A Day in the life.

          I am rewashing the same load of colors a third time –YES someone threw a tissue in with my clothes. I live alone and wash only my own clothes. I should be grateful it was not the load of dark clothes. Someone does that quite often.

          Yesterday, I had my deck power washed, my house power washed and my portable room air conditioners put in. I also had my redwood picnic table power washed. It was an old one my brother in law was getting rid of and I said I wanted it. I did a nice job sanding and repainting it a couple of years ago –then I put a varnish on it. Wrong. So when it start to peel –and peel badly –I decided it needed to be redone –power washing saved me a step. A male friend and my brother both asked me if I was going to have my new handyman paint the picnic? What kind of a question is that? I can still do some things; just not lift heavy air conditioners.

          Now, I am making a list of all my handyman jobs I need done. This man is 55 and seems very nice. He built the neighbors decks and works for them a lot. It seems the neighbor wife is very handy, the husband is not. I want all kinds of things done but I can afford only the necessary things. He also hung my new address sign. I made the tiled address sign in Mosaic class at the County Library.

           So far on my list is a new screen door and new hinges. Oh I would love to have windows boxes and a shed. Maybe by the Fall I can think of more things, that are necessary.

I recently came across a blog post that said start writing 15 min. per day. 

So I start. 

Yesterday morning I went to a writing group. I have been going for years, twice a month. Sometimes it is only the male facilitator and myself, other times one or two ,mostly women, show up. Yesterday, I had nothing to bring with me, good thing the other 10 people did. What a group! I was so happy. I think this may have been the largest group, ever. Even the first time person who had nothing to share, felt the spirit move her and shared her thoughts. I do not think I was ever that confident and can not wait to see if she comes back with her writing. I wonder if it will be poems or stories? I like stories best and occasionally even understand a poem. I thought I understood one that was read that morning. Poems are difficult for me to appreciate. I understand all poetry from my frame of reference. Yesterday's poem was very straightforward, like me, no hidden agenda,what you see is what I am. Yet, as the group discussed the poem , first without the author and last with her input and explanation, I found lines that meant one thing to me had hidden meanings to her. I still like the poem but not as much. I feel like I walked into a quicksand trap -carefully planned and hidden -beautiful but not honest.

 I really do not * appreciate poems.


*like?

Collections by A. Robin

                          3/6/2014 

Anyone that knows me knows that I love scarves and pins. Vintage costume pins and scarves from old Aunties and great Grandmother’s jewelry drawers. Given by friends and family, all find homes with me. I currently have 85 scarves; oh wait maybe closer to 100 counting winter scarves and belly dancing scarves. They are all types and colors and origins, all with stories. 

I started loving scarves in high school. I do not remember my first scarf, but I think it was a blue bandana, like the bad boys on motorcycles wore. Thankfully, I matured along with my choice of scarves. Friends in college starting giving me scarves – Paula brought me back a scarf from France –it is wild block colors on a black background. Christine gave me an orange mohair scarf from Scotland –it itched me something awful, it I loved the color and the weave. I lost that after 20 years, I still wonder where. Later, Patricia brought a scarf filled with Longaberger baskets back from a basket bee in Ohio, I think of her every time I wear it. Bonnie gave me a designer scarf (my first! ) for helping in her store one Christmas.  Chrissy, from Belly Dancing, brought us all scarves from her vacation re-enacting mid-evil times. When my English pen pal, Maureen, went to China she sent me a pure white long scarf of silk for Christmas that year. What a delightful surprise. 

I even found a scarf blowing down the street in Stone Harbor during a Nor’Easter. I stopped my car, put on the flashers and rescued it.  I often wondered what your story was, pretty olive color scarf. 

My Niece spent her junior year of college in Italy and brought me two scarves. A black, oh so fancy scarf with raised flowers on it – it is so formal I can only imagine wearing it in Rome or Paris or in some large Cathedral where covering one's hair is the custom. I have never worn it except to dance around the house. The other scarf she gave me was a very large red and white with Italian cities on it –I love it and have worn it over my shoulders or outside on my coat.  For Christmas one year both nieces, gave me a sparkly black winter scarf, I like it so much I wear in year round.

I have bought scarves for myself in Scotland –a beautiful woven blue the color of the sky over the loch’s we passed on our coach tour ,that is a winter scarf. The other Scotland scarf is burgundy in color with clan symbols scattered all around. Later, in Ireland, I finally got to see the beautiful colors from the Book of Kells at Trinity College in Dublin. Never having passed a Gift store I did not like –I purchased two scarves a blue and a green thinking to give them as gifts –I still have them.   

When I went to Alaska in 2011, we had to fly in early to Fairbanks because our county was being evacuated due to a hurricane. Our trip didn’t start for two days, so we stayed in a motel in down town Fairbanks. The weather was a beautiful autumn day and walking around we found a little thrift store boutique. I didn’t see much to interest me and was just about to leave. When I saw this trash bag with scarves sticking out, I asked about them. The owner said her partner had just bought them at an estate sale and she had to go through and price. I sat down and for the next hour went through hundreds of scarves and bought about 10. I like to think of them as my Alaskan scarves. Their story is; they are on adventure back to the lower 48. I do not remember the name of the store or the name of the previous owner. Sometime I think of her as a little old Alaskan lady that would be so pleased her scarves were in a home that cares for them. I threw them in my first wash in Denali and wore them on my trip, but sometimes I think I get a whiff of her perfume. It makes me smile.

I have gotten scarves from my Great Aunts estates –when everything has been picked over and no one wanted the scarves that still smelled of my Great Aunt’s perfume. Old black and white and color images from the 40's and 50's and 60’s, the scarves were captured around their necks in family pictures that outlived them both.  Worn by my Great Aunties in their bohemimun days, when a scarf was needed for ladies to ride in cars. Windows rolled down to serve as air conditioning scarves were needed to keep hair from complete disarray.  I love those scarves all delicate, some hand painted from the islands, all short and narrow to fit around a smaller head and tied or button holed to slip thru to the side of their chin. My favorite scarf is one from 1939 World’s Fair –so fragile –that I rarely wear it.  My Mother remembers she was nine years old and seeing the wonders of her first World’s Fair, maybe it was even a gift from my Grandmother to her sister in law? 

Knowing my aunts they had pins to fasten on the scarf after wind duty was over.  I have some of their pins, no longer sharp enough to anchor the aged fabric of the scarves. I keep trying different ways to sharpen the point of the pin, but for now they are safe with in my jewelry drawer.  

In my thrift store hunts, I am always on the lookout for two scarves. One is from my Alma mater, Penn State and the other is from Stonehenge in England. Money was tight back in college and in 2001 so I guess I thought I could not afford them.

I am thinking about mail order.

Wildflower Meadow

My Backyard is cleared but un- planted except for weeds and wildflowers -I go to local lectures on how to attract birds and hummingbirds and butterflies. I have spent hundreds of dollars on seeds -friends have given me hundreds of dead head seeds -I have even gotten Milkweed seeds from the free lectures I attend. So where are my flowers ? I know I dont have a green thumb and some of them have grown , where are the others? 

Not until I heard the wild Turkeys 15 of them come through my meadow -and stop to eat my yard -did I realize - someone down the road is reaping the benefit of my wildflowers et al. I was so angry -but then what can I do? I have decided to travel their wandering route this summer and find out where there are pooping. Come Fall -I will dead head harvest my mysterious location of missing gibbet flowers.

I just bought some Sunflower Seeds to plant -they grow quickly -even if I miss the wild bunch I will find what their scat has produced. What goes in must come out and I hope GROW !!!!!

Try New things

So ever since I retired I wanted to go to a Cape Shore Chorus Sweet Adeline's International as see what they are all about -I kept putting it off -finally tonight was the night -there were two of us newbies  and they made us get up and sing with them -SING? All I wanted to do was maybe learn percussion like Home Free ? I can not sing any more, I tried something new and they encouraged me to come back -but it was not my thing and they were all such a nice group of ladies. I promised them I would be at one of their concerts. I am sorry Rachel S I tried. Another thing is off the Bucket list !

http://www.capeshorechorus.org/index.html

Death of a Friendship

 

                 
 

 I hear a knock at my side door

I get up and look out the window

The beautiful white pristine of the snow

Is marred by your innuendo

I close my eyes and for a moment

Contemplate not answering the summons.

But I know you will not stop knocking

Until the door is open

I do not know if you will be angry

Or hurtful,

Or demanding.

I do know we are friends no longer.

I have told you to go away

To knock on my door no more

You seem to think I owe you something

But we are friends no longer

So once again I say: I can not help

And slowly close the door

I see your face as you turn away

You still think we are friends.

                                                                 

Love Thy Neighbor

Love thy Neighbor    1/27/2014

I hear a knock at my side door

I get up and look out the window

The beautiful white pristine of the snow

Surrounding my car is marred by footsteps

I follow their origin.

I close my eyes and for a moment

Contemplate not answering the summons.

But I know you will not stop knocking

Until I open the door.

I am eating my breakfast and finish chewing

I do not know if you will be angry

Or hurtful,

Or demanding.

I have not spoken, not once these last 10 times

You use to be a neighbor I shared confidences with

Over tea and cigarettes.

But that was more than 20 years ago.

I open the door and look at you

You wore a coat this time but no hat or gloves.

I cannot see your feet buried in the snow,

Not yet brushed from my steps.

You have a scab on your chin; your hair is long and tangled.

For a woman close to seventy,

You must weigh 80 pounds.

Your hand is on my locked storm door.

“I know I must not be your favorite person

But I got a phone for Christmas

And it is having trouble connecting”: you say.

I think: Seriously? You told me all this last month

When we were talking and you were drunk

I offered to drive you back to the store

And you refused

I let you call your Mother many times that day and the next and the next

You always yelled the same thing

“You have to get me a phone Mom”

Don’t you remember?

Don’t you remember when you yelled at me for not letting you into my house?

Don’t you remember coming back and saying you ‘Disrespect me “ and

‘I am the most disparaging person you have ever met”

Don’t you remember Me telling You to stop bothering Me?

I just nod my head.

Your eyes grow wide like you have hooked me once again,

On your alcoholic fishing rod of deceit and lies.

“I have to use your phone’

You say with that Entitlement in your voice.

I speak for the first time in days

“I can not help you.”

A piece of my breakfast comes out of my mouth.

I am so startled, I do not laugh; just wipe it away with my hand.

You look incredulously at me,

How could I have denied you anything?

You turn and walk down the steps.

Slowly I close the door, lock it and close my eyes.

                                                         You really think we are still friends.