flag

There is a flag folded up on the book shelf that my grandfather made that sits in the basement. The book shelf made of planks of varnished wood that to fit together with little toggles that you can take a part if you need but I have not needed to in some time. Circular stains from the cans that used to sit on the shelves when my father used it in the basement of the house I used to live in that was sold long ago in a different time. The flag was given to my father’s wife when he died folded up and it must have laid on her lap when he was given the gun salute. He is buried several states away in a military cemetery. There is a stone bench with his named carved on it. I have not been back there since but I still have the flag. I pass it by on my way to the laundry. The red and white stripes the corner of blue a star. sitting on the shelf next the Yahtzee game. My father’s old lead soldiers lined up at attention.

a classroom

The classroom was on the second floor of The Stella Mann School of dance. One floor up from the dance studios. It was on the other side of another classroom which was larger. So we had to walk through the bigger room to get there. It was a small narrow room with five desks. In addition there was the desk that the teacher sat at. It was in the front of the room with a window behind it.

Our desks were made of wood and they were scarred. The top of the desk could be lifted. There was an inkwell that was no longer used. I sat on the right hand side of the room. Denise who had long red hair and lived in a big house with a chauffeur sat across from me.

At 11 o’clock we had a snack. It was called elevensies. Denise had Vienna sausages that came in chain in her thermos. One day I brought carrots and celery and the teacher made fun of me. He teased me. “

Mr Coulson. He was an older man mostly balding with some white hair. He wore a suit. He taught us Math, Geography and History. Maths I should say. He would sit at his desk and take out his apple. He pared it with a knife , placing the slices in his mouth

He was strict and would have no nonsense. I wanted to please him. He sat in the audience during the yearly recital. One year I had a solo. I wore a red tutu. I danced for him. The light glinted off of his glasses.

When I moved away, back to the states ,we wrote to each other for awhile. He always asked after my sister and my parents. He had the most beautiful penmanship and wrote on thick white stationary. I still have the notes that he sent me. After awhile either he or I must have stopped writing.

This morning

It is still in the morning

looking out the window

from my chair by the bookcase

The snow lies white on the ground

Smoke rises from the chimney of the

yellow house beyond the fence

A black and white junco lands on the red

bird house that hangs from its hook

The green rocking chair sits alone

on the patio, its back broken and askew

The trees are silent

today

Here I am some time later. I don’t even remember writing that piece about Easter. At first I thought someone else had got on to my page and wrote but then I realized it was me. Very odd. It didn’t really sound like me. So that was written in April of 2020 in the midst of the first wave of the Corona virus. Now it is January 1st 2021 and we are in the second wave, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I am back working and have been working since August. I now work for Albany Med and everything is completely different. I miss the old days. I am not really happy working there but I am taking one day at a time and may retire in the spring. I forgot how to put a picture in even though I don’t have a picture.I have not been here in so long. I don’t really have anything to say.

The Christmas tree is still up.I have to take it down tomorrow. It was a good tree and I will miss it but it is time to move on

I got the vaccine two days ago. I went to Albany Med to have it done. I waited in line.I was given a clip board to fill out. Sign here and here that you read this and that , I never read. I was handed a syringe with a capped needle and I was told to go to table five. A young nurse, didn’t waste any time. I asked her if she had an epipen. She showed me her actual pen. No I said Epipen. She said she thought maybe the pharmacists over there have one. She didn’t have me wait the 15 minutes you hear of on the news. I went and sat in the lobby and listened to the player piano and looked at the people walking by. I bought an apple juice at the gift shop. I went to the ATM. I left after about a half hour. My arm was sore that night and bit into the next day but not really anything concerning.

Easter Sunday 2020

Easter 2020

So, today is Easter and all of the churches are closed.  Except for those renegades here and there that still gather people.

The pope spoke to an empty space. The National Cathedral was empty and church services were on  line.

The day was pretty uneventful for me.  I woke up around 7 15. One thing nice about not having  a schedule is sleeping until you wake up. I do like that. Rich and I usually read in the morning. News etc. Then we took a walk with Rupert around the neighborhood. It was a beautiful day . The grass is greening. The daffodils are blooming, the flowering trees are budding as well as the leaves.  Hard to believe disaster is happening around us.

I made flourless zucchini  and carrot muffins for mom. I happened upon the recipe and knew I had a zucchini  that needed using. They ended up being pretty good, made with pulverized rolled oats. I used chunks of Godiva baking chocolate that Harry had bought for his cookies at Christmas. A life time ago now.  Much better times.

I went over to moms around 2 pm and  we walked around her complex. She had on her mask and her gloves. She was wearing a white hat with a pom pom, that I had never seen before and a patterned coat and a scarf. She had no make up. She seemed tired and got out of breath easily. We had to sit down.  I do worry about her. I think this whole thing is paying its toll on her. I brought her flowers, a bottle of wine, some powdered milk ( a sign of the times) and the muffins.

I came home, read and fell asleep for 10 minutes. I spoke to Harry on the phone and that was good. I made sautéed  scallops which were delicious is Ghee with added cooked garlic, Swiss chard sautéed , that Marty bought at the Glens Falls farmers market and a half of an avocado with oil and balsamic vinegar. It was really so delicious.

530,000 people have Covid 19 in the US  as of today and 21,000 have died. New York has 9, 385 deaths as of today and 758 people died yesterday.

I need to keep up on the statistics, so that no one forgets.

Harry thinks, that at his hospital, things might be slowing down. I hope to God so.

My Christmas Tree: A Miracle.

I have a picture of my growing Christmas Tree but I can’t seem to access it  so we will have to do without it, although it really helps it ,to make sense so maybe I can add it later after I write this because right now I feel like writing and not figuring out how to post a picture and now WordPress has access to my google pictures and it asked if I trust w

WordPress and I have to say I don’t know for sure, it seems innocent enough and who would want to look at my pictures anyway. My left shoulder is hurting while I type. I am sure it has something to do with my posture. It hurts most of the time anyway so it doesn’t matter. I just shifted the pillow behind my back and straightened my computer on my lap so that helps.

Oh as you can see, I later found a picture of my tree and inserted it. I would like it to be with the title. We can’t have everything we want.

My tree. We bought it earlythis year because I volunteered, what was I thinking to have the office Christmas party at my  house. Since the party was the Friday after Thanksgiving, I had to decorate fast. It was a beautiful sunny cold Saturday when we decided to venture out looking for a tree. We had decided to  go to one of those farms where you can chop down a tree, not that we would actually do that because I am not sure we are capable of something like that, but I figured at least they would be fresh.

It took some time to drive there. It was in Ballston Lake somewhere and we had to drive down a long windy road to what seemed  like nowhere until we came to a mob scene. People and cars and trees and children milling around. There was no rhyme or reason or any sense of order. We went as far as parking our car and walking to some trees just laying there, not labeled. I said “let’s get out of here” shortly after this and Rich was pretty relieved. We got in our car and left.

We ended up going to a nursery that my friend Laureen told me about. We picked out a tree and five minutes later it was strapped to the car, paid for and we were on our way home.

I was  bit concerned at first because it seemed to be dropping a lot of needles right away. I had checked it at the nursery and it seemed pretty healthy. I thought it was the shock from being inside. I dutifully watered it twice a day and added the solution that you can buy to help it retain water.

It was decorated and ended up being quite shapely and actually perfect looking . People commented on its perfect shape.

One day I noticed these bright light green growths. I thought they were pine cones growing. Then I realized they were new branches growing . And these new branches were popping up everywhere in the tree in different places. Soon even the ends of the branches were budding. My tree was growing.

A miracle, I thought until I read on line that it occurs sometimes when the tree comes in the warmth and thinks it is spring. I have never seen such a thing and no one else I know has seen such a thing. It is time to take it down now. I have had it a month. I took the ornaments off and now just the lights are on. I will take it down tomorrow. I can’t plant it because there is no root ball.

I am going to take a cutting of some of the branches and try and grow a new tree.

A new miracle tree.

# a miracle, # Christmas tree, # Growingchristmastree

Broken

The pottery thing that was mothers fell off my portable desk which is actually a wooden tray with a silver edge and a silver emblem embossed in the center which was also my mothers. I had the tray  on the floor and I was organizing its contents into new piles to be dealt with at a later date. I picked up the tray and the pottery thing fell off.  It is rectangular in shape . Cream colored and has the texture of a tree. There are two birds on it that stick out in a three dimensional way. The tails broke off both birds.  Little pieces also broke off so I cannot glue it back together like I have done other things in the past. It still sits on the desk. I keep important things in there. You can’t really tell it is broken unless you look closely. I am keeping the tails just in case.

When something breaks, I feel there is a bigger problem . I have no control.  Nothing is at it seems. There is an underlying chaos. 

two days before july 4th

This is not about the holiday which is july 4th. it is about the other day which was July 2nd, the day I went through the red light on my way home from work on 6th ave in troy at 5pm. Well at least that is what the policeman said is what happened. He said  “I think or it looks like you might have went through a red light.” Probably the other guy. The black guy with the long dready kind of hair in a grey  T shirt driving a small black car must have said, I went through the red light. Maybe I did. I have no recollection of the light at all, so I therefore, it is very possible that I did. It is hard to imagine that I would do such a thing but you never know. I have been driving through that intersection for some twenty years. I couldn’t even tell that insurance adjustor if the road had four lanes or two lanes. I have no idea. I had to guess. Were there a lot of other cars on the road at that time. Not that I noticed. It seemed pretty empty which is odd for that road at 5 pm. I just remember the little black car flying across the road. The guy seemed happy maybe talking, looking forward. I screamed and veered to the right. He hit me in the front tire and probably bent the wheel axel. Who knows what that will entail. My brand new beautiful red car. I am mortified. The car was towed and now I have a lawyer.  I wasn’t hurt. No one was hurt. I feel like a criminal. I feel like a negligent ,older distracted ,woman.

ear noise

It sounds like static in my left ear. It started suddenly two weeks ago. what exactly do you mean by static? It is like a crunching sound. do you mean like walking on snow? or rice krispies? yes like rice krispies. It is there all of the time. I hear it now. Has your hearing changed at all? Does it affect your hearing. Not that I am aware of. He looked at me imploringly.

via Daily Prompt: Static

Without a trace

 

 

She never found the necklace. The one, she bought from the the girl ,who’s ear she cleaned.  She had been wearing it around her neck with a blue stone. It disappeared without a trace. Maybe it is in a drawer somewhere. She has found things before, sometimes years later, like the turquoise pendant, that turned up in the side pocket of her backpack. The one with the Save the Whale button, that she brought with her, when she went to Maine that time.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/trace/