new blog: pittypat

Yesterday when I couldn't access Pat's Patter, I fiddled around with this outfit and came up with (or it came up for me) a place for a new blog. I named it "pittypat" because "Pat's Patter" was already in use!!! Now if I could figure out how to move that post into this blog, I would be one happy blogger.
Pappy and Dot Hatfield (both with blogs) answered my plea for assistance, thankyouverymuch, guys. Now, why was I able to access this site today and not yesterday? Oh, well, never mind. If I can (or anyone reading this can) figure out a way to move that post to this site, I'd be much obliged. Denman, can you help?
Three daily trips to Arkadelphia (AR) to take Kid Billy to Dr./ Mr. Worth's College Algebra class in Evans Hall have been fruitful. Tuesday, after driving very slowly through a hard rainstorm just outside Benton, the rest of the trip down was uneventful. By the time I let KB off at the fountain, it had begun to sprinkle.
It rained the rest of the morning, meaning I could not sit in the park at the backmost picnic table abutting the woods that separated the park from OBU. So I drove back to Caddo Valley (not to be a part of Arkadelphia, thanks to a lopsided vote just a few days before) and McDonalds. It was 8 am. Over coffee--for the first time ever, McDonald's coffee was NOT good: it was old and very strong--and orange juice, I read the newspaper.
Everyone has a certain way they read the paper. I begin with the front section, transcribing any action -verb- adjective- noun- unusual surnames into my notebook. Next, the Arkansas section, the front pages only of the sports and business pages, then the style page, ending with the cryptoquote and crossword puzzles.
Looking back over the entries, I see these surnames: (When/if I use them, I lose the capitals) Duke, Buffalo, Baldy, Key, Berry, Bush, Gates, Pickler, Gray, Wolf, Tenet, Little, Horn, Huddle, Bridge, Ball, Bland, Earls, Clem, Brake, Hedges, Ezell, Jordan, Burns, Broach, Ray, Hand, Hill, Woods, Aaron, Henry, Crews, Guy, White, Brooks, May, West, Marchbanks, Jolly and Nicolai.
One of the chapters of my forever-in-progress novel was written using such a list. It was published in CALLIOPE several years ago.
Other bites of information end up on the page, too. I didn't know that lakes have 3 levels: an inactive pool - the lowest (below that, it's necessary to utilize hydropower outlets), the conservation pool the range where engineers prefer to keep the water level, and the flood control pool, or the top level. (from an article by Evie Blad about Beaver Lake's drawdown.)
When KB called, he walked to the car in the still-falling rain, and it rained all the way home. That happens sometimes. Later. pl

Sisters' trip to North Texas

HAIKU
On arrival
the long-loved and rarely -heard
whippoorwill

mocker to the wire
then to a nearby scrub oak
calls - but no answer


early summer
outside in my gowntail
just me and the birds


closing my journal
I spy a cardinal
pecking in the leaves


gray roadrunner
scurrying past our condo
then back to the woods


CINQUAIN

Stupid
move: with my hand,
I check inside my shoes
in case a Texas scorpion
crawled in.

Locusts,
like tree rattlers,
season the North Texas
air. Now and then a roadrunner
speeds by.

Later, y'all! pl

This is one tired blogger

TOMORROW and Saturday, July 3-4,will be the first Flossie Scott Family Reunion. She was my maternal grandmother. Flossie and Elmer Scott had eight children, my mother being the oldest girl. With all my interest in given names, I have never listed them anywhere. Edell (pronounced Dell), Anna Pearl (my mother who removed the final "e" of Pearl), Harold, Paul--common enough--Wathena (I always thought it was a Potowatomi Indian tribe name), Gerald (Uncle Bud), Lester Rolla (pronounced Rolly), Arlene and Frances Joy. To date, only two are still living, Uncle Bud, who is 80-something, and Frances Joy, 78. We will gather Friday night at her place.
THE RESERVATIONS are in, the food and paper goods purchased, the white tent pegged in the front yard for a Friday night picnic. The elders of the group will be the widows of Harold and Paul. At least four generations will be represented.
ON SATURDAY at noon, we will gather for a catered meal at the United Methodist Church where many of the family, including Flossie, are or have been members.
VARIOUS STATES will be represented: Texas, Virginia, California, Kansas for sure.
AGES will range from 90 to 8. Will we have a good time? Yes, indeed. Right now, I need to turn in. My house guest came today so I can quit cleaning. Now, just the yard needs mowing. Happy 4th to you all.

Today I broke a hundred

Meaning, I composed my one hundredth piece of writing for 2009.

Original riddle ( I hope; I haven't seen it anywhere else):
How can a poem be written, submitted and published all in the same day?
Answer: _ _ _ _

#99 - HAIKU
seventy-third year
picking my first bouquet
of dandelion blooms
[c patlaster 09]

#100 - HAIKU
after watering
a vase of dandelion
blooms in the window
[c patlaster 09]

#101 - HAIKU
still a week of June
seven-thirty CST
eighty-six degrees
[c patlaster 09]

FIRST DAY OF SUMMER 2009

HAIKU
first day of summer
an early-morning ground fog
over the hayfield
[c-patlaster 09]

HAIKU
whiff of camellia
the added reward
for sitting outside
[c-patlaster 09]

HAIKU
the kitten
like all others before him
learns to chase his tail
[c-patlaster 09]

SENRYU
affixing a stamp
suddenly, I glimpse in mine
my late mother's hand
[c-patlaster 09]

A week at Hemingway's Arkansas headquarters

I originally used Eden in the title, but erased it. There were some un-Eden, pre-apple eating Eden carryings-on that I resented, yea, disdained. But I digress.

Seventeen people attended the week-long retreat. Some were local teachers qualifying for inservice hours. Others were returning writers hoping to find intensive time to work on their writing projects in a(n) historical setting. In a QUIET place. Wasn't Eden a quiet place?

A self-described over-achiever, I could not appreciate those few among us who didn't seem to have anything to do but visit. Especially when they chose a place close to where I was obviously working. Maybe they were taking a break before lunch, but it was waaaay before lunch and they stood and talked. And talked. I finally took up my work and looked for another place. I moved around the building thinking to go sit under a tree on the Hemingway-Pfeiffer "big house" lawn.

But on the front steps of the adjacent educational center sat the late-comer (another story) talking on her cell phone. Drat! And disdain! I wheeled and walked back to the concrete block wall separating the handicapped parking area from the woods. I sat in the thin shade of a persimmon sprout; day-lilies and young sumac grew as tall as the wall.

I raged on the page. Soon, here came the two talkers around the building and up the walk. At lunch, one of them asked if they had bothered me. I said, "A little." She apologized profusely. "The next time that happens, tell us to please..." I thought, there should never be a next time, darlin'.

More later.

Jottings from last week's journal

DOG breeds I've never heard of: "basenji" and "Chinese hairless crested."
SEVENTY-seven soldiers with Arkansas roots have died in the U.S.'s wars: 70 in Iraq and seven in Afghanistan, according to reporter Robert J. Smith, Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
BIO from an obit: "He (age 81 at death) was born...in the original log house built by his great-great-grandfather Williams in 1838 in northwest Bradley Co."
Another BIO from another obit: "J. (79) loved her children and grandchildren (don't we all!) and often told them, 'I love you.' When they [answered] 'I love you more,' she ... replie[d], 'No, you couldn't.'"
PURCHASE: New In Town DVD with Renee Zellweger.
A malapropism: "required taste," for "acquired taste." - Hagar The Horrible comic strip.
A haiku: " burble of chickens/ adds to the bird chatter/ this late May morning."

Memorial Day musings

A Senryu:
Memorial Day ~
Mother would frown: no flag flies
from her -- my -- old house [c 2009]

". . . I am old fashioned, and my sentiment runs to old things." --from Ernie Pyle's last and unfinished column, Arkansas Democrat Gazette , editorial page

"'Never, never, never give up.'" -- Winston Churchill, cited by Pat Lynch, columnist, ADG

If you are here, then you still have something that needs to be done." -- Pat Lynch

Flipping my haiku calendar to May 25, I discovered it was the 10th anniversary of my father's death at age 90. Please God may I live that long. I have so much more to do.

Sorry to read the Texican is going on blog leave. Have a good respite, Dennis. And a good rest.

Today - a blank verse poem and two haiku

Today, I've lopped and clipped and sawed until
another stack of limbs and branches -- red
bud and euonymous, forsythia --
lay all apile. I moved a 10 foot log,
a hollow cedar piece my brother found
and brought to me. Three sodden rugs I hung,
and found a slew of fishing worms beneath,
which I tossed -- one by one -- onto the grass
where they could bury up in dark of dirt.

Inside, I watched a bright red cardinal
perch on the ironstone dish to feed, and then
a peckerwood with crimson head flew in
and grabbed a seed. Brown thrasher stopped, then blue
jay -- each preceded each so only one
was foremost at a time, resembling
a slide show on this mid-May afternoon. [c patlaster, 2009]

rush hour traffic ~
in momentary silence
the sound of a goose [c patlaster, 2009]

chasing
the noisy woodpecker
from gutter downspout [c patlaster, 2009]

Spring means cleaning and concerts

A writer friend asked me where all our long writing days had gotten to. She has two sisters to "see about," and I have a large yard to tend. Also, the change of seasons means packing winter clothes and unpacking summer ones. Getting them washed, aired out and/or put back in storage (atticked, in my case).

Then , for those with relatives graduating or belonging to a musical group, there are those end-of-school events to plan for and attend. No graduates in my immediate family, but Kid Billy did appear in Henderson State University's choral concert on a recent Monday night. The venue was the First United Methodist Church of Arkadelphia, where, not surprisingly, the organist is a retired HSU professor and the choirmaster is a present voice teacher at the school.

At the appointed hour, the choir of 40 filed into the chancel of the church where I spent seven weeks as an employee. (I "fired myself," as a younger KB described it). KB wasn't on the back row; he wasn't on the middle row. There he was! In the front--he who had been in the choir only since the middle of the first semester.

He looked perect in his tux (another story). His hair--usually plastered down with body oil--was thick, curly and bouncy. Though he whad been diagnosed with ADHD as a first grader, as a freshman in college, he stood supremely still; didn't move a muscle except his hand to turn pages, his eyes to read the music and his mouth/body to expel the notes. My buttons popped.

Thursday, he came home for the summer and took up his previous habit of holing up in his room, watching something--or somethings--until the wee hours, then sleeping until noon the next day. Does that schedule ring a bell with anyout out there? Later, pl

Pears

Of all the objects the leader could have chosen to begin the creative activity at the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Writers' Retreat that year, he picked pears! Little did he know that I possess a pear-motif collection to die for.
Three different sizes of pear plates rest in a wrought-iron holder on one dining room wall. in the china hutch, a row of six white, saucer-sized rounds tell a story. The first one shows a pear with the French word below. The second shows a pear with one bite out, and a French phrase description. The third has two bites out, the fouteh, three bites gone, until the last one shows a pear pip, naturally with the French word underneath.
My sisters and others have given me pear pitchers, stitchery that says, "Love comes in pears/pairs," cup and saucer sets, salt and peppers, candle pears and still life pictures with pears.
I have collected mugs with pears, gift bags, thank-you notes, blank notes, napkins and napkin rings, greeting cards--all with pears on them.
Outside my inherited home stands on ancient pear tree, which, last fall, produced enough fruit to fill a seven-foot chest freezer.
I could write for days about pears without ever cutting into one.

After taxes were finished, the yard beckoned

Dazed by the strenuousness (mental) of doing my own taxes, I walked around for three days inside the house doing odd jobs--packing winter clothes, filling boxes with things ARC could use in their thrift store; taking plants outside-- you know the drill. Mom's old, old shorty curtain sets from the dining room and sunroom went in the box, unworn-during-the-current-season clothes, dishes, odd silverware, an extra glass platter, knick knacks from a deceased aunt given by her son and his wife. Stuff like that.
Then the acre yard began growing like... crazy (that's all I can do on a Saturday night). I charged the Black & Decker weedeater each night so I could trim selected areas around bushes, beds, trees and large white rocks that I begged from the church leaders when they dug for a new septic system. (I gave the church a donation to a specialty fund that needed contributions.)
So here are my excuses for not "visiting" my blog more often. I'll try to do better. Wait. Better for whom? Anyway, I started this blogging thing, so I'll try to keep keeping on. That also includes the yard and rearranging the living room for the summer. Later, pl

Taxes done: in the nick of time

Now that Easter activities are over AND taxes figured and sent, I can get back into the world of society. Speaking of society, the Lucidity Poetry Retreat in Eureka Springs was --as usual--an enjoyable experience. I always look forward to the workshop group, which seems to "grow" together as we discuss each other's poems. I have good pictures of nearly everyone at the banquet. I'll see if I can share them with the ones for whom I have email addresses. Have already made arrangements to return to Dairy Hollow (writers' colony) next April. Luckily, I'll get to go between Easter and Lucidity and it will be during mid April rather than mid March as it was this year. Is the snow gone for the year? Killer tornadoes roared through Mena AR and Murfressboro TN. Hope all of you bloggers and blogfans are safe and well. pl

Alas! Only 4 more days at the foot of the mountain

Where DOES the time go? They say it flies when you're having fun, so I've REALLY been having fun! Would you believe it snowed this morning? The 10-day weather report for Eureka Springs said "rain to snow." It left out another possibility: sleet. Sleet began falling at 9, turning to snow at 10. Nice-sized flakes blowing first this way, then that way. I took pictures to prove it. By 2, there was not one whit of evidence that I had seen what I said I saw.
Yes, it four days, WCDH-3 will be a pleasant memory. Even the thoughts of artichoke in garlic butter, black bean soup and chocolate tofu mousse will bring a chuckle. Cindy's cornbread, apple crisp, pear cobbler, brownies and oatmeal cookies were to die for. And one night, we each had an entire (small) chicken.
BLT asked how to sign up. Google Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow and ask for an application. It's that easy. Oh. And have two references who'll vouch for your seriousness in the writing craft. See you when I get home.

Every writer should be so lucky

And you can be, for a 2 or 4 or 8 week stay away from home. And, well, $45 per day. But what price solitude, both inside and out, the inspiration of spring and flowers and budding trees? And, like today,(Saturday) a gentle rain. At Dairy Hollow --below the Crescent Hotel--you can eat in the main house during the weekends or bring food to your room. For those in residence during the third Thursday, you are lucky enough to get to read during Poetluck, the meeting of local writers who gather to (potluck) eat, visit and participate (or not) in a read around that is not only poetry. In years past, I read poetry, but this year I read a chapter from my (hopefully) novel-to-be. With, I'm happy to say, outbreaks of laughter during (especially the cookie sheet and muffin tin shields and the kitchen fork swords) and compliments afterwards. You'll be hearing more about Dairy Hollow--I have 10 more glorious days at the foot of a mountain. Lucky me.

On my way to the mountains

In 18 hours, I'll be snuggily ensconced in the Spring Garden room at Dairy Hollow's Writers' Colony, Eureka Springs, AR. It will be my home for fourteen days. My goal is to finish this forever-in-progress novel I've been at for ten or so years. Since I failed to finish it during 2008,I'll try again.
It will be spring by the time my residency is over, so here are some anticipatory poems.
"pear-motif house flag/ furls in the gentle March breeze/ green shoots in dead leaves".
"scraggly plant/ rescued by mother-in-law's/ green thumb and new dirt"
"the Big Dipper/ spills into the smaller one/ last night at the lake"
"Easter thunderstorm/ does yellow rainwater mean/ the pollen's gone?"
The luck o' the Irish to each of you.

Never too old to learn to do new stuff

We usually hear of men and their "boy toys": 4-wheelers, sailboats, younger women, and on and on. I'm here to tell you that older women also can have "toys." Besides subscribing to DirectTV and getting a dish installed on the roof of this 75-year-old house, I had to --I say I had to--get a laptop.
I guess I killed my locally-built computer. I needed more RAM, the tech said, so I betook myself to Office Depot (not a good idea any longer, at least in Benton AR) to buy more RAM. And this was without knowing anything except that mine only had 260-something whatever in it. And, she continued, with the new DSL, what I had was not enough to make the high speed hookup noticeable.
So I get to Office Depot needing a gig of RAM. I came home with TWO sticks which I didn't order (I told you they were in a tizzy that day). I knew how to get into the tower, for I had replaced a modem when a storm took out the original one. The tech emailed me specific instructions. I located the existing stick, and followed the directions on the new package. As the clerk surmised, it didn't fit, so I took the original one out, carefully laid it in a plastic bag, sealed it and took all the RAM sticks back to Office Depot, positively the last time you'll ever see me there.
Sure enough, the two they sold me didn't fit. I returned one, and exchanged the open one for another flash drive to back up the one I already have. Zack ordered me a stick of RAM identical to mine. To be mailed in two days.
When I returned home, and replaced the RAM from whence it came, was I proud. The machine kicked back on. But the monitor stayed dark, and eventually, the motor of the computer went off. The hub light was on; the printer worked, but nothing else.
I called around to those computer gurus. Two of them said, try installing the RAM again. I did. Still nothing. Well, I betook myself to WalMart--whom I had earlier boycotted, and bought myself an HP Pavilion notebook on which I'm typing this post. I wonder if it will make it to its destination.

Miracle of Miracles: Grandson Grows Up

To whom it may concern, especially his trumpet teacher, Mr. Laubach, and Dr. Buckner, HSU music department, Mr. Webb, his high school band teacher, Mr. "P", his junior high band director, Mrs. "B", his middle school band person, and all who know and love him:

Kid Billy (18) came home Friday afternoon (to see about his malfunctioning iPhone and to wash clothes. Oh, and to get an iron and ironing board. (Wait till I pick myself up off the floor.) That done, he didn't once ask if friend Sam could come over. No, he practiced his $1700-that-he-took-out-a-loan-himself-and-purchased trumpet all evening, even while watching our new DirectTV hookup.

He is coming back to HSU early Saturday afternoon to practice, he said. "What kind of practice?" (nosy guardian/ grandmother) "Quartet." "Instrumental?" "No." He tells me he's singing first tenor in a quartet (of Phi Mu Alpha brothers) for the Miss HSU pageant next Thursday. (Pick me up again!) They are practicing at 4:30 Saturday.

Saturday morning, he arose at a decent hour and took up his trumpet again. Mr. Laubach, did you threaten him within an inch of his life if he didn't practice? Whatever/ whoever did, thankyouthankyou! Perhaps he's "turned a corner."

We can only hope.

March 6 of various years: haiku booklet entries

the sun catcher
in an east window sparkles
this winter morning
~~ from sweetness of the apple (2009)

before daffodil
or purple martin
killer tornado
~~from connecting our houses (1997)
(co-author, Dot McLaughlin, NJ)

two feet of snow there
yet the geese fly northward
early March dawn
~~from along the pasture fence (2005)
~~publ. in the premier edition
of Hermitage (Romania, 2004)

a gray-haired bagger
she asks the 30-something
if he needs help out
~~from Measuring March (2003)

basking in the sun
shedding one pair of socks ...
and then another
~~from lighting a candle (2008)
~~publ. in Haiku Headlines
(Jan 2006)

Books at my fireside reading area: what do they indicate?

With Glory and Honor - daily devotionals with poems - Barbara Longstreth Mulkey (2002)
Meditations on the Psalms (daily) - Barbara Cawthorne Crafton - (1996)
Abundant Living (daily) - E. Stanley Jones (1942)
Kneeling in Jerusalem - Lenten poems - Ann Weems (1992)
Structuring Your Novel - how-to - Meredith & Fitzgerald (1972)
poemcrazy - writing exercises - Wooldridge (1996)
The Purpose-Driven Church - Rick Warren (1995)
Who Stole My Church? - Gordon MacDonald (2007)

Gotta go! Must get back to MacDonald's Discovery Group meetings to see what happens.

Kid Billy sings with the Arkansas Symphony

Nothing worse than a gloating grandmother-who-raised-a-grandson-from-8-months-to-18-years. But that's what you've got today, friends.

When I retrieved this sleeping baby from the foster home where he had been for a few hours one Thanksgiving weekend, I would never have envisioned that, in time, he would grace the stage--along with other students in 5 college/ university choirs from the central part of the state--of the Robinson Music Hall in Little Rock and sing Beethoven's 9th Symphony in all its splendor.

But there he was, and with the help of field glasses, we found him in the 4th (of 6) row, near the end "by the bald man." I also watched him sing. "German is such a beautiful language," he'd said earlier. I thought it was harsh.

"A lesson in patience," my aunt whispered. They had come on stage --black-gowned and tuxedo-ed--before the third movement and stood stock-still, all eyes on Maestro Itkin, until time for their chorus. These were the same folks who any other time would be seen with eyes and fingers on their iPhones and with iPods in their ears.

After three curtain calls, we dispersed and found Billy in the hall by the mezzanine door. Hugs all around for his two aunts, and two friends--one who had attended his school earlier, and who had also sung the Ninth--and his grandmother.

The $50 tickets were worth it.

My life now runs on cat time

There was a time when school schedules directed my life. And Husband's and children's. That was as it should be. Children grew and moved out. I grew and left Husband.

As head of household, one child lived with me while attending college. Soon, a baby joined us-- my grandchild and her nephew.

Soon, Girl Child married and left. Just this past August, Grandson moved out --and into a nearby university. My, how time flies.

Now, it's just Elizabeth Calico, twelve years old. She calls the shots now, and if I'm out of pocket or don't "mind" her silent movement toward the back door, there could be all sorts of stuff to clean up. If ignoring her is not insult enough, there are two "fixed and vaccinated" males from the feral cat family who adopted us two years ago.

Queen Elizabeth, meet Mr. Greye and Mr. Ivory. (Hey! They had to have names.) She at least tolerates their presence inside, and a snarl is enough to get the space she wants. Yep, cats call the shots at this house.

Someone asked for more poems: I aim to please

WINTER POEMS:

SENRYU: roaring down the street/ the river takes toys, trees and clothes/ there goes my gas grill!

HAIKU: during the morning/ the birdbath water/ turns to ice

FOUND SENRYU: storm salvaged:/ the small silver box/ and her knitting yarn (C. Hayworth, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

SENRYU: warming my feet/ before a fireplace that/ never needs cleaning

HAIKU: all night long/ the wind chime's atonal/ lullaby

HAIKU: a glance outside/ wind chimes are still/ but the empty swing moves

CINQUAIN: On a/ below-freezing/ February morning,/ I pluck two daffodils and two/ quince blooms.

There go my favorite PBS shows during the weekends

Dash it all! My cable is enabled--has been for several years since I have a teenaged grandson in the house. They promised and promised: February 19 (or was it the 17th?) AETN's silent screen showed "off the air until 2/19" until 2/17 when even the numbers and letters disappeared.

That took away my habitual viewing of the last 30 minutes of News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Arkansas Week, and The McLaughlin Group, where I could catch the "best" thinking about the week that had been. I liked Tony What-its-name, the spiffy way he dressed, and he was very polite, even when others would butt in or cut him off. I care less--much less, though she is way prettier than Tony--for his replacement. But I digress.

Then on Saturday nights beginning at 8 CST, I usually watched the BritComs, being especially careful to stop whatever I was doing at 9 to catch the Dame Judi Dench one (why I can't ever immediately recall the name is beyond me. It's a phrase from a song and I'm a long-ago music major).

Now, KATV has piously (or something) decided not to cede and vacate its analog space to AETN until the NEW date of June-something. Drat it! and double drat it. I hate it when people change their minds. (Most of the time.) That's why I never liked to schedule extra rehearsals: Get your music learned week by week, people, and we won't need an extra rehearsal. Get ready for the changeover like the publicity said, and too bad if you see snow.(Ooh, Pat how we rant!)

However, let's slow down and settle in (I can hear Denman saying.) Take a deep breath. Put your eyes back to their normal size. What if Mom and Dad still lived here. They didn't have cable, but they would have gotten it if it meant snow on all the channels they DID watch. Both retired, they could afford the $50 a month. If not, one of their children/ grandchildren would have seen that they got it.

It's not like we didn't have enough information and time, for heaven's sake.It got about as bad as campaign ads before the election.

I must protest somehow, not that it'll do any good. Oh, maybe if enough of us scream and holler, it might. Reckon the Ledge can pass a law to force somebody to put AETN back on the air??? Har-de-har-har. On second thought, that might be right down their alley. Let me find my representatives email addresses.

No TV commercials if I can help it

I try not to watch TV commercials, especially during the five, six and 10 o'clock new hours. If I'm viewing a movie over on Channel 48 or 49, I'll mute the ad and either catch up on my reading -- usually Rural Arkansas, The Writer or Harpers. Sometimes, I continue reconciling my bank statements. (Would you believe I'm four months behind?)

Sometimes at social gatherings, i. e. lunches after bell rehearsals, I hear someone say, "Did you see that commercial..." and everyone but me will nod or laugh or react in some way. I've even heard a person say he watches nothing BUT commercials. Eek!

But back to the news. When a commercial comes on, I flip to a neighboring channel. One night last week... Well, here are my notes:

"At 5:16, all channels from two through 10 were on break except for the PBS station which has been off the air 'until February 19.' The switch from analog to digital, you know. That cut out most of my Friday and Saturday nights programs: Arkansas Week, the McLaughlin Group, and the BritComs.

"I can usually depend on CNN (Ch. 2 on my set) to be there, with their ubiquitous and exaggerated gravitas, but tonight, no Wolf. No David.

"Channel 4 - Lifeline and Reba, my favorite sit-com rerun, is also "gone." Channels 5 and 8, local NBC, ABC affiliates respectively -- all out to break. ESPN, channel 6, like CNN, is alway there. But not this time. Even the Weather Channel ( channel 7) is in advertising mode. Channel 9, which can be depended on for a cartoon or game show, or Sex in the City -- out to "lunch."

"The CBS affiliate, Channel 10, (KATV)'s news is on, but I've made a vow not to watch D. S., whom the station had hired back from the West Coast, giving the boot to an excellent male anchor. Oh, she had paid her dues, all right. I remember her as a fresh young reporter in blue jeans and pony tail trailing the survivors of a tornado in this area."

I don't suppose the local powers-that-be could get together and space their breaks more conveniently for us? Naw. That might be too easy.

Valentine Gift from a 6-year-old

Today, Kid Billy -- grandson-whom-I-raised -- is nearly 19. When he was six... well, here's what happened. ..
_____
Today, Valentine's Day, 1996, I wear a ring which dropped from the toy machine when KB deposited a quarter. He proffered it right there in the market, and I put it on my empty ring finger. He beamed in child-like innocence.

This circle of tin hearts reminded me of another ring -- a Christmas present from Jack-of-the-ill-fated second marriage. That he'd given me the heave-ho four months earlier made the gift doubly special.

Jack's ring, a better quality metal, was yellow gold filigree with two dainty hearts entwined. Oh, the melody I attached to that beautiful circle: Jack still loved me but was too proud to admit it. I showed the ring to everyone. Again and again, I sang the same tune. My friends, aware of my recent heartbreak, smiled kindly and nodded.

"N-a-w," Jack said when confronted with my song of symbolism. The retired sailor tossed his gray-red head. His eyes twinkled. A chuckle gurgled, encircled the wry grin lighting his ruddy face. "It don't mean anything; it's just a purty ring."

"O-o-oe-h-eh-e-e-k-k." My song of hope veered severely off key and died away.

Until today, I hadn't thought about Jack's friendship ring for many years. Was that a sign of healing? He had remarried yet a third time and I'd gone on with my life. I hadn't seen the ring, either, but I found it with some other pieces I had gathered for a cluster ring, a nugget or brooch.

Valentine's Day is the anniversary of our short-lived marriage. Today, most of the investments into the union seem trivial: the $300 wedding ring I bought him, maxing out my Penney's credit; the holly tree--a wedding gift from friends--that he refused to dig up; two gardenia bushes I'd rooted and planted; my 27-year name identity.

The developing friendship with his family coasted to a stop and my disenchantment with destiny heightened. Was Dame Fate just another tooth fairy? Another Santa Claus?

From a 13-year perspective, the advantages of that breakup far outweighed the negatives. Being single allowed me to become guardian of KB as well as the freedom to further develop my own interests. I even relocated and took a new job.

A boy and his tin ring remind me each Valentine's Day that life tempers painful losses with unimagined gains, given enough time.

I hope you all had a happy Valentine's Day in 2009.

On Lincoln's Birthday: A Cinquain Sequence

FYI--if anyone is curious-- the type of cinquains I write are syllabic: five lines: line 1= 2 syllables; line 2= 4 syllables; line 3,=6 syllables; line 4= 8 syllables, line 5= 2 syllables.

After

days of meetings,

I sit on the heating

pad and gaze out the window at

winter.

Winter -

bare trees, solid,

black, leafless, silent, seem

- like me - resting through one more month

before

the sap

rises, the temps

warm. One day, I'll look up

from my reading or writing to see,

even

at this

distance, and see

that a touch of green hides

the ebony limbs of the oaks.

Smoke will

rise no

longer from the

chimney across the road

as ghostly, wispy wraiths among

the limbs.

Likewise,

I'll rise, backache

gone, the spring of Spring kick-

-ing winter's grayness from my dull

psyche.

By now,

my coffee's cold.

The morning sun brightens

this windless day. Warmth has turned me

sleepy.

Fifteen

minutes are all

I need to kickstart my

latent energy. Well, that and

breakfast.

c - February 12, 2009

by Pat Laster

Various reactions to a 1972-year-old with a new blog

Thanks to all who welcomed me (in your comments & emails) to the blogosphere. Others have not been so sure.
One dear man (also a Texan, Dennis) asked why should anyone "be interested in reading another person's personal diary?" That when he was young and naive, he kept his diary under lock and key. "So what am I missing in 2009 when people want to reveal all their thoughts and impressions?" He wonders if it's the generation gap.
Another dear man, my elder son from Gulf Breeze FL, when told that his picture appears with me on the new blog, said it was OK. That his wife had just joined Facebook and was amazed at how many friends & former co-workers have"come out of the woodwork to be her friend."
Another dear man, my younger son from Hot Springs, AR, answered my email about his mother now being a blogger. "Neat, but it says you are 1972 years old? HA HA.
Still another dear man, the editor of a weekly regional newspaper, THE (Amity, AR) STANDARD for which I write, when asked if I could post parts of my columns after they were published, wrote: "Sure...It's your writing before and after you submit it to me." Then he joked, "Those who can do. Those who can't....blog (hehe)."
And then there's my pastor, of course a dear man who also is a commenter, who (in jest) urged me not to say anything I'd regret later.
Two telephone calls about the new blog came before the day was over. One, from a local newspaper poetry-column editor, wanted to know what I was doing with a blog. "You know you'll run out of stuff to write pretty soon, don't you?" I begged his pardon, and this morning while reading my devo materials (a subject for later), made 4 entries in my journal as blog ideas.
The final phone (cell) call came at 10 pm. Kid Billy, the university freshman whom I raised; he with a Facebook account, called in disbelief. "Tell me you didn't really get a blog!" I don't know what he thought would happen if his friends (music majors) found out.
If Methuselah lived 900 years, I guess I'll outlive him at 1972 years. Maybe by then, I'll have my first novel finished.

Thanks to Dennis Price, a way-down-south Texan...

... for directing me to blogspot. In lieu of Face Book, My Space, etc., I'll try my hand at blogging. Roland Mann has also been instructive as I begin this new venture. First, we'll see how this first post turns out. Then, we'll see. Thanks, Dennis and Roland. Ooh, ooh! Two bluebirds are cleaning themselves in the birdbath outside the south window. Already today, I've seen a pair of robins, house finches, nuthatches, sparrows and a woodpecker. How many haiku can I write about the event? Then when I think I have seen enough, I notice a cardinal in the pinking japonica farther out in the yard. Not to forget the early, common daffodils in the north yard under the hackberry. Oh, the beauties of spring!! pl