We are the bitches who dig ditches (drought journal)

After digging rain ditches the past two weekends, I ache in places I didn’t even know I owned. It’s a long dark night of 3 AM aspirin calls and an endless stream of gummy lemon square care bears. My cousin calls us the bitcheswhodigditches. Because the related menfolk never think to lift a finger to help us unless we practically shame them into action. Who wants to do that? It blows up in odd ways later. So we carry on. Like with the weekends when we cleared brush. They did nothing. It was maddening. We were racing both the clock and the incoming storm. As I dig ditches and watch the water seek new courses, I think, this is how people become engineers, by rerouting all those puddles. Gawd, how I loved getting soaked to the bone  as I helped my granny channel all that water. The driveway is a swamp. A quagmire. When I was young, we used to dig little roads along the bank above the main water ditch for my brother’s matchbox cars. We elaborated on that transportation theme with tiny trains and even railroad tracks. Unfortunately those drainage ditches have been in disrepair since my grandmother died long ago, and the last atmospheric river—aka Pineapple Express carried an epic amount of water down the hillside. So we restored the old drainage ditches, and helped save the driveway, thus draining a couple of quagmires in the process. A bonus, I found two wheeless matchbox cars with caved in roofs in the gravel. The renovated ditch is ready for the next round of the atmospheric river, the Pineapple Express, which seems to have mysteriously evaporated. Go figure. You really can’t really dig those ditches during the dry season. The impacted ground is like concrete. You need the dirt waterlogged so you can move it, though it weighs a lot more when it’s wet. But it is a work of art to divert and channel and tame that much chocolate colored water, and then to watch it run clear, then tend to the miniature rapids and eddies like a farmer irrigating a field—just like a real creek bed but in a diminutive format. The main source of runoff is coming from a gopher hole in the upper garden, so it’s draining an entire steep hillside like an artesian spring. I write on my Facebook page, Now my left lower back hurts. A lot. I didn’t hurt until after my Covid booster shot. Someone misreads it as a leftover back. If it was my leftover back then I could just leave it behind—along with my behind. Sure, I hurt a little bit after digging ditches, but the strain really slammed me hard after I had my Covid booster shot. It was similar to, but nowhere near as bad as the last time I strained my back scraping old wax off the floors in August. The common denominator for both events is not so much the strain, or work itself, but sitting in the car, or a chair for long periods of time afterwards. A friend advises, Chocolate Cake helps. Works for me. I ask, Do I smear it on my lumbar region? Perhaps with a little ruby portofino on the side? Mark answers, Yes. Devour it with lots of chocolate frosting. Guaranteed to work on your whole body not just the lumbar region. Trust me baby. Hoo boy. Sounds bitchin’. Sounds like good advice to me.

from a Facebook post

Breaking the spine of the drought (drought journal) (photos)

before the deluge

Dec 11, 2021

Dec. 16, after the deluge.

Breaking the spine of the drought. Winter light on Elephant Mountain, the Nicasio reservoir is still way too low—even after last month’s deluge. And all those Mt. Tam reservoirs are overfull. The good news is that water will finally fill Kent Lake and spill over into Lagunitas Creek, which means an actual real salmon run after years of no fish.

The old bridge is underwater, but the old road isn’t 

But both Nicasio and Soulajoule reservoirs are still way too low… Haven’t seen Stafford Lake, but I suspect it too is still low. The drought ain’t over yet. Nicasio may be a shallow reservoir, but in sheer acreage, it’s huge, so, if there was a lot of rainfall all over Marin, it would have filled up fast. But it didn’t.

There is less than 23” of total rainfall in San Rafael, a little over 21” in Fairfax, and 11” in Novato. And less than 13” total rain at Dillon Beach. Not all the stockponds of West Marin have filled. Some are, yes. 

We have been more or less in drought mode since 2010-2011, with two exceptionally wet years in 2014, and 2016—hence all the wildfires. We’ve had more drought years than deluge years since 1975. See how the water is up to the old bridge, left of center. Now, we’re up to the usual low-water mark level of winter. No longer extreme drought conditions. But we’ve still got a long way to go to break the pattern. See that tree line above the water? That is the shore of the lake.

After the deluge (drought journal)

Last night, in the middle of the storm, the power flickered, and went out, so we did everything by firelight. Just like in the old days—except we had no candles or kerosine lamp, just the harsh blue LED lights that made everything seem colder, despite the fire in the wood-stove.  My cousin’s police scanner squawks like a parrot reveling in pure pandemonium, Accidents everywhere. A car was whacked by a pine tree on Sor Francis Drake by the abandoned golf course. Across the counties, the creeks rose with a vengeance, as the deluge punched us down like dough in the bowl. On my way to work, to teach kids poetry in Mill Valley, we are down to one lane as the roadbed gave way in the middle of the night. What becomes the Fairfax Creek has taken out a chunk of Sir Francis Drake and everywhere you look, all the garbage cans are askew, they look like they have lost in a colossal game of kick the can. Downed trees branches, mother nature‘s roughshod pruning service at the ready, has us slaloming the roads like drunkards. In San Rafael, even the flood signs are flooded. The streets are canals, meanwhile the San Rafael Canal is at maximum tide and it is a huge mirror reflecting the sky and overpass. The inlet is challenging the embankments all up and down the coast, a king tide. New alluvial fans in the making, are fanning out like fan dancers up and down the highway. Meanwhile, the sky is an innocent blue with darling puffy clouds as if to say what’s the big deal? Calm after the storm. Drainage ditches along the bay that haven’t seen any water in years, perhaps even decades, are suddenly mirrored snakes weaving their way through the laced landscape. The end of the drought.

HEADED TOWARD THE LIGHT

HEADED TOWARD THE LIGHT 

        Without light there wouldn’t be darkness, 

       without the darkness there cannot be light. —Unknown

The old porch light gleamed in the darkness, 

flickering like an ember, a moth to a flame. 

A ghost halo of fog gathered its nimbus in 

like a ballgown, invoking traditions lodged 

in the hagiography of the Saints. 

We moved towards the solstice, to sing a litany of light. 

The nights are drawing in, my grandmother said. 

The long nights rob us of sleep.

This, at a time when we should be sleeping like bears. 

Instead it becomes a spiral dance of angst. 

Don’t go towards the light, someone said. 

Light becomes both our salvation

and our final curtain call. Our destiny awaits. 

But this year, the fruit trees, still dressed 

in raiments of bright fall leaves, bleed, 

and burst into blossom. The seasons are colliding.

I am trapped in the darkness and I can’t will myself 

to go back into the hearth where the flames 

once caressed my face until my cheeks 

glowed and throbbed in unison with my heart.

There, where the light of the domesticated fire 

was like a cat comforting you, a distant cousin 

to the primitive fire in the cave of mankind, 

the hieroglyphs on the ochre-stained walls, 

the story of night we shaped and fitted 

into a new wardrobe for the coming spring.

Not the light of a waiting ambulance.

12/15/21

Terri Glass’ Write On ~ a Generative Poetry Gathering

Woodies under the floorboards of the Woodpussy (photos)

Note the size of the large brass screw above them, for scale.

As I was cleaning up trash and the last of the old Woodpussy sailboat floorboards, preparing for the upcoming storm, I was startled by a pair of tiny hibernating baby woodies, the somewhat rare reclusive Marin forest, or wood scorpions. I carefully replaced the floor boards after I took their prerequisite Cecil B DeMille close-ups. They were too cold to even move, so I had a captive audience. Note the large brass screw behind the second one for scale. Such exquisite, if scary, perfection. And yes, of course I screamed. I usually do, as I am initially repulsed by them. They are the stuff of nightmares. I was haunted by recurring dreams of finding scorpions in attics. I got exasperated and invented a new ending where they didn’t sting me. I must’ve been reading too much Levi-Strauss for my folklore classes. Luckily, these little guys don't know the fable of the scorpion and the fox that it’s inherent in the scorpion’s nature to sting. Startled, surprised, and absolutely gobsmacked by them, and I am also in utter awe to catch a glimpse of these shy little creatures. I can count the times I’ve seen them on one hand. Well, maybe two. That rare, yes. We grew up with them but never even knew of their existence. I remember rolling a rotted log down by our old oak tree and there was a family snoozing under the log. I screamed and climbed the hogwire fence. They eventually waddled off. I felt so betrayed, somehow. Then the penny dropped, they were also under the house where I used to play, when I crawled to get the cats….and they never once stung me. I got inpetigo, and other odd ailments, but not scorpion stings. Most people will never see an Uroctonus mordax, no matter how wood-wise they are. When I look at their incredible beauty, I am in awe that such complicated creatures even exist in this world. And I get to witness it. They are fairly docile, you would be hard-pressed to get them to sting you. And even if they did, a beesting is much worse. And if I had a UV light, they’d fluoresce teal blue vs. yellow. These little guys were too cold to move away from the direct light. They just watched me warily, scuttling in a circle to face me, as if to say, I’m too small. Not a tasty snack. Apparently they taste like very tiny lobster. A good thing I don’t like lobster. I guess I’ll be leaving the rest of the Woodpussy boards in situ until they move along.

• Scorpion under a pot for Earth Day
• Camping in Baja
• The Wood-Pussy

Listening to the Apollo Murders audiobook by Col. Chris Hadfield

I’m listening to The Apollo Murders…Love it, they’ve landed on the moon and I’m learning lots. And remembering. Sometimes the Russian pronunciation isn’t as clear as it could be but that’s probably the muddled interpretation of the audiobook reader. I find myself repeating phrases. But the Russian-English accents are great. As is Nixon’s accent. Reader does a bang up job, but needs to go to a Russian language school, his Russian is mushy—horasho!

Col. Chris Hadfield is a good, solid writer. No waste, no fluff. Good reportage. Solid science. For example, I never thought of moondust as sharp. No erosion. Of course! why didn’t I think of that? And he knows some cool obscure words, like “rills” and knows how to handle a metaphor, so, as a writer, I am over the moon! 

Since I’ve met Chris, I can also hear his voice behind the words. And it’s a kick to see glimpses of his autobiography in the storyline, bits of which Ive read, or heard him read. Mitchell cranked up Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon. LOL.

Audiobooks is a fairly new thing for me, during the early days of the pandemic, I had the attention span of a newt. I couldn’t concentrate long enough read a sentence little in a paragraph. I couldn’t retain anything as my mind was a sieve, more like blotter paper. But I found I could listen to audiobooks, which I formerly hated being read to. Go figure.

I’m bummed that I didn’t have the dough to buy Chris’s biography when he read at Book Passage in Corte Madera. But I had some astronaut freeze-dried ice cream which he kindly autographed. Someone took photos, but you know how it goes, I’m always the one behind the camera…so whenever anyone attempts to take a photo of me, it’s always out of focus. Like with Amy Tan, and Mary Robinson, the President of Ireland, FFS! Oh, and Chris speaks Irish too! Le do thoil.

I’ve seen one of the Apollo 11 test capsules on the USS Hornet in Alameda, CA. And once when I was teaching an Elderhostel class, one of my students was a NASA engineer. He brought me a moonrock collected from the moon’s surface, to hold. It was a piece of basalt—with sharp edges.

Persimmons (photos)

Ripe persimmons hanging from a bare tree like small fiery suns, are a poignant sign of winter. These Japanese Diospyros kaki or Hachiya persimmons, were picked on Arroyo Road in Forest Knolls. How many times did I pass that tree and never noticed it when I was walking home from school? Unripe hachiyas are astringent and inedible until they are soft as an over-ripe tomato. My grandmother always said, you’re not supposed to pick them until after the first frost. But this year, the frosts have been so light, I got tired of waiting for winter to come. 

Like quinces and medlars, they are completely inedible until they are bletted which is a polite way of saying approaching the rotten stage. Persimmon trees really don’t want you eating a persimmon until it’s beyond ripe. Patience is required. If you bite into an unbletted hachiya, it will take the skin off your teeth, give them fur jackets, not to mention, strip the roof of your mouth, and leave your uvula wizened to the size of a peppercorn, and you will be speechless, I guarantee it. Who had to look up uvula? Not what you thought, right? 

I hated persimmons as a kid, probably because I tried to eat an unripe one. It’s an acquired taste I’m still trying to cultivate, because of their health benefits, I must admit I’m leery, but I am willing to revisit them. Just not raw. When they’re ripe, you can freeze and eat them like custard. Be sure to use a good silver plate or sterling spoon, the acid reacts with metal. Kind of like a battery. I remember watching my granny scoop out the vermillion frozen pulp and eat them on late winter afternoons, with sheer delight. But I never acquired a taste for them.

Or you can make persimmon bread, or pudding, my favorite—an excellent boozy Christmas pudding, but it requires finesse with baking powder, baking soda, soda and buttermilk (or yogurt) to neutralize the oxalates and proanthocyanidins and antioxidant phytochemical enzymes (insoluble tannins and gallic acid). Aka better living through chemistry. (Diospyros means divine fruit of Zeus in Greek). And it also requires a lot of emotional support booze before, during, and after. And then, after baking it, you have to booze-bathe the little puddy weekly. And of course, have a tot yourself to keep it company. It’s a long-term commitment relationship. After all, it is a kind of fruitcake—they don’t like to drink alone. Not to mention the hardsauce. 

I’ve long since lost my granny’s persimmon bread recipe, along with her fruitcake recipe, but here’s one by James Beard, whom she admired. It calls for a lot of bourbon. Here’s a simple version that uses both kinds of persimmons. She probably got her boiled pudding recipe from Bon Appétit! Or if boiled or steamed pudding isn’t your cuppa, you can try their baked persimmon bread recipe, which sounds like pumpkin bread dressed in persimmon pajamas. Or try persimmon bread pudding. No recipe given. You’re on your own here, wildcatting it, as it were. Both persimmon bread and pudding freeze well.

The short, squatty Japanese variety, or cultivar, Fuyus, or Fujus, look like little sumo apples with dimpled bottoms, and  are eaten crisp. No waiting, or bletting necessary. Freezing them will help ripen them too. 

Our native American persimmons, Diospyros virginiana, aka sugarplums, or possum-apples, grow on the eastern seaboard—especially in the greater Mississippi Valley. There is also a southern black species, D. texana, chapote, or tzapotl, from the Nahuatl. There are both male and female persimmon trees (and some are switch-hitters, alternating sexes), like persea, aka avocados, and like avocados, they evolved oddly to entice certain ice age megafauna, such as mammoths, mastodons and giant sloths to nosh away, so they could, erm, well, propagate. The persimmons, not the megafauna. I was told they are all good dried—the persimmons, not the megafauna. Let’s just say they had a unique seed dungheap distribution system. (The persimmons.) As for ripening tips, I’ve never seen any. But they do need to be bletted as well.

There are over 400 species of persimmon, Ebenaceae family, most are native to Eurasia. Apparently the slow growing persimmon heartwood, a species of ebony—think black piano keys—takes a hundred years to form. Patience is required. Persimmonwood also makes the finest golf clubs in the world. Ebony, a rather lousy raft material, is also so dense, it sinks in water. You knew that, right? Fore! Birdy? Or is it a mulligan? Where’s my snorkel? I think I’ve  lost the score. Or was it the plot? Think I’ll have a ‘nother neggnog. Cheers!

See also

• 
  
• True Quinces

• In defense of California Bay Laurel
• Defiant Fruitcakes
• Wild Apples

Happy Birthday Jeff Bridges

LOL, when I was six, I was playing with Jeff in the shallow end of the pool—my mom and Lloyd were in a production of Guys and Dolls at Sacramento’s Music Circus—and Beau, on babysitting detail, would have none of that. I was heartbroken. I also didn’t like Beau. So they mercilessly cannonballed the deep end of the pool while I rocked in their wake in the shallow end. I must’ve been crying. Lloyd—Mr. Sea Hunt—dandled me on his knee, and gave me a crystal star. I was starry-eyed. I asked Lloyd why he named his eldest son Boy, when he clearly was way older than Jeff. Lloyd roared with laughter. It was years later before I found out whey it was so funny. I always had a soft spot in my heart for Jeff. Happy Birthday Jeff Bridges, fellow Sagge. Abide, dude.

Happy Birthday Vampyre Mike

 

Vampyre Mike Kassel was one of my mother’s favorite friends. I first met himwhen I was young. My mom brought him out to my grandmother’s place in Forest Knolls. She went by Kellé Green in those days. And I later knew him as an adult through Whitman “Blue Dawg” McGowan. When my mom died, she had a poster of an event of Vampyre Mike’s, some of his chapbooks, and two audio tapes, one of Pasha and the Pagans, and the other, of Leonard Cohen’s Ten New songs. I figured it was a sign of something or another. Not sure what. Happy Birthday Vampyre Mike, fellow Sagge.

THE LOST NOTEBOOK

THE LOST NOTEBOOK

Somewhere along the way, I lost a notebook,
a simple, spiral affair, perhaps with a blue cover,
scribing my travels, chronicling the paths taken,
the writer’s journeys for the sake of poetry.

I lost a notebook somewhere along the way.
Perhaps it was on a bus, or on the trail of life.
Was it while I was traveling up the coast
to that famous writers’ conference?
Or was it left behind in a dingy restaurant booth?

Ironic, that I lost the notebook
chronicling those awkward poems
and the latest heartaches of spring.
Maybe it was that run-in I had with Bly.
Perhaps it ran off with Iron John.
Or it was jettisoned it along the way
because it was filled with detritus of anger 

and hope.

12/1/21

Terri Glass’ Write On ~ a Generative Poetry Gathering

Cold comfort foods

Whoever wrote the food blog on retro foods from the 1950s and 60s, is a either candidate for the moronic twitdom hall of fame, or not a very adventurous nosher. Clearly she hasn’t tried most of the food she was bashing. She is no Anthony Bourdain, with skills to survive the 50s and 60s suburban culinary era, she’s more like from the fish sticks eating school. 

Admittedly a few of the weird concoctions the unnamed author cited were short term fads and most people did not make, nor did they like hot mulled Dr. Pepper, etc., and to this day, thanks to my aunt, I hate sweet potatoes with orange juice, brown sugar, and marshmallows, but most of the fare tasted good. 

We get that the myopic food writer doesn’t like Miracle Whip, she’s probably in good company there, besides, most people avoided Miracle Whip and Cool Whip, for the real deal, but most of the salads she objects to don’t have lettuce…

Clearly she doesn’t understand what a salad is. She writes, “We’ve put quotation marks on the word salad because we don’t consider this a salad. Salad to us means greens…” Can I say say tuna salad, egg salad, potato salad, carrot salad, Waldorf salad, bread salad, tabouli salad? The word salad come from the Latin and means any cold vegetable with salt.

She seriously has it out for anything with Jello, like ambrosia. My granny made some seriously wikkid jello-based salads. Nor does she grok the long history of aspic—that dates back to the middle ages. But picking on stuffed celery was just plain ridiculous. 

And bashing green bean casserole, cornbread, for no real reason, other than looks, and sweet potato pie because it’s—get this—not pumpkin pie? Someone please tell her most canned pumpkin pie filling is made from various winter squashes, like Hubbard, and not even pumpkin? 

All these comfort foods are part and parcel of the traditional Thanksgiving ritual.  I bet she didn’t even eat pitted black olive puppets from her fingers when she was a child either. 

DELUGE

DELUGE

The deluge, an afterthought,
thunderous applause to a ferocious future 

where the weather is a tyrant 

that squeezes and swallows us, 

until there is nowhere left to go.

11/24/21

Terri Glass’ Write On ~ a Generative Poetry Gathering

RACING HEART

RACING HEART

I drove my friend into town, 

we passed two escaped horses, 

massive Clydesdales, a black and a gray, 

tasting their freedom as they galloped 

along the road back and forth, 

back and forth, blocking traffic, 

everyone chasing them, 

as my friend’s racing heart, 

pounded systole, diastole, 

as we headed toward

the emergency room.

11/23/21

I curse you, Robert Bly

It’s interesting when the real personality emerges from behind the hero’s carefully constructed persona or façade. I mentally spit on the thought of Robert Bly‘s grave whenever he is mentioned. He was a poet I admired until he let the social veil slip and attacked me in public. I had produced a big poetry reading event honoring a Calliopea Press art book for his Rilke sonnet translations at Sonoma State. Since I was a singularity, I worked like a dogsbody navigating the bureaucracy to rent the room, raising the speaker fee, setting up the stage, I did mike and sound check, placed chairs, was emcee, etc., and at the end, I politely asked him to autograph my hard-earned copy of the hand-letter-press book, with a gorgeous embossed imprint of a purple iris on the cream cover. I guess he was done with his Mr. Nice face. He ripped me a new one in public and refused to sign my copy. Not a clue as to why. Carol Denison, the broadside artist and pressowner, who witnessed the tirade, was equally mortified, and gave me her signed copy. I was completely humiliated and devastated, not to mention exhausted. I am not one to cry, but that evening he made me cry, and that is unforgivable. I have never been able to even read the book. I heard the book is worth a bomb. I need to sell it to exorcise the bad juju. To this day, I curse him. That night, I got to see the real Bly, mysogenist and ogre that he was, in his dandified cravat and knitted vest. Iron John, my ass.

ok, I confess this was from a fragment I never finished, so I posted it on the day of his death tho it was written in situ 7/21/22.

Remembering Pearlie May Timberlake

Pearlie May Timberlake was my best friend in school before the Jehovah’s Witnesses got a grip on her and eventually made her shun me. 

Pearlie May was born in Louisiana, a bayou girl, supposedly adopted by her blonde-haired blue-eyed mother, who was also from Louisiana. But things didn’t quite add up. For example, why did she retain her last name if she was adopted? There seems to be no record of her birth, or later marriage. 

From time to time I’ve searched for her on the internet but always come up empty. And now all searches revert to Justin Timberlake. Ugh. She was probably a bayou or a Cajun child, despite the apparent Englishness of her last name. 

Pearlie May’s younger brother, John Estes, resembled his fair mother, but Pearlie May’s beauty was incandescent, she was also a dark horse. Literally. She had skin the color of old honey and unruly hair that always needed tending to. She used frozen orange juice cans as curlers to achieve that smooth big hair look. 

Her mother used Pearlie as a house slave. It was almost as if she needed to break Pearlie’s self-resolve with threats and beatings from her stepfather who used a leather belt on Pearlie May more than once. She lived in dread fear of her punitive mother. 

Pearlie May’s stepfather, who was no better, was from Peru—I never even knew his name, but he was a classic Inca, he had many gold teeth, and wore a gold llama medallion around his neck. He spoke Quechua and Spanish, as well as English, and rarely spoke of Peru. But there were Peruvian artifacts in the house. I know nothing of how he even got to the United States, or how he met Pearlie May’s mother. I don’t even know her name, other than it once was Mrs. Estes.

Their young daughter, Lisa, was a little princess who could do no wrong. Pearlie was not only stuck with all the drudgeries of housework, she was also stuck with babysitting Lisa who somehow knew of her privileged position in the family hierarchy, used it to blackmail Pearlie May. 

Pearlie’s parents thought I was a bad influence on her, but really it was the other way around. She was a wild child, who was into alcohol and little white pills at the time. 

They were an odd couple, united by a cultic religion. They were banquet waiters at a fancy San Francisco hotel, so they were never around on weekends. We would crank up the stereo full blast and dance like no one was watching. No one was watching, of course, LOL. Except the neighbors Barbara and Mike Scott who didn’t care. 

They raised chinchillas for the fur trade in a little detached garage, who were very sensitive creatures and would easily die of fright. Apparently rock music wasn’t on their easy listening menu, nor was Man of La Mancha or Exodus and they all died of fright. I hated the little bastards, and was glad when they all died off from disease. Pearlie May got blamed for that too. 

I don’t know what happened to Mr. Estes, but Pearlie May’s mother was a long way from home. Her brilliant blue eyes were as cross-eyed as their Siamese cat and her Louisiana accent took some getting used to. Her son, John came to live with them one summer, and was promptly banished to the detached garage down the hill that once housed the chinchillas. John and Mr. Peru didn’t see eye to eye. 

I guess John’s father, who lived in LA, was done with him because he came back soon afterwards like a homing yo-yo. I was madly in love with him, it was the era of Summer of Love, and he was my first kiss, and everything else. Then I was done with him, he was too fickle, but that’s another story. John didn’t have a Louisiana accent, so he must’ve lived in LA most of his life, which suggests Mrs. Estes came to California with Pearlie May in tow.

Pearlie May was my constant friend since at least 7th grade. We had a deep history. I even went to a few meetings to placated the religious elders. That worked for a while, but I was recalcitrant and had no interest or intention in becoming a Jehovah’s Witness. 

I was devastated when she was finally forced to shun me for real or be excommunicated herself from the group. They were big on the sins of tainted flesh, and felt I was a bad influence on her, when reality, she was a bad influence on me. It became clear that I wasn’t worth saving. So the Jehovah’s Witnesses “outed” me, everyone had to pretend I was invisible, they’d turn their backs on me whenever they saw me. 

They also made her break off her relationship with Tino, we called him Rudolf Valentino because he was that gorgeous. I don’t know why she didn’t just rebel. The entire world was in the throes of rebellion, throwing off the shackles of the past. 

Anyway, the Jehovah’s Witnesses were getting ready to face the end of the world, so their sights were pretty well set. Pearlie May cried, begged me to join, saying she wanted me to be saved too, as I was her best friend. Who would she hang out with in the Promised Land? I wanted to be saved too so that I could see John as well. But it didn’t happen like that. The world didn’t end in 1974. 

She set her sights on a neighbor boy from the church, Abe Razonsky, who eventually became a minister. Last I heard she married him, and went off to do missionary work saving heathen souls in Africa or some dark place in the jungles of the mind. I wonder if she ever thinks of me, or did she also banish me from her mind as well?

FWIW, I did attempt to write a fictionalized account of Pearlie May for a playwriting class back in 2000, but I didn’t really know that much about her, despite our being best friends. What I do know is that it left a big hole in my psyche when we parted. She was somewhat fictionalized in these two pieces. I couldn’t bear to change her name though. Mating Games, Promised Land (monologue)

THE KISS —an ekphrastic poem after Gustav Klimt

THE KISS

     —an ekphrastic poem after Gustav Klimt

I stood on the steps outside the Secession Building 
in tears, because my friend was late.
We surreptitiously slipped into a darkened room,
were greeted by Klimpt’s Kiss, so golden, so tender,

filled with such lavish detail, I couldn’t take it all in.
His hands cradling her face, a beacon of hope.
The textures surrounding them, a lush carpet,

or a ceremonial kimono. For the bride, or for the dead?

Even the walls were flecked with pieces of the sun.
She is made of flowers and limpid pools of water,
he is the fecund geometry of the fields in winter.
His dark hands are rooted in rich earthen loam,
while her face has never been graced by sunlight.
They are an odd couple. Perhaps a mature Romeo and Juliet,

or Orpheus and Eurydice, that moment when 

he turns, and loses his love forever.

They can’t fathom that they are day and night. 

He kisses her so tenderly on the cheek, she swoons, 

they are cocooned in the euphoria of post-coital love. 

He wears a crown of vines, and she, a crown of flowers.

What you can’t see is that she is kneeling 

on a floral carpet, or the edge of a meadow, 

golden chains hobble her slender ankles.

From the look of it, there’s a baby on the way.
And the claustrophobia of dailiness has not taken root. 

I stand on the outside, looking in,
about to embark on a journey to Leningrad 

to meet a lover who loves me no less tenderly,
but already the weight of the golden gown 

is dragging me down to an Undine realm.

11/18/21

Terri Glass’s Write On ~ a Generative Poetry Gathering

Home again, jiggity-jig (Florida Journals)

Last night was the first night I slept in my own bed since Oct 21, I fell asleep at 7 PM, as soon as I got home, and then slept 12 hours—but not straight through. Woke up at 12:45 AM, after a furiously hard sleep, wondering where the hell I was, surprised that it was only a little after midnight. I also woke again at 4, which would’ve been the time I needed to wake up in order to check in on Justa, then I fell asleep again until 6, & struggled to stay asleep until 7 AM. But I sure racked up some missing hours. I think I’ve finally reset my circadian rhythm clock. TG!

I’ve been back in CA for a few days, but since I needed to work in Marin, I stayed there, rather than drive back and forth, thus not wasting both time and gas. Sticker shock on gas prices, BTW. It was $3.12, to $3.29 in Maimi. Anyway, I hit the ground running, working right away as soon as I got back to Marin, right off the plane, literally, and then I worked all weekend, and Monday, too. All this, sans Cuban coffee. 

Now I know how Cubans navigate the day, on strong Cuban coffee. They have these little tiny toy teacups they knock back throughout the day. Pure rocket fuel. Half sugar, half quad strength espresso. Which also explains why they all talk so fast!  They’re wired to the gills! No time for those rolled rrrs, or sibilant esses. And Ls are swallowed as well. I’ve learned to speak a passable Cuban Spanish, but my Mexican Spanish seems positively languid in comparison. 

I love how they make time for their cafecitos. At Publix, a girl comes through several times a day with a small carafe of coffee, and small plastic one oz. shot cups to give the checkers their cafecitos. Very sweet. The checkers knock them back in one gulp. Mainlining the stuff. Yet they always have the time to graciously take care of me, the awkward gringa in line.

I would’ve loved another outing or two, but I at least got to see Key Largo, and Miami Beach. A day and a half of touristing is not much but it’s better than nothing. We went to South Beach near the pier and all went swimmingly, except for the actual swimming. But getting home was a nightmare that took hours. We went down Calle Ocho but the Café Versailles was having a 50-year anniversary bash so every Cuban in Miami was out partying. They were dozens of cop cars everywhere. By the time we got to Coral Gables, I could care less, but the houses were pretty awesome. I noticed oak savannah. I wasn’t expecting that. Kirk wanted to barbecue and I just wanted to sleep so we settled for pizza and salad, totally doable. A good thing too as I nearly fell asleep in my salad plate.

I am grateful that my school meeting is via Zoom. I don’t think I’m up to driving down to Berkeley for a meeting. Can I zoom in my jammies? I might need a cafecito or two to make it through the day.

Florida Journals:

• • Home again, jiggity-jig (Florida Journals)
  • RIP, Buddy the Cat (Florida Journals) (photos)
  • Re-entry is a bitch (Florida Journals)
  • Flying home (Florida Journals)
  • Inside-out & backwards interview (Florida Journals)
  • Key Largo snorkel tour (Florida Journals) (photo)
  • Maimi Beach (Florida Journals)
  • Disconnectivity happens
  • The color of blood (Florida Journals)
  • Facewashing the cat (photos) (Florida journals)
  • Fasciated bananas (photos, drawing) (Florida journ...
  • A new day beginnith (Florida journals)

• • Buddy the Cat (more cat pix) (Florida journals)
  • Losing the plot (Florida journals)
  • Mi vida loca (cat pix) (Florida journals)
  • Maimi Majordomo (Florida journals)
  • Justa’s story (Florida Journals) (folklore)
  • Florida Journals: caregiving for Justa
  • Airborne
  • Hurricane Charley, Mile Zero, Highway One (photos)
  • 2004 Florida journals
  • Confessions of an iPod Roadie
  • Letter from Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas, journal
  • Missive from Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas, journal

RIP, Buddy the Cat (Florida Journals) (photos)

The wind was blowing the whirligig, but Buddy couldn’t hear it.

RIP, Buddy the Cat, who at age 19, was nearly old enough to visit the local bar, that’s something like 133 in cat years. I tried to warn my friends that his time had probably come, as he was pissing on the hall floor. I was always stepping in it barefoot. No odor, renal failure, I knew the drill too well. My favorite cats, Cheetos and Jack, both orange bhoys, died of kidney failure. Poor little guy slept on the couch the last few days. No more midnight yowling. And of course, no one wants to hear that their pet is dying. At least he didn’t die on my watch. 

Whenever I was on the couch, Buddy the Cat liked to parallel park along my calf, snoozing hard, it’s a tough life being a cat. Whenever I went outside, he hovered nearby, like a constant shadow. He was deaf as a stump but responded to percussive sounds.

But he also kept me sane under impossible circumstances. He was my constant flame, my fan club, and my tormentor. He had a hellacious medianoche howl. He was able to reach a much louder velocity than what I was able to record on my iPad. He would throw his head back like a little wolf, and he kept me awake most nights with his yowling. So much so, that I needed to visit the bar. Drive me to drink, he did. He always shut up and made baby squeaks whenever he saw me coming, he knew he wasn’t supposed to howl. And he went running off whenever he saw me, he knew the score. So I had to sneak my iPad around corners in order to catch him in action. 

I only knew Buddy for three weeks, while catsitting. Not too sure how long that is in cat years. First, there was the cool cat whothehellareyou and whathaveyoudone with my master beloved, I’ll keep my distance and be terribly aloof—week. Then there was the OMG you are my entire universe wherehaveyoubeen allmylife week. And then the lovefest commenced. But I could see how he was beginning to falter, and I knew him well enough to recognize the signs of renal failure. I tried to tell my hosts when they returned, to say their goodbyes, but it was news no one wants to hear. 

A stone-deaf pale flame Siamese colored Persian with a lion haircut, he pretty much followed me everywhere once he realized I was not only the catsitter, I was the gravytrain, the head scratcher, the face washer, the ear massager, and master tail-butt itcher all rolled into one. A few nights after my friends returned home from their concert series, the yowling magically stopped. Even they were surprised. Something was up. Buddy’s card. Gonna miss that little guy, but not his particular rendition of the song of his people.

When I moved his bed outside to the back porch, he was a happy camper.

Re-entry is a bitch (Florida Journals)

Why is re-entry always so hard? I’m all thumbs & heels & plagued by dueling time zones. Maybe I should nail my shoes to the ground, or I might just float off again. 

What would astronaut Col. Chris Hadfield say, as he’s experienced the ultimate timeshift continuum, not to mention a profound lack of gravity—for reals, whereas I only flew three time zones across North America! But it feels like some of my personal molecules are still airborne. When Chris played Major Tom in space, he couldn’t get traction on the fretted downstroke of his guitar and he floated up with every stroke. The music lifted him, literally. An apt metaphor. Much better than my having my blouse on inside out for a videotaped interview and poetry reading. You can edit out people’s ahems, but you can’t edit out the fact that my shirt is still on inside out, and will be for an eternity.

Still in transito. I’m so glad I changed my ticket back. Southwest airlines rerouted me to Timbuktu and back on my original ticket. As it is, It still took me nearly 10 hours to get back with a long stopover in Denver. But the original ticket was worse, and it routed me through Baltimore, then Dallas. And you know with that leads to. Grassy knolls and Q-anon conspiracy theories. All those whackjobs converging on Dallas to see the resurrection of JFK.WTF?

Flying west with the sun, we had the longest sunset ever. It was like being in Scotland or northern Canada in summer. One time when I hitched and ferry-jumped up the coast to Prince Rupert, there was no place to stay, so we camped out on the hill facing west over the Sound, I had a similar experience. It may have been a graveside park, as there were memorial tombstones. But I remember watching the sun set, and it went on and on and on and on. I totally forgot about being that far north. I couldn’t figure out why the flies were out and crawling all over me sluggishly. They too were missing their beauty sleep. Daylight savings on steroids. 

And while we’re at it, can we please do away with the concept of daylight savings time? Why are we still doing it? What purpose does it serve? We are no longer living in 1943. Or whenever it was started. It’s absolutely barbaric. Was unnerving to arrive in Oakland in the dark and realize it was barely 6 PM. 

Also I am emerging from another culture, where English is rarely spoken. My Mexican Spanish was not entirely useful so I had to switch dialects as well. When you are constantly within another language, it exhausts you. And I re-entered having to work. I got off the plane, and as soon as I was in Marin, I was busy cleaning up for my care person. Ditto that for the weekend and Monday. Even tho care provider help came in while I was gone, there so much work still to do…

Old Florida blogposts

• Hurricane Charley, Mile Zero, Highway One (photos)
• Confessions of an iPod Roadie
• Letter from Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas, journal
• Missive from Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas, journal

Flying home (Florida Journals)

Waiting for takeoff, I managed to board with all my goodies and my Keylime pie, my yogurts and surprise, my papaya and banana breakfast, so I can have real food versus pretzels on Southwest where they starve you, and greet you and then feed you pretzels. So I discovered that I can get through TSA with a flask of milk for medicinal reasons—ulcers—that’s good to know for future reference. 

I must admit that I am glad to be going home, I’ve been away from home for a long time and it was tearful saying goodbye to Justa. What makes it so hard to say goodbye to choose to was the realization that I will never see her again alive. She kissed my hands and I returned the gesture. I’ve grown quite fond of her. And we had some good laughs.

The plane faces a long climb through the cloud layer, we dance toward the sky. My ears object to the long steady climb. I have to remind myself that I’ve been much higher than 10,000 feet. Above the cloud layer is a Ukiyo-ë realm, subtle pools of light and darkness. My sunglasses provide respite from the intense glare. Not much to see, other than clouds. Hopefully when we approach Denver, there will be something more to see. Still I am happy to have a window seat finally even if there is nothing to see. I am popping my ears constantly, especially after yesterday‘s snorkeling. 

My right ear was bogarting seawater, as I swam too close to the crest of the reef and a wave plowed into me. The Grecian rocks reef is quite a ways offshore from Key Largo. It is, in essence a barrier reef. The coral and seaweed were spectacular, and I only recognized a few kinds brain coral fire coral etc. they were gorgons and tuna kids and hydrazone a rich plant animal life a Textron garden. I gave up on the go Pro camera and took a page from Ram Dass: Be here now. The sea garden was a rich nursery for small fish.

We seem to be overwater, over the gulf, the sun from my left and I see Fort Jefferson and the Dry Tortugas. Another snorkel bucket list. Maybe someday. I’m just happy to see blue skies above the cloud layer. There’s nothing to photograph but I am at the ready.

The aspirin I took an hour ago was finally getting a toehold. Denver is four hours away. I will need another round by then or before then. I was awake at 4:30 AM and I’m now so groggy but there is no way I am planning to drink the community coffee.

We are traveling a liminal boundary between the cloud layer and blue skies. We are neither here nor there. Ghost tendrils of clouds above and below. The gulf below reflecting the sky. The edge of the cloud cover is like an endless prairie of sorts. Below me is the sunken coastline of Florida, and the barrier islands, like ancient calligraphy. Soon we cross over into Louisiana, and then follow the serpentine traces of Old Muddy north toward Denver. All that water on the landscape, reflecting myriad eyes of the sun.

I cannot bear the thought of pretzels. I don’t like them on a good day, but that’s what’s for lunch on Southwest. Maybe I’ll be brave and spelunker into my magic bag and raid my provisions, papaya and banana for breakfast.

I’m listening to the first book of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. I’ve seen the BBC series, but Alexander McCall Smith is such a delightful writer, one has to also view him in print. In this case, by audiobook. However number one in the series is a bit somber and nowhere near as funny as book 21, How to Raise an Elephant (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency) which had me snorfeling in the aisle, literally.

We land in Denver, the jaunty white party tents of the airport mimicking the Tetons. I pass a busy hour in the Denver Airport while waiting for my plane, it’s unbearable. I cannot stand being around all these people and find myself sneaking into corners to escape the crowds. I certainly don’t want to wait in line for food. I eat a yogurt for dinner. Denver to Oakland, the long light over the land, an endless sunset to the west coast, and a cloak of darkness descends over California. Home again, jiggity-jig.

Old Florida blogposts.

• Hurricane Charley, Mile Zero, Highway One (photos)
• Confessions of an iPod Roadie
• Letter from Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas, journal
• Missive from Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas, journal

Inside-out & backwards interview (Florida Journals)

Last night in Miami, I thought my interview with Fire Haus Projects went well, but when I got home, I discovered that I had my blouse on inside-out for the entire videotaped interview and poetry reading. You can edit out glitches but you can’t edit out the fact that my shirt will be on inside-out forever. I guess it could’ve been worse, I could’ve had it on both inside-out and backwards. Hopefully no one will notice. Only problem is, that it has these cute little maroon satin strings attached to the shoulders so that I can hang it off a hanger. 

After a full day, snorkeling offshore at the Grecian Rocks in Key Largo, I guess I’m allowed a little eccentricity. Talk about metaphor in action. My host, Lilia Fontana, who originally hailed from Havana, was a lovely hostess. We got on like a house afire.

When I got my first CAC grant to teach poetry I had many early morning classes. At that time I was a night owl and I remember getting to class to teach and looking down and realizing I had my stylin’ shirt on inside out. Thing is, it had shoulder pads. Hard to laugh that one off as a style statement. Oh well. Carry on.

Key Largo snorkel tour (Florida Journals) (photo)

Key Largo: We have a Sundiver snorkel tour at noon, the sky is cloudy so I don’t hold much hope. It is impossible to see the GoPro screen in daylight, so at the very least, it’s a boat ride into the outback of the Peter Pennekamp marine preserve. If we are lucky, we will see some cool fish. If not, I’ve got a boatride and new snorkel out of it. How I love being out on the water. It’s been too long, since before the pandemic since I’ve even seen the ocean. I have long since lost my snorkel gear, besides it was decades old. The rubber, long since rotted. I will need a new mask but the diveboat provides them, so no worries there. I’ve got my Hawaii gear on. My reef slippers. I may look ridiculous but have no intention of getting sunburned, I look like I’m getting ready for a yoga class, not a dive in the ocean.

Maimi Beach (Florida Journals)

South Point Beach was a little too cold, a little too windy, and it was a little too late in the day for swimming, so the water was chilly. An intermittent drizzle made it a rather liminal affair with little distinction between water and air. Scud clouds, like a lace tablecloth, draped over the edge of the sky, and a rainbow plunged into the meniscus of the ocean like a deep sea spear. I waded in, tossed about by small outsider waves, and attempted to surf into shore on a bigger wave, but it didn’t have the power to carry me, not like the Pacific. I sank like a stone. The Atlantic is considerably warmer than what I’m used to, but I was still chilled to the bone. The citadel of Miami Beach shone like a white castle in the afternoon sunlight. What really made my day, or rather, afternoon, as it was late and the sun sinking down behind us, was a pair of frigatebirds circling overhead, and I considered it a blessing, not an omen.

Disconnectivity happens

—for Jessy, with love, who inspired this post.

Ironically during last night’s repeat deluge of biblical proportions, well, OK, so a couple of inches, not like the last storm’s whopping 13 inches, a sweet young West Marinite posted how she was so anxious and afraid because last night there was no Wi-Fi or cell phone service, and apparently she needed some Facebook reassurance that all was well, having survived the grueling storm outage of November 7. 

I had to laugh. A little wind and rain. It’s not like the world was going to end in fire or flood last night. Sure, there were lots of downed trees dangling on power lines, playing them like basso profundo harp strings. A Comcast outage also affected most of Sonoma County as well. As long as there’s no raging wildfire, I told her to enjoy the silence. Haul out the candles, read a book. When disconnectivity happens, you can begin to hear yourself think. A rarity during this age of hyper-connectivity. She was a good sport, and took my ribbing well.

Believe it or not, some of us grew up in the San Geronimo Valley without Wi-Fi, or cell service—as neither had yet been invented. Well, that’s not quite true, the technology for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth were invented during WWII. Indeed, when I was very young, we were without rotary dial-up phone service—which often works during a storm as it’s a separate system from the PG&E power lines. I remember the day we got a phone line. A party line is probably worse than no phone line at all. Mrs. Decker, who worked for Guide Dogs for the Blind, would get on the phone and talk for hours. So we couldn’t use the phone most of the time anyway. 

Luckily Old Man Latindorf at the end of the road who spoke a crisp, broken German-English, rarely used the phone. Nor did Old Man Larsen, who spoke a taciturn Norwegian. Neither one spoke English well. More like begrudgingly. They preferred the dark domain of their own inner confirmed bachelor thoughts. And Mary Bianchi spoke an odd mixture of Italian and English, her hands wildly semaphoring like racecar flags. For her, conversation was intrinsically tied up with feeding you—whether or not you were hungry was immaterial. We could identify everybody by voice. Sometimes there were heated exchanges when somebody wanted to use the phone. But we all knew each other, so some civility ensued.

I won’t mention a lack of television reception in the valley either. No cable this far out. it just wasn’t worth it to lay cables for us outliers. Not enough money in it for Viacom. The Stones got TV reception by climbing the tallest Doug fir and planting an aluminum aerial on top of it. And the long copper and plastic antenna wire that looked like a tiny railroad track to the house was the weakest link. But when the crows and bluejays partied on the aerial, or the wires, the reception went south. 

We were in a cul-de-sac box canyon so unless the wind blew a certain way, and the clouds were otherwise preoccupied with their horoscopes, there was no way we could ever get reception—no matter where we stuck the damned aerial. Our neighbors had a little better luck as they were more exposed so they could pick up some TV reception. Not that that there was much of anything to watch. Something that people today don’t grasp. They can watch anything they want. But let’s just say we got three, maybe four stations, sort of, and often during bad weather, all of them were filled with snow. Not real snow. Just electronic snowstorms emanating from the outer regions of Alpha Centauri.

I kind of miss those unplugged days of yore. Yeah, I get it that we all want to be connected, via the Marshall McLuhan global village. And of course, there is always the danger of what might, or could go wrong! But sometimes the silence and isolation is the best thing about the Valley. It’s what made us so radically different from those townies who lived over the hill. 

However, I can’t help but think of that poor woman who went off the road into a ditch between Dickson Ranch and Flanders Ranch and died because she couldn’t get 911 cell phone reception. And that is why we have a cell tower on the top of Mt. Barnabe.  And I sure wouldn’t give up that connectivity during wildfire season. 

Ironically I don’t even own a smart phone. I use my iPad exclusively for communication. So I am very much invested in cellular connectivity too even if I’m older than dirt. I know, I know, resistance is futile. Yet, still I resist. Isn’t it synchronistic that I electronically wrote and posted all this on Heddy Lamarr’s birthday? She, who invented Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, I kid you not.

“Hedy Lamarr, a remarkable inventor who devised a system for remote-controlling torpedoes that became the basis for bluetooth and wifi.”

The color of blood (Florida Journals)

This is a photo of my thumb over the camera lens. Ergo, it is also a photo of the color of my blood—truly alizarin crimson. My stomach went south again this morning after I took a blood sample, but at least it worked! I’ve had incredibly bad luck taking blood sugar samples from my care person. We have decided that if I stab my patient three times and still can’t get a reading, that we pass on the concept. Well, I have passed on the concept more often than I have had success, usually it says, Error!, so I’m very excited to say her blood sugar is normal. Not mine. Hopefully my biliousness stomach will start rocking on a stormy sea of queasiness. Yes, I have stabbed myself with the stupid little needle trying to reload the little gun. I do rub her finger as if I were milking it before I stab it. She really needs to drink more water and she refuses because she doesn’t want to wet the bed. And yesterday’s care provider quit. I am running out of coping skills. I now know that I do not want to do a job like this again. I knew it would be difficult. But not like this!

WRITERS’ TEARS, a found poem

WRITERS’ TEARS

    — a found poem

As Billy Collins sips his writer‘s tears and segues off 

onto golden stories, I think there are no more directives, 

or Brooks Brothers’ suits heralding the nine to five,

merely traffic signs in Italy that are mere suggestions 

rather than instruction. Merge here. Turn there.

I think of those bleary Monday morning poems 

half-scryed on fogged windows, sobbing cold tears,

after a hot shower, as he leans in for a closer shave.

Billy says the poet’s job is to stand at attention, 

at the window and make an interesting report about sorrow. 

I think of those silly break-up poems that held me back,

it was like taking drugs and reading all the words backwards— 

from whose point of view, I don’t know, Leda’s, or the swan’s? 

But Billy said sparrows, not sorrows, my ears tangled 

in the small-feathered nuances of slant rhyme.

11/4/21; rev 11/18/21

BLUE RIBBON SPECIAL

BLUE RIBBON SPECIAL

Once I entered a gymkhana race
where a dollar bill was firmly placed
between my thigh and my horse.
I was riding bareback, of course,
so it was a snap and every pace
that the judges put me through,

no matter how tough it got,
that dollar bill stuck to me like glue.

They begrudgingly gave me the blue,

but I would rather have won the pot.

11/4/21

Terri Glass workshop

Facewashing the cat (photos) (Florida journals)

I just cleaned Buddy the Cat’s face with eye drops and a wet toothbrush—he loves it—plus eye medicine. He helps me scrub his little face. I did his ears inside and out too, as they were not very clean. And he went apeshit, he was cross-eyed, and groaning with pleasure, trying to stick his hind feet into his ears and everywhere else. Right now he is grooming his head. He is about 19 years old and his hygiene is sadly lacking. If he wasn’t so old I would give him a bath ASAP.

Buddy the Cat in ecstacy, falling over backwards for a little noserub. He decided I might be alright after all. Gonna miss the little guy. He is a lovely creature. When I scratch his back at the base of his tail, he licks his front, especially his bib. It’s very clean. Since he needs to brush up on personal hygiene skills, this is good. When I first scratched his spine at the base of his tail he didn’t like it, now he thinks it’s wonderful. Lots of head butts. Right now, he is washing my elbow, as well as behind his own ears. Who knew that my elbow was so dirty?

Buddy the inside cat is studying for a PhD in quantum mechanics. That is how he can be both inside and outside at the same time. He also has a minor degree in cat opera, and has the lungs of a Pavarotti. I keep stalking the cat to record his hideous meows, and he always cottons onto me. Imagine this yowl at quadruple the volume, and a sustained yodel, with more vibrato, longing and saudade to it—carrying on for five or more minutes at a stretch, going off like clockwork all through the night. 

Meanwhile, the back porch raccoon decided that the food scraps I put out for her needed a good washing—including the old bread I put out yesterday. Nothing worse than a bad cook making bread soup with cat kibble.

Fasciated bananas (photos, drawing) (Florida journals)

La sonreia de los bananas. Yesterday Ana, the good care provider, brought me a large bunch of bananas from her garden. I think they’re bananas, but they could be platanos. Yesterday I bought what I thought were small bananas at the store, they turned out to be tiny platanos. Ugh. Bitter in the mouth. Ana brought me 15 bananas, and one is a double, so 16. Fasciation. Fascinating.

A new day beginnith (Florida journals)

And so today I feel perfectly fine. This time I made sure I had plenty of tea in me before I began the cat food ritual. And I was not greeted with cat barf, nor by lively cockroaches waiting to be dispatched to the next world. I felt queasy most of the day, yesterday. I bailed on lunch. I had to force myself to eat dinner. I must admit it took willpower to eat my dinner. It was a chore to eat, but then, I felt fine afterwards. No trouble at all with eating my dessert. I’m sure the pan de boudin pudding helped. Go figure. And so now, everything is fine. Except for the new care providers coming and going like the tides.