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.