Loose Leaf Notes

1. Last Thursday Kim, who blogs at In My Words, wrote about a thrift shop that literally sells unclaimed baggage items HERE.

2. Another blogger wrote about finding a dyson vacuum at a thrift shop for $25 and said it was the best vacuum cleaner out there.  I commented that I would try to remember dyson when my Hoover “bites the dust.”

3. No Monkey Business about it. I just received this from Propertius Press:  Dear Colleen Redman, Thank you for sending us “Objects are Closer Than They Appear”. We love it and would like to publish it as a stand-alone collection…”

4. The first order of business is for me to be able to consistently and correctly pronounce and spell Propertius.

5. Propertius: Sextus Propertius was a Latin elegiac poet of the Augustan age. He was born around 50–45 BC in Assisium and died shortly after 15 BC.Propertius’ surviving work comprises four books of Elegies (Elegiae). He was a friend of the poets Gallus and Virgil and, with them, had as his patron Maecenas and, through Maecenas, the emperor Augustus. Although Propertius was not as renowned in his own time as other Latin elegists, he is today regarded by scholars as a major poet.

6. Now we hoard toilet paper and wear masks on planes / We think every splinter could be a Lyme carrying tick / We miss having a president like Franklin Roosevelt / and because my dad fought in WWII / and saw the holocaust at Buchenwald first hand / he drank too much back when PTSD was known as “shell shocked” / and ending fascism was a worthy cause… Read Now and Then in its entirety HERE.

7. The above poem started with worry that I’d run out of onions, a staple for me to cook/sauté at the start of each meal. When I posted the poem on Facebook, a reader thought I wrote it in honor of National Onion Day, which is was that day.

8. “What made last Tuesday better than average…If I were a professional wrestler, the pandemic would’ve been rough on me, being a 300-lb. guy with big tattoos and weird hair and nothing to do but walk his Pekingese, but for a writer, isolation is an opportunity. And I found a young couple to join me for dinner. Two musicians pursuing nonmusical careers that engage them, both of them cheerful and looking ahead, and I ordered oysters and a salad and they ordered a humongous chunk of meat, which might’ve been a flank of antelope or the left cheek of a cougar, which they split, and, just in case their mothers inquired, a serving of broccolini…” Garrison Keillor

9. Have I mentioned my merman lately? See HERE.

10. Happiness for its own sake is an elusive goal, and seeking it can lead to unhappiness. Happiness just happens!

11. When My Flip Flops HERE. 

12. With no reverse / we can’t go back / to when we spent our bus fare / on cotton candy / I walked all the way home / in broken flip-flops / Five miles in summer / and late for supper… Read Day in the Park in its entirety HERE.

13. Hillbillyz, Chillbillyz? No, it’s ThrillBillyz and we had a rockin’ good time dancing to their music at Dogtown Saturday night. There is no Frill on the Billiz just good ol’ rock and roll with a generous portion of Grateful Dead! Nuff said. Go HERE to see the fun.

__________Thirteen Thursday