This chicken is no more.
It has ceased to be.
It's expired and gone to meet its maker.
This is a late chicken.

I peeled a bag full of peaches for a cobbler for visiting grandkids this weekend
and got to thinking about peeling peaches in the summer when my mom would make
her sweet pickled peaches. It was always a big project- a bushel or two of peaches,
and almost always happened when my aunt and cousins were visiting. And in particular
I thought how it wasn't all that much fun, peeling peaches one after another, but I
don't ever remember being MADE to do it. It was just that everyone was doing it, and
there wasn't anything else to be doing in particular, so I'd do it too. My mom was a
long time elementary school teacher, so I suspect she was a skilled motivator too.
I just didn't recognize it at the time.
The peaches I peeled yesterday were really juicy ripe ones, but the ones we did for
pickles were much firmer. They had to be, to withstand the hot pickling sugar-vinegar
solution, and several years of ripening too. It was an "investment" project. This year's
pickles wouldn't be ready to eat until two or three years later. And if you didn't "put up"
peaches this summer, then some years down the way there wouldn't be any pickles to enjoy.
And I remember we really did enjoy them- tangy, sweet condiment to have with chicken and
dressing Sunday dinners. And they were a "bread&butter gift" my mom would take to give
when we visited friends. Somewhere I still have the recipe in my mom's hand. Simple.
Sugar-vinegar-a stick of cinnamon and a few cloves in each quart jar. Just don't have
the relatives about to share the peeling.



and now what, by-the-way, are all these little stickers about on each and every peach and
every other piece of fruit these days? Probably to aid the check-out scanner, I know,
and maybe to assist tracking the culprit when THESE start giving some dread gastric
upset. But really, I find them kinda creepy. Maybe I'll go get peaches at the farmers'
market and be able to actually eye-ball the guy who has grown them and brought them to
market. That'd be nice.

but I just happen to have brand new pictures of all my grandchildren
so, if you're interested
and why EVER wouldn't you be???

( You have been warned, so it's your own fault )

A week ago I wound up in the hospital.
I seemed to be farther out in la-la land than usual,
to the alarm of my mate. Couldn't quite remember where she'd been,
tho she was off to a meeting we had anticipated a long, long time.
And when I'd ask her where she'd been, it just wouldn't stick, and
I'd ask her again in a few minutes.
So, I was hustled off to the ER,
checked out- checked in, probed-pierced, eyed-MRIed and finally
told I'd had a TIA, transient ischemic attack...look it up
and I thought ...Bluhhhh!
Stroke for beginners
Bigger worser things to come
Old....
then yesterday
I went to see my regular doc and he was reading the report that had been
sent him and found "Transient Global Amnesia."
And, yah know, somehow I liked that alot better immediately.
Just the sound of it- for a while I'm gonna just forget the world.
And that's pretty much what happened.
And after Wikipedia-ing, I'm liking it even better.
No strokey stuff. Just "immersion in cold water, sexual activity, severe emotional stress and vigorous exertion". Those who know about my life & times know which one is the most likely suspect.
Anyway.
Feeling lots better.
Feeling better about what might have happened.
Not the best way to spend even a Monday, but
grateful to be back to whatever passes for normal these days.
Stay tuned...

Getting my outfit ready for the AORBS* convention, a great swarming of Santas
in Kansas City next month.
Hat was quite a grimy mess... all that soot I guess... so I gave it a wash



(Oxyclean really works, by the way)

Still working on the Summer Santa suit.



We will all go to a Kansas City Royals ballgame on Saturday night.
It's Santa Hat Night! Santa Hats to the first 2000 fans,
And 700+ Santas will swarm onto the field at the 7th inning stretch.
But no way I'm going out in full faux fur and velveteen on a summer night.

MANY photos to follow... stay tuned

*The Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas
http://www.discoversanta.com/

Because there were some pictures asking to be taken,
and I hate to turn them down when they ask...



Soon to be condominimized



Guantanamo-tors

a click gets you to the scrapbook "Around the Neighborhood"
where you can see a few more

Damnedest thing, madness
there is no blood
protruding bones
no febrile brow to feel
it seems instead
a complaint you have to prove
most difficult
when charm and politesse
often will remain
with rage, confusion
suspicion and despair
The Keepers of the Gate
seem such a hopeful sort
wanting to admit some lesser verdict
allowing only the most sunny explanation
except
the sun shines seldom there
or not at all
Little wonder companionship
reluctantly books this trip
Forecast: dark, today, tomorrow
this week and the next
be on the lookout
occasional gusts of rage
that storm flag always flies
seek shelter if you can.
You can’t
And soon enough
you’ve ceased to check for change
forget to look for rays of hope
dark to darker
the sole circadian change
another time I’ll tell you more
I have become, reluctantly expert
not now
now hatches to be battened
projectiles, solid or imagined
to be dodged
all sharp edged, unexpected
monsters to repel
howls to quiet
You’ll see

so I was google image searching "Lamb of God" for my you tube ditty
and one thing that popped up was "Mrs. J. G. Stovall". Not remarkable
except that's my grandma who's been dead since 1970. Turns out she gave
a window at her church in honor of her children and grandchildren, and it's
The Lamb of God. I remember being taken to see it. Kinda thought it was
the Luke window. Anyway. There we all were...all these now dead folks...only
three of nine still on the top side of the earth.
Kinda eerie. Kinda nice too.
Good to see you Muvvo! and thanks for the window.

walked over to the P.O.
got a coffee
saw these

I know I haven't posted anything for a long time now.
So now I've made this.
I know I'm always "discovering" something that everybody's known about for eons, but...Heard this little ditty at the end of "Bright Young Things" and just HAD to make me a YouTubey thing. If anybody knows who wrote it and who sings it, etc. I'd be mighty glad to know.
Lost my mind? Maybe.
Laughing to keep from crying?
For sure.
Enjoy.

Poem to a Poet

Write us some poems,
we’d say to him
and seemingly so off handed, nonchalant
he’d go to it
scratching out the lines
hardly leaving us
as he would write away

Later
we ask to see
and often we can recognize
the pieces
maybe of some place we’d seen and been that day
maybe thoughts that only he had known
and conversation shards
maybe whatI or he or another one of us
had said
all in there too

Who knew
Who heard
Poetry in our silly words?
0nly Jorge did!

And maybe just about all my nyms in general.
Radical Faeries take a faerie name, different from their birth name.
Some, I understand, decide upon their own.
Some, I've experienced, get it at the suggestion of others.
Mine is "Still Am".
I came by it at Short Mountain last Fall.
Vinedominicvine and Ask Nicely and I were sitting down to breakfast.
Ask I'd just met the night before.
(Got to know him right intimately/right quickly...
another story/another time.)
"Are you Dennis?" asks Ask?
"Yep! Still am!" the Smart guy cracks.
And Vine giggles and sez, "That's your name!"
And so it is.
I've not used it, really. Just easier to say "Denny"- "Dennie" as some have heard.
Not yet comfortable saying that's me.
But I'm going back to Short Mountain in a couple of weeks.
And Vine just recently did this nice little "parsing" of the name/
my name.
So I'm thinking. And want to put down my thoughts in the next few days.
We'll see where it ggoes.
Come along?
Still Am

Definition of Pseudonym
Pseu´do`nym
n. 1. A fictitious name assumed for the time, as by an author; a pen name; an alias.

Definition of Alias
A´li`as
adv. 1. (Law) Otherwise; otherwise called; - a term used in legal proceedings to connect the different names of any one who has gone by two or more, and whose true name is for any cause doubtful; as, Smith, alias Simpson.

in particular, this was...

in particular, this was...

Possible Hairdresser?
Possible Chef?



if it had been a guy in such a frou-frou urban tank
I'd have gone with hairdresser for sure.
But I'll say, probly a chef who needs the SUV for her
caterin gigs.

This morning about 0230, sitting up late as I do, but thinking
it was about time to go to bed, I started hearing noises coming
from under the house. We had one actual break-in
last summer; we were away, and someone smashed a bedroom window,
crawled in and stole a few things. Before that, someone went under the
house when I'd left a gate unlocked and helped themselves to all my
lawnmowing-trimming-blowing machines. It was strange sounds, some of which
I'd explain away as being street noise maybe. People park on our street to
go to nearby bars and music venues that stay open late. But finally it was
unmistakable that the noises of someone rummaging around were coming from
under the house. Oh dear! Didn't want to go confront anyone on my own. Nobody
awake to hear me if I had to yell for HELP! So, finally, called 911 and in a few
minutes, a nice, friendly policeman arrived. Told him what I was hearing. Was telling
him how to get into the space beneath the house, and he suggested I go with him.
"You know your house better than I do." Yeah, so I agreed. A least he had the big
light and a big gun too. Going out the back door out onto a deck, a great silver blur
went across the back of the deck and dived into the bamboo thicket- a spaniel sized
possum. We were both relieved. I was a bit chagrined, but the cop assured me it was
okay to call. I'd done the right thing. So then I did go on to bed, and after about
an hour of calming down, slept.

Willamina Delilah Gilliom
is 3 years old today.



Yeah, she got all my cute genes, don'tcha think? heheh

Still am.
Whew!
Hasn't always been happy,
though often it has been.
Never has been dull.
I say again,
Whew!

Has this already been done, or are they waiting to film it sometime during the funeral?



Seems like it'd be a good way for the NRA to get a few last bucks for their banging...