We live far, far from any family, so on Memorial Day (Decoration Day where I hail from) Significant Other and I visit local cemeteries and pay our respects to the fallen. The gravestones tell tantalizing bits of stories, enough to whet one's curiosity but not satisfy it. In the oldest cemetery in Sharon, home to the graves of a number of American Revolution and civil war veterans, there stands a gravestone at the back of the property. It is the stone for a young man of twenty-one who drowned in 1861. And carved into the grave stone with names and dates is the word "freedman." Has to be a sad story there. In another Sharon cemetery, at the Civil War monument, there is a memorial to a woman who donned men's clothing and fought in the American Revolution and was wounded and finally discharged. So many stories. If only we could listen.
Each military grave, no matter how ancient, bore a new flag and a little potted geranium. Someone keeps track and someone still cares.
Aloha,
Grapeshot
Monday, May 30, 2005
Friday, May 27, 2005
Memorial Day
When I was in high school, about fifty million years ago, school always let out right before Memorial Day weekend. My friends and I had one goal in mind: to jumpstart our suntans. To that end, we would put on halter tops and spend the day on our bicycles. The locale was Northeast Colorado, the high plains, where the sun shines, the wind blows and it's hot in the daytime and cool at night.
We usually rode out to the South Platte River, not exactly the wide Missouri, but a destination five miles from town. There were sand pits along the river, and of course of parents had forbidden us to to go them, but sometimes we went.
Once we had wheels, we would go to Jackson or Prewitt reservoirs for a day of sunning. I used to pack a lunch in an old fishing creel. Can't remember what we ate. My mom was a big sandwich lover, so there was probably always ham or roast beef around. Mustard on the ham, mayo on the beef, and a slice of lettuce on both. I was 18 years old before I knew about anything but Wonder-bread style white bread. The creel probably contained a cupcake and a candy bar or some cookies. Potato chips to be sure. A piece of fruit would have been standard fare. Sounds pretty good. Sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper back then. Hey, I said it was fifty million years ago.
By the time we were seventeen or so, a six pack of beer would have been schlepped along. And a couple packs of cigarettes. L & M's probably. Maybe Hit Parade. In those days, four girls could get tipsy on a six pack. Beer and food and cigarettes and companionship. When we got where we were going we swam a little and talked a lot. I would love to eavesdrop on those conversations now.
Nobody used sunscreen or sun lotion and that high altitude sun packed a whallop. My mom would put calamine on my back when I came home. The girls in the next town used iodine in baby oil to advance their tans, but we weren't that sophisticated.
This weekend, Significant Other and I will visit the two local cemeteries we missed last year. There are six old burying grounds nearby. Revolutionary war graves in many of them. New England is old. I love these solemn places with their trees and stone walls and the falling over graves.
We usually rode out to the South Platte River, not exactly the wide Missouri, but a destination five miles from town. There were sand pits along the river, and of course of parents had forbidden us to to go them, but sometimes we went.
Once we had wheels, we would go to Jackson or Prewitt reservoirs for a day of sunning. I used to pack a lunch in an old fishing creel. Can't remember what we ate. My mom was a big sandwich lover, so there was probably always ham or roast beef around. Mustard on the ham, mayo on the beef, and a slice of lettuce on both. I was 18 years old before I knew about anything but Wonder-bread style white bread. The creel probably contained a cupcake and a candy bar or some cookies. Potato chips to be sure. A piece of fruit would have been standard fare. Sounds pretty good. Sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper back then. Hey, I said it was fifty million years ago.
By the time we were seventeen or so, a six pack of beer would have been schlepped along. And a couple packs of cigarettes. L & M's probably. Maybe Hit Parade. In those days, four girls could get tipsy on a six pack. Beer and food and cigarettes and companionship. When we got where we were going we swam a little and talked a lot. I would love to eavesdrop on those conversations now.
Nobody used sunscreen or sun lotion and that high altitude sun packed a whallop. My mom would put calamine on my back when I came home. The girls in the next town used iodine in baby oil to advance their tans, but we weren't that sophisticated.
This weekend, Significant Other and I will visit the two local cemeteries we missed last year. There are six old burying grounds nearby. Revolutionary war graves in many of them. New England is old. I love these solemn places with their trees and stone walls and the falling over graves.
Monday, May 23, 2005
Happy Birthday to Me
Today is my birthday, but not a Significant one. Ugggh! No more Significant birthdays. I even got some good news. One of my poems will hang in Boston City Hall for the 375th birthday party for Boston this summer. Is that not cool? The poem is below. You read it here first.
Night Landing at Logan
From above, an open jewel box.
Intricate gold chains on soft black velvet.
Haphazard scattering of rubies, emeralds and diamonds,
Rich and luscious.
We arc slowly over the harbor, then
The jet sweeps across dark water
A shadow over the harbor islands,
A bird of prey
Screaming, whining, howling, bucking the wind.
Low. Lower. Lowest.
Sapphire landing lights,
A shudder, and wheels caress the runway.
Roaring, the engines reverse their thrust,
Offering a muted reek of kerosene.
To port, the skyline surges,
Bold accretion of glass, stone and steel
Collage of history.
Red carpets of old brick
Roll out a challenge and a dare.
Night Landing at Logan
From above, an open jewel box.
Intricate gold chains on soft black velvet.
Haphazard scattering of rubies, emeralds and diamonds,
Rich and luscious.
We arc slowly over the harbor, then
The jet sweeps across dark water
A shadow over the harbor islands,
A bird of prey
Screaming, whining, howling, bucking the wind.
Low. Lower. Lowest.
Sapphire landing lights,
A shudder, and wheels caress the runway.
Roaring, the engines reverse their thrust,
Offering a muted reek of kerosene.
To port, the skyline surges,
Bold accretion of glass, stone and steel
Collage of history.
Red carpets of old brick
Roll out a challenge and a dare.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
No, No, a Thousand Times No
The most wonderful query letter in the world is batting 000.000. I have noticed a certain near hysteria mounting in the agent's kiss -off letters. To a man and a woman, they bemoan the current state of publishing and the "market." They profess to have no time to advise you who might look more kindly on your query. Hell, they don't even have time to scrawl their initials. No new clients, cutting back on clients, and then the polite blather about continuing to look elsewhere, maybe somebody, someplace is actually looking for clients.
And yet....the Publisher's Weekly that arrived today was chock full of reviews of first novelists. Some agent somewhere had taken chance on a writer who was new and different. Good reviews, too. Of course Brooke Shields and Jane Fonda and James Patterson are on the best seller list. James Patterson's book pretty well trashed in PW. Have to confess I have never read one of his. Started one once and people were hacking each other up with machetes on the first page, and I can open any newspaper and read about people (usually men for some reason) hacking each other up with machetes or swords and so that was not up my literary alley. Nor are romances. My stuff is anti-romance. Girl never gets boy. Leaves him if she does. Lots of bad choices. Rueful decisions.
Some author flogged a book for ten years before it actually sold and it sold for big bucks, so that is another reason to suck it up. Thought of a good idea for a cookbook. Wonder when I would have time to do a book proposal.
I have a big bag of fruit and vegetable scraps for the cows tomorrow. They huddle together after the psychic shock of two of the herd being sold. The standoffish one even ate out of my hand last week. When I try to scratch their heads they get a wild look in their eyes. But they do like orange peels, lemon peels, even lime and grapefruit peels. It is nice to find a use for something, even a lemon rind.
Now it is time to plant the garden. I go forth joyfully with spade and trowel and one of those plastic things you kneel on. My dad always called it a prayer rug. Gardening is a form of prayer and a great leap of faith that is usually justified. Maybe writing is too. I dunno.
aloha
Grapeshot
And yet....the Publisher's Weekly that arrived today was chock full of reviews of first novelists. Some agent somewhere had taken chance on a writer who was new and different. Good reviews, too. Of course Brooke Shields and Jane Fonda and James Patterson are on the best seller list. James Patterson's book pretty well trashed in PW. Have to confess I have never read one of his. Started one once and people were hacking each other up with machetes on the first page, and I can open any newspaper and read about people (usually men for some reason) hacking each other up with machetes or swords and so that was not up my literary alley. Nor are romances. My stuff is anti-romance. Girl never gets boy. Leaves him if she does. Lots of bad choices. Rueful decisions.
Some author flogged a book for ten years before it actually sold and it sold for big bucks, so that is another reason to suck it up. Thought of a good idea for a cookbook. Wonder when I would have time to do a book proposal.
I have a big bag of fruit and vegetable scraps for the cows tomorrow. They huddle together after the psychic shock of two of the herd being sold. The standoffish one even ate out of my hand last week. When I try to scratch their heads they get a wild look in their eyes. But they do like orange peels, lemon peels, even lime and grapefruit peels. It is nice to find a use for something, even a lemon rind.
Now it is time to plant the garden. I go forth joyfully with spade and trowel and one of those plastic things you kneel on. My dad always called it a prayer rug. Gardening is a form of prayer and a great leap of faith that is usually justified. Maybe writing is too. I dunno.
aloha
Grapeshot
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Bad words
Icon and idol. Why or why doesn't the committee that condenms words take on these two? If I hear one more two-bit celebrity referred to as an icon I am going to gag. As for "idol", "any object of ardent or excessive devotion or admiration," looks to me like the icons have become idols and the idols are icons and the language is devalued. This cult of celebrity that has take over the culture (cult? culture?) is so slimy. Way too many people are swimming at the shallow end of the gene pool. Where will it all end, she asked.
Meantime, I fought off a virus, switched computers, wrote 3 pages, sent out 6 letters, and went over 20 pages of edits. Hey, you thought I was shirking. Only shirking the blog. More anon, about querying, editing and all that really good stuff.
Aloha!
Meantime, I fought off a virus, switched computers, wrote 3 pages, sent out 6 letters, and went over 20 pages of edits. Hey, you thought I was shirking. Only shirking the blog. More anon, about querying, editing and all that really good stuff.
Aloha!
Saturday, May 07, 2005
Lunch at the Ritz
I avoid the mother's day brouhaha of screaming kids, rushed service and mediocre food by celebrating on Saturday or in1sisting on non-traditional restaurants. Today, with a nor'easter pummelling Boston with rain, we took the train into town for lunch at the Ritz. We came out of the Arlington "T" stop to a cold miserable wind which immediately sent my rain hat cartwheeling down the street and turned my umbrella inside out. A gallant gentleman saved the hat and the umbrella joined the great May 7 umbrella graveyard that was downtown Boston.
The Ritz closed its dining room a while back but the cafe, which looks out onto Newberry St., suits me just fine. They made an excellent vodka gimlet (I awarded it 3 limes!) and Significant Other quaffed a Manhattan. The lobster salad was all one could wish and more, the rolls satisfied, and the creme brulee, all crisp and creamy tasted wonderful.
People watching ain't bad, either. There was the first communion party with the girls in white dresses making many giggly trips to the ladies room. The overdressed young lady with her swain also nibbled her lobster salad and passed the rest of it to him. Ye gods! It wasn't that much. The underdressed (jeans) table left their white wine (or was it water) undrunk. The waste! Next to us an elderly trio attacked the turkey club sandwiches which appeared to be a popular menu item. I watched a party of 8 women (40-ish), trying to figure out is this was an anti-mother's day group or if they were just old classmates having lunch. Hard to say. At one table, where most of the women carried flowers and were perhaps celebrating the couple who had taken them under their wing (I have a story for everyone in the room) a woman ordered the burger and fries while her friends picked at salad. The fries came in tall silver cups and looked yummy. On the way back to the train we had hat issues again, and every trash can was stuffed with broken umbrellas.
This week was a computer horror show. I am upgrading to a new machine and trying to get all my software and files ported onto it. Really very annoying and tiresome.
Letter to agent I met in NYC last week came back with a bad address. The world's best query was rejected a second time. Writing group started to pick apart the Reno/Burning Man scenes in the new book. They are right, of course, and I listen. So often they make me raise my writing to the next level which lazy me wouldn't do without a kick in the pants.
My garden soothes me. Only one (planted in too wet a spot) columbine failed to show up this spring. Everything else, even wild orchid, is present and accounted for. Worried about toad lily, and then I noticed three toad lilies had come up around where last year's bloomed. Violets blooming like crazy. We've eaten the chives and the sage already.
Another downer with my lovely Scottish Highland Cattle. Last weekend I noticed they had been separated, with Jewel and her (perhaps) mother in one pasture and the other three in another. More ominous yet, a trailer designed to hold an animal was parked in the narrow path where they walk to the barn, blocking the way. Sure enough, on Tuesday, two of the cows were gone. I think there are financial issues involved. The herd has dwindled from 7 to 3 now. Tomorrow is feeding day, and I'll find out for sure who is missing. When I show up, they all bleat and come runnning, which gives my trampled ego a little boost.
Usually I come back from the Edgars inspired and ready to write. This year I came home in a funk. Ah well, suck it up. Write anyhow. Write everyday. Write true. Yup.
The Ritz closed its dining room a while back but the cafe, which looks out onto Newberry St., suits me just fine. They made an excellent vodka gimlet (I awarded it 3 limes!) and Significant Other quaffed a Manhattan. The lobster salad was all one could wish and more, the rolls satisfied, and the creme brulee, all crisp and creamy tasted wonderful.
People watching ain't bad, either. There was the first communion party with the girls in white dresses making many giggly trips to the ladies room. The overdressed young lady with her swain also nibbled her lobster salad and passed the rest of it to him. Ye gods! It wasn't that much. The underdressed (jeans) table left their white wine (or was it water) undrunk. The waste! Next to us an elderly trio attacked the turkey club sandwiches which appeared to be a popular menu item. I watched a party of 8 women (40-ish), trying to figure out is this was an anti-mother's day group or if they were just old classmates having lunch. Hard to say. At one table, where most of the women carried flowers and were perhaps celebrating the couple who had taken them under their wing (I have a story for everyone in the room) a woman ordered the burger and fries while her friends picked at salad. The fries came in tall silver cups and looked yummy. On the way back to the train we had hat issues again, and every trash can was stuffed with broken umbrellas.
This week was a computer horror show. I am upgrading to a new machine and trying to get all my software and files ported onto it. Really very annoying and tiresome.
Letter to agent I met in NYC last week came back with a bad address. The world's best query was rejected a second time. Writing group started to pick apart the Reno/Burning Man scenes in the new book. They are right, of course, and I listen. So often they make me raise my writing to the next level which lazy me wouldn't do without a kick in the pants.
My garden soothes me. Only one (planted in too wet a spot) columbine failed to show up this spring. Everything else, even wild orchid, is present and accounted for. Worried about toad lily, and then I noticed three toad lilies had come up around where last year's bloomed. Violets blooming like crazy. We've eaten the chives and the sage already.
Another downer with my lovely Scottish Highland Cattle. Last weekend I noticed they had been separated, with Jewel and her (perhaps) mother in one pasture and the other three in another. More ominous yet, a trailer designed to hold an animal was parked in the narrow path where they walk to the barn, blocking the way. Sure enough, on Tuesday, two of the cows were gone. I think there are financial issues involved. The herd has dwindled from 7 to 3 now. Tomorrow is feeding day, and I'll find out for sure who is missing. When I show up, they all bleat and come runnning, which gives my trampled ego a little boost.
Usually I come back from the Edgars inspired and ready to write. This year I came home in a funk. Ah well, suck it up. Write anyhow. Write everyday. Write true. Yup.
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