Life interfered with my Slice of Life

So I've had trouble posting here every day. In fact, I missed five in a row. This week was a week of extras. Extra work. Extra commitments. Extra everything but the tasty peppermint gum. First there was the interview for a local television station to promote a film festival. The station (though local) was an hour away and aired on the same channel as the NCAA Basketball tournament. It goes without saying that the game ran long, so the local news show was shortened (and so were the interviews). I had less time to talk about the festival already, but one of the hosts also began the interview with a question that had nothing to do with the festival. I got us back on track (badly because I was thrown), but that left only time for a quick run-through of events. On top of these problems, the committee chair forgot to show up, so the interview was all on me. Argh!

After amazingly large piles of papers to grade, I also had a cracked windshield to take care of. I set up an appointment, giving the shop plenty of time to order the glass, but when I went in, the manager had forgotten to make the order. He apologized and said he'd do it right then, so it would be in that afternoon! I went back the next morning, and the part was there, thank goodness. Now I have a new and clean windshield (at least for awhile).

The festival took up the week for me, so I can't say much more. I'm a failure at the daily slice-of-life posting but have still enjoyed thinking through some of the funny things that happen every day.

Shopping for Donna

I have a friend going through some major health problems that make her so dizzy and woozy she has trouble driving herself anywhere, including the grocery store. Since I usually shop on Friday afternoons, I have added her list to mine for the last few weeks. In theory, this should be an easy task with a simple separation of items at the register. But our shopping habits are as different as they could possibly be: I'm a vegetarian, and Donna's allergic to fiber.

I usually spend more time in the produce aisle than anywhere else in the store, adding soy milk, almonds, and whole wheat pasta to my usual mushrooms, carrots, and organic bananas. These last few weeks, though,  I search through an aisle of pop tarts for the frosted cinnamon and chase Cadbury eggs across the cart. My worst nightmare is the hunt for the right frozen dinners in the freezer section. There are Stouffer's pastas and Smart Ones beef stew. Marie Callender's cheesy rice. And pepperoni pizzas--only the think crust will do.

Today I had an interview in Champaign(about an hour from here), so I shopped early at the local grocery rather than Walmart. That meant I couldn't get the pharmacy items Donna needed for her dog, so I had to pick those up at a drugstore on the way to her house. Now that I'm writing this, I think I forgot the cheesy rice dinners. The list this week went on for two pages, and I forgot to turn to page 2.

Productivity

I like being able to cross items off a list, almost as much as I enjoy making the lists in the first place. I kept a journal for years. I wrote in a diary with a lock and key during my teen years, writing down school crushes and fears, and even throwing in a cuss word or two for emphasis.

Now I just keep lists, a plan for the day beside my computer and a compilation of films I've watched on what used to be a telephone table. Today I successfully completed all the tasks on my list and added another movie to my notebook. I wrote a grant proposal and promoted a film festival, but most importantly I had time to meet a friend for coffee and a chat.

And yes, I added my coffee date to my list along with the usual emails and memos. Instead of just listing jobs, I like to include events and social outings, highlighting the memories, but also drawing parallels. For me, these events are just as important as the tasks I have to complete. For me, a coffee date makes it easier to spend hours at a computer. I even include my exercise classes and dog walks.

When I was writing in my diary as a teen, I sometimes had trouble sleeping, but instead of counting sheep, I went through all the activities of the day one by one, showing myself how tired I should be after such a busy day. It usually worked. I started yawning, slowed my breathing, and fell asleep. Lists work for me and always have.

The Simple Pleasure of Existence

Today I finally finished evaluating films for a festival we're hosting next week as part of Women's History Month. We decided to make submissions easy by using Film Freeway, a free online service for festivals. The new submission method worked very well---so well that we received 864 submissions! I was feeling rather overwhelmed at the numbers, but after honing according to our criteria, I found that we could work through the short films more quickly than expected. The due date for our evaluations is Friday, but we finished today, two days early.

This year we're showing these winning films along with two features: Fish Tank  and Mosquita y Mari. Last year, though, we showed Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo, a film that highlighted Japan's interconnected relationship with insects. The film inspired this poem:

the simple pleasure of existence

two men hunt insects

pulling beetles from a knothole

one stamps a tree trunk

crickets with weak wings cannot cry

dragonflies:

strength

courage

bravery

fireflies:

unrequited love

we learn from insects

their numbers are much fewer now

the world is being destroyed

Happy St. Patrick's Day: Memories of the Ohio River

I spent the weekend in Florida with my Mom, Step-dad, and former exchange student Ole, but when the cousins visited for a barbecue, I was back on the Ohio River, floating on a pontoon boat, eating catfish and frog legs, and fishing with my brother. 

Cousin Bill and Judy were there, so I thought of Uncle Carl and Aunt Nellie. But cousin Mike and Sandy were also there, my Uncle Charles's son and his wife. Only Uncle Arnold and Aunt Audrea were unrepresented. Here are a couple of poems about the river:

Fish Kill

Uncle Arnold got fat

that summer

belly full

of potato candy

a sugar roll

bursting

with peanut butter

like pimples

Aunt Midge popped

on his back after work.

Red, white, and blue

puffing him up

painting his lungs

like fourth of July

beside the Ohio 

Uncle Arnold died 

at the bottom of an oil tank.

Aunt Midge

drew fingers through

curly yellow locks

knocking catfish off hooks

into bloody buckets

watching them

gasp and swell

under a rotting sun.

My Aunt Nellie

My Aunt Nellie ate a banana a day

every day after her husband, Carl, got his pacemaker.

The doctor noticed the red splotches on her face and arms

and took her blood pressure in spite of her protests.

My Aunt Nellie wore pastel polyester shorts

with elastic waist bands and sleeveless white shirts

with mock turtle neck collars

every day the summer I visited her.

She looked like a turtle herself

in her green rubber webbed thongs.

She could almost swim across the Ohio

and dive for her dinner on the way back.

My Aunt Nellie smoked Salem 100s out of the corner

of her pursed red lip-sticked mouth

until the end of that summer on the river.

Carl’s doctor warned her, gave her little

white explosive pills she forgot to take—

Carl spent too much time in the garden without a hat

and lost part of his nose. Aunt Nellie snapped half-runners

into a thick iron pot, tossed in wide slices of fatty bacon

turned the burner on low and walked downstairs

to the screened-in garage summer house.

She drove an off-white VW bug with a stick shift

to the market for corn and tomatoes.

My Aunt Nellie fished all afternoon on the dock

in her straw wide-brimmed hat.

I sat on the river bank porch swing with my brother

dreaming of capless blondes and redheads

wearing jeans so tight no corn bread and fried catfish

would fit between their seams.

I hugged my Aunt Nellie when I left her.

Aunt Nellie ate a banana a day every day until her husband, Carl,

entered the hospital one more time. The doctor didn’t notice her shortness of breath

and fading color. She drove home from her sister’s climbed the steep stairs to the living room door and searched her purse for the house key.

The neighbors say she staggered and fell on the stoop without a sound.

But when I eat my banana a day every day,

I hear an explosion

and smell half-runners flavored with bacon simmering on the stove.

Florida Beach 2015: A Source of Memories

My Mother Tells Stories

Grandma carried a catfish

wrapped in newspaper

and an empty bird cage

on a bus ride across the river into the mountains.

She must have missed the muddy river

where turtles, frogs, and bottom feeding fish

fed family reunions and summer parties

on her brother’s river bank and pontoon boat:

When she moved Grandpa to Florida

they bought a house between the Ocean

and the River, so close to each you could

see water on both ends of the street.

After her sister moved down

Grandma phoned her every morning

begging her to beach fish

after typing practice.

Wearing Bermuda shorts, sleeveless blouses

straw visors and clip on sunglasses

they sat on short green woven folding chairs

and threw long lines into the waves.

Once grandma caught a shark

on a long pole in a bucket

and kept it on the hook

dragging it up the beach and the block

just to prove she’d caught it.

A neighbor made necklaces

out of shark teeth, wearing one

with a puca shell bracelet.

My mother tells stories.

Scrub jays swoop down from live oaks

grab peanuts out of fingers

fly off to peck ground holes

and bury shells in the sand.

Gators in the Florida Wetlands

During our last Florida outing, we toured a nearby Wetlands, and I took tons of pictures of water birds of all shapes and sizes. More interesting to my Step-Dad and friend Ole, though, were the alligators. According to one hiker, more than 21 were spotted during our late morning stroll.

The pictures I took reminded me of a poem about alligator-mouthed dogs:

The Yard in Oklahoma

A five -foot chain link

around a sage lawn

cut weeds and razor grass

stinging

like the bee hive I mowed over on Thursday.

Two dogs nap on a shaded patio.

A neighbor’s chicken feed

batting for corn

 into the wind

over the fence.

The collie herds the chicken toward the hound.

Looking like alligators

their long snouts open to rows of white

slicing breast

 like grass. 

Florida Sun Rail Tour on Friday the Thirteenth

The Winter Park Station "Launch Pad"

My Three Favorite Train Fans.

 Taking a quick nap before the Shop Tour.

Train on the walk to the "Shop."

 One shot of the safety gear required for our tour.

 One of our favorite tour guides.

Trains in the "shop" for their daily maintenance.

Trip to Florida, Part I--Lift Off from the Cape

On the ride to Mom and Rich's from the airport, we were lucky enough to see this amazing rocket launch from Cape Canaveral.  According to NASA, United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket launched NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission on March 12, my first night in Florida. Launching from Cape Canaveral, the rocket placed the four-satellite constellation into a highly elliptical orbit, beginning a two-year mission to study reconnection in the magnetosphere. Launch occurred at the start of a thirty-minute window at 22:44 local time (02:44 UTC on Friday). NASA explains that the Magnetic Multiscale – or MMS – mission consists of four identical spacecraft which will be used to conduct plasma physics research in the environment of the Earth’s magnetosphere. The mission is intended to help scientists better understand a phenomenon called magnetic reconnection which has been observed in plasmas.

 Amazingly, we were driving near Titusville on the Space Coast at just the right time to see the launch. Rich tuned in the broadcast on the radio and exited off the main highway to get us as close as possible to the take-off. We parked along the river road, turned off our car lights, and watched from beside the car. It felt like the Fourth of July in the line of dark cars and murmuring and expectant spectators. Then the ground seemed to explode with light, and a giant alternate moon rose over the river, leaving a white trail on the water. The display outdid any Grand Finale I'd ever seen. And, because the rocket flew so fast and far, the explosion reached us multiple seconds after the initial blast of light. I was in awe and pleased with such an amazing beginning for my long weekend in the sun.

Kronos and WWI: A Decadent School Night

Today I left school right after classes and went up to Champaign for dinner and a Kronos Quartet concert with friends. I felt a little guilty, but mostly I felt energized and carefee. The concert, Beyond Zero: 1914-1918, commemorated WWI with an Avante-Garde tribute in music, lighting, and film. The film shown behind the quartet amplified the emotions evoked by the discordant modern and post-modern music. By juxtaposing found footage from the war with both recorded music from the period and live music from the quartet, the composers provide a glimpse of a war fought in fields, in trenches, and in the air, but because most of the footage shows some deterioration, the history stored there looks as unstable as the reasons given for the war and its brutality, destruction, and ugliness. The combination of art-forms was awe-inspiring and enlightening. Despite a foggy ride home, I'm quite pleased with my night of decadence and bid you all a good night!

Beating the Calendar

I feel like I spend my life racing between meetings and wonder sometimes how I fit in any classes. This week began badly because we had an Admitted Student Day on Saturday. As the coordinator of the Film Studies Minor, I had to host a table, so I dragged myself out early and set up flyers and a tri-fold and greeted future students and their parents all morning. After some coffee and smiles, I actually started to enjoy myself. Sharing the minor courses and opportunities with teens from all over the state helped me appreciate our program, as well as the extracurricular activities we offer.

Just around the corner is our Central Illinois Feminist Film Festival, for example. A three-day celebration of films by professional and student filmmakers. We'll be showing two feature films: Fish Tank (2009) and Mosquita Y Mari (2014). But we'll also be screening winners of a film contest for student filmmakers from all over the world. While my students took a midterm in one of my classes today, I sorted through the hundreds of submissions we received, impressed to see films from countries from the US and Canada to Sweden, India, and Iran.

So despite my grumbles, meetings can sometimes be a productive way to connect with students and value the world we offer them here--classes, yes, but so much more. Film Festivals, students organizations, film screenings and contests, and opportunities to meet other students with interests just like theirs. In the meantime, I've written a poem about meetings that might help me cope with less energizing hours of business:

Doodle Poll (Calendar View)

She regrets

she’s unable to meet today.

Yesterday

she looked out over a low creek

turning into a heron

snaking between sumacs,

one of the bird people

gliding with starched cotton wings

thinking only

“I’m hungry”

as she dived.

Water Fun

My brother told me all about his new fishing kayak yesterday, an upright soft-seated craft for both slow moving rivers and broad lakes. It's a Hobie, just like the Hobie Cat sailboats we used to see on Lake Huron years ago. Mom had a little Ghost for awhile, a tiny sailor that just fit the three of us. But the Kayak tale my brother told reminded me more of canoe trips.

My favorite canoe trips were the annual Canoe Safari's my college roommate and her husband hosted. We'd rent canoes at the livery and make our way slowly up the river, stopping frequently for a swim or a snack (or dare I say drink). Invariably at least a few of the guys would tip over a buddy's canoe, soaking his lunch and sometimes breaking open a cooler. I can still laugh watching them chase floating cans downstream.

The river was mostly calm, but we did roll through some tiny rapids between islands each year. We usually stopped there for a swim and a ride on the "waves"--except for the year when the nude sunbathers chose those islands for their full body tanning session.

According to my brother, you can pedal this new kayak and even add a sail. Soon I'll be back on my bike and can train for a trip out with my brother, with or without the fishing pole. 

Birdwatching

 I'm having a hard time coming up with a narrative about feeding birds, so I'm sharing a few poems instead. The Mary Poppins' song, "Feed the Birds" is running through my head as I write, and I see an old woman scattering corn for pigeons in a park in my head. Out my window, woodpeckers and cardinals feed on suet and seed cakes, and a flock of robins strips the last crab apple from a tree.

After Spring

A barn swallow nests 

in shelter eaves,

pointed wings

gliding in corners

adding a tough stalk

to gray and black pellets,

    lone

chin hair in cupped mire. 

Bird Watching

Cooper hawks perch on posts

dead trees pile

marked brown pines

crumble in the wind

Scrub jays land

on a backhoe loader

tape-linked pegs surround

blackened palmettos break

turkey buzzards darken an arid field

ivory shards scatter

whitewashed shells

speckle black with gray

A red-tail swoops

from a backyard fence

blackbirds take flight

their red wings locked by talons

Another sparrow

knocks on a picture window

and

falls.

Preserve

Across a sun-whitened thoroughfare

weathered decks overlook narrow swamp grass

drifting to shallow ponds and a grove

of thin trees. On a deck rail a faded sign--

images of water birds with barely

legible names: white ibis, reddish egret,

blue heron (little and great) and wood stork

like the pair walking through brush beside a path.

Long legged chicks between them, they cross the road

forage for insects in spike grass burrows

left by armadillos, and wander toward

the grove where scrub jays

swoop from live oaks, grab

peanuts out of fingers

peck holes in earth

to bury them in the sand.

Walking for Coffee

Mom on the Beach

I'm trying to avoid writing about work here, so I'm torn between trying an ode to coffee and priming myself for a trip to Florida next weekend with stories of Ole, a German exchange student, who will be visiting my mother at the same time as I.

If I write about coffee, I'll have to acknowledge that I just discovered that a thermos works at home or work, as well as on the road. I've used this thermos for several years when I travel, but just started using it as an everyday beverage warmer. Boy is it nice to have hot coffee in my office. Or tea that stays hot for more than ten minutes on my cold desk beside a winter window.

If I write about Ole (now in his 40s!), I'll have to note our joint love of walking, whether it's around my mother's neighborhood with her dog or off the path in the states or abroad. We took long walks in Speedway, Indiana that dulled the pain of a recent breakup.

But the most fun (and most walking) happened in Italy, when Ole joined a friend and me from Germany. We walked miles along busy streets to the catacombs where we walked some more on a Walks of Italy tour. We walked to the metro for a ride to Ostia, where we walked among the Roman ruins, marveling at the remaining tiles. And we walked along the nearby beach, jealous of semi-nude sunbathers in private enclosures. 

During my trip to Florida next week, I'm hoping to take more walks with Ole, my mom, her husband, and their dog. The beach will be public, and the water will be too cool for bikinis, but the company will definitely energize!

Dancing for Laughter

Anyone who knows me knows I strive to be a Jazzercise fanatic, in spite of a schedule that limits my classes to four a week. Part of my obsession is the dancing. Because I'm over 50 and live in a small town, the most dancing I do outside of Jazzercise is in my living room with the blinds closed. Another part though is the people, gals of all ages and professions.

A Jazzercise friend over 70 sends me vegetarian recipes complete with pictures. Because of her, I have a "go-to" black bean torte recipe for cold nights and made a delicious "Baby" for the first time! During a break, I'm planning to back a vegetable pie that looks beautiful upside and down.

Yesterday a couple other Jazzercise friends and I were talking about wardrobe malfunctions. I'd had a particularly busy day so was still wearing my work jewelry when I arrived, and one of the earrings flew off during a dance. After class I put the earrings in a glove and fumbled with a safety pin holding a sweater together. It fell several times before a Jazz gal picked it up and closed it, offering to share it with the class for one of those bad days we all have. I told about a day I fell while carrying a box and split my skirt. The only tool available was a stapler, so I stapled it closed. Another gal told about stapling a hem. But the most fun erupted when someone else told about a malfunction at a friend's graduation. I won't go into detail just in case, but the story brought up a Katherine Hepburn scene from Bringing Up Baby. 

Thank you, Jazzercise!

Reflections on March in Illinois

The snow, ice, slush, and cold have slowed down my dog walks this month. Dolly dog adjusts to strolls on the ice, but when we come back to the driveway, she's ready to run to the back yard for a few spins in the snow. The trails look like a game we played in Michigan. I think it was called the Fox and Geese. As children we cleared out round paths in the snow and designated a fox to chase the remaining geese toward home.

Winters in Michigan were long and frozen, so much so that even fresh out of West Virginia, Mom let my sister and me wear pants under our dresses after seeing our bright red knees between skirt and knee socks. This late Illinois winter brings up memories of snow forts and ice skating on the football field in Eaton Rapids. It also sparked a silly poem:

O Illinois

I’m sending you a Hollywood postcard

a Collateral[1] lush island visor

a Dark City[2] Shell Beach nightmare

a six-year-old’s walk

on packed sand

bending for green sea glass

stretching toward gorged pelicans

climbing a palmetto lined sea wall

when the sun blisters.

In a neighbor’s yard

dogs race around a collapsed pool.

A boxer jumps a fence

landing in soft snow.

---

[1] Collateral. Dir. Michael Mann. Perf. Tom Cruise, Jamie Fox. Paramount, 2004. DVD.

[2] Dark City. Dir. Alex Proyas. Perf. Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly. New Line Cinema, 1998. DVD.