Goodbye and To Work!
I let my secretary/assistant go this Monday. It was more than time. It had not worked out for me and I doubt for her. We had worked together since October but she did not really understand what I do and why it was important to me to give me all the poems and every page of any multi-paged poem before a public poetry reading and why it was important to take calls when I was away, etc. It was just not a good match for her or for me. She’s a very nice person but working for a writer was too strange for her I found it liberating and was able to get more work done this week than I had managed in a while. My friend Dale will work for me one day a week until his seasonal jobs kick in. Woody will help a little. I wrote three poems this week. I judged a poetry contest for December magazine and a regional contest for the Jose Gouveia WOMR Outer Cape poetry contest. Those poems were much better this year. The winner, whose name of course I don’t know yet, actually had three poems any one of which deserved to win. On March 24th, I’ll join in a poetry reading at Preservation Hall in Wellfleet, the winner, the two runners-up and the seven honorable mentions – all reading their contest poems except for any poets who can’t make it. I’ll read a few poems. It was fun last year and the audience was enthusiastic. We had our first real snow storm yesterday. it began as rain, then there was a scary period in which freezing rain fell and naturally froze on the ground so that it was exceedingly slippery. The world was a skating rink and I have no skates. We had to go to Orleans as I had a haircut and Woody needed to get materials. A lamp in our livingroom fell totally apart right after we got back from Ann Arbor. Woody ordered a new lamp on line and it came Thursday. He put it together yesterday – something a child could do if he was a genius and had a week to spare. Anyhow Woody got it all together and it’s gorgeous, one of those imitation Tiffanys. This morning Woody is outside clearing a path to the road. Tomorrow we’ll have our planned Super Bowl party but it will be quite small. My Canadian friend and fellow poet Dan became very anemic and weak– he has blood cancer—and the doctors want him to fly to Halifax at once and go straight to the hospital. When we got together with Dan and Paul and Janet last Friday night, Dan was in worse shape than I’ve ever seen him. It scared me. Paul is taking him to Logan to fly back. So it will just be my friend Janet, recently widowed, Dale and Stephen. We’ll have pizzas [one veggie, one mushroom and sausage] guacamole, a big salad and Dale is making a light dessert. We are all rooting for the Panthers. Dale has been finding amusing graphics on the internet, the newest being a close-up of a Panther’s head with the lettering, I’m so hungry I could eat a horse. Now we are awaiting a blizzard. Winter has finally arrived. The cats had a wonderful breakfast as we had bacon and eggs this morning. I intended to make waffles, but when I opened the half used package of buckwheat mix, it was full of bugs and their larvae. We’re only talking about Willow and Xena, the two youngest and rescue cats as Mingus and Sugar Ray don’t eat human food. Sugar Ray, who is 17 and developing kidney disease, has rallied recently and is far more active and involved. He is a very dear cat and I’m glad he is still able to enjoy his life. Mingus is his second cousin and they are very tight. I made some more notes for the short story I started in September and then was never able to get back to. I hope I can start writing it again this coming week. It’s a stunningly bright day – almost hurts to look at the snowy landscape – and a bit above freezing. Tonight I’ll either make a shrimp and rice dish or an Italian parsnip soup. it depends on whether Woody can find a parsnips under the snow and dig some.