The Week That Was

The Week that Was

Flew east.

Flew west.

Bought bialys at College town Bagels in Ithaca, New York. (One of those places that smells of hot bread, even at night.)

Spoke at State U of New York at Oswego.

Spoke at Metropolitan Museum in New York, New York.

Saw my friend Karl who was teaching "The Elephant Man" and who was mildly affected by his students' disaffection for the flick.

Saw my old friend Jim who has a new book of poems coming out soon.

Saw my pal Ira who is just home from a long sojourn in Thailand. Ira is the world's largest Buddhist monk. Hands down.

Watched beloved New York Mets go down the drain.

Ate bacon with Clea who is studying all of Asia and cooking Middle Eastern street foods.

Talked with glass artist, Katherine who is trying to find a video camera fast enough to film breaking tempered glass.

Met fellow from MIT who believes above can be accomplished, maybe.

Talked to flight attendant who is scared of dogs. Told her Vidal's most dangerous feature is his breath.

Ate glorious take out food from Zabar's in Manhattan.

Talked about a poet's recent suicide with my literary agent Irene. Talked about death with old friend David whose wife passed away almost one year ago.

Talked about living with David who is working gently at the art of light and breathing. They are the same art.

Talked to my wife Connie about starting a bell choir.

Talked to old dog Roscoe about the scent of love.

Talked to young dog Maggie about same.

Talked to my father in law Bill about miseries of selling the house.

Talked to my mother in law, Norma, about misery of selling hand made crafts in era of Chinese knock offs.

Talked to stepson Ross about his first college paper.

Tried on silly hat made from pine cones while dreaming.

Talked about human rights with fellow from South Africa whose car broke down in South Dakota. He was dropping off rental at airport.

Got back to Iowa City just in time for tornado sirens. It was a real tornado. It didn't do significant damage except to say that it scared lots of creatures.

While the tornado was coming I put on my New York Mets warm-up jacket. I figured disaster had already struck the Mets so I'd be safe if I wore it.

Had a second dream about a hat made of pine cones. Suspect it might be my father checking in from the afterlife. Hi dad.

S.K.

Comments

[Georgia Whitney]

Steve, you were in Ithaca and I didn't know about it??? Were you reading????

OK, my week wasn't quite that dramatic, it was more on the order of being pecked to death by ducks. To wit:
1. Tuesday the hard drive in my desktop computer died. I took it into the shop.
2. Thursday afternoon I quickly purchased a 2G flash drive from my nephew so I could back up work on my laptop computer which is making strange noises, i.e., the hard drive is not doing well. I backed up the hard drive. I also found out the desktop computer needed a new hard drive and I hadn't backed it up recently.
3. Thursday night I took my dog Ivy to the vet for her shots. She seems fine -- except that she's lost 13 pounds. They wanted to do bloodwork. I said we'd wait a couple of weeks since I'd just dropped a large sum of money to fix my ailing computer.
4. Friday morning I went to teach my first Guided Autobiography class at an assisted living/skilled nursing facility here. You write your story in this class, OK? The rec therapist brought me three people who (a) weren't physically capable of writing (b) could barely hold a conversation and (c) didn't know not to interrupt when someone else was talking. I suppose I provided a service but it wasn't quite what I'd expected. I will be chatting with the rec therapist next week to find out if she didn't get that they were going to write or that was the best cognitive functioning she could find.
5. Friday afternoon the computer people told me they needed to reinstall the operating system on my desktop and needed the license number. I found the disk but can't find the number.

I'm sure I'm missing several things. But the good news is I am surprisingly calm...thank God I'm off caffeine.

Cheers to all,

Georgia

[Brandon P]

And it was great to have Steve at Oswego State. I know I've been leaning back in my Kayak and enjoying the 'soundscape' of late. Vidal is one wonderful pup also. Except, I felt mute in Vidals' intellectual presence.

With love from the snow capital.