Loose Leaf Notes

1. Made in the Shade etymology: Possibly from a children’s rhyme: “ice-cold lemonade, made in the shade, stirred with a spade, by an old maid.”

2. My friend Fred wrote a letter-to-the-editor directed to our Trump- supportive Congressman about the loss of environmental protections under Trump.  The night after reading the letter I dreamt that I saw Fred at a party and went up to thank him for his letter. He didn’t remember it. In the dream, I went back to look up the letter in the paper and discovered that it was dated 1997!

3. The personal is political and the political is people – Part of a poem read by my poet friend Mara at the third annual Little River Poetry Festival in Floyd.

4. Everyone was waving hand fans to stave off the heat at the Poetry Festival.  In the evening, we had gnats and in the day we had butterflies.

5. After reading from Packing a Suitcase for the Afterlife and some poems from Muses Like Moonlight as old as 20 years, I realized that sex and death have been two major topics of my poetry.  I even have a couple about taxes. See HERE.

6. I read a poem from the mid ‘90s called “Steam August and the Hose Stud” and then read one written two decades later that got some laughs. Listen HERE.

7. I don’t register emojis like some people have issues with the face recognition disorder called prosopagnosia.

8. I don’t follow sports, but I follow politics, only now I don’t think of it as politics, left and right, as much as what’s right and wrong.

9. Republicans are playing a game of “Survivor” to Trump’s You’re Fired” reality show.

10. The ocean is too big / The fishbowl’s too small / I’m afraid to be abandoned / but want to be alone – More of My Fish Story HERE.

11. For some reason when my grandsons play the card game Go Fish, they do it using English accents: “ave you got any Queens?”

12. I’m more of a birdwatcher than a cat or dog owner.

13. My Day Job HERE.

________Thirteen Thursday