The Right Poem for the Day in Everyday Ramblings

What I did on Saturday afternoon. They are peanut butter. Yesterday I took a 3- hour Rest & Restore workshop and then Kes and Most Honorable came by with more cookies. I knew this time of year with the cold and the dark was going to prove a challenge for tracking food and eating fruit and veggies. What do they call it? Harm reduction? Keeping it all in mostly modest proportions.

One good thing is that my digestion is working well.

I realized after talking to a wise student that the heart stuff last week was most likely triggered by the fall. I am fine, btw, lip almost all healed, same with knees and hands, just one of my elbows I need to be watchful with. And my heart has settled. I have made up my mind to try to incorporate some meaningful rest into my routine though.

My niece, who is my oldest sister’s daughter (and Miss E’s mother) asked (my living sister) Kes in an email to send her some pictures, so she asked me if I had any. Daunted by the prospect of going through thousands of photos this morning I thought, oh, I will set up an album in Google Photos. It has been practicing artificial intelligence on my photos now for a time, it sends me groups of irises or waterfalls or “a day in the country”.

I was able to search via facial recognition and in about 20 seconds it came up with 26 pictures spanning an eight-year period. In one picture you can see Kes reflected in a mirror. But what else is interesting is that it also picked up pictures of my other sister. I guess we look more alike than any of us thought. And, obviously, Miss E. is in a number of the shots. Family get togethers for milestones in her life.

AI is no longer a feature of the future. It is here.

Saturday morning, I ventured out to our annual fundraiser for the local Audubon Society. It is called “The Wild Arts Festival”. It is a collection of local artists and authors with work that is all wildlife themed. I picked up a few gifts and talked at length with an unhappy woman who has a garden across the river, just her yard. She grows flowers, cuts them, arranges them, and photographs them on a black velour background and makes big painting sized prints. She didn’t really want to talk to me but no one else was looking at her work. I was quite taken by one still life. It would have made a lovely gift for Kes but, umm, $800?

She did let me take a picture. I asked of course. She was trying to impress upon me how much work it all was. I like taking pictures of living flowers, but she didn’t know that. I am going to grow more next year in my plot, and I can maybe see if I grew them maybe cutting them as gifts would feel okay. The photo I admired was a gift for a friend of hers using an antique teapot for the focal point.

Her hostility to me could have been that I was one of a very small group of the hundreds there wearing a mask. Who knows?

There was also an enthusiastic self-taught wildlife photographer that had this marvelous photo of a bobcat blending into a tree. He also had some just off the beaten path raven shots. More like ravens when they are at home, not glamour shots.

I am enjoying the animated Jacquie Lawson Advent Calendar this year. It is a Sussex scene. Much better than London last year. There is a room in the animation with a fireplace and a tree where you can go and hangout and play games. There are activities somedays and somedays just adorable short videos of rabbits and squirrels and duck ice skating.

The cats are sleeping. I need to get ready for class.

I read a poem this morning by Ted Kooser called Depression Glass
and we had this fun conversation about all those sets of dishes and steak knives and small appliances folks used to get with things like green stamps or buying 5 lbs. of flour.

The looks on everyone’s face when I finished reading the poem were priceless, this remembering with a light fondness… it was a lovely moment. That’s when I know I have chosen the right poem for the day.

Last updated December 12, 2022