Pick of the Litter: yellow paper, black Sharpie® writing: 13 Drinks + Water/CARP 73.
Digital Red Emery
A red emery board lies on the asphalt, parallel to the yellow line that marks one of the spaces at the post office. As I fumble with the engineering compass to obtain the heading of the man-made arrow to find out if it is pointing north, I get a reading of 330: it appears to be shy of north by 30 degrees west. How did it get here? How did I get here?
Today I am doing bullet work. There is just one thing that must be done today and that is pay the Target bill. I have accomplished that and more. Here is my account.
I slept from (blank) until (blank) on the couch in the living room. When I got up I played guess the time .
“It’s between two and three,” I said, traversing the dining room to bedroom and kitchen, where the clock on the stove read 2:27 in digital red.
I fed the cats, changed to go out and went out. I stopped at the bank to withdraw money. I drove toward Target. The sky, which delivered light rain this morning, now was the color of a bleached heron. An unbleached heron flew, flapping eastward, in the sky over Spring Ridge at 3:11. It made me glad to see one.
Morphine was playing on the radio when I arrived at the shopping center. At Target, I picked up a lighter someone had dropped inside the store. It was filled with lighter fluid. It was light. It was pale pinky-orange-red. It was a cheap one. It had no markings. It lay on the carpet between the food area and the dollar deals section where the indoor carts cluster. A lighter would not be the kind of thing I would want running loose in my store. I gave it to the individual who processed my payment, which was for twenty per cent of the total and six times the minimum amount due. Exited without further excitement, leaving the lost light lighter behind, and photographed a round sticker with a happy giraffe face next to the pedestrian crossing area with its multi-stripes of safety yellow-orange that run at a diagonal to the curb kerb.
Next, visited the library jonesing for a computer and suspecting they were in possession of my library card. Yes, they were holding. Was assigned a public computer next to a man who has been searching for a job from there for weeks. The computer monitor in front of him contains his resume.
During a check on business, I learn Target has dropped Amazon Kindle. I learn I have an order to be fulfilled. The computer next to displays a letter to Human Resources. I go home to the fulfillment center and process my order. I learn about the evils of sugar by perusing a book, like when you go on a vacation you take one last look at where you’ve been. At 5:37 the package is taped and ready to go with me to the post office. I drive like a conservative bat out of hell to get it off by 6:00 p.m.
“Take the Skinheads Bowling” plays in the radio during the drive on the expressway in Reading PA, much to my amusement. My amusement, My amusement. The package I busted ass to send off will arrive next Thursday, Next Thursday? Next Thursday!
Read my memory. A red emery board is in the space I pull into at the post office. This is how it got there.
Tread Water
Some days all you can do is tread water don’t dread a day be grateful soon you will be dead.
BCIU student show 2012 part 1
Art appreciation comes easily at the annual display of high school student art, open at the Goggleworks Cohen Gallery through 4/25:
Three of my favorite artifact groups: The fine character of the non-loom fabric projects of Governor Mifflin – Precious! The simplexity of the cardboard charcoal drawings from Boyertown - Stunning! The sophisticated three-dimensional mosaics of Exeter – Awesome!
Special Mention: to a pair of students from Exeter for their offering of writing and illustration called An Alphabet Book of Underappreciated Animals – dear and charming.
There were, alas, no herons in the exhibit, but I plan to go back for Part II today.
Copy Paper
A cardboard box, empty of paper, has been sitting next to the railroad tracks for a couple of days. Earth Day was yesterday. Many were celebrations held over the weekend. Our schedule permitted attendance at the Reading event Saturday April 21 at Riverfront Park.
A band was playing as the shadows lengthened on the grass. The Main Stage lineup board indicated Umami was on. Umami has a cool sound, including an oboe and some of their songs sounded like Dr. John or else they were playing Dr. John.
In addition to the sounds, there were sights:
Hippies with hula hoops and Long flowing skirts.
Girls painting on each other’s skin.
A man with a well-behaved brindle Great Dane. The pair was magnetic and attracted comments like “he’s as big as a horse.” The dog wore black leather accessories with studs as if coming from a Harley Davidson fashion runway.
Most of the vendors had cleared their tables under the information tent. A small separate canopy housed bicycles. The sandwich board listed six cycles and a trailer to the other side carried the slogan It’s a Solar Thing – You Can Understand.
Most of the food vendors were shutting down and the choices has dwindled. Several people scooped colorful Italian ice which has almost no aroma. A woman clad in short shorts performed with a hula hoop accented with about five flaming wicks distributed around the circle and many videographers truned their attention her way.
A green cloth was hung on a line tied on two trees. The cloth was printed with words and a couple of globe shapes that gave the impression of batik. The words were Hope. Happiness. Save. Throw away your cash. Before and After, Eliminate Drugs, Help save our earth. Two young women were about to break camp and noticed I was writing in my notebook. One of them described the origin and the process of the fabric work – it was made by children in an outreach program and they used glue and acrylic paints to create the piece. Ever since then it keeps occurring to me how fortunate it is the young women and the children got together. It would be nice to make something like it.
Feeling tuned up, I returned home by way of the River Place trail along the Schuylkill river near Reading Area Community College (RACC). Piles of stone, baled with wide plastic strapping, have been placed under the Penn street bridge. The Penn street bridge, when you look up, is crumbly but maybe not as badly as the Buttonwood street bridge. Where the stone belongs is unclear.
“This has been here for twenty years!” a man cried out as we passed the stone pallets. “ Twenty years they’ve been sitting here and the city is crying for money.”
I copy. Do you read?
questions along the way
Two questions popped up during drive time this morning. First, the first: “Is your garden hose ready to work?”
The second question is “ Is your vehicle ready for spring?”
Four D’s
Car bearing a Berks Gymnastics Academy decal with a figure silhouette and three words beginning with “D“, or so I thought. The world wide web site includes four d’s: desire, discipline, dedication and determination.
During the afternoon acquired an exciting world wide bird reference book, bound to have a heron in it!
At library, couple exits a pretty Mazda 3. A note is attached to the dashboard: a piece of lined notebook paper with large cursive sriting in blue ink: Do Not Speed!
That’s What She Said and a Flower Walk
Bumper sticker pathling: That’s What She Said. Cute cat figure on train – part of graffiti. Low Tulpehocken creek level again, and zero herons. The area hosted a symphony of spring peepers frogs making music and boasted two toads on the trail and a pair of wood ducks hanging around a triangular rock in the middle of the creek. Garlic mustard plants are taking over the wildflower spots. Other flowers blooming are the striped violet, creamy white with faint black stripe, the bluebells and spring beauty, dainty peppermint striped flower.
Sunday afternoon walked with a group led by Dr. Susan Munch, who with a plant tome in hand and a large dose of enthusiasm. introduced us to leatherwood and jet bead shrubs and pointed out shy trilliums, tiny puffy dwarf ginseng and delicate rue anemone, among many others at Angelica Park. One person in the group was able to report on the scant rainfall this year and another revealed she has a recipe for garlic mustard pesto without revealing the actual recipe. A few defectors from the pack of antendees said they had places to go or found the pace too slow for them, but I found Dr. Munch to be knowledgable – how fast can you go and stop and spot the wildflowers? – and learned to identify a few new plants, including black cohosh. The loop up and down the mountainside is unlike any other in the county. Near the end. we were warned of the imminent arrival of mountain bikers about to finish a course. A strange woman stood by the path as we admired a luna moth resting near the base of an antique spruce tree. She advised us to move out of the way – fifteen bikers were coming down, that’s what she said.
The Heron Report
