RIP Sally Ride (1951-2012). I watched your first launch on the Challenger from the beaches of Cape Canaveral on a road trip with my brother to witness history. You paved the way for women in the US space program and in the hard sciences in the West in general in the late 20th century. I don't care what gender your partner of 27 years was, and I don ( Read more... )

So the bakery
I like to frequent received
a "B" rating?  Well!
I will risk much for meat pies
as good as my grandmother's.

I had seen the Morgan Freeman/Jack Nicholson movie on TV with my cousin not too long ago.  I'm far enough along that I could see The Bucket List with minimal eye leakage and sniffles, and not spectacular dam failure, but the conversation the Carter Chambers character (Freeman) has with the Edward Cole character (Nicholson) at the top of one of the ( Read more... )

I've been meaning to write this essay for a while.  Now that I don't have to worry about how many minutes I have left on a public library computer, I can collect my thoughts and set them down.  This subject is personal for me, since I have possession of my husband's and his younger brother's cremated remains and will have them placed in a niche at ( Read more... )

I'm at my cousin's, while she recovers from knee surgery.  I just brought her back from the hospital, with a quick side trip to the grocery store for last-minute items before the next snow.  The original plan was to be here through the week, go to Noisemakers on Saturday, then go to my aunt's on Sunday (my half-century mark) and get her to actually ( Read more... )

As I was unpacking my things, I found a small stack of AMC movie coupons that belonged to Brian.  All but one coupon had expired, and that one was going away on the 27th.  I did not want to be alone yesterday, so I spent the day with my aunt, then went to Brother Jimmy's BBQ near Penn Station to have dinner courtesy ofshalmestere and hudebnik .  minstrlmummr  showed up as well, ( Read more... )

I showed Brian a sestina roughly two three years ago.  He picked up on the end-word patterns at once and was intrigued by the form.  He had accompanied me to a translation class at Pennsic that year, and was interested in flexing poetic muscles since his physical body was telling him it was time to wind down on fighting.  (If we'd only known.)

He ( Read more... )

Another one leaves us.  Mistress Caitlin Davies.  Oh, I so very much hope that my love is there to hold open the door for her.  Today happens to be the anniversary of the day he chose to request giving up treatment and receive hospice care instead.  He laid his burden down four days later.  I hope Herr Wilhelm Baumhecker is there to usher her in to ( Read more... )

The last of the first
generation has passed on,
gone that style and grace.
Did their children's successes
make up for what they had lost?

My paternal grandfather's sister-in-law Mercedes was buried yesterday.  She was close to 100 years old.  Hers was that generation of ladies that wore hats and gloves, that took their posture seriously, that never ( Read more... )

It's 45 years
since the first New York blackout.
How we children laughed,
so soon after Halloween,
to see candles light our home.

(From another perspective)

My aunt, returning
home, was caught in the subway
when the blackout hit.
Strangers pulled together, yet
she still does not speak of it.