Loose Leaf Notes

So what really happens on Facebook when someone gets poked? And how did we go from this ...

... to this?

Mara started it on our walk on Zephry Farm Wednesday to see the rune marker on Ray's grave that was described in our friend Katherine's story in Moonshine "Appalachian Funeral." We came across some pokeweed berries and she painted her hands. I knew the plant was poisonous but that it was used by Native Americans and in folk remedies for its medicinal properties. Later I learned that the Declaration of Independence was written in fermented pokeberry juice and that many letters written during the Civil War were also in poke.

My grandson Bryce's sister Kaylee (above) thinks Pokeberry should be called Purpleberry and Mara's daughter Kyla thinks the dye is hot pink, while I call it magenta. Pokeweed is my favorite nail polish color. Have you been pinked or poked lately?

Posted by Colleen at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Our weekend was almost ruined by a tech pain in the neck. “It’s all Geek Greek to me,” I said to Joe, after he had spent a couple of hours at the computer trying to remove a computer virus that disguised itself as antivirus program warning of viruses.

Our computer had a virus and I felt sick, because of it and for another reason. While Joe was navigating the matrix of the computer virus world, I was in a virtual tailspin with a bad case of vertigo.

When my latest bout of vertigo came back while at Bethany Beach last week, I tried to ignore it, the way you decide not to scratch poison ivy because you think not scratching will make it go away faster. But now I was holding on for my dear dizzy nauseous life.

But our weekend wasn’t a total loss because baby Bryce and his mom and dad came up from Roanoke for a visit. We tucked the sick computer in and went up to Chateau Morrisette Winery for brunch, even though I was feeling like pregnant woman with morning sickness and was stumbling a bit ( hoping no one thought I was drunk from the wine tasting).

After Joe read on my blog that I called walking the beach at sunset during my vacation my Vitamin B-each shot, he started calling B-ryce his vitamin B. It’s hard to feel bad with a new baby and enough vitamin B to go around. Bryce’s laughter is contagion I’m happy to catch. I sat down when I held him.

Photo: Empty lifeguard stand at the Floyd Country Club Pool, taken during our last swim of the season. The pool closes after Labor Day, another sign of the end of summer.

Posted by Colleen at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

Seems you can go anywhere on the grounds of FloydFest with a sparkly pink performer’s wrist band, even to the hospitality tent for a complimentary beer on tap. And if your husband is organizing the parking at the festival you’re likely to get a decent parking place and maybe a ride in a golf cart.

Now if you happen to have on shiny new pink boots (always a good FloydFest choice, since you never know what the weather is going to do) and you’re part of the opening act on the first night of FloydFest, you’re bound to get your picture taken, a lot.

“Did you notice that quite a few people were coming up to take your picture while you were playing?” I asked my son’s girlfriend, Anna, the fiddler player for the Barrel House Mamas.

“I sort of did.”

“That’s what happens when you’re playing in Josh’s hometown and word gets out that you’re his girlfriend,” I told her.

“But you know,” I continued, “that guy with the big camera, that was Doug Thompson. He’s covering the festival for the Floyd newspaper. He didn’t know you were my son’s girlfriend. He was probably just drawn your boots. Wearing boots like that could land you on the front page of the Floyd Press,” I said.

Here’s how the FloydFest program describes the Barrel House Mamas: This trio of women from Asheville, NC, conjure the sweet and sultry sounds of the Appalachian Mountains they call home in their robust three part harmonies and original songs. Imagine the old-timey pluck and the twang of claw-hammer, and sometimes contemporary funk, banjo. Now lace it with middle-eastern inspired flute lines, the wailing honk of harmonica, and the soulful belting of heartfelt poetry. The result is a sound that is all at once bluesy, rootsy, folk, Americana, a touch of country and truly Mama’s own.

I was thoroughly impressed with their set and a couple of them are staying at my house tonight. Check out a short clip of them HERE. And Josh (wearing a Barrel House Mamas T-shirt) talking pottery to a fellow potter on the FloydFest grounds HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (21)

AKA: Think Pink

“What part of France are the lions from?” my husband, Joe, asked.

We were sitting in our wrought iron lawn chairs having breakfast in the yard. Our neighbor’s lawnmower droned as I explained The Shameless Lions Writing Circle to him, how forty-eight lions were being adopted by writers from the group. Visual artists had already created each lion’s individual looks, now writers were adding their two cents – or forty-eight words in this case.

By the time I made my way over to see the Shameless Lions at the invitation of Bonnie and her adopted lion Roary (who has his own blog) there was only one lion still up for adoption. It was pink. I was there to look, wasn’t planning to adopt. But not long after I saw the last pink lion, a lion poem began to take shape. I named the lion Elliot and dubbed him a poet, after my late poet friend, Elliot, who liked to wear a purple beret and a daisy behind his ear. “What would Elliot say if he had a street corner in Paris to shout poetry from,” I wondered as I wrote my forty-eight word writing circle entry fee.

“But Elliot the pink lion was claimed by someone else before I had chance to,” I told Joe.

“Don’t you have a sidebar category for all things pink?” he asked, knowing that pink was my new mid-life crisis color.

“No, but maybe I should start one,” I answered in between sips of tea.

But the last lion that I named Elliot (whose real owner gave him the name Johnny Cash) wasn’t the last. Less than twenty-four hours after my lion adoption fell through, I heard from Seamus the Shameless Lion Circle’s main tamer. A lion had been relinquished. One of the writers who felt the timing wasn’t right to take on an adoption wanted Seamus to offer her lion to me. Could it be Elliot?

Hmmmm.

A few minutes later, another message from Seamus came announcing that the available lion was PINK!

“I’ll be right over to sign the paperwork,” I emailed him. It seemed that Elliot was determined to have a voice.

Meanwhile, back in the yard the birds were chirping and the pot of tea had gone cold. I finished telling Joe the story and he said, “Well, If you find out where in France the lions are exhibited, maybe we can visit yours someday,”

“Yes, and I’ll put a purple beret on his head, like the one that my friend Elliot used to wear,” I answered.

Post Notes: More about Elliot the pink lion, including the poem, below and HERE. Visit the gallery of lions and the writings they inspired HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 9:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (20)

Pink-haired street poet
last lion on the block to be picked
to prove that his rhyme is as big as his roar
that his appetite for words is not to be feared
as he shouts from his corner, “People,
your war is more uncivilized than the jungle!”

The following was written from the Sunday Scribblings prompt, “eccentric." ~ I’m so eccentric that I just spent an hour writing a forty-eight word poem about a pink lion when I wanted to be cleaning my kitchen or doing my Sunday Scribble. My pink lion is a poet named Elliot who was up for adoption HERE. I named him “Elliot” after a one time member of my writer’s workshop, also a poet, who died a couple of years ago.

Elliot, the man, was a bit of a curmudgeon who walked hunched over with a cane and lived on a monthly disability check. Some people thought of him as eccentric. He wore a purple beret and liked to stick a flower behind his ear. The floor of his car was covered with pistachio nut shells. He collected things – t-shirts, ink pens, plastic bags, magazines – to the point of hoarding. His poetry was raw, sometimes disturbing, and worthy of publication. He hated what was happening in Iraq.

Occasionally Elliot posed for The Floyd Figures Art Group to earn a little pocket money. One of the last times he sat for them, the artists decked him out in kingly attire; a royal robe, a crown on top of his long mane of hair, his cane took on the look of a staff, his long beard gave him a renaissance air.

After he died, our Writer’s Circle held a memorial spoken word night at the Café Del Sol for him. Sketches and paintings of him, done by the Figures Group, were scattered throughout the café. One lion-like image of Elliot, titled “Poet King,” sat prominently on an easel by the poet’s mic.

At the Shameless Lions Writing Circle where adoptions were taking place, I was hoping to find a lion with a purple beret like the one that Elliot wore, but there was only one lion left out of forty-eight of them, and it was pink. At first, I wasn't impressed, but I felt sympathetic to the fact that he was the last lion waiting to be picked, and soon I was feeling a bond.

But I had to write a forty-eight word tribute in order to be eligible for my lion. While I was composing the above poem for the last lion waiting on adoption somebody claimed him. His new owner named him Johnny Cash.

Should I ask for visitation?

Post Note: I guess I scribbled after all. Update: The follow-up to this post is HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 9:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)

1. A new take on Mary Kay?

2. Flocks of Phlox

3. I left my heart at Slaughters Garden Center.

4. My pink sneaker with a view.

Post notes: All of the above pictures were taken around Floyd on THIS day.

Posted by Colleen at 6:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)

Which will it be today?

Posted by Colleen at 8:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

1. When it comes to music, I tend to be monogamous. It only takes one good CD to keep me happy for a long time.

2. Right now I’m married to Nora Jones.

3. She says: “The poet’s are demanding their pay. They’ve left me with nothing to say.” Do you think I should apply?

4. I probably wouldn’t get the job. I’ve been writing so much more prose than poetry these days. Last April I said this: If I’m writing too much prose, I begin to need a vacation. Prose is like the day job and poetry is the rest of my life. ~ Finish reading Where Do Poems Come From HERE.

5. While walking to the mailbox, this came to mind: You can have all the right ingredients for a story but if you don’t add some good description to set the scene, it’s like making a soup without salt or spices.

6. If I really like what’s for supper, I put on my reading glasses so I can see it.

7. Is shtick the same thing as a shpiel? Is spiel the unwinding of persuasive speech like a thread unwinds from a spool? Is a hair across the ass the same thing as a hair out of place? ~ Questions found in my notebook.

8. Writing about Mrs. Pickle earlier in the week reminded me of the Fruitcake Lady, the elderly outspoken woman who regularly gave everyone a piece of her mind and advice on sex on "The Jay Leno Show" (and who recently passed away at the age of 95). THIS is some of the funniest footage I’ve seen. More about the Fruitcake Lady HERE.

9. After watching the treadmill dance video on U-Tube (one of my all time favorites) and seeing the pink pants one of the guys in it was wearing, I began to yearn for a favorite pair of pink pants that I had in my 20s. I hit the thrift shops and recently found a suitable pair (a perfect match to my pink raft).

10. Yesterday my husband called me up on the phone and said, “This is an accidental call. My phone just started dialing your number.” “What is this, Hal Call Home?” I asked him. After we talked for about 5 minutes, I said, “Okay, gotta go. Thanks for not calling me.”

11. Favorite quote about Bush’s recent speech to the country: "President Bush told Americans last night that failure in Iraq would be a disaster. The disaster is Mr. Bush's war, and he has already failed.” ~ The New York Times.

12. Watching some Democrats strongly oppose the escalation of the war in Iraq makes me want to ask them why they didn’t speak out more strongly before the start of the war. I don’t think a surge in troops is the issue as much as the war itself.

13. Do you know about Code Pink?

Thursday headquarters is here. My other 13's are here. View more 13 Thursday’s here.

Posted by Colleen at 7:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (30)

Mara and I go to the Scrabble board the way others go to a bar. Scrabble takes our minds of our problems, but it also gives us the opportunity to talk about them. With letters clinking in the bag, we pour out our feelings as we play.

"I’ll tell you a joke," she said, seeing that I needed to be cheered up, “How many Zen monks does it take to change a light bulb?” I shook my head waiting for the punch line.

“A plumb tree in a garden.”

Bob (the bearded lady) came over to our table to say hello, but Mara and I all but ignored him.

“That didn’t cheer me up. It created more stress. I don’t get it,” I bluntly responded to her joke.

“You’re not supposed to; that’s the point. It’s Zen, Colleen,” she explained. (She told me another, in whispered tones, that did make me laugh, but I can’t print it here.)

“Hi Bob!” I called out, five minutes after he greeted us. He was across the room on the computer now, smiling as he waved. “I’m having a delayed reaction,” I explained to him, laughing.

“Well, that’s a good sign,” I turned back to Mara and said. “I think my sense of humor is starting to come back.” She was looking up a word in the Official Scrabble Dictionary when a scribbled note fell out. It was written in blue crayon on a ripped piece of napkin, addressed specifically to “Mara and Colleen.” “Delane and Amy say Hi,” it read. I smiled remembering that Delane, “Life in Mayberry” blogger from Mount Airy, told me he and his wife had recently been up to visit Floyd and that they checked out the Café Del Sol in person, curious after reading about it on my blog.

Jamie hasn’t been blogging lately. He came over to say hello. I complimented him on how great the Winter Sun web page that he’s been managing looks. His mother is a Scrabble player, in the top 100 in Australia, Mara and I learned. Our neck-and-neck scores suddenly seemed insignificant.

Jamie went back to work. While Mara and I played, we talked about the writer’s workshop we both went to the day before, our sensitivities, the definition of “creative non-fiction,” and the difference between a bulkie and a Kaiser roll. A cigarette break was taken; a couple of chicken salad sandwiches were eaten.

"Look, Colleen! This is for you,” Mara announced, pointing to a Roanoke Times spread on the café’s coffee table. It was a feature story on the role of pink in marketing products to women, and Mara knew of my recent interest in all things pink, especially pink blow-up rafts. She turned her feminist nose up at the thought of a bright pink cell phone, but I got a kick out of seeing the Roanoke Times in pink, especially when I picked it up and read this: “The new Samsung E530 pink mobile phone is a girl’s best friend,” a company press release said, “equipped with calorie counter, megapixel camera, shopping list … oh, and it even tells ladies when they’re ovulating.”

Zany had returned. Mara was telling Bernie the Zen joke (see photo above), but he wasn’t laughing either. Chris was telling me about a Roanoke Times commentary on the unreliability of electronic voting. It was written by a mutual friend.

Outside, after our game, and with a Roanoke Times of my own in hand, I gave Mara a big hug and thanked her for cheering me up.

“And it’s hard to feel bad when I win!” I joked to her as I walked across the street.

Posted by Colleen at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (23)

I want a pink blow-up raft … to drift carefree …in a body of water I belong to …

A pink blow-up raft floated into my consciousness during a recent therapy session. “When’s the first time you thought of a pink raft?” my therapist asked me with interest. We both recognized that the raft was a visual signpost, but where would it lead? No doubt, it would take some time for me to reflect on its meaning.

Not like a stone skipping in and out … that plummets to the bottom when it’s done …

During the following week, I realized that my desire for a pink raft was not a whim; it was real. I not only wanted one, I needed it. After a period of self-exploration, I came to understand that the pink raft was a symbol related to my need for support, to be carried. This need likely related back to my early childhood and infancy when I experienced several traumatic separations from my mother. One such incident happened when I was hospitalized for burns for several weeks at the age of 7 months. But there were others.

I want a pink raft more … than a girl wants a Barbie doll … or a pink poodle skirt of quilted satin …

In my adult life, the burden of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome sometimes weighs heavy. I began to visualize myself floating on a pink raft whenever I was resting and felt some relief when I did that. Soon, a real pink blow-up raft manifested itself without any effort from me.

I need it more than the pink diary … with the lock broken off … or even the pink suede purse … I stole from my sister …

I spotted it in the cellar of a house that my son and his new wife were considering buying and were ready to make an offer on. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I wanted to touch it. Take a picture of it. But that seemed weird, and I wasn’t sure how to explain my interest in a pink raft to the others.

I want you to hold me still … while I lie on my back … and float like a petal …

My son’s wife has a little girl. She and I got restless when her mother and step-dad were at the kitchen table with the realtor, going over financial figures and house buying details, so we went outside to explore.

like a baby in a cradle … not left to sink or swim …

From the yard I could see the pink blow-up raft through the cellar window. Bravely, I went back inside to get a closer look. My little friend followed. It was she who snapped the photo of me hesitantly holding onto the raft. She wanted her picture taken with it too. She posed with her arms crossed, her legs slightly open, leaning to one side, as if she OWNED that raft.

“Wait a minute,” I said to her. “I want another picture of me with the raft.” Mimicking her self-confident attitude and stance, I let my shyness drop away. “I can have a pink raft too if I want one,” my new pose seemed to say.

Posted by Colleen at 10:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (30)

Girls in brightly colored wigs posing for poets in a clash of culture when live-bands performed at the Winter Sun Hall and the poets read free verse in Café Del Sol on the same night in different parts of the same building. ~ February ‘06

Post notes: On Wednesday, tomorrow, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06 (via the LoveLink from Sherry). Meet some of Floyd’s other wildlife here and see the wig girls in another get-up altogether here.

Posted by Colleen at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

1. Caught red handed.
2. Pretty in pink
3. Hands up! This is a stick-up
4. Simon says: Do this.

_________________ fill in your own caption.

Photo: Sunday walk on a Blue Ridge Parkway trail. Joe wants to take my picture and says, “Take your hands out of your pocket. I want to see your gloves.”

Posted by Colleen at 8:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (20)

AKA: 2 Pink Tutus
It's like meeting a friend of a friend of a friend; one blog link leads to another, and soon I’m lost in cyberspace on an unfamiliar blog and I can’t remember how I got there.

I clicked a link on somebody’s sidebar because I liked the name, “A Sense of Wonder.” Once there, I scrolled down a little and saw, to my surprise, a young girl standing by a Christmas tree in pink tutu!

Hey, I have one of those! (My son’s girlfriend’s daughter who visited this past Christmas) Is there something going around? A pink Tutu flu?

The whole thing reminded me of the incident of Reese Witherspoon’s vintage dress at the recent Golden Globe Awards, which one press member called “the dress debacle” because, God forbid, someone else wore the same dress to a Golden Globe party 3 years ago.

Not only did I stumble upon the parallel world of the Christmas pink tutu, but just days before I did my blog friend, Bill, mentioned a pink tutu in a Loose Leaf Comment, as though he was setting the stage for what was to come.

Have you experienced any cyber-synchronicity lately?

Post Notes: Pretty in Pink #1 can be found here.
January's Spoken Word Open Mic Night at the Cafe Del Sol is tomorrow night at 7:00

Afternoon Update: I just became aware through a reader that it's Photo Friday and the assignment for today is PINK. I've never played Photo Friday and was not playing when I posted this photo! Case closed on the cyber-synchronicity thing, huh.

Note to Readers: I'm currently experiencing difficulties with my main index template codes and am unable to post. Sorry for any inconvience.

Posted by Colleen at 9:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)

My mother’s 92 year old aunt, who we visited recently in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, is a bright star (as the blinking pin on her sweater suggests) and a shinning example of aging authentically.

Originally from Nova Scotia, like the rest of my mother’s German relatives, she lives alone, has a wicked sense of humor, and is up on the latest world events.

My sister and I had never met her before and my mother hadn’t seen her in over 40 years. So we made the 4 hour drive and arrived at her home. She had a Red Sox throw blanket spread out on her sofa, and she knew what the internet was.

After a time of greeting, we helped her to the car with her walker, where she gave us directions to her daughter’s pond camp. She told us about a recent boyfriend, and when my sister asked if the car air-conditioner was too cold on her, she answered, “I’m not a fussy old lady, you know.”

At the camp house, we all enjoyed a boat ride, and some of us went swimming. As the afternoon passed, we gathered on the back porch to reminisce. Her daughter recounted some details of her mother’s 90th birthday party, which featured a scrapbook full of memories, some of which were old wedding photos.

She wore a pink wedding dress. “Why did you wear a pink dress?” her daughter had asked at the party. She answered with a bawdy laugh and a twinkle in her eye, “Why do you think?!”

Any bride who wears a pink wedding dress in 1932 has got to be pretty special, don’t you think?

Posted by Colleen at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)