Reading for Kamala

I led off a poetry reading fundraiser for Kamala Harris Thursday evening.  Many, many poets read. Everybody could hear me fine, but they couldn’t see me. Something didn’t work for video. I don’t know why. This is the 2nd time this has happened in the last year with ZOOM. I read only political poems as they seemed most appropriate, including my final poem which I wrote for this reading. I felt a little silly getting dressed up [from the waist up only] and then being blanked out. I even put on make-up [lightly].

After weeks and weeks of drought, we finally enjoyed a slow but soaking rain that went on for at least 22 hours and then came back again on Friday. Every unhappy plant got a good drink., as did all our trees and bushes. Things had really dried out and some plants died when we could not get enough water to them.  We are still getting some beans, some tomatoes and some zucchini.  This rain should help the lettuce I planted to grow less tentatively. They germinated, all six varieties of lettuce and then endive and escarole and arugula. But they didn’t grow much. I’m hoping all this rain will give them a boost. But now it’s Saturday and still raining, harder now and supposed to rain all this day, all night and into tomorrow. A bit too much of a good thing. We’re sodden now. One extreme to the other.

Woody has finally recovered fully. It took some time. Other friends have had the same virus. One of my doctors told me it’s going around the Outer Cape. Everybody takes Covid tests when they come down with it and all negative. One friend did five tests, all negative. I think the rain finally eased Woody’s dry cough, as the pollen here was off the charts and really bothered both of us.

My book is at Knopf, with an editor new for me, as my longtime editor retired last December.  I have heard nothing yet. I read another poetry manuscript this week from a poet who took my June workshop several years ago.  I blurbed  it.  I’ll have to start on another  manuscript wanting a blurb this weekend.  It’s short stories. A change of pace.

Scallops with our beans tonight. I love scallops in just about any form as long as they’re not overcooked into rubber. Probably rice with it.

I stry to ignore the constant reporting of conflicting polls and just give what I can to good candidates and Harris—small conations of $25 or at most $35. But if I give to a candidate, the next day they want more money.  It’s depressing.

We still have daisies and zinnias and now asters in my pollinator garden and dahlias and Japanese anemonies out front. Some color was already showing here and there on our land and elsewhere on the Out Cape – because of the drought. No company this weekend. We have a lot to do inside to make up for neglect all summer.  Beautiful sunflowers are in bloom down by the road and in a vase on the diningroom table [which we eat on all our meals as we have no room in our kitchen for a table], dark red ones of a moderate size, not small, not huge, just big.