YES!! ENGLAND DEFEATED SWEDEN
Yes, I predicted this win in alliance with my English grand niece CJ who is a big fan and lives in London. She wrote a victory limerick when England advanced and I answered it.
Now we can look forward to the CROATIA battle next week. I know where CJ will be in all this, but I am moving on.
I was not acting as a tout in this case--so you need not share any winnings with me. It is just one of the sporting benefits of this blog, and the fun of connecting with CJ,
NO TOUTS IN THIS BUCKET?
Sunday, July 8, 2018
Saturday, July 7, 2018
A MORE BEAUTIFUL BUCKET?
MAKING PAWTUCKET BEAUTIFUL AGAIN
I know that Pawtucket like Westerly RI has been designated as a city for the arts. Creative expression is welcomed in Pawtucket and artists are encouraged to move here and inhabit one of the spaces as a studio -home that are available in various revitalized and rehabbed mills. The annual Pawtucket Arts Festival held in the month of September also testifies to the prominence of the arts here.
But what about the creative space of the city itself? I know that a certain percentage of money is set aside for public art. How have those funds been used and where is the public art that has been created and funded located in the city?
We need an updated Creative Arts in Pawtucket Map. What about the encouragement of the beauty of nature--gardens and plantings and vistas designed to show the art of horticulture that can make this a Garden City,
How can we suggest that property owners or tenants be rewarded for creating artistic front yard gardens in this densely populated city?
I would suggest a variety of possibilities.
1.Improve the canopy of the city by increasing the number of trees planted along the roadsides. The cherry trees planted downtown could be expanded to include many blossoming trees that would add to the beauty of the Springtime streets and the fragrance of the air.
2. Create a new garden contest to see which houses have the most creative and inviting Door Yard gardens. Recall Whitman's lovely phrase "When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed." The city could ask for volunteers or could encourage students in junior high and high schools to help to educate home owners or tenants about the planting and upkeep of low maintenance gardens that use perennials and shrubs as their backbone.
3 AS PRETTY AS PAWTUCKET--create a campaign and a new slogan to promote the idea of the possible loveliness of Pawtucket.
FLOWERS IN THE BUCKET?
4. Learn from other cities and even other cultures. What is a family cottage garden like in England or Ireland or Portugal, Italy or Spain or the Azores or Haiti or Quebec --to name just a few cultural models that could be explored. Many Pawtucket residents come from those cultures and making little gardens in that cultural style could help to restore a visual and living link to them. Most of all it would restore pride.
5, FULLY RESTORE AND RE-IMAGINE The MARCONI GARDENS in Slater Park. This could become a good teaching example and source of inspiration to all local gardeners. It could also be a site used for instruction in such areas and gardening skills as planting, design of a habitats for birds and butterflies, and pruning to shape bushes. And newly weds could take photos there.
6 Use FLOWERS AND PLANTINGS TO IMPROVE CEMETERIES AND REMEMBER Those who have gone before us Each year in December I am astonished and instructed by the display of enthusiasm and devotion that Pawtucket residents show to honoring their dead by name.
They decorate a parade of Small Xmas trees that they are assigned in Slater park. The looks of delight that I see there are really very moving.
It is like Pawtucket's version of COCO and really the song REMEMBER ME should be playing. This Xmas commemoration is already in place and could be extended in ways throughout the cemeteries. We could enlist the help of Ken Postle and his Boy Scouts and could help people to see such cemeteries as Mineral Spring and Oak Grove and even Old Saint Mary's and Riverside as gardens.(this is just a partial list)
These are just some ideas and a vision of the possibilities --need to see the beauty that is still here and enhance it.
I know that Pawtucket like Westerly RI has been designated as a city for the arts. Creative expression is welcomed in Pawtucket and artists are encouraged to move here and inhabit one of the spaces as a studio -home that are available in various revitalized and rehabbed mills. The annual Pawtucket Arts Festival held in the month of September also testifies to the prominence of the arts here.
But what about the creative space of the city itself? I know that a certain percentage of money is set aside for public art. How have those funds been used and where is the public art that has been created and funded located in the city?
We need an updated Creative Arts in Pawtucket Map. What about the encouragement of the beauty of nature--gardens and plantings and vistas designed to show the art of horticulture that can make this a Garden City,
How can we suggest that property owners or tenants be rewarded for creating artistic front yard gardens in this densely populated city?
I would suggest a variety of possibilities.
1.Improve the canopy of the city by increasing the number of trees planted along the roadsides. The cherry trees planted downtown could be expanded to include many blossoming trees that would add to the beauty of the Springtime streets and the fragrance of the air.
2. Create a new garden contest to see which houses have the most creative and inviting Door Yard gardens. Recall Whitman's lovely phrase "When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed." The city could ask for volunteers or could encourage students in junior high and high schools to help to educate home owners or tenants about the planting and upkeep of low maintenance gardens that use perennials and shrubs as their backbone.
3 AS PRETTY AS PAWTUCKET--create a campaign and a new slogan to promote the idea of the possible loveliness of Pawtucket.
FLOWERS IN THE BUCKET?
4. Learn from other cities and even other cultures. What is a family cottage garden like in England or Ireland or Portugal, Italy or Spain or the Azores or Haiti or Quebec --to name just a few cultural models that could be explored. Many Pawtucket residents come from those cultures and making little gardens in that cultural style could help to restore a visual and living link to them. Most of all it would restore pride.
5, FULLY RESTORE AND RE-IMAGINE The MARCONI GARDENS in Slater Park. This could become a good teaching example and source of inspiration to all local gardeners. It could also be a site used for instruction in such areas and gardening skills as planting, design of a habitats for birds and butterflies, and pruning to shape bushes. And newly weds could take photos there.
6 Use FLOWERS AND PLANTINGS TO IMPROVE CEMETERIES AND REMEMBER Those who have gone before us Each year in December I am astonished and instructed by the display of enthusiasm and devotion that Pawtucket residents show to honoring their dead by name.
They decorate a parade of Small Xmas trees that they are assigned in Slater park. The looks of delight that I see there are really very moving.
It is like Pawtucket's version of COCO and really the song REMEMBER ME should be playing. This Xmas commemoration is already in place and could be extended in ways throughout the cemeteries. We could enlist the help of Ken Postle and his Boy Scouts and could help people to see such cemeteries as Mineral Spring and Oak Grove and even Old Saint Mary's and Riverside as gardens.(this is just a partial list)
These are just some ideas and a vision of the possibilities --need to see the beauty that is still here and enhance it.
Thursday, July 5, 2018
BORN ON THE FIFTH OF JULY
NOT QUITE A YANKEE-DOODLE DANDY
Just as I am always one letter away from NORMAL, I am also 2 hours late for Yankee Doodle Dandy status
.
Of course, when I was a small child and going to McCoy to see the fireworks and hearing the dull thuds of fire crackers going off
in the neighborhood, I thought that they were celebrating my birthday.
Always able I guess to read the world in the most self- flattering way.
I would loll on the old couch that was on our second story porch to catch a breeze as the humid July night went noisily by. My sisters were asleep at last in post fireworks happiness.
Sometimes the night was loudly punctuated by the homecoming of our neighbor JACKO . He had a good whiskey tenor and if he had enough to drink, he would stand at the gate of his sister's house and loudly serenade the wife who lived downstairs. I have already described the beauty and goodness of Marge White.
His best song was "My Wild Irish Rose" even my mother had to admit he did a decent job with that one. Finally a loud male voice would suggest that he shut up and go inside. And usually he did,
My mother would go inside too and I could hear her cracking the ice trays and soon she would emerge with a pitcher of sweet lemonade.
I would roll the cold glass along my forehead and they would forget about me as I pretended to sleep but really listened to every word of my mother and Aunt Anna.
Even now I love to fall asleep to the sound of low talk in another room. Or even the Late Shows murmur on TV that my husband watches while I am dozing off. It is strangely soothing.
Just as I am always one letter away from NORMAL, I am also 2 hours late for Yankee Doodle Dandy status
.
Of course, when I was a small child and going to McCoy to see the fireworks and hearing the dull thuds of fire crackers going off
in the neighborhood, I thought that they were celebrating my birthday.
Always able I guess to read the world in the most self- flattering way.
I would loll on the old couch that was on our second story porch to catch a breeze as the humid July night went noisily by. My sisters were asleep at last in post fireworks happiness.
Sometimes the night was loudly punctuated by the homecoming of our neighbor JACKO . He had a good whiskey tenor and if he had enough to drink, he would stand at the gate of his sister's house and loudly serenade the wife who lived downstairs. I have already described the beauty and goodness of Marge White.
His best song was "My Wild Irish Rose" even my mother had to admit he did a decent job with that one. Finally a loud male voice would suggest that he shut up and go inside. And usually he did,
My mother would go inside too and I could hear her cracking the ice trays and soon she would emerge with a pitcher of sweet lemonade.
I would roll the cold glass along my forehead and they would forget about me as I pretended to sleep but really listened to every word of my mother and Aunt Anna.
Even now I love to fall asleep to the sound of low talk in another room. Or even the Late Shows murmur on TV that my husband watches while I am dozing off. It is strangely soothing.
WORLD CUP FEVER BUILDS
IS IT ENGLAND'S TURN?
A little back story here--Do we usually cheer for England? Well I am Irish, Scottish, Welsh and a little English. My husband is from India 100% Punjabi.
So the answer is No to that one. Not always or often or ever.
DO we have that twisted post-colonial love-hate thing going on?
QUIZ OF POST COLONIAL DILEMMA
Must we have tea every day at 4pm--English style?
Do we worry about the Queen's health?
Did we watch the ASCOT races last week.
Did we watch Harry's wedding?
DO we think SHAKESPEARE is the greatest writer in English?
IF YOU ANSWERED YES TO ALL OF THE ABOVE, YOU WOULD BE RIGHT.
BUT we both suffered under and despise BRITISH IMPERIALISM.
So where does that leave us in World Cup enthusiasm. Well now that England has actually defeated Colombia and is advancing to meet Sweden. We have an interest.
This interest is complicated and increased by the fact that my husband has a brilliant niece Sunny who lives with her husband and their amazing daughter in ENGLAND.
And CJ and her adoring DAD have recently composed and posted a LIMERICK which they made up while walking to school:
The was a young lad called Dier,
Who when taking penalties was on fire,
The Colombians were fouling,
But the English Lion was growling,
So now Southgate doesn’t need to retire!
I was moved by this outburst of creativity to respond to CJ'S limerick:
There you have it--on the record--on Saturday I am cheering for ENGLAND.
A little back story here--Do we usually cheer for England? Well I am Irish, Scottish, Welsh and a little English. My husband is from India 100% Punjabi.
So the answer is No to that one. Not always or often or ever.
DO we have that twisted post-colonial love-hate thing going on?
QUIZ OF POST COLONIAL DILEMMA
Must we have tea every day at 4pm--English style?
Do we worry about the Queen's health?
Did we watch the ASCOT races last week.
Did we watch Harry's wedding?
DO we think SHAKESPEARE is the greatest writer in English?
IF YOU ANSWERED YES TO ALL OF THE ABOVE, YOU WOULD BE RIGHT.
BUT we both suffered under and despise BRITISH IMPERIALISM.
So where does that leave us in World Cup enthusiasm. Well now that England has actually defeated Colombia and is advancing to meet Sweden. We have an interest.
This interest is complicated and increased by the fact that my husband has a brilliant niece Sunny who lives with her husband and their amazing daughter in ENGLAND.
And CJ and her adoring DAD have recently composed and posted a LIMERICK which they made up while walking to school:
The was a young lad called Dier,
Who when taking penalties was on fire,
The Colombians were fouling,
But the English Lion was growling,
So now Southgate doesn’t need to retire!
I was moved by this outburst of creativity to respond to CJ'S limerick:
THERE WAS A YOUNG LASS CALLED CJ WHO REALLY LIKED TO WATCH ENGLAND PLAY Hoping and screaming/ But now she is dreaming/ Next game they blow Sweden away
1
Wednesday, July 4, 2018
TAKING HIS TALENTS TO LA
FACING THE INEVITABLE IN CLEVELAND
I am not there and I am glad of it because I don't in any way feel betrayed by LeBron's decision to head west.The Cleveland sports fans shouldn't feel betrayed either; it was a clear professional choice. But no one can tell another person how she should feel.
I know that and they know that he fulfilled his promise and brought them a championship
.
The only thing I am a little miffed at is that I am stuck with some now out dated sports costumes.
I wore the CAVS cap all season. But it was not until they clinched the Eastern Title in that game with the Celtics that I got online and ordered a James shirt #23. Well guess when it arrived here?
Not until the sweep of the CAVS in the NBA, NOW! National Finals was over. I wear it in the house almost daily. Already has had several washings and it is a good cotton. But it will become a rarity I guess.
YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST
I am not going to go rushing out to get LAKERS stuff. Maybe they'll let me go back to being a CELTICS fan.
HOLD ME TO THAT.
NOW ON TO THE WORLD CUP AND ENGLAND STILL IN IT!
I am not there and I am glad of it because I don't in any way feel betrayed by LeBron's decision to head west.The Cleveland sports fans shouldn't feel betrayed either; it was a clear professional choice. But no one can tell another person how she should feel.
I know that and they know that he fulfilled his promise and brought them a championship
.
The only thing I am a little miffed at is that I am stuck with some now out dated sports costumes.
I wore the CAVS cap all season. But it was not until they clinched the Eastern Title in that game with the Celtics that I got online and ordered a James shirt #23. Well guess when it arrived here?
Not until the sweep of the CAVS in the NBA, NOW! National Finals was over. I wear it in the house almost daily. Already has had several washings and it is a good cotton. But it will become a rarity I guess.
YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST
I am not going to go rushing out to get LAKERS stuff. Maybe they'll let me go back to being a CELTICS fan.
HOLD ME TO THAT.
NOW ON TO THE WORLD CUP AND ENGLAND STILL IN IT!
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
A BUCKETFUL OF HAIKU
A few weeks ago I asked a couple of poets of my acquaintance to join me in a 30 day HAIKU-A-Day exercise. I thought it would be fun and would prime the pump of our creativity.
I love the ZEN spirit of Basho's haiku and his notion that the haiku lives in the moment of finding those 17 syllables and placing them in a three line poem of 5-7-5 syllables. That is the epiphany experience of the Haiku for Basho and he is the Master of the Haiku form.The strictness and the one-off character of the form engaged me.
Sorry to say no one said yes to my invitation. I must remind myself that they are still working and I am retired. I did not do the full 30 days alone; instead I imported a Christian pious practice from my childhood to shape my journey.
Some of you may remember the idea of a NOVENA That is when you pray in the same way to a certain saint for nine days. My mother was always making Novenas to Saint Jude because his feast day was on her birthday OCTOBER 28. And he is the Patron of Impossible or Helpless Causes. I guess my mother often felt that she was seeking help with Helpless Causes in dealing with the poverty, chaos and social bias in raising me and my two sisters with Down Syndrome at home without the help of her husband and depending on the goodness of her live-in sister Anna and her devout Christian Brother Joe-- known in religious life as Brother Cajetan Cyril.
So I began the HAIKU NOVENA, a nine day event and wrote a haiku each day. Funny thing I discovered about Haiku they are a little like peanuts or Lay's Wavy Potato chips. Who can stop with just one?
So I now have produced quite a few haiku. I am not sure that they work as haiku--yes, they conform to the 5-7-5 rule but do they express an epiphany?
Can an epiphany be conveyed? Is it all in the mind and soul of the poet and does not convey directly to the mind and soul of the reader. When I read a lot of Basho's haiku, I do get into a state of mind that is receptive to them and suddenly one of them will strike me as a revelation. But it hard to re-create those moments. Reading the same haiku the next day is no longer provocative in the same way.
There is such a momentary flow to haiku and that is how it reflects Buddhist meditative experience. That encourages us to watch our minds as if we were sitting on the banks of a a stream and watching the flotsam rush by--so we can watch the flood of thoughts and feeling in our own mind's flow. And we can see the changeableness of all things and also we can detach slightly and see that the ideas, feelings, notions flooding through us are not our core self. They are fleeting expressions of ego. They will pass if we let them go.
Of course, we often don't let them go; we rehearse them and clutch them as if they were pieces of our identity.
And sadly when we do that long enough; then those moments of rage, of shame, of greed and of lust become hours of our days and nights and star as the main players in our life drama.
Haiku can give us a kind of meditative intermission.
Here are a handful of Haiku written by Basho, I copied from a recent collection of translations. They each struck me in some way. You must open your mind to them and see if they speak to you
I love the ZEN spirit of Basho's haiku and his notion that the haiku lives in the moment of finding those 17 syllables and placing them in a three line poem of 5-7-5 syllables. That is the epiphany experience of the Haiku for Basho and he is the Master of the Haiku form.The strictness and the one-off character of the form engaged me.
Sorry to say no one said yes to my invitation. I must remind myself that they are still working and I am retired. I did not do the full 30 days alone; instead I imported a Christian pious practice from my childhood to shape my journey.
Some of you may remember the idea of a NOVENA That is when you pray in the same way to a certain saint for nine days. My mother was always making Novenas to Saint Jude because his feast day was on her birthday OCTOBER 28. And he is the Patron of Impossible or Helpless Causes. I guess my mother often felt that she was seeking help with Helpless Causes in dealing with the poverty, chaos and social bias in raising me and my two sisters with Down Syndrome at home without the help of her husband and depending on the goodness of her live-in sister Anna and her devout Christian Brother Joe-- known in religious life as Brother Cajetan Cyril.
So I began the HAIKU NOVENA, a nine day event and wrote a haiku each day. Funny thing I discovered about Haiku they are a little like peanuts or Lay's Wavy Potato chips. Who can stop with just one?
So I now have produced quite a few haiku. I am not sure that they work as haiku--yes, they conform to the 5-7-5 rule but do they express an epiphany?
Can an epiphany be conveyed? Is it all in the mind and soul of the poet and does not convey directly to the mind and soul of the reader. When I read a lot of Basho's haiku, I do get into a state of mind that is receptive to them and suddenly one of them will strike me as a revelation. But it hard to re-create those moments. Reading the same haiku the next day is no longer provocative in the same way.
There is such a momentary flow to haiku and that is how it reflects Buddhist meditative experience. That encourages us to watch our minds as if we were sitting on the banks of a a stream and watching the flotsam rush by--so we can watch the flood of thoughts and feeling in our own mind's flow. And we can see the changeableness of all things and also we can detach slightly and see that the ideas, feelings, notions flooding through us are not our core self. They are fleeting expressions of ego. They will pass if we let them go.
Of course, we often don't let them go; we rehearse them and clutch them as if they were pieces of our identity.
And sadly when we do that long enough; then those moments of rage, of shame, of greed and of lust become hours of our days and nights and star as the main players in our life drama.
Haiku can give us a kind of meditative intermission.
Here are a handful of Haiku written by Basho, I copied from a recent collection of translations. They each struck me in some way. You must open your mind to them and see if they speak to you
Why so scrawny, cat?
starving for fat fish or mice . . .
Or backyard love?
Dewdrop, let me cleanse
in your brief sweet waters . . .
These dark hands of life
Glorious the moon . . .
therefore our thanks dark clouds
Come to rest our necks
Under cherry-trees
soup, the salad, fish and all . . .
Seasoned with petals
Too curious flower
watching us pass, met death . . .
Our hungry donkey
Sunday, July 1, 2018
JUNE IN MEMORIAM
LAST DAY OF A GRIEF FILLED MONTH
I lost so many great friends and relatives this past month. I am going to list them here. I have already written about them:
Ranjit Kaur--my husband's sister, lived in Vancouver, lovely,lively lady. Great sister.
Robert Jenckes--my first cousin and a dear friend and support through life, active and always helpful father, brother, husband and son
Jackie Demaline--an extraordinary woman--drama critic and arts writer for the Cincinnati Enquirer. My best friend in Cincinnati.
Richard Greenberg-brilliant designer, creative genius and my friend from Grad school at Illinois.
Peter Vangel, Superintendent of schools and great teacher. Father of my good friend Elizabeth from Woonsockett.
Susan Edwards--great friend in grad school. She was the person who helped to launch the journal LAVENDER WOMAN and later she taught at Naropa in CO. Buddhist, philosopher and was a friend of Allan Ginsburg.
Now I must turn my self towards JULY. The month of my birth-- I was born on the FIFTH OF JULY, Just a little too late for the 4TH OF JULY. So since it is my 75TH birthday, and that is a big one.
I declare all of JULY my birthday month.
In a way the celebrations have begun with my visitors from California. We enjoyed an unusual series of visits from friends and cousins and old acquaintances. So our social life has enjoyed a serious upgrade.
I am increasingly thinking and planning for my participation in the PAWTUCKET ARTS FESTIVAL in SEPTEMBER.
That will be taking up more of my time and thoughts and probably will show up here.
So that is where we are on this first day of JULY and the biggest news--
LEBRON IS NOW A FREE AGENT!
Stay tuned.
I lost so many great friends and relatives this past month. I am going to list them here. I have already written about them:
Ranjit Kaur--my husband's sister, lived in Vancouver, lovely,lively lady. Great sister.
Robert Jenckes--my first cousin and a dear friend and support through life, active and always helpful father, brother, husband and son
Jackie Demaline--an extraordinary woman--drama critic and arts writer for the Cincinnati Enquirer. My best friend in Cincinnati.
Richard Greenberg-brilliant designer, creative genius and my friend from Grad school at Illinois.
Peter Vangel, Superintendent of schools and great teacher. Father of my good friend Elizabeth from Woonsockett.
Susan Edwards--great friend in grad school. She was the person who helped to launch the journal LAVENDER WOMAN and later she taught at Naropa in CO. Buddhist, philosopher and was a friend of Allan Ginsburg.
Now I must turn my self towards JULY. The month of my birth-- I was born on the FIFTH OF JULY, Just a little too late for the 4TH OF JULY. So since it is my 75TH birthday, and that is a big one.
I declare all of JULY my birthday month.
In a way the celebrations have begun with my visitors from California. We enjoyed an unusual series of visits from friends and cousins and old acquaintances. So our social life has enjoyed a serious upgrade.
I am increasingly thinking and planning for my participation in the PAWTUCKET ARTS FESTIVAL in SEPTEMBER.
That will be taking up more of my time and thoughts and probably will show up here.
So that is where we are on this first day of JULY and the biggest news--
LEBRON IS NOW A FREE AGENT!
Stay tuned.
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