Loose Leaf Notes

1. My 4-year old grandson Liam has told some wild tales that sometimes involve imaginary friends. He also makes comments about life that seem beyond his years.  When I ask him how he knows what he knows, he says, “God tells me things.”

2. I try to explain to his 7 year old brother Bryce that Liam is not lying but speaking poetically from his imagination.

3. Because of his scrappy bull-in a-china-shop ways, we used to call Liam “Bam Bam,” but now we call him Shaman.  

4. “Everyone should have a story written about them when they are 80,” I said to Joe over the weekend while working on a story about an 80 year old woman hunter who built a hunting stand on her property with a wheelchair ramp for the handicapped.

5. The Paradox: Too often, I’m like a car out of gas, planning for trips that I don’t have the energy to take. I’d like to enjoy being idle, but I’m intimidated by a looming sense of dead end. I’m tired and don’t want to write, but writing is what makes me feel better.

6. When THIS poem of mine recently appeared in the Floyd County Moonshine Literary Journal, I read it aloud to see how it sounded and realized that I didn’t need the last line.  I was about to delete it from the poem when I realized that, although it didn’t need to be read aloud, it needed to be seen.  So, what do you do with a line in poem that needs to be seen but not read?

7. I just survived a week of bronchitis and a week of rain with a couple of days with no power.

8. It was also a week of pomp, pope and circumstance that made John Boehner cry and gave us all some good reminders about serving the poor and each other, facing up to climate change,  guarding against fundamentalism (seeing things as black or white), and acknowledging the blood on our hands as the number one arms trader in the world.

9. Although I think it’s a good sign that Boehner resigned because he didn’t want to fight the far-right obstructionist element in his party anymore, I would have rather he stood up to them than get out of their way.

10. Oh, no.  It just started raining again and our local weather man keeps saying, “Turn around. Don’t drown.”  One Facebook friend posted a sign that said, “Noah Called.”  Another said, “Anybody got a snorkel?”

11. I just had to click on THIS article because of the quirky title, “John Boehner Says He Does Yoga.” One of the comments implied that it was Irish Yoga: falling off the barstool.

12. Read about the break-up of the earth and moon HERE. 

13. And check out THIS up-periscope umbrella with a view.

______Thirteen Thursday