A few years ago we had our yard landscaped, and we acquired three citrus trees: an orange, a grapefruit, and a lemon. These last two years we had a a huge yield of lemons. I still have lemons on the tree. We love to squeeze fresh lemon juice into our drinking water—so refreshing!
One day I picked a doubled-brown-paper grocery bagful of lemons. These are Meyer lemons, and they grow to the size of little Nerf footballs, with knobby little protuberances on them. My friends have told me to freeze fresh lemon juice in ice cube trays, then store the cubes in baggies in the freezer and use them as you need them. Sounds like a good idea!
I bought a bunch of plastic ice cube trays at the dollar store, got out my 40-year-old electric juicer, and squoze away. I’d been grabbing the lemons one at a time out of the bag.
When I was down to my last tray, I peeked into the bag to see how many lemons were still in there.
The good news: only three left.
The bad news: there was also a scorpion wiggling around in the bag.
No, this is not my scorpion, but he looked alot like this. Photo by janeb13 on Pixabay.
We live in Arizona. We are no strangers to scorpions. We go for months without seeing any, and then one will tour the bathroom. We have flyswatters hanging on nails throughout the house; they are my weapon of choice against scorpions.
I took the bag outside and dumped it out on the patio. The scorpion, a common tan bark scorpion, and a big one at that, about four inches, lifted his enormous claws, stuck his powerful tail up in the air, and marched right toward me. I could have just stepped on him, but he was huge—what if I missed? He looked like he could hold a grudge.
Not seeing anything good to whack him with, I ran into the house to get my flyswatter. When I came out, he was nowhere to be found.
The next morning, I let Ralph outside, and I noticed all the water had evaporated from his bowl on the patio. So I picked it up to refill it. . .
. . . and there, underneath, was the scorpion. He took one look at me, said, “What?! You again?!” and brandished his claws and stinger at me.
I ran inside for my flyswatter, and when I returned—he was gone again.
Watermelon
by ARHuelsenbeck
it takes both arms to carry you
my green-striped beauty
I can’t wait to plunge my long knife
into your bright red flesh
but first I clear an entire shelf
in the fridge
because you are best when icy cold
while waiting I remember
my childhood end-of-summer ritual
celebrating with green-white-red smiles
juice running down our chins
soaking our t-shirts
and bombarding each other with
seeds fired from our deadly lips
Starting with a line from Sylvia
by ARHuelsenbeck
they stand about in grandmotherly disguise
these imposters
they have no grandchildren
so they acquire others’ by deceit
luring them with cookies and other forbidden sweets
knitting them scratchy sweaters in colors so 1970
they wander the neighborhood and
patronize lemonade stands and
pontificate how in their day the
sweet nectar of the sour tree cost only 5 cents
but buy today’s cup of crystal lite
for a dollar
how dare they send birthday and Halloween cards
to my little sweeties
how dare they call them punkin and cupcake
and take selfies with them
hands off, geezerettes
they’re mine
I earned them the hard way
by raising up my children
and waiting for them to do the same
Wisdom from the mind of the great inventor, Thomas Alva Edison:
Opportunity is missed by most people, because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.
To have a great idea, have a lot of them.
The chief function of the body is to carry the brain around.
Nearly every man who develops an idea works it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then he gets discouraged. That’s not the place to become discouraged.
The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.
I find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.
The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will instruct his patient in the care of the human frame, in diet, and the cause and prevention of disease.
More than a year ago, I wrote this poem. It’s encouraging to think that we’re finally getting close to the end of this pandemic.
Pandemic Prayer
by ARHuelsenbeck
Lord, I pray for an end to this pandemic
and yet, as the words leave my heart
I wonder if it’s even good to ask for
an end to the dying
an end to the pain
an end to economic chaos
an end to inconvenience
an end to isolation
what if this is Your way
of welcoming people to eternity
with You, an exodus from pain to paradise
or of reconnecting parents with children
and workers with their neighborhoods
what if this disease is accomplishing Your purpose
I still want to hang on to the way things were
when I could go to rehearsals
or out to dinner and a movie
when I could hug my friends
or even be in the same room with them
Your will be done
please strengthen me for what’s to come
My church reopened for in-person worship this week. We haven’t attended yet, but hope to soon.
Here’s a video of the last time our bell choir played. The song is “My Jesus, I love You.” I’m the short one in the back row.
Back in the day, I was an elementary general music teacher. It gives me great pleasure to see kids having fun making beautiful music.
I’ve been bummed out by our long pandemic season. It’s affected my blogging in that I just don’t feel excited about writing. But then I thought, What could be better or more life-affirming than kids making music? So I headed to YouTube. (Oh, yeah, like you haven’t been watching cat videos while stuck at home.)
A six year old at Carnegie Hall:
Three year old drummer:
Kids making music with found objects:
A six-year-old accompanies herself on ukulele:
Kids from all over the world cooperated to make this video. My students used to do this cup thing.
Seven year old guitarist:
You’ll recognize the three pieces in this medley played by nine- and ten-year-olds:
Hey, don’t you have an accordion stored under your bed? This would be a good time to pull it out and practice. . .
Joy Harjo is the current poet laureate of the United States, the first Native American to hold that position. I bought this book because I wanted to learn more about her.
Harjo is almost the same age as me, which made me like her immediately. However, our life experiences couldn’t be more different.
Harjo starts her memoir with the story of her parents and ends with her young adulthood. Her writing style is musical—even her prose is poetic. The poems included in the book reflect her native culture, which is woven throughout.
As a child, Joy was a good student, an artist who loved poetry, photography, and music.
Harjo’s parents divorced, and her mother married an older white man who physically and emotionally abused her and Joy and Joy’s sister and brothers.
Her stepfather wanted Joy gone, so he suggested sending her to a fundamentalist Christian school. Joy asked instead to be sent to an Indian boarding school, so she would have classmates who looked like her. The family applied through the Bureau of Indian Affairs and she was sent to the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. She studied art and theater in addition to her academic subjects. When she graduated from the high school program, she was pregnant. The baby’s father promised to send her money to join him, but he didn’t.
Joy borrowed bus money from her brother to travel to her baby daddy’s home. They married, but the marriage didn’t last.
With tribal assistance, Harjo entered the University of New Mexico in a premed program. After one semester, she changed her major to studio art. She met a student who wrote poetry. Joy had always loved poetry; she had loved to recite it as a child. She thought poetry had to be in English. This young man wrote poetry about his tribe and his pueblo and his people and their ideals. He changed the way Harjo thought about poetry. She fell in love with the student, and he beat her. She bore him a daughter and named her Rainy Dawn. He was an alcoholic, and she eventually left him. The book ends shortly thereafter, with Harjo pursuing poetry.
This is an excellent book for a white person to read, especially one whose experience with Native Americans is as non-existent as mine. It’s eye-opening.
Fra Angelico (born Guido di Pietro circa 1395—died February 18, 1455) was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. His nickname in English-speaking countries, Fra Angelico, means the “Angelic friar,” referring to his devout and humble demeanor. He earned his reputation primarily for with the series of frescoes he made for his own friary, San Marco, in Florence.
The earliest recorded document concerning Fra Angelico dates from October 17, 1417, when he joined a religious confraternity at the Carmine Church, still under the name of Guido di Pietro. This record reveals that he was already a painter. The first record of Angelico as a friar dates from 1423, when he is first referred to as Fra Giovanni (Friar John), following the custom of taking a new name upon entering a religious order.
Images from the Linaiuoli Madonna altarpiece by Fra Angelico: store.metmuseum.org
According to Vasari (a sixteenth century artist and art historian), Fra Angelico initially received training as an illuminator, possibly working with his older brother Benedetto, who was also a Dominican and an illuminator. The former Dominican convent of San Marco in Florence, now a state museum, holds several illuminated manuscripts that are thought to be entirely or partly by his hand. According to Vasari, the first paintings of this artist were an altarpiece and a painted screen for the Charterhouse (Carthusian monastery) of Florence; neither still exist.
Annunciation, Fra Angelico
From 1408 to 1418, Fra Angelico lived at the Dominican friary of Cortona, where he painted frescoes, now mostly destroyed, in the Dominican Church. Between 1418 and 1436 he was at the convent of Fiesole, where he also painted a number of frescoes and the Altarpiece for the church.
In 1436, Fra Angelico was one of the friars from Fiesole who moved to the newly built friary of San Marco in Florence. This was an important move which put him in the center of artistic activity of the region and won him the patronage of Cosimo de’ Medici, one of the wealthiest and most powerful members of the city’s governing authority and founder of the dynasty that would dominate Florentine politics for much of the Renaissance. Cosimo had a cell reserved for himself at the friary in order that he might retreat from the world. At Cosimo’s urging, Fra Angelico set about decorating the friary, including the magnificent fresco of the Chapter House, the often-reproduced Annunciation, the Coronation of the Madonna with Saints, and the many other devotional frescoes depicting aspects of the Life of Christ that adorn the walls of each cell.
San Marco Altarpiece, Fra Angelico
In 1439 Fra Angelico completed one of his most famous works, the San Marco Altarpiece at Florence, which was unusual for its time. Images of the enthroned Madonna and Child surrounded by saints were common, but they usually depicted a setting that was clearly heaven-like, in which saints and angels hovered about as divine presences rather than people. But in this instance, the saints stand squarely within the space, grouped in a natural way as if they were able to converse about the shared experience of witnessing the Virgin in glory.
The Crucified Christ, Fra Angelico
In 1445 Pope Eugene IV summoned him to Rome to paint the frescoes of the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament at St Peter’s, later demolished by Pope Paul III. Fra Angelico was offered the Archbishopric of Florence, but he refused it, recommending another friar for the position. In 1447 Fra Angelico was in Orvieto, creating works for the Cathedral there.
The Transfiguration, Fra Angelico
From 1447 to 1449 Fra Angelico was back at the Vatican, designing the frescoes for the Niccoline Chapel for Pope Nicholas V. The scenes from the lives of the two martyrs, St. Stephen and St. Lawrence, may have been executed wholly or in part by assistants. The small chapel, with its brightly frescoed walls and gold leaf decorations gives the impression of a jewel box. From 1449 until 1452, Fra Angelico returned to his old convent of Fiesole, where he was the Prior.
St. Lawrence Distributing Alms, Fra Angelico
In 1455, Fra Angelico died while staying at a Dominican convent in Rome, perhaps while working on Pope Nicholas’ chapel. He was buried in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva.
When singing my praise, don’t liken my talents to those of Apelles. Say, rather, that, in the name of Christ, I gave all I had to the poor.
The deeds that count on Earth are not the ones that count in Heaven.
Allison Boley
Carol Boley
dgood648
Joy
Andrea R Huelsenbeck
Betty Mason Arthurs
Linda Carlblom
Peggy Levesque
tuesdayschildren100
Judy Robertson
Doing Life Together 