Loose Leaf Notes

1. My dad used to say to my mother, “You look like $100 bucks.”

2. He also used to say (or yell) to us 9 kids, “I want this place looking like a million bucks when your mother gets home!”

3. Change is the name of an old poem I wrote that got published in a few places: Change armory into harmony / Change artillery into art / War into worship / and nuclear into new clear / Change invasion into vision / Conquer into concur / Change bombs into bonds / Change end into mend

4. The jar in the picture above was from a Floyd fundraiser for Ukraine that I covered for the paper, held at the New Mountain Mercantile by the Floyd Mystical Witches.

5. “Our former president must regret the photograph in which he and Putin lean toward each other, holding hands, and affection shines in the Russian’s eyes, a moment of bonding. Trump is uncomfortable around dogs and children, odd for a politician, and I can’t recall him with his arm around his youngest boy or his grandkids, or petting a dog or holding a cat; he once claimed to enjoy grabbing women but you never see him with his arm around his wife, but he shows real warmth toward Vlad and it’s not to his political benefit, holding hands with a man capable of bombing a maternity hospital.” Garrison Keillor

6. Check out THIS cool book bench in Ukraine.

7. When my friend Sally dances to Mustang Sally is HERE.

8. “Your friend Jim Best” just popped up in my Facebook feed but I read “Your Best friend Jim…”

9. The few pictures I have are like contraband because Joe doesn’t have a camera or phone.  I have a few sent from his Appalachian Trail hiking partner Scott’s phone and some from a random hiker who has the same crocs as Joe. I guess crocs are like a hiker’s slippers worn at day’s end. More from Joe At the AT HERE. 

10. I’ve been living like a bachelor. (But binging Ray Bradbury’s Theater on some far out channel called Comet instead of ESPN).

11. I should clean off the papers on my desk more often. I just did and found this: Moon Cast – Its lighted lure catches my attention / I’m reeled in by the hook of it phosphorescent crescent.

12. Start at the end / and take a number / Walk through walls / or walk on water / Become the air / for others to breathe / A memory that floats / like a fragrance… Read The Final Leaving:  How To HERE.

13. You can literally get advice and pep talks from kindergarteners by calling 707-998-8410.

_________Thirteen Thursday