Peg Duthie's Blog, page 36

the tomatoes like the library

So, those tomato cuttings from October? They're still doing well -- so much that I spent part of my Saturday sanitizing stakes to bring inside, as the vines had become too long and heavy to creep up the wall without help:



There are also two generations of Christmas pepper plants in that corner (transplanting the trio of seedlings I hadn't placed among friends was another finally-got-to item on the list). I gave up on the pot of thyme.
I chucked a couple of bulbs into the compost pail and sliced open a third.

The scent of the tomato plants intensifies as they are handled. It was strong enough to disturb the BYM, on the other side of the wall.



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the present's so bright...

This just in from the National Weather Service (via @NashSevereWx):

PLEASE BE CAREFUL WHEN TRAVELING EARLY THIS MORNING...ESPECIALLY ON BACK ROADS...BRIDGES AND OVERPASSES. ALSO...HAVE YOUR SUNGLASSES HANDY TO DEAL WITH GLARE FROM SUNSHINE ON THE EARLY MORNING SNOW.

We don't get much snow here. It started falling late last night. The sun's fully in the sky now, but most of my block is still asleep (or at least not out and about). Some creatures are watchful, though:



And some projects were probably going to be deferred to another weekend anyhow:



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RAH!

"RAH!" is the name of the third movement of John Muehleisen's Eat Your Vegetables!, which the Tufts University Chorale performed at my church yesterday morning. This snapshot is of them chant-spelling R-U-T-A-B-A-G-A:



Yesterday also brought my first rejections and acceptances of the year.

I'm the featured poet at 7x20 this week.

Time continues to feel multi-layered to me -- multi-versed, multi-listastic (both in terms of to-do jottings and back-and-forth swayings), multifarious in its guises, multibarreled in its throwing of curveballs. I am still learning about what can be held together and what must be allowed to disappear.



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"a version of your face ... the ghost of mine ..."

[Subject line from Dawn Potter's Happy New Year post.]





It has been a hectic yet happy holiday season for me, and it isn't quite over yet. I haven't put away the stocking holders or taken down the wreath. A friend and I waited until yesterday afternoon to open the presents we sent to each other, when we could watch each other opening the packages on Skype. I am snacking on summer sausage (a food gift) as I type.

While 2014 isn't (and won't) be completely boxed up and neatly sequestered into the basement or closet, 2015 and its tasks are very much here. Yesterday's accomplishments included purchasing the accordion file for this year's business receipts and starting this year's submissions log (optimistically labeling a new spreadsheet "Acceptances 2015").

I also bought pots and marbles for the bulbs that spent this past week on the living room floor (after two months outside, first on a truck bed and then a front porch):



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for SFPA members

My Rhysling-eligible poems. Thank you for considering them.

On a tangential note, this may be my next author photo (if not the one from two posts ago):



:)

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hello, neighbor

...of a sort. William Ackland was a son of Adelicia Acklen, who led quite a life in Nashville some 150-ish years ago.



There are three Picassos on display in one of the galleries, but my favorite painting in the collection is Rose Piper's Slow Down Freight Train:



On the opposite wall, there's a recently restored Rousseau painting of Paris. That captured my attention as well.

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shining strands

2015:
firmly rooted to the floor
yet floating


(Playing within a thicket of mirrors at the Asheville Art Museum. Album here.)

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continuing education

I tried some defrosted durian tonight. The $8 I paid for it falls into the experience tax column, I'm sorry to say -- I couldn't get past the smell. I have taken the fruit and its container outside to the bin. I have taken the trash bag holding the plastic wrapper that was around the container out to the bin, too. I am burning candles and I am about to brush my teeth, even though I've since nibbled on a lavender-kirschwasser cookie and sipped some wine.

The day started out with a different kind of mayhem: a battery-powered fish given to the BYM for Christmas suddenly went bonkers, even though it wasn't near water or the dog or any other motion-provoking substance or being. I reached for the eyeglass-repair-kit screwdriver. I tried dangling it in mid-air. I dunked it in water. It's still twitch-ticking its tail incessantly nineteen hours later, even though it's supposed to go to sleep after five minutes. I knew that the last Monday of the year would have its share of flailing, but sheesh...



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on the third day of Christmas

...the Titans were predictably ending their season with a whimper, and I had an errand that couldn't wait anyhow, so I picked up my camera and walked around the 'hood for a while:



( Read more... )

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reentry isn't always easy

... but I wasn't expecting the back spasms during yoga this morning. Those were new. (The flare of foot cramp was not, alas.) Fortunately, it was a very small class (four people), and silent (by design), so I didn't feel conspicuous easing into the poses I could and modifying (or simply dropping) the ones I sensed were too risky for today's practice. (I also managed one of my better toe-stands ever. Yay!)



The stiff back also made scrubbing the kitchen floor more challenging than it normally would have been. (The dog planting herself in the way is customary.) I took some time to rip up some old shirts and linens to use as rags, which was satisfying (especially the destroying of a pillowcase where I hadn't been happy about the seller's shenanigans, but backing out of the transaction would have been more trouble than it was worth. I did like the fabric and design of the set, and it served me well for something like fifteen years, but still, there was that frisson of pleasure in casting out what was left.)

Last night I sang lessons and carols with a subset of First UU's chamber choir at Riverbend Maximum Security Prison. There was both literal and figurative warmth there (well-heated chapel, hugs between inmates and ministers...) but there was also an instance of institutional rudeness as well as broader reminders of it being a place where weariness and mistrust -- with reason -- seem to be in far greater supply than hope. Even with reminders every damn day about the messed-up-ness of U.S. law enforcement and penal systems, it's something to wait at and walk through all the checkpoints. To surrender one's ID. To be thanked for showing up because there would be no one else visiting.

One singer mused afterward about the balance that we must wrestle with. To paraphrase: "I was watching the faces of two of the men when we were singing 'Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming,' and of how seldom beauty must be in their lives, and yes, you know they're in there because they've killed people, and that matters, but you also have to think about how to help them so that they can return to society, and beauty is essential to that."

Nashville police chief Steve Anderson has been making headlines in a good way, with nearly 7200 tweets, Facebook links, and the like of his Christmas message to the department and a reply to a critic. (Anderson earned my admiration earlier this year for speaking up against a judicial good old boy's mishandling of domestic violence cases.)

Yesterday's mail delivery included a slew of cards (I was pleased to have so much company in the "getting it postmarked by the 24th will be good enough" ark [*]), and today a friend (who will next see me early next year) asked me what I wanted for Christmas. Maybe I won't pitch the wreath into the brush pile just yet. :)

(* And honestly, if you feel like exchanging greetings with me, I do that year round. No need to hitch it to a holiday central to a religion I don't happen to belong to, though I do like the glitter [dodges glare from the other biped in the household, who was brushing it out of his stubble two evenings ago]. I do need to thank the post offices [yes, plural] with cookies, baking being another must-do item on this weekend's list...)

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