20140508 Corned Beef and Cabbage
Thursday, May 8, 2014, 1:15 PM I am in Brian Powers's waiting room. It is 1:15, which is the new time he told me to come. But he has not yet taken me inm.
I raced around all morning, trying to do a hundred things at once. Yesterday, I wrote a new poem on the way home from R:dake and then couldn't get it to download right. Last night
2:45 PM I went to Edsel Ford after BP instead of Pier Park in hopes of seeing spring wildflowers. They burned the wild beach where I walked and wrote last week. They didn't do a very good job, though.
Here there are lots of blue jays and a catbird. One of the blue jays swoops down ad grabs soemthing running along the ground, something small, I could see what. It reminds me of the time we saw the chipmunk attack and kill a baby bird. Which reminds me of the time I saw a chipmunk attack and kill a large snake.
I find trout lilies of to the left of the Island trail and crash through the poison ivy to photograph them. The photos probably won't be very good, though, too much wind and not enough light. Here's fawn lilies (and even more wind here, closer to shore.) Also less sun, a big bank of clouds has just covered the sun. Left the car window open . . .
I am carrying 5 cameras and one extra lens, but the bright sun thatw as evident when I packed is gone.
Two people in kayaks are seing a muskrat-owe've seen them here. I am disturbing a large group of resting (no longer) geese. I walk out around them and the settle again.
I find a huge patch of fawn lilies but don't take any more pix. There are troutlilies, too. Boraginous bluebells. Starry false solomon seal in bud, ready to burst.
The wind, which seems determined to be uncooperative, keeps getting stronger and stroner.
I attempt the bluebells.
I think there is als blue phlox coming, butt not open yet.
Ah, I see a scarlet tanager! Wow! So pretty. I see some perfect trout lilies in a huge patch of poison ivy and decide to skip them, since I'm wearing sandals (it's hot and muggy today, very unspringlike!)
More scarlet tanagers, one in a tree a few feet away, might have gotten a decent shot of it if I wasn't worried about getting home to make dinner for ML.Instead of stopping and attempting the shot, I just surge onward.
Someone picked a brilliant red tulip and left it lying deflated on the trail I always feel sad.
I see a watersnake sunning by the trail, and I do not attempt the shot. I guess I'm too nervous about getting dinner done. I guess I should have left some of the cameras in the car.
A fisherman is fishing in a boat just offshore and listening to the radio. How sd to disturb all this lovely nature with that yammering.
I got stopped by a well-dressed lady looking warblers. I hadn't really seen any warblers, but I wasn't looking for them. I told her where I thought would e a good place and gave her several options. She had soemthing wrong with her voice and could hardly talk--I could tell talking was an effort for her.
I watch a tern dive for a fish. The horizon is blurred today. Last time I was here, it was razor sharp and black. Today, the sailboats are lost in haze.
I walk a long the lake wall looking for snakes, see instead geese, ducks, bluejays. A red-winged blackbird, a grackle. I named off all the birds I had seen on the island, bit the woman without a voice wanted only warmblers.
I spit a muskrat and take a couple shots of it. It's so big at first I think it's a beaver, but's its tail is wrong. There are beavers here, their work is everywhere. But that's a muskrat. A big one. Reminds me of a book I read years ago, the ratter. about a kid who's father hunted muskrats. I seem to remember that the book had a melanchy feel.
They've put tables out on the point behind the house. The breeze (wind) hereis strong and feels good, because of the heat and humidity. The cold water of Lake St. Clair cools it.
It's too windy for reflections from the pond.
White trilliums are out.
More scarlet tangers" Magnolias in full flower, both white and pink Tulips and daffodils galore (I'm in the garden now, and it's splendiferous.
It's that time of spring when the trees are hazed with pale yellow green, pink, red, ornage. It's gorgeous here on the grounds of Edsel Ford.
It's a hint of an experience of what it might be like to be rich that even the poorish can experience, only not the truly poor, since you have to pay to get in.
Friday, May 9, 2014, 4:34 PM It's been raining of and on all day. It's currently stopped and I am walking to VM for ground round for spaghettti. And other things we need, of course.
I have a big rip in my pants that keps getting bigger. I could emnd it or order new pants or both.
It was really hot earlier (for this early in the year), 82, but it has cooled off, thank goodness.
I have not been working on my poem. I need to. Nor have I been working on my novels, the book for Frankie etc.
I walk by a lawn full of blue violets and there are tulips and daffodils. Some lawns have been poisoned and only green grass. Of course, this house has a flwoering shad.
5:49 PM off again. I run into Deena. She's dressed up cute. Her kids are participating in a play they they wrote themselves about the Heidelberg project tonight. Itp's been burned again. Not her children, her biological live-at home kids, but her students at Cass.
Earlier it was so hot an humid, but now I've got long pants and a long-sleeved shirt. (I wore shorts for a while today for the first time this year.
I'm tired. I am tired all the time. I just don't sleep very well. I am willing to sleep well.
I thought prebiotics and probiotics were helping, but, although I do feel somewhat better than I did, I still don't feel well. I want to feel well and rested.
I feel so dragged out I do not really feel like writing. I would probably enjoy my walk more if I di write. But I need to review where I left off because it's been so long!
There is an old lame dog.m He can hardly walk. But he's huge.. A great dane or something. I cross to the other side of the street, then cross baack.. Just because he can't walk doesn't mean he can't bit and he's loose.
I pass a hourse with tiny miniature daffodils and normal sized white tulips, it looks cool. I start back and wonder iif that dog is still out and if I'll need to cross the road again.
I pass a baby squirrel curled into a partial fetal position, soggy from the rain and dead. I feel sad.
Abundant azaleas in bloom.
I think my next task is to start a folder labeled Candidates for May 2014 DSS and star collecting photos into it that I may wish to submit. DSS is Wednesday. I don't want to wait until the last minutes.
THEN, If I put only copies in there, I can delete any extras, once I decide which are better (that's always difficult for me). I think Keith does a better job, sometimes, devciding what to submit. But for example, my old engine in Portland seems better than his, at least a little better, but I didn't submit it and he did submit his.
Also, I bought eggs for making egg tempera paint, but first, I need to decide what I am painting. Then sketch it and treat it with black india ink. THEN mix the paint and paint it. This for Frankie and Noah ave aparty.
Meanwhile, I have some book coupons due to expire. For shutterfly.
Saturday, May 10, 2014, 4:38 PM I am out walking to Rolandale. It's sunny and warm but not hot, and breezy, feels great after yestersay's heat and humidity. Keith istired from a hard day at work. I was wiating for him in hopes we could do something togther, but he's too tired.
I farted around earlier with Pandora, the Panasonic with the stereo lens. I have the extra one my pocket, this, the origina, and the camera tied on my belt.
Wednesday is the last chance to enter anything until September. But my chances of getting a winning photo when I haven't gotten one in all this time are pretty slim. Still. I'm on the lookout.
I stop and take a picture of someone's ornage tulips. A woman is watering the sidewalk. She tells me that she's trying to get the edge of the lawn where the plow plowed up her lawn. I tell her she needs to move it closer to the road. She's worried about the cars. We talk about how they drive too fast. The speed limit is 25. They all drive between 40 and 50. Maybe the sprinkler will slow them down she sats. I doubt it, but I donb't sy so.
I run across Mack. Now I have the camera strung around my neck, which is not good for mutiple reasons. The strap is too short and it chokes me, and also is a temptation ofr thieves.
I wanted to work on my novel. I tried reading the part where I left off. It was about two different thingsm About Tiny's mixed feeling about Harmon and about Boris the Bug Bugnasty.
Kathy, or some other ignorant person has piled crap in top of the wildflowers at the green house. Makes me sad. There's mroe crap than the last tie I went by.
My shoulder and neck still hurt. I put voltaren cream on before I left.
I haven't photographed any magnolias this year, I mean none of the red or pink ones. Only the whites. Its so windy today, not a great day for close-up flower photography.
* * * *
In Uncle Beast, Harmon is supposed to preach tonight in Bon Matin and then take them out to eat at (). Tiny has learned that he has fake ID.
In her post apocalyptic story, Leah, Troy and Alys have just eaten groundnuts and hog peanuts and 2 have told their stories and they are dirty. Not the stories, the people.
*
I quit goung to Al-anon, I tell the others. Martin be damned, I mean, Sorry Martin. I can't deal with Boris.
But Boris starts calling me at home. I don't know where he got my number. I tell my folkks to say I'm not home, but they don't want to lie for me, so I start staying away. When I am home alone, I develop a fake deep voice. "No, I'm sorry, I say, she's visiting her grandmother and won't be back for a month." This works for a fe days, but then his stupid green truck goes by and scheeches to a halt. I know it's his truck, because I never see any other trucks like it, and now it's got some big-bosomed mos5tly naked woman painted in the side. I don't like the way the faces all look a lot like mine. But maybe I'm being paranoid.
"Thought you was visiting yer grandma," I he says, when he bcks up
"We both came here for a visit," I say, lying through my teeth, and I'm going back to her house later."
"Need a ride?"
"Nah," I say, tryint to sound nonchalenat. "I didnt' get much exercise at Grammy's, so that's why I'm out walking. But I gotta go baack now," I turn on my heel (X) I turn as fast as I can and start back toward howm. Bugs back up and hollers, aren't you going to goodbye?"
"Bye," I yell and jump into the ditch and cut into the woods. Once I'm out of sight, I run. I'm afraid he's going to park and come after me. I dart through a huge oof stinging nettles, holding my arms over my head. For some reason, I'm in panic about not wanting to be with or near Bugs. The skeeving has turned to fear and the fear is approach night proportions and I don't even know why. I can't be with him or near him. That's all there is to it.
Somepeople talk about "gay-dar," which is mean, I think, But I'm having something else. Not Freak dar, but scary-dar. All my little red fear lights are lit up inside my brain.
Trouble is, I gotta do stuff, I can't stay off the roads. So Bugs will find out I'm still here. Unless I go somewhere.
I run into Tina(not her real name) from Al-anon, at the grovery store with my Mom, and she tells me Boris has been talking about me in Al-anon, like I'm a problem for him in his life. She also says that he's admitted to doing some really bad things and that he wants peopel to feel sorry for him because he had poor impulse control Tina asks if I'm coming back to Al-anon and I ry to figure out what to say. I dont' ever want to go back, especially not if Bugs is there. But I don't want to tell Tina that. She might tell him. And he might come find me. Not that he isn't trying to already, but it might get worse.
And I'm not even sure I ever want to go back. If Al-anon spawned one Boris the Bug, it spawn another.
I post this story, like you told me to, on Cwbird, and one of the other members said that I could meet bad people anwhere, at school, at thegrocery store, at the gym. (Like I go to the gym?) (But I know what they mean.) And i could meet good people anywhere.
But I wonder if that exactly true. No, wait, let me rephrase somehow. What I mean is, I am guessing that different venues have different types of people to some extent. That is, the percentages of types are different. At Church, there are more good people, maybe. I wonder if Bugs goes to church. He doesn't go to our church. At a bar, there are more of another type of people. At AA, ost of the people are alcoholics. I know that that doesn't make them bad. Jake and Harmon are not bad. At least I don't think so.
And at Al-anon, most of the people are people who are partnered with alcoholics in some way. Or in some relationship with one. Martin says that people in a relationship with an alcoholic tend to be affected by that relationship. It afects there self image and their (). They often ttend to be enablers or bitches. (Wait, that's not the word Martin used.) It seems to me that those people are, percentaeowise, different from say the kids in chess club. I know it's like a Venn diagram with some overlap.
My point about all this is that while you could meet good people and bad people anywhere, yr more likely to meet anothoer Bugs at AA or Al-anon than atChurch or school. And if that's not PC, I apologize, and I keep saying I'm justw riting to you, but if you have posting stuff on Cowbird, maybe I should revise it?
*
So I tell Trey, Harmon and Jake my story and they listen quietly. And I also tell them my theory about AA and Al-anon being a possible den of iniquity, and they laugh, and kind of agree. They udnerstand, thank goodness, what I mean. I dont' mean to be offensive. And I don't mean they're bad.
The kids playing Dungeon and Dragons are mostly a different group from
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