Barbara's Meanderings

April 29, 2010

And Suddenly…..

And suddenly the month

I have been having terrible problems with this blog. It wouldn't load at all at various times during the week. Now it is probably slow loading. So please I hope you will have patience and that si why you are here. You have to refresh a couple of times to get it to load faster.

Pochahontas Discovered is based on this photo

Last year I started exactly on April 1st posting each day's poem. I also posted on Poetic Asides blog that Robert Brewer writes. However, this year is a little different. On April 1st a poem was the farthest thing from my mind. My husband's doctor called and told him to go to the hospital for tests and a procedure. He stayed in the hospital for three days and didn't get out until today. So I fell behind in writing poems. But tonight I caught up and I'm now up to date. Oh and he is getting better. More about him tomorrow.:)

Today wraps up our guest author John Wayne Cargile with his book, The Cry of the Cuckoos, and again many thanks to him for participating in the discussion we had in the comments section.:) Also thank you to everyone who commented. You are all in the drawing for the free eBook, and the name of the winner will be announced later this week. I have included a book cover of the eBook the lucky winner will receive.

Even though this is guest author day it is still April and time to post my poem. I am a day behind, but I will post two poems to make up for this.:)

Emergency workers at Northern Westchester Hospital

* Note: I tried to make my post shorter by putting only part of it up, but the link didn't work. So for anyone who came here and couldn't read the rest of the post, here it is:

Today was such a beautiful sunny day so we got out of the house and I wanted to spend the time in the sun. It was in the 60's and it's been a long time since we've had such a day! So we went to pick up my older daughter and found that her headache had gotten worse. She's had a bad headache for over three weeks. So she couldn't get an appointment at the doctor's for today and we wound up taking her to the Emergency Room. I spent the entire afternoon there with her there.

My younger daughter stayed in the car and slept while I waited with my older daughter who needed to have an MRI! We had to wait two hours!! When we got there the hospital was pretty quiet and I figured we'd be out in no time. What a mistake! She had to wait two hours for the MRI and then it was another hour until it was done. We were there almost five hours! The good news is that her MRI was as the doctor said, "unremarkable". So an unremarkable brain is a good thing for MRI's.:) Who knew? I was just happy that we were at Northern Westchester, which is probably the best ER in Westchester and maybe most of the country. They were displaying a banner that said they were in the top 1%. Even the drapes had a scenic painting on them.:)


Now we don't know why she has the headache and wasted five hours finding out she is fine. When she asked the doctor what could be causing them he had no idea. Is that what a doctor is supposed to say? He said to go to her own doctor and find out. Hospital doctors have gotten so noncommittal.:) Also they are very thin skinned. I asked him if he had looked at the film carefully and he was a little testy. Since my husband is a lawyer he always has nightmare stories about doctors not reading MRI's correctly. When I called him to tell him about her being okay he told me this story about a California case where the MRI was supposedly clear, but the man had a grapefruit sized tumor. I was just being careful.:) Anyway, after the whole experience with my husband at Westchester Medical Center, I've gotten used to being treated like that by doctors. I pestered my husband's doctors so much, but you have to or they tend to ignore the patients a little bit on things they don't consider important.

When we got out of the hospital all we wanted was coffee and something to eat. Oh, one more thing about Northern Westchester, when I smelled the cookies in the nurse's station the nurse offered me one. It was a delicious sugar cookie. All the chocolate chip ones were gone.:)

Today the prompt was to write about a color. So I picked my favorite: Red.:)

Red

Some days start out
tangled. Nothing minds.
As if the whole world is
revolting from within and
these days move in
a slow and measured
pace to their conclusion
when the mess inside pours
like blood might onto the space
in front of you over the
person who started it all,
knocks over the innocent
standing in its path
A human explosion issues
forth. Volcanic fury erupting
unexpected. Molten lava
rolling down the contours
of my face only to
cool in your icy glare.
copyright 2009 by Barbara Ehrentreu

Until the next time, there are only thirteen more days left in April and I hope that you are reading and writing poetry. I know that this month has brought back all the joy I used to feel when writing poetry. I 'm going to miss writing a poem a day.:)

Next week we will have a new guest author to be announced and I am going to highlight a new blog too! This week has been hard with all the tzouris (trouble for those who don't know Yiddush!):) Have a great weekend. We're going up to Albany to see Kathy Mattea and I'll be letting you know how it was. Will be back on Sunday. Whoopee!! We're spending the night up there.:)

Happy Tax Day!!!! We did our taxes early this year. So we could relax today.

Anyway, today's prompt asked us to talk about our hobbies. I was going to write about my Betty Boop collection, which is pretty extensive - not taking up a whole room, but I have stuff all over the house including a Betty Boop clock. Her legs move in time to the seconds, very cool. You hear them go back and forth like a grandfather clock.:) But I decided against this, because though I love her, what else is there to say?:) Instead I thought of another hobby of mine, which is baking. I love to bake and according to my daughter, I bake some things better than others. She's not thrilled about my chocolate cake, probably because I always ice it too soon and the icing melts. But we eat all of it anyway. I wish I could wait for it to cool, but the smell drives us all crazy. So I have to ice it warm. But the taste is always great!:) She's a very picky eater. (I can rationalize to make myself feel better.:)


Here is my poem for today:

I tried to get a picture of a piece of chocolate cake that I could have gotten easily with my MAC, but can't seem to grab it. So you have to imagine it yourself. I hope the poem does that for you.:)

Until the next time, please let me know your comments about the poem. I've already posted it on Poetic Asides with Robert Brewer, but didn't include the prompt today. Anyone who is interested can go to the website and see it.:)

Hope I'll be back on my own computer tomorrow.

This is a picture of "The Rising" the memorial to all the victims of 9/11 who lived in Westchester. It is located in
Kensico Dam Plaza in Valhalla close to where I live. See Correction to know why this is here.



Our internet was down for almost the whole day and now it's only working on my daughter's computer. We're having trouble with the router and Verizon is overnighting us a new one which will not be done overnight and reach us tomorrow, Monday. No, it will reach us on Tuesday. So why do they call it overnighting?:)

Today's poem is about my own experience when you have two adult children living at home and they have relatively no money and accompany you to the movies. Is there such a thing as too much family time? When I was their age I was married and living far from home.:) But these are different times and sometimes we have to accept that our children are not going to be living our lives. I do wish that both would start living their own though.:) This is all in reference to the poem for today. Here is the prompt:

"I want you to take the phrase "So we decided to (blank)" and fill in the blank. Make that your title and write a poem. Some possibilities include "So we decided to plant a tree" or "So we decided to burn a hole in the sky." (from Poetic Asides with Robert Brewer)

Here is my poem:

So we decided to go to the movies

With two cars instead of one
Because a fight always happened
when we were all in one car
Because you with your attitude
created a storm powerful
as a tornado with your
Picking at the scab of our pride
healed during the week when
you barely noticed us
But opened and sore on weekends
when your attention fell on the
weakest of us that day

Wise decision to leave you alone
in your car listening to your own
radio programs, alone with your
thoughts about the outside world
Where people much more interesting,
more accomplished than we
spoke to you across air waves

Better to arrive at the movies
refreshed from our stop for coffee
with pride intact
No tears, no arguments, no
reconciliations, no hurt feelings
No one threatening to stay in the car
Just peace, the slight high from the caffeine,
and anticipation of the movie to be seen
Much better to meet in the parking lot as
strangers might instead of pretending.
copyright 2009 by Barbara Ehrentreu
******************************************************************************
Here is something that all bloggers might want to do. Join Bloggers Unite from Blog Catalog and put this badge on your website before April 29th. Go here: http://www.bloggersunite.org/event/unite-for-hunger-and-hope



I just joined and will be writing a message about world hunger on that day. That's all you have to do. You join and pledge to write an article about world hunger on April 29th.

Thank you to all of you who commented on Katie Hines' interview last week. Remember her book, Guardian is coming out in June.

This week I do not have a guest author, so I am going to highlight another blog. Each day I find more and more great blogs both on the Networked Blogs and on Blog Catalog. I am actually finding it almost impossible to read every blog I want to read. So I am going to have to make a schedule so I get to everyone's blog!:)

Correction:
On the day I wrote my poem about The Kensico Dam I put in that the stone monument was for the workers on the dam. I was wrong.:) What should be there, and I have changed that whole stanza, is the monument is for the victims of 9/11 from Westchester. There are names of every person who perished on 9/11 from Westchester County etched into individual marble pieces in a circle around this huge steel scultpture that comes from all sides and meets in the middle. It's very moving.

Here is the original stanza:

They renovated the park last year
Built a stone memorial displaying photos of
turn of the century men who worked here
in North White Plains. When most of it was
forest and farms. If not for the workers who
toiled to make it happen, this park would never be.
And where would New York City get its water?
copyright 2009 by Barbara Ehrentreu

Here is the changed stanza:

They renovated the plaza last year
Built a stone memorial displaying names of
the victims who perished in 9/11 from Westchester
Honored the turn of the century men who worked here
in North White Plains. When most of it was
forest and farms. If not for the workers who
toiled to make it happen, this park would never be.
And where would New York City get its water?

Until the next time hope you had a very Happy Easter Sunday and that you will continue to comment.

You know the best laid plans aren't always completed. I finished my poem much earlier today, but if you've been reading my crazy meanderings for awhile you'll know that my family requires a lot of time. Also the people next door were having a birthday party for their little boy. He's two years old today and that is kind of a miracle. When he was born he had respiratory problems and he was on a respirator full time until he was a year old. Now I think they only use it once and awhile and he is growing and healthy looking. So people kept ringing our bell, because ours is the first door they came to and we'd look outside and they'd be gone. Then kids kept running up and down the stairs and banging on the porch railing all night long. It was hard to do anything but watch TV.:)
"I want you to write a poem about an object (or objects). Though you don't have to confine yourself to straight up description, I do want you to focus on object and/or make it a central piece of your poem. One of the more famous poems of contemporary literature does this wonderfully in William Carlos Williams' "The Red Wheelbarrow." (from Poetic Asides with Robert Brewer) My piano

Mom wanted to keep it
in her living room to hold
her picture frames

Sound the trumpets, beat the drums
Here comes Friday