Last Call for September...

Don't look too close, because this calendar is wrong.  

Whatever Septembery stuff you wanted to get in, now's the time. Whatever I wanted to get out of my 40's, now's the time. I have one week left before the odometer turns over. One week left to be in my forties! I have mostly ignored the fact that the 40's are ending, but I have a late-hour impulse to suddenly grab the bedpost and hold on tight as I can to keep from getting dragged into the next decade.


I entered my 40's with such promise. I was turning cartwheels, and vowed I would never stop. That would be my signature antic --the thing that would show that I was still young. But ten years later, I admit I've lost all desire to turn cartwheels.

But ---it's not like I've been letting the grass grow under my feet. The 40's saw me some good times. I learned to play the fiddle (sort of --well, barely.). I watched my babies grow from being four and six years old to being teenagers. I got my second master's degree. I finally realized my life-long dream to visit the southwest AND Seattle. I also traveled my soul inside and out, while divorcing, and then re-marrying a certain jazz musician.

Despite the upheavals, or maybe because of them, I made progress in the areas of self-expression. I went from producing a single sheet newsletter called The Soul Flyer, which I left inside local coffee shops, to creating this blog. Now the irony is I'm contemplating making a print zine, which would be like going full circle.

I got maybe two things published online. Wrote a bunch more things that got rejected, but  --I ain't quit yet. Maybe my 50's will be the decade when my writing takes off. I would like that.  

Leaving on a midnight train

A week or so ago I was driving on a Saturday and this song came on the radio. And the next thing I knew I was gesticulating and waving my hands and telling the story along with Gladys in my car. Her voice makes everything she's singing seem true, true, true. And the image of the train leaving in the dark of night gets me every time. I don't want to think about what happens when they get there, or how things might look in the harsh light of day. How his world might be hot and sticky and smelly.  How she might find herself saying, "What the hell am I doing in this podunk backwater?!"  As long as they're on that train, and it's still nighttime, their future is hopeful.

As long as the Pips keep up their groove-icular moves, everything will be alright.   

Thank you for the Hint, Heloise!

When I was a kid and was eating breakfast or lunch by myself or whatever, and needed something to read, I'd grab the Hutch paper sitting around and after exhausting the comics, would find myself reading the column "Hints from Heloise". 

I thought Heloise was a weird name, especially for someone who wasn't totally old, and to top it off, this Heloise had this spooky white hair, like she WAS an old lady, except with a younger face. 

What made her even more spooky was the vast knowledge she had.  She knew all these secret formulas and solutions, applications of baking soda for magical stain removal, ways to keep potatoes from going bad. By what sorcery did she come by these tricks?

She was a sage, but I was too young to avail myself of her wisdom, having no interest in things like freshening the laundry or hard-boiling eggs so that the yolks stayed centered.

But the other day, I needed to know an easy and safe way to remove wallpaper glue from the wall, after I had torn off years and layers of wallpaper, and lo and behold, there was Heloise online, advising me to use plain ol' vinegar mixed with water. I tried it and it worked!

Here is the before: 

Here is the after:

The picture on the internet shows Heloise with the same spooky white hair, and little else that has changed. Has she not aged? She must have a secret way around that too!

Fall's A'Comin'

Hey --Did you know?-- They have pumpkin spice M & M's now. Gosh, in my day, it was either peanut or plain.  

Outside my Price Chopper, inside gigantic cartons, strange breeds of squash are awaiting shoppers of squash, who take their reptilian forms back to their kitchen tables and work them into magical autumn displays, disregarding their resemblance to Hydra, the mythological water beast.       .

So many varieties of squash, so little time....