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."