Recently in Murkiness Category

So far the new year has been a soggy one. Over four inches of rain since the 1st. Enough rain for rivers to flood and lap over roads and bridges. Across the river in Illinois, a bus tried to drive through a flooded road, got stuck, and had to wait for rescue. Just now on the news was a story about a car that also tried to get through a flood. The car got stuck, the people in it crawled on the roof, one of them was swept away and presumably drowned, and the others spent the night huddled on the top of the car. A passerby saw them at dawn and called 911.

It just now started snowing. Much of the rain we had here in St. Louis was ice and snow to the west and north. But here it just now started snowing. Imagine all the snow there would have been if the temperature had been colder for the last four days. Four feet of snow. But the snow now is just a dusting. Nothing like a Buffalo lake effect. Nonetheless, I've moved the snow shovel from the garage to the back porch.

As you can see in the picture to the right, the tree is up and lit, but the presents are still in Santa's sleigh. Ann has some stashed away, I think, which she'll wrap Xmas Eve. I have a list, I've checked it twice, and now to the stores. Perhaps tomorrow.

Last Saturday I did hang lights outside: two strings to outline the railings of the back porch; and five strings across the front, stretching from the fir tree on the left of the house, across the bushes, around the frame of the front door, across more bushes, and up down the dogwood tree. When I turned them on, Ruth across the street called to tell Ann how happy she was that we had hung the lights. And I was afraid the lights would cheapen the neighborhood.

I've also sent cards. First I designed it on the computer with Pagemaker, which is much easier to use than InDesign. Then Kinkos printed the card. Next the cards had to be folded. Finally, I spent a few hours in Starbucks Friday morning writing notes on the cards and addressing envelopes.

So the cards are mailed, the exterior of the house is strung with lights, and inside the tree is up and lit. Today is a day of rest--I did run the two races this weekend--and tomorrow I'll hit the stores and put some presents under the tree.

The finger that my hedge trimmer tried to devour last weekend is almost healed. I had already cut a heavy duty electrical cord, and I was almost finished with the front hedges, having borrowed a cord from Chris next door, when I reached down to brush aside some clippings and the trimmer lept and took a bite of my finger. Yes, like that saw in "Out, Out" by Frost, the hedge trimmer had a life of its own. But luckily, unlike the boy in the poem who dies, I was able to go about my affairs after Ann did some first aid to stop the bleeding. The only evidence now is a flap of skin and some soreness. Amazing how the body heals.

Ann says it wasn't the fault of the trimmer that I almost lost my finger. She doesn't believe a trimmer can have a mind of its own. She believes personification is nothing more than a poetic device. She says I almost lost my finger because I wasn't wearing safety gloves. And she says I give the trimmer a life and mind of its own merely to mythologize my all too human life. OK, so I won't mention the heroic stamina involved in running the Himalayan peaks of the Illinois Valley Relay race, or that J the cat uses his feet to write poems on my laptop, or the the fact that my tomato plants this late in the year are still producing tomatoes.

J, the oldest of my three cats, doesn't listen. When the squirrels and the possum began eating the green tomatoes, I charged J with keeping the wild animals away. Nevertheless, the other night I went on the back porch and there sat J in my chair with a possum underneath feasting on a freshly stolen tomato. Treacherous cat!

Still, regardless of the cat, the squirrels, and the possum, Ann and I are picking ripe tomatoes. Not enough for the 2Rio Salsa I had hoped for, but enough to have fresh tomatoes at hand for sandwiches and salads or just for eating plain. Next year I'm planning to surround the plants in some sort of screen mesh. Maybe that way I can improve the critter-human ration of tomatoes.

The Great Forest Park Balloon Race was today. Last night it was almost impossible getting into the park for the balloon glow, so today Ann and I decided to watch the balloons as they drifted over our house. We live near the park and we're on the race route. The first balloon over was the rabbit, the pace balloon, I guess, since Energizer is the primary sponsor of the race. I had my digital camera out to take a bunch of great pictures, but right after I shot the rabbit as it floated overhead, my camera told me to replace the battery pack. It was as if the the rabbit in the battery leaped out and floated leisurely away. Ann and I then hopped on our bikes and pedalled first toward the park to catch the sight of balloons floating toward us, then turned around and chased them as they floated away. One balloon, Citi Bank, was drifting low. I yelled, "Drop a ladder!" But Citi Bank has never been customer friendly, I'm not now a customer, and the balloon kept on chasing the Rabbit.

I'm still waiting for the tomatoes on the vines to ripen. I said earlier it didn't take much of a green thumb to plant them. Just dig a hole, place and cover them. But for a couple of months I've watched the vines grow, minus tomatoes. When tomatoes started appearing, the thieving squirrels would steal them. I came out one morning and caught one in the act. Startled, it skirted away, dropping the tomato, which I picked up and moved to the back of the yard. It sat there a day or two before finally disappearing. The vines are now loaded with green tomatoes. I was worried that maybe it does take talent to grow the ripe variety, but in yesterday's home and garden section of the paper were recipes for green tomatoes and this morning I saw a squirrel dashing across Delmar, well away from my house, hauling a green tomato, so maybe there's nothing wrong with mine still being green.

I've just returned from a two-week road trip that took me to Florida for a niece's wedding, then to North Carolina to see family, next to Ohio to see a friend from graduate school, and finally back to St. Louis. During the trip I slept in a rest stop south of Macon, Georgia; at my brother's house in Melbourne, Florida; at a friend's house in Jacksonville, Florida; at my mother's in Wilmington, North Carolina; in a Kroger parking lot in Charleston, West Virgina; and another rest stop somewhere in Indiana. I drove along rivers, through mountains, along the coast, through southern low land, then back through foothills and mountains to the Mississippi.

During the trip I finished reading Dan Brown's Deception Point, which I liked much better than Digital Fortress. I've now read all of Brown's books. I'd rate them in this order, from best to worst, which might be the order in which Brown wrote them: Da Vinci Code, Deception Point, Angels and Demons, Digital Fortress.

Also along the way I started reading The Secret Life of Bees. A wonderful story, so far.

One of the most striking images for me during this on-going week of mythologizing Reagan is that of the boots in the styrups of Sgt. York. I admit to being a sucker for military pomp and ceremony. My father served in the Marines for 30 years, retiring as Sgt. Major. Marine precision, dress blues, sharp drills, flag ceremonies, reveille and taps--all are images that make me nostalgic for those days at Camp Lejune when we'd be driving through the base to go to the doctor or to buy groceries at the commissary. With political independence came a distance from my father, eventually resentment for most of what he represented, but several years ago in a psychological reconciliation I ran two marathons to honor my father: the Marine Corps and the Camp Lejune, the latter of which should have been called The Sir. Ask a question of a young marine and you'll get an answer with at least a dozen sirs.

So there's Sgt. York with Reagan's boots in the styrups, facing backwards, symbolically at troops he'll never commander again, but also, which hasn't been said, at his legacy of good and ill. I suppose the image also is an opportunity for us to look back. It's all so personal, backwards but inward. There's my father coming in the door at night, taking off his boots. My chore is to get the kiwi polish, the old rag, a tin of water, and to spit shine the boots until my father's face reflects in the toes. Those boots. Tyranny. Honor.

I guess we all handle national moments in different ways. The day after Ronald Reagan's death, I googled these terms--Ronald Reagan Poetry Blog--looking for poems about the man. Not much there, but this chat that J-Walk had with the A.L.I.C.E. was interesting. The bot knew Reagan was a president but didn't know his wife's name is Nancy.

I was hoping to find, however, poems about Reagan. I wrote one about him when he first became president. I had read he liked jelly beans so much he kept a jar of them on his desk in the Oval Office. I didn't care much about Reagan's politics, but I did share his taste for jelly beans, so in a jelly belly way I felt connected to him. Thus I wrote "The Lover of Jelly Beans," sealed the poem in an envelope, addressed it to President Ronald Reagan, The White House, USA, and dropped it in the mailbox. I suppose something is done with the mail addressed to the President of the United States. I never got a reply, but maybe the poem is in an archive somewhere. Maybe the poem is in my FBI file, if I have one.

I don't recall much about the poem. A copy isn't at hand. Don't even know if there's a copy in a basement box.

At times the Internet's a terribly murky place, filled with people who should be in Saddam's bunker with a missle coming at it. I'm talking about spammers who attach a username to your domain name, then send mail as if it were coming from your organization. May a missle cruise up their assholes and explode.