AN ADVENTURE BACK IN FIORELLA'S COLLEGE DAYS

                                                      An Adventure Between Acts WHICH YOUR GIRL CAN"T PULL TOGETHERS  TOGETHER)

In the intermission after the first act of Austin's version of Die Fledermaus way back when, your girl strolled out into the the lobby to take some medicine. Retrieving a shot glass from her purse and filling it from the water fountain, she wandered a table stacked with Fledermaus T-shirts while she fumbled for her pill box.

     "Would you like to buy a Fledermaus T -shirt?" a very earnest-looking young man sitting behind the table asked.

     "No. thanks," Fio said as her pill did a flip-flop and rolled into of the the rug.

      The young man, his, his eyes wide in alarm, came from behind his table.

    "Are all right? Will you be okay?

     Fio laughed. "Oh yeah, it's just vicodin and I still have the other half of the pill with me,  then took mercy on him and decided to explain. "I take half a vicodin  after the first act so my toes won't bother me with the rest of the opera." She grinned, "But if you find the other half, it's all yours. Enjoy!". 

I winked and turned it back to the auditorium.

END OF STORY

WILL DO BETTER NEXT TIME

"But if the find the other half, it's all years. Enjoyi'" I winked and double timed it back to the auditoriem.

 

TIME OUT

 My eyes are blurey. PRAY FOR ME!

Going Through Old Papers Again

     

             Fiorella was the wild child of the family, as her father once informed her. After all, she wore red Crocs in public, dove a Miata, supposedly ate steak so rare it mooed, dangled gypsy hoops from her earlobes,  moved with the music in the supermarket, and sang along in harmony.... if she could find it.

              Your girl likes fire so much that she put TWO fireplaces in the house that she designed....and she longs for it now, but (sigh) had to sell it when Husband died. I've heard that the new owners have cut down most of the trees trees. 😔

 Fire is surprisingly fragile, which is what Fio learned when she had to spend half an hour with a long match, two short matches, the stove burner, a candle, and the morning newspaper trying to  start a fire in the fireplace.

Nutrition is in the eye of the beholder. Every time Fiorella turns around, an old villain has been been redeemed and a former hero discredited. Thus red wine is in now and red meat is out.

Fio's maternal grandfather is supposed to have said that the difference between the Poles and the Galitsians is that the when a Pole makes money, he buys a showy horse, but when a Galitsian makes money, he buys a cow so the children can have fresh milk. (You can pretty well guess which ethnicity my family claimed. In fact, my father's father was so besotted with the nutritional value of milk that it is still the preferred  beverage  of not only Your Girl, but her five prenatal cousins.)

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

    `

MORE POEMS FROM TIMES PAST

 

      How about a poem called Cough, Snort, and Wheeze?

        Her dreams are bad

        And when she wakes,

       Her throat is raw,

       Her left ear aches

       Her mood is cranky,

       Her brain is soggy 

       Her body's hurting 

       Her movements loggy          

   

     As you can guess it?

     Fiorella's sick,

     And she darn well better

     Get well quick!                               Posted by Fiorella Plum at 8:53 am, January 31, 2009 

___________________________________________________________________________ 

Maternal Eternal

   As Fiorella was putting away groceries, she picked up a ten pound bag of birdseed and automatically cradled it in her arms to distribute the weight. Immediately a pang of longing raced through her. The birdseed felt exactly like a baby in arms. And it's a wonder she didn't start lactating. 

Fio adores babies, which is a little odd  because her mother didn't. "I prefer children when they're older and you can teach them things," Mother explained.

   Your girl likes people whatever, but she still has a special feeling for babies.

___________________________________________________________________________

      Nursing Home Visit  

     I am so tempted not to visit him,

The zombie in my father's form-- 

He does not know me

He does not miss me,    

He is not my father

     But oh, he is, he is                  

____________________________________________________________________________

SOME OLDIES

 Please forgive Fiorella for her absence and enjoy today's offering:

    

 The mothers in my neighborhood

      Are skilled with stake and twine--

      To brace the wilting saplings straight 

       And tie the erring vine

       

     The mothers in my neighborhood

      Are skilled with shears and string

      To prune the wayward leaning twig

      And nip the hands of spring

_____________________________________________________________

                  Dieting

        I'll tell my story straight--

        I'm carrying too much freight:

        Maybe I'll lose some weight

        If I stopped stepping up to the plate--

        Oops--dinner bell--too late!

____________________________________________________________

         Ding dong, the book is done!

         I'd like to say that it was fun,

         But I bet that you could smell a rat

         'Cuz I'd be lying through a my hat--

          I rote and read and rote again

          I beat my brain and cursed my pen

          I yelled and screamed and threw a fit--

         But now that I am done with it --

              Yes, of course, I've begun

               To write myself another one!

        

AN OVERUSED POEM?

 Hooray! Fio walked the neighborhood cul-de-sac this afternoon, and IT WAS WARM! Guess that means the dregs of winter are over. Now if she can just get those teeny little black bugs out of her bathroom sink.....

This is a poem Dorothy rote long ago, and don't ask who "she is" is because Fio was still living at home back then:

                              Suicide

     Ah, Dorothy, your choice was much too rash:

There are other options I could recommend

Than poison, razors, nooses, guns, or gas

To bring about a graceful, private end

    The suffocation of the spirit's one--

On shallow breaths. hope is inclined to smother,

An assault on the heart can get it done

The strangulation of the soul's another

    Then you still could walk about, though dead--

 A lumbering, slack-jawed zombie, hollow-eyed

You'd grin and bow and nod your foolish head

With no one guessing you're a suicide

     Don't think that, knowing any would be grieved

     My own experience is, they'd be relieved

I've given you this poem before, but it can bare repeating

I AM SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO LONELY!

SURVIVER

 Fio isn't feeling good and she still can't find her new blue shoes. They couldn't just walk away, could they? On the other hand, Daughter-In-Law is promising her more salmon in the future. Whoopee!

It's a windy day in Austin, but the roses outside the front door are holding their own, which is more than Fiorella can say about herself. Ah well, there's always tomorrow......Fio hopes.

Your girl is wearing her father's high school shirt today. It's white with "OSCEOLA MILLS HIGH SCHOOL" written across the front of it, and the size gets tighter on Fio every time she washes it.  Hmm, Maybe Fiorella's grand children will be able to wear it. 

Hooray! Son L found Fio's blue sued shoes on the back porch where your girl had put them to dry after getting them dunked in the mud in one of Texas's rare thunder storms.

 

            Survivor

My heart is like a little boat

That sails upon the sea

Rocked by waves and ocean float 

Swamped by adversity

But still the staunchest little boat

That ever sailed the sea

 

 

UPS AND DOWNS

How is it that Fiorella can find her purse in a second, but can't find her big blue clod-hopper shoes when she needs them?

Your girl and her driver went to H-E-B this afternoon to buy the grocery store out and chat about the problems of the world.  Fio also picked up two pages of stamps because she takes care of a fair number of the bills.

Did Fiorella tell you that daughter-in-law baked Fio TWO nice salmon slices for her yesterday as a surprise? WHOOPEEEEE! This was especially interesting because your girl's mom and dad never ate fish--your girl's late husband was the one who lured her to the glory of salmon. Now if Fio can find her good blue clodhopper shoes.....

This may be one of Fiorella's poems you've heard before, but here goes:

                       

 

                               At the Beach 

                   At dawn I walk the ocean's edge

                   To find my place along the shore

                    The place where I will sit all day

                     And sculpt my kingdom made of dreams

                     Until the evening tide returns

                      And sink my castle built on sand

 

 

 

 

 

PLANING AHEAD----OR IS IT JUST DREAMING?

 Did you know that Fiorella, under another name, had two romances published? And that she was working on number three when her husband died, her whole world fell apart, she was marooned by a vicious snow storm, and she had to put together a new life and live with one of her adult children?

Your girl has about four romances in the back of her closet that she was working on at the time and she took them all with her when she sold her house. She'd like to work on them again, but doesn't know how or whom to contact. Then there's Covid and her constant transportation problem that may strike again. But what the heck--maybe, just maybe, Fiorella can make her life come back together again.

One thing Fio would like to do to have her own dog again again--a big dog like Sonia the Mastiff or Wendy the Weimaraner. (Jo-Jo, the stuffed panda that ,your girl bought at WalMart for companionship a couple of years back, isn't very talkative).

But, of course, Fio won't going to be able to get anywhere unless she has responsible transportation......

                                                       Anything but Mrs. Fletcher!!!show

 

FIORELLA'S FAVORITES and SOME NEW ONES

America, bow your head in shame

Ethnic cleansing is the name of the game--

     Clear out the black, the yellow, the brown

     Run gays and their kindred out of town

     Ridicule the halt, the blind, the lame

     And do unto those who sorrow the same--

     Jail the actors, the artists, the press

     Silence the women and make them a jest

     Reject the migrants or throw them in jail

     Allow graft and cronyism to prevail--

In short, go after anyone who

Doesn't talk or think or look like you--

An automaton of self-fed hate

Which no force on earth can ameliorate

   __________________________ 

                L'envoi to "Blind"

     In the theater of the mind

     The unremitting reels unwind,

     Horrors ceaselessly replay,

     Obscuring now for yesterday--

            In the theaters of the mind

             Eyes that see too much go blind

     __________________________________

 Why do I have trouble 

 Finding a new rhyme?

 The letters fly about me

 Every day and time--

     But where is the dart

     That will envelope my heart?

    ____________________________________

Yes, Fio is down

How are you?

Hope you are better

And not at all blue

_______________________________________

OOOOPS, Fio doesn't have a temp, but she feels like she's a little sicky PRAY FOR HER.....

A MEDIOCRE MESSAGE

Because she can decorate them, Fiorella's favorite holidays are Christmas, Easter, and Halloween. Yes, she's got piles of leftover crepe paper, scissser-snips, yarn rolls, and the like stacked in her unused sewing closet, so of course, your girl is planning and plotting for Easter. It's the same every year of course: paper eggs and rabbits. but Fio usually adds a few more delights.

By the way, Fiorella had a great time going through her bedroom, dusting off the cat hairs and rearranging all her pill bottles. She collects them all, you know. Someone is bound to need them some time or ever.

 That's all for today. Fiorella can't think of anything interesting to tell you about, except that one of Son L's little pugs sprinkled the hallway today, and we all had to walk carefully.

To show you what a bad day Fio is having, she accidentally jerk her computer out of the wall and couldn't remember how to put it together again. Luckily, Son L was still awake and was kind enough to fix it.

 

TRYING TO GET BACK IN THE HABIT AGAIN

 Some problems with the delivery again, but Son L is working on it. Meanwhile, your girl will stare at the pale blue of her bedroom wall which is mostly covered by notices and pictures.  Yes, Fiorella is like that, and her mother would not approve, but her room is small and her bed is a bit large. Whatever, it works for Fio--and the sweet white cat who cuddles beside her, purrs, and demands to be petted.

Obviously, your girl is not pleased that she's having to turn in her computer again, and she's wondering if it's days are over. Meanwhile, she'll stare at the five bottles of pills lined up across her chest of drawers and pray. She's cleaned up her bureau too--maybe that will do the trick. 

You should see what Fiorella is wearing today: black shoes, beige slacks,  a bright orange shirt with white "LONGHORNS" marching across the bosom and down. Ah--those were the days. (Oh! Did Fio leave out the red, blue, and long-sleeved beige jacket on top?)

Your girl is telling you that her right knee is in trouble again? Fio was the culprit: she slipped when she was getting out of bed and bunged herself up. 

Sorry to be so dull today. OH, FIO DID SEND SOME MONEY OUT TO UCRAINE THIS AFTERNOON!

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                           

Some Oldies but Goodies

 EATING FOR ECSTASY WAY BACK WHEN

Our dogs turned up their noses at the most highly touted animal food, but would happily gulp down every scrap that came off the table.....which led your girl to the inescapable conclusion that what we eat is canine junk food. Meanwhile, she kept on scarfing down fried chicken and french fries, praying that sooner or later someone would discover the medicinal benefits of grease.

Fiorella has been known to eat potatoes raw. It's genetics: her mother used to munch them... and she also ate her hamburger meat raw. That--shudder--your girl can't bring herself self to do.

To further confound you, Mom liked her steak well-done, while Fio has always preferred her steak rare.

As a child, Fio was taught that butter, being a dairy product, was good for her. Then she read about saturated fats and switched to margarine. Then, a couple of years later, she read that she should should toss her margarine and buy butter because of something-or-other else about the fats, but the food police keep changing their minds so much that Fio gave up and ate what she wanted to: Fiorella drinks a lot of milk and has very dense bones with not a trace of osteoporosis--although she does moo a lot and swishes flies with her tail. 😉

How do you know you're all grown up?

       STAGE ONE: teenage supermarket clerks stop hitting on you, 

       STAGE TWO:  they address you as "Ma'am." 

       STAGE THREE: they start hitting on your daughter.

GRUMBLE, GRUNT, GROWL!

 New problems for Fiorella today: she has to get someone to drive her to  the place she gets her blood checked out every week, and also needs to see a doctor about her right kneecap, the one that got injured when she was getting out of bed and slipped on the cords about two weeks back.

Hooray for Fio! She spent at least three hours in the bathroom and in her bed (after it was made) going through her collection of year-old lipsticks, powder, etc, and winnowed it down to at least one fourth the original size. 

Your girl will admit it. She's very, very down right now. There's no one to talk to and nothing to do...except pet the sweet white cat who has just wandered into Fio's room and will probably wander out to the kitchen food bowl any second.

WHAT IN THE WORLD CAN FIORELLA DO? Everybody has a must-do but her!

 Fio is scared: She's still getting messages that read "PAYMENT FAILED, REVIEW YOUR SUBSCRIPTION NOW TO KEEP YOUR DATA PROTECTED.

HEALING BIT BY BIT!

Fiorella has said it before and will say it a gain: if Trump becomes president, he will continue to be chummy with Putin and allow him to swallow Ukraine. THEN ALASKA!

In the meantime, let's do what we can keep our country together.

Changing the story, your girl has torn into her ancient writings to see which ones are usable  Yep, she's casting her eye on the bushels of half-finished stories that are stuck in her drawers and above the high ceilings of the windows. YIPPIE! 

Whatever, Fiorella wasn't flushed down the toilet when everything went out of wack like she thought she would. Nor did she lose her purse and card which she almost did.

See you tomorrow!

 

JOYFUL!

 Friend Paula, who lives far, far away, called Fio on the phone this morning to make sure your girl was okay, and we had a nice long talk. Thank you, Paula, for caring. 💗💗💗

Are you ready for a couple of poems again? They're probably repeats because Fiorella is still shaken from her fear of losing everything in her computer.

       ALONE

So many know my name and yet so few

Know me: I'm more and less than what I seem

To be, called friend by many people who

 Know me as I know night by chance moonbeam

     Chameleon-like I change my psychic skin

Depending whom I'm with and what the day

Unending fitting, never filling in,

Amending how I look and and what I say--

     Unclothed and mute, inside myself I know

My soul complete, its multiplicity

A whole; but outside actorlike I show

The role I choose, or you assign to me

    And as no one can know my my entity,

    I know no one, but only simile

HELLO, HELLO, HELLO! FIO'S COMPUTER IS WORKING AGAIN!

 Your girl will fill you in on all the news tomorrow...if her son's pugs don't slobber all over her with joy😀

 

                                      

I  LOST THE WHOLE STORY OF MY MOTHER'S LIFE, WHICH CAN ONLY MEAN SHE DIDN'T WANT ME TO TELL IT.  SEE YOU TOMORROW!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   When my mother was a girl, she used to paddle a canoe across the lac=ake to visit her friends, She lived on the Portage Lake outside of Akron, and the water was her highway.

    Sometimes a storm would come up and the black clouds would roll across the lake, the angry water swaying her bark. Then she would lean low in the canoe and paddle more strongly because she didn't know how to swim.

     Mother was in enough deep water anyway. As a child, her appearance went against her, A tall girl, she was expected to be as mature as her appearancd, and her dark coloring frightened her mother's people. "Schwartze Augen," her grandmother would say, gesturing against the evil eye/My mother's father was an alcoholic, a man's man, but a woman;s nightmare. The family lived a nomadic life, moving all arond the lakes wherever "Pop could pick up a job for a while. His older brother had died of a burst appendix when he was fourteen. His younger brother was as alcoholic by the time he hit high school. Her mother was bitter.

My Mother's eighth grade class photograph says it all. Mom, her black hair newly cut inyo a flapper bob, stands curiously apart from the rest of the students--beside them, but tilting her head awaw as if she is looking at the wotld from a different angle.

School was hher sancturay, She graduated as valedictorian of her hgh school and college ck=lasses. Then she taught for a couple of years and married my father, who did not drink,  required at the time, she  quit working when she became pregnant.

Mother didn't like sweet talk. I remember taking her to visit

      

 

 

 

 

NOT MUCH TIME TODAY----

ALONE

 

(A POEM FROM 1995)

 

   So many know my name and yet so few

Know me; I'm more and less than what I seem

To be, called friend by many people who

Know me as I know night by chance moonbeam...

   Chameleon-like I change my psychic skin

Depending whom I'm with and what the day,

Unending fitting, never fitting in,

Amending how I look and what I say,

   Unclothed and mute, inside myself I know

My soul complete, its multiplicity

A whole; but outside actor-like I show

The role I choose, or you assign to me

     And as no one can know my entity,

      I know no one, but only simile

LOVE ENDURES

 Another poem from times past--your girl wrote it with her heart and ran it in Suburban Notebook, a sixteen page newspaper she wrote in the 1980s.

                       Love Endures

    How long lasts love? Past tomorrow's dawn?

Past hurt and anger, betrayal, desertion, death?

This weakness of the heart--will it be strong

Enough to last the years, yet be weak yet?

   Love ripens in the lusty sun of youth

And is consumed, but blossoms ever-sweet

To be the springtime baby's first-spooned fruit,

The sustenance of summer, winter's treat

     The Music of the song survives the singer

And echoes of itself divinity--

Thus Love and Beauty, Truth and Courage linger

Long past their actors in eternity--

     How long lasts love? My love is yours

     As long as Love endures, yes, Love endures

 WHAT EVERYONE KNOWS

    I turned right at Billy's pool hall. then left at God's Lighthouse and right again at Kathy's Kwality wigs, then drove down the road through the low water crossing and turned right at the dead end, putting me in the faculty parking lot of Little Whitetail High School where I'll be teaching a duel-credit-college class  this fall. The weather is nasty, but I was in luck: an empty space in the first row, near the back door to the school was empty

     I eased into the space, half opened my door, and turned to gather my equipment from the seat beside me--purse, umbrella, satchel of books and first-day hand-outs.

      "Ma'am." What sounds like  the voice of God boomed from above my half-open door. Startled, I jerk around, only to have my vision blocked by a large male torso. The head and shoulders were so close that was hard for me to see his face, but his voice continues in slow, measured syllables. "Ma'am,  you've parked in my secretary's place. These two spaces are for the principle and the secretary."

     My head bobbed like it was on a string as I look around to see if  there was something I missed. 

    "There isn't any sign," I protested.

     His voice went deep, "Everyone knows."

     I glanced out of my back window to see where else I might park, but, but I must not have been moving fast enough because the menacing voice addresses me again. "Can I help you, ma'am?"

     "I'm just trying to find out what spaces are available, " I explained. "Oh, God--what other local dignitaries might I offend? Who else had invisible dubs on choice parking spots?

     "They are all open," ma'am, the headless voice replied.

     Then why can't I stay where I am, runs through my mind, but instead, I just say "Oh," close my car door, and back out of the parking space. I settle into a nearby spot, and God knows who's parking space it is.

By the end of the day, there are were two laminated paper signs designating the principle and secretary's  parking places hanging from shiny new posts. 

The flip-flap-flapping held up through several perfunctory mild pitter-pats, but the signs finally blow away in a truly magnificent Thanksgiving gale, only to be replaced by metal signs

"Those signs are totally unnecessary," I told local teacher I'd become friends with. "I'm the only one who didn't know the local custom, and now I know not to park in those two spaces. Beside, I'm not even parked out back today. I couldn't get through the low water crossing so I parked in one of those yellow-striped spaces out front."

My friend's eyes bugged out in alarm. "Out front? Those spaces are reserved for the coaches and the controller!

"There aren't any signs," I protested.

My friend  looked at me in horror, "EVERYONE KNOWS!"

    

THIS IS A TRUE STORY, BUT SOMEHOW, I'M NOT TELLING IT RIGHT....

LURCHING ALONG...........

 Hello, your girl has been working like a dog today in her studio and it hasn't been fun. Fio is trying to get all her written material--pen, pencil, papers, books, etc., and she would really like some help, but it is not to be. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR......

What the heck! How about Fio feeding you the opening page or two of a romance she has half-written?

   ________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

    Six years of her life down the drain --Phillipa had never thought tit would come to this. She sat down on a concrete garden bench and wiped a hand on her jeans. Pulling her divorce degree out of its manila envelope, she read it through again, page by page.

     Until the papers arrived yesterday, she'd had a flicker of hope that Evan would return, throw himself at her feet, and beg her to take him back. Not that she would have. Jonathon had gone by the wayside as soon as she had found out that he'd married her to further his career--but it would have been nice to be the kicker rather that the kickee.

     She stuffed the papers back in the envelope......

     Damn! She may not have loved him, but she had become, well, accustomed to living in this venerable old house on Austin Avenue, even though it was too far too big for the two of them. Just the way she had become accustomed to spending most of her day away from the big house, either teaching at her small-town community college or attending faculty get-togethers at the big-city university where Evan chaired the philosophy department, thanks to her uncle Barney being dean of liberal arts

     And now Evan had dumped her. Their home had a FOR SALE sign out front, and her social life consisted of chatting with the landlady of Kinkaid House, the bed and breakfast that she's moved into when Evan had announced he was filing for divorce.

     She looked up at the canopy of trees  over her head. At least she still had a place to retreat to when she waned to be alone. There was something comforting about sitting under these grand old oaks. They'd survived hard times, and she could too.LURCHING

Reading through this story plot again, Fio doesn't think she'll use it.  Oh well--onward and upward!

       

POETIC REPEATS BECAUSE FIO CAN'T FIND THE POEMS SHE'S LOOKING FOR

 FIO SEEMS TO BE LOSING HER  POSTS, BUT LET'S TRY AGAIN :

Depression

   I pull it round me like a cloak of null,

This numbing void, this fine despair of mine,

This somber blanker folded thrice to dull

The knife-sharp edges of my dark decline--

    I need a nothingness, a time of naught,

A comfort place, an anesthetic  buffer

To suffocate my sense, my every thought

For if I do not feel, I cannot suffer--

    For if I do not try,  I cannot fail

And if I do not care, I'll haven pain,

And if I do not trust, then no betrayal

Can pierce my unprotected heart again,

       And if I do not hope, then no defeat

       Can mortify me in this sweet retreat

_____________________________________

    Suicide

Ah, Dorothy, your choice was much too rash--

There are other options I could recommend

Than poison, razors, nooses, guns, or gas

To bring about a graceful, private end--

   The suffocation of the spirit's one,

On shallow breaths, hope is inclined to smother--

An assault on the heart can get it done

The strangulation of the soul's another--

   Or you still could walk about, though dead--

A lumbering, slack-jawed zombie, hollow-eyed--

You'd grin and bow and nod your foolish head

With no one guessing you're a suicide

    Don't think that, knowing, any would be grieved--

    My own experience is, they'd be relieved

 _____________________________________________

Marionette

Dress the corpse in red and bright

And paint her pretty face,

Tie lines onto her hands and feet

And make her dance in place 

If you hold her jaw just so

And pull it with a string,

Supply a voice and words and tune-- 

Why, she can even sing

Then you can whistle and applaud

Her every sight and sound

Because she is the most alive

Of any corpse around

___________________________