me laugh.

          11. Floating classrooms can be massive.

          The big ship in the back is called The State of Maine and recently came into Castine, home to the Maine Maritime Academy. Its primary purpose is for training Maine Maritime cadets while also being available for federal humanitarian assistance and disaster relief mission. We went to see it but couldn’t get any closer than this.

          12. Sunsets are beautiful everywhere.

          Life

          Just A Trip to Walmart

          Sally2 Comments

          This post was originally written August 5, 2017 and has languished in my draft folder since then.

          The father bellowing at the little boy in the Walmart parking lot was a bad start.

          “JOHNNY,” he roared, “GIT YER A$$ OVER HERE.”

          The open tailgate made me think that the father had been putting his purchases into the car. The boy skulking back from the cart corral looked to be about 8 or 9 years old. He was scowling. I would scowl, too, if someone spoke to me like that.

          Walmart. I felt a snobbish “ugh” rising inside me.

          Inside, the store was a disorderly mess.

          “You can always tell when the students start coming back,” commented a woman looking at the same merchandise as me. “They trash the place.”

          “It is a mess in here,” I agreed.

          “I shop here every week,” she said. “Today is the worst I’ve seen it.”

          I gathered my items and found the shortest line to check out.

          The shortest line was not short.  When the elderly couple ahead of me finally got up to the register and the cashier was nearly finished scanning, their package of chicken needed a price-check.

          “I’m sorry,” the man said, turning to me. I could barely see his eyes under the brim of Carhartt cap.

          “No worries,” I said. “I’m not in a hurry.”

          “Me and my wife got a carful of groceries already,” he said, nodding toward a hunched-over woman with blue-gray hair. “Frozen stuff prolly meltin’ in the car… but she forgot a few things so we come back in.”

          A few things meant a cartful.

          “I hope you aren’t far from home,” I said.

          “Blenheim,” he said.

          I knew that was about an hour away. In the middle of nowhere. Near Breakabeen.

          “I’m sorry,” I told him.

          The Walmart supervisor came to check on the chicken. She called on the radio to the meat department. “Anyone there gimme a price on some chicken?” she asked. I couldn’t hear the response because of her earpiece, but I didn’t need to — she announced it. “I gotta walk this over to the chicken department to get a price,” and off she walked.

          I turned to the man behind me. “I’m sorry,” I said, even though I knew I had nothing to be sorry for.

          “No problem,” he said. “I just moved here from Long Island. You should see the lines in their stores.”

          So we waited.

          “You could move over to a different line,” said the Carhartt man.

          I looked at the line next to ours. It was moving faster, but I’m not one to jump ship. A burly man helped unload an elderly woman’s cart on the belt, but when he left with his bag, I realized they weren’t together. It was just a nice move.

          The chicken department was on the far side of the store. I kept watching that direction to see if I saw the supervisor heading back.

          The blue-haired wife mouthed “I’m sorry” to me. I smiled at her.

          I made eye contact again with the man behind me. “I was in Europe this summer,” I told him. “Time doesn’t seem to matter as much there.”

          “I know,” he said. “We could learn a lesson or two from them.”

          The chicken was still MIA.

          In the line next to me, a man holding a plant — his only purchase — was let ahead of a customer with a full cart. “Thank you SO much,” he said, enthusiastically. The woman who had let him pass just smiled.

          I smiled, too.

          There were nice people all around me.

          In Walmart.

          Finally chicken lady returned.

          I told Long Island man, “Here she comes!”

          “Hooray!” he said.

          I felt like we should clap or something.

          By the time I got to the parking lot, I had nearly forgot the unpleasant father-son interaction because I had seen and talked to so many nice people in the store that day.

           I could guess why I never posted this — too wordy. It’s a problem I have.

          But the message to look for the nice people? Yes, I needed that today.

          Be not conformed to the impatience and nastiness of the world, but be transformed by the goodness that’s right in front of you if you look for it. (a bastardization of Romans 12:2, but nonetheless true.)

          poetry

          The Creativity Cure

          Sally7 Comments

          Whatever became of Sir Swellimpedeedoo?
          Though his fingers were swollen, he needed something to do —
          So he crocheted a chicken
          And his thumbs ceased to thicken
          Soon the rest of his hands slimmed down too

          He didn’t change his diet
          Nor did he sit quiet
          This much is true!
          Idle hands lead to riots
          While creativity is so good for you

          This is my response to this week’s W3 challenge.

          POW, Matt Snyder, challenged us to write a nonsense poem with a specific structure:

          The poem must have two stanzas of five lines each.

          ​Stanza 1 (Limerick)
          Whatever became of Sir Swellimpedeedoo? (A)
          ____________________________ (A)
          __________________ (B)
          __________________ (B)
          ____________________________ (A)

          Stanza 2
          He didn’t ______________________
          Nor did he _____________________
          This much is true! (C)
          ____________________________
          ____________________________ (C)

          The italicized words must appear exactly as they are written. The picture is to serve as inspiration.

          Life · poetry

          Tumbleweed

          Sally2 Comments

          Roll that dry weed across an empty road
          Underscore my dry and empty feeling
          So this, this is Wyoming, new abode
          So far from home made this place appealing
          I couldn’t speak about my need for healing
          Although unbidden tears oft spoke for me
          No one could understand my need to flee

          Turning, turning, and running far away
          How do I put this awful thing behind
          I set my mind to one thing: learn to pray
          So as to focus my intents and mind
          To hold the world at arm’s length, yet be kind
          Laudably said, “Wrong number!” when he called
          Even as I hung up, shaking, I bawled

          Tumbleweed, today’s RDP prompt, brings up one very specific memory — 1983 crossing the state border between Nebraska and Wyoming as my (then) husband and I moved there to start a new life.

          This poem is a Rhyme Royal, which uses the scheme ababbcc, the lines having 10 syllables each i.e. (usually) iambic pentameter. Rhyme Royal is also sometimes known as the Troilus stanza.

          The poem is also an acrostic for RUSSIAN THISTLE. Russian thistle (Salsola tragus or Salsola kali): The classic plant seen rolling in Western movies.

          Alzheimer · Alzheimer's · dementia · elderly · family · Leaning In · Life · Writing

          The Feeder’s Table

          Sally2 Comments

          This is a draft written February 6, 2015, pulled from the draft folder because of the RDP prompt word: tame

          From across the room, I heard the man bellow, “NO!”

          I had no clue what this was in reference to — he was across the room, after all, and I was attending to my mother in the midst of her ritual folding and unfolding of her mealtime protector (aka – bib) while waiting for the food to arrive.

          A woman at his table shouted out, “SNOW!” It was snowing out.

          She laughed at her rhyme, a dry cackle-y laugh, not because she was a witch, although it did make me think of one, but because she was very old and shriveled, and even her laugh bore witness to that.

          “He said, ‘NO,’ and I said, ‘SNOW,'” she said gleefully, and it reminded me of the little “jokes” that first- or second-graders make, when the littlest thing sends them into gales of laughter.

          However, the jokesters were across the room, while my mother sat at the feeder’s table, a table set aside for residents who need assistance with eating. She dines with five other ladies with dementia.

          To my mother’s left is a dear lady that reminds me of a sparrow. Her voice is quiet and sing-songy. Sometimes she makes sense and sometimes she doesn’t, but I always have to listen very closely when she speaks. (Professor Trelawny)

          Next to Sparrow is a woman with a chiseled angular face. (Professor McGonigle) She never speaks. She sits erect and stern, like a statue of a school matron staring across her desk at a wayward student.  However, I had met her many years before, when she was an OB nurse. She had come into my room after I had given birth to somebody because she wanted to tell me about my father.

          “I remember your father’s first day at the hospital,” she said. “He came in toting a little black doctor’s bag. A little black bag!” She laughed when she told me the story, and her eyes twinkled with the delight of that memory. My father still has that black bag with its stethoscope, reflex hammer, otoscope, and other doctorly treasures.

          To her left sits a white-haired lady whose dementia has a Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde effect on her.  (Quirinius Quirrell) One minute she is sweet and the next she is spewing venom.

          Next to Mrs. Hyde sits the newest diner at the feeder’s table. I’ll come back to her.

          To Newby’s left is Mrs. Tiggywinkle, so designated because of her hedgehog hairdo.  Teens pay a lot of money and use a lot of product to get hair like hers, sticking straight up all over her head. My father has to repeatedly request that my mother’s hair get combed. Some of us are just stuck with wayward hair that no amount of combing can tame, and I suspect that’s the case with Mrs. Tiggywinkle.

          The draft ended and I never finished it. I don’t remember who the person I called Newby is, so I can’t come back to her now. I don’t even remember the point of this story.

          My mother died 9 months later.

          Reading drafts and posts from that time in my life are interesting to me. I’m glad that I chronicled the journey.

          Advice to anyone going through a stressful time: Write down what you see and hear and feel. It’s a gift to your future self.

          Music

          Coulter’s Candy

          Sally6 Comments

          Today’s Sunday Song Lyrics prompt is to find a song that mentions candy, honey, sugar or sweet.

          I settled on a Scottish children’s song called Coulter’s Candy, mostly because I have wonderful memories of my granddaughter “dancing” to it when she was not quite two years old. Dancing involved running around and around the couch, occasionally stopping to pull other people into the “dance”.

          Poor kid, I inundated her with Scottish songs. I played The Broon Coo, Katie Beardie, Rattlin’ Bog, and Three Craws. But she really loved Coulter’s Candy.

          Coulter’s Candy is an awful song if you think about the lyrics. One verse is about a little girl being a “rickle of bones covered over with skin,” but, feed her some Coulter’s Candy and she’s getting “a wee double chin.”

          How unnutritious of the song. Still, it’s a fun one to dance to.

          Main Chorus:
          Ally bally, ally bally bee,
          Sittin’ on yer mammy’s knee,
          Greetin’ for a wee bawbee, (crying) (a halfpenny)
          Tae buy some Coulter’s candy. (to)

          Poor wee Jeanie’s gettin’ awfy thin, (awfully)
          A rickle o’ banes covered ower wi’ skin, (bones) (over)
          Noo she’s gettin’ a wee double chin, (now)
          Wi’ sookin’ Coulter’s Candy. (sucking)

          Mammy gie’s ma thrifty doon, (give) (money box) (down)
          Here’s auld Coulter comin’ roon’, (old) (around)
          Wi’ a basket on his croon, (with) (crown/head)
          Selling Coulter’s Candy.

          When you grow old, a man to be,
          you’ll work hard and you’ll sail the seas,
          an’ bring hame pennies for your faither and me,
          Tae buy mair Coulter’s Candy. (more)

          Coulter he’s a affa funny man, (very)
          He maks his candy in a pan, (makes)
          Awa an greet to yer ma, (away) (cry) (your)
          Tae buy some Coulter’s candy. (to)

          Little Annie’s greetin’ tae,
          Sae whit can puir wee Mammy dae, (so) (what) (poor) (do)
          But gie them a penny atween them twae, (between) (two)
          Tae buy mair Coulter’s Candy.

          poetry

          Sunscreen

          Sally9 Comments

          Fair and freckled skin have I
          Is sunscreen really necessary?
          Just one more cream that I must buy
          Fair and freckled skin have I
          Forgot the sun block; cloudless sky
          I look like maraschino cherry
          Fair and freckled skin had I
          Sunscreen really is necessary

          This week’s W3 challenge is to write a Triolet.

          In a triolet, the rhyme scheme is ABaAabAB. The first line repeats as lines four and seven, and the second line returns as the final line. We were further challenged to choose a summer moment or a summer theme.

          My first question was “Does triolet rhyme with violet or chalet?” I tried to look it up. Three out of four you-tube pronunciation experts opted for the -et ending instead of -ay. There was one tree-oh-lay. Then then options were tree-oh-let vs. try-oh-let vs. trial-et. Go figure.


          gratitude · Life

          20 Things I Love

          Sally1 Comment

          The RDP prompt was “cardinal” which led me to a post I had written in 2015: “Quick — 20 things you love.” That was over 11 years ago. Without studying the old list (although I posted it down below), I thought I would post the first 20 things that came to mind today.

          1. Flowers in the asteracea family — you know, the ones with petals, like daisies. My Shasta daisies are blooming in abundance. The purple coneflower is starting to bloom
          2. Stories — personal stories. Oral histories. I love when someone sits in my office and shares a sliver of their life.
          3. Melty vanilla ice cream
          4. Cold crisp Chardonnay
          5. Calls for no reason other than to say hi
          6. Books that make me think
          7. Travel to other countries where English is not the first language
          8. New sneakers — especially from Xero shoes whose zero-drop shoes gave me a new lease on walking
          9. Homemade cinnamon rolls
          10. Kneading bread dough
          11. Dinner out
          12. Photos of my grandkids — especially those that are spontaneously sent to me on my phone. They brighten my day.
          13. Blue skies — you need a few smoke-obscured skies to appreciate the blue ones.
          14. Getting rid of boxes of stuff — so satisfying
          15. Birdsong at dawn
          16. Coyotes howling in the middle of the night
          17. The smell of vanilla
          18. Simon & Garfunkel
          19. Jumping in the lake
          20. Going for a long walk

           Quick – 20 Things You Love

          A friend posted this challenge: “Quick. Twenty things you love. (Not family, friends, or Jesus. We know that.)”

          1. Going for a walk
          2. My mother’s smile
          3. Biscotti
          4. A Military Tattoo — the kind with bagpipes, not ink on skin
          5. Old stained glass windows
          6. The smell of chlorine from a swimming pool
          7. Days when I have nowhere to go
          8. Bare trees of winter
          9. Bare trees of winter with cardinals adding color
          10. A good poem
          11. A handmade quilt
          12. Sunrise
          13. Losing weight
          14. A full tank of gas
          15. Sleeping in my own bed when I’ve been away
          16. Lilacs
          17. Getting real mail
          18. Warm feet
          19. A free hour to spend in a used bookstore
          20. A new song that catches my heart so I listen to it six times in a row.

          Life

          Song Lyric Sunday: Empowerment

          Sally10 Comments

          This is my second stab at the blogging challenge called Song Lyric Sunday. This week the theme is to find a song that carries a message of empowerment.

          The first song that came to mind was Simon and Garfunkel’s The Boxer. I won’t post all the lyrics but would encourage you to listen to the song. It’s the story of young man leaving and essentially being beat up by the world, squandering what little he had, longing to go home. The final verse is this picture of hope:

          In the clearing stands a boxer
          And a fighter by his trade
          And he carries the reminders
          Of every glove that laid him down
          Or cut him till he cried out
          In his anger and his shame
          “I am leaving, I am leaving”
          But the fighter still remains

          The fighter still remains.

          Perseverance. Grit. Sticktoittiveness. Tenacity. Call it what you want. It’s an empowering picture.

          Honestly, I’m not a fan of boxing. It seems a poor way to settle anything. I found this photo of my father the other day, though, boxing with his brother at a summer camp where they worked. I’m throwing it in just because.

          nonsense · Writing

          Sometimes

          Sally1 Comment

          Sometimes I am lazy
          And use imprecise words
          Instead of wrens or robins
          I just refer to them as birds

          Sometimes I can catch myself —
          I know what I should do!
          But sometimes I say “sometimes”
          Instead of “yesterday at two”

          This is my stream-of-consciousness ditty brought to you by the prompt “sometimes.”