Cherries for Breakfast

Well, it's an odd Fat Tuesday in the blog. We've had some hot days here and a heat advisory, and the local pools are a popular place, but, alas, will the Fairview Aquatic Center open this afternoon? We lap swimmers arrived to two police cars this morning, and stressed staff dealing with a break-in and theft of the pool's emergency and rescue equipment. No laps for the not yet weary.

So I came home and had cherries for breakfast, outside, before the return of abundant heat. In celebration, here is a new painting from Jonathan Koch, who allows me to illustrate my blog with his wonderful paintings. Go buy one here!

Sometimes people collapse in the heat, but you don't expect a building to fall over. Yesterday, though, one did, in downtown Bloomington. A woman was trapped inside a neighboring building but rescued, and the Illinois Department of Transportation came in to inspect the bridge that also received some of the rubble. It's a comfort to know our twin cities have such good emergency and rescue operations in place, ready to go. Thanks to all who helped, and best wishes for full recovery for those injured and stressed by this unexpected event.

Reminds me of when my kids fell over when small and, to help them not get too scared if they were clearly OK, I'd just say, "Fell over!" And we got back on our feet and on with our fun.

Watch This Space

Yet another wonderful morning of lap swim, space program, and NPR, including a "parking lot moment" (just like a "driveway moment") to listen to another story on the last flight of the Atlantis, and last flight altogether of the space shuttle.

It was nice to hear clarified in this interview that the public still thinks of the astronauts as heroes and the space program as being about "space exploration," even if the realities include more benefits re: pure science, military/industrial complex, Cold War (now done), and if some consider the current phase of the program a "disappointment" since it did not reduce the costs of space travel. "How could it?" one wonders, given 1) the technology involved 2) the economy 3) the dangers of any kind of cost-cutting re: safety of astronauts.

Again today the coverage made clear that no one really knows what's next in the space program. As the interview cleverly put it, "Watch this space."

I watched a colorful rubber-band ball bounce toward me off my windowsill this morning when I finally came inside once a brief rain blew in--very brief, but the breeze was lovely. Then the rain stopped, and I went out to hose-shower the impatiens, columbine, violets, sweet william, and yellow poppy that had not got anything through the leaves of the trees and overhang of the roof...

...and watched this space on my front stoop fill with Magnolia: A Journal of Women's Literature, with my poem "Lazy Heart" in it! Yes, "Lazy Heart" is, in part, about the space program! And, more overtly, about civil rights and the walk from Selma to Birmingham.

"Lazy heart" is a condition suffered by astronauts, and in the poem I also apply it to the bishop who advised people to stay home rather than join in the march, despite the plea from his fellow clergyman, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Amazingly, this was all happening at the same time, in a kind of Random Coinciday in our U.S. history.

I am so moved that editor Gayle Brandeis quotes the end of my poem saying these lines could be "the theme song" of this collection. Wow! "Mother Muriel would be so proud," she goes on, about the writers in this book. To be linked to Muriel Rukeyser is a real honor; she's the one who said, "What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open."

You can hear writers read work from this volume here, at Her Circle Ezine, and order the book here, at Amazon.  You can read about Gus Grissom, the "Molly Brown" Gemini flight, and his other accomplishments and tragic death here. Poor Gus.

Habiliments of Angels

There's something about scary...poetry! If you want to read some, here's "Friar Laurence's Last Confession" by Donna Vorreyer in the new issue of Borderline (which is really on the borderline!). Since I just saw Romeo and Juliet again, at the outdoor Illinois Shakespeare Festival, specific images were in my mind of Juliet in the tomb...and then knocked loose by Donna's poem!

Also just up is the new issue of Right Hand Pointing, the Habiliments of Angels issue #42, taking its subtitle this time from Corey Mesler's poem, "Max's Sleep," a lovely, scary elegy.  At RHP, you can always see more by clicking "Next," via the little pointing hand, or finding your way to various starting points.

I have two poems in this issue, too: "Paperless Cuts," about having to be a witness who cannot help except through empathy and moral support (as angels sometimes are, as in the film Wings of Desire) and "Happens to the Best of Us," which also has some helpless empathy in it.

Now that RHP editor Dale Wisely has put it in the Habiliments of Angels issue, this poem has turned around for me, and I see the good woman as an accidental angel for the city, after all!

Angel via Art Propelled, wonderful artist blog!

Hudson 175

The little town of Hudson, Illinois is celebrating the 175th year of its founding, and I was there!

I love a parade!

Families sat by the side of the road to receive candy tossed from people walking and others riding on various vehicles, including tractors, tractor-pulled wagons, mule-drawn wagons, fire trucks, emergency vehicles, police cars, old cars, and two gigantic tubular trucks with hoses for septic removal followed by a walking skunk!

A large winking Dalmatian waved from a firetruck.

I shook hands with various local politicians, and one was being driven by a retired judge I swim with. (Small lap swimming world!)

Swing dancing by the Infamous Backsteppers! A bagpipe band, the Prairie Thistle, in kilts and knee socks! An elephant! (Not a live one, a Republican one.)  Boy scouts, Cub scouts, and 4-H'ers!

What a thrill.  And residents 90 and up were driven by in classic cars, so we got to wave to our neighbor Gus Ziebarth, local farmer, who is 94!

There were horses and ponies in glitter shoes. They pooped in the road!

Plus, Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln waved to us from their horse-drawn carriage.

I met a descendant of Dr. Silas Hubbard, who had donated oldtime medical instruments to the library, along with some medications made from herb, lead, and ergot in little tubes, the kind of thing that might have exacerbated President Lincoln's melancholy...so I hope he gave them a good talking to after the parade.

I will head back this afternoon to see my mom in the cemetery. She'll be alive there, playing the role of Juliana Read Hubbard, wife of Dr. Hubbard, in the Hudson 175 Cemetery Walk.

These Hubbards are indeed related to Elbert Hubbard of A Message to Garcia and the Roycroft Press.

Instead of resting in between these historic events, I went to the Sugar Creek Arts Festival in beautiful Uptown Normal, and it's a beautiful hot, sunny, lovely day for that, too.  The arts festival continues tomorrow.  More info here.

So...so far I haven't been much of a slattern on this Slattern Day in the blog! I'll try to make up for it later, lounging in the back yard.

Mission Control

Today is the scheduled last flight of the space shuttle, depending on the weather. Beautiful here, so I send good weather wishes along with my safe travel wishes to the astronauts and NASA.

It's also a Random Coinciday in the blog, a day to pre-order Sex on the Moon, by Ben Mezrich, from Amazon. Ben Mezrich is the guy who wrote The Accidental Billionaires, on which the movie The Social Network is based.

Hmm, maybe I should accidentally read that!

Meanwhile, the Yiddish Policemen have landed at my house, for free, thanks to Amazon Prime, which I announce to my book group gals whose books I ordered.

Sex on the Moon might be a little about sex on the moon, but it's mainly about stealing moon rocks and going to prison for it.

NPR was covering the last space shuttle flight as I drove to and from lap swimming, and one fellow spoke about what we had hoped to learn from our space program, which he summed up as rather little. Then he spoke about what we might do next, mentioning space tourism, etc. Later, another guy, speaking of safety and rescue issues, explained that only 4 astronauts are going as only 4 can be safely brought back to earth after maybe hanging out at the space station for a while.

All this 1) reminded me of the science fiction I have been reading lately, and in my youth 2) made me urgently sad all over again about the Challenger and other losses 3) gave me a lingering poignant feeling about the space program and its purposes.

I recall the competitive aspect, to compete with Russia and Sputnik, and the military knowledge aspect, and the business aspect (jobs, money). But I also recall the awe, the desire for knowledge for what's out there! And how the science fiction of my youth truly captured that! I still want to know what's out there.

In random coincidii mode:

"Sputnik is up there, I think--", a poem by Richard Fox at Escape Into Life

"The Rocket Man" by Ray Bradbury, in The Illustrated Man

Background music: "Rocket Man" by Elton John and "Space Oddity" by David Bowie

Sometimes I swim in a lane by the pipe surging water into the pool, so when I am doing breast stroke toward the wall, I am suspended, going nowhere, till I break through that artificial current.

I feel like a rocket man, lost in space....