MATRIX 1965

A Facebook friend and classmate from Fairfax High School Class of 1965 just sent me a copy of our school's literary magazine Matrix that was published in the year we graduated.  Wanda Brown Purdy and I and a bunch of other classmates were posting remembrances on a FB site for those who graduated from the original campus and Wanda mentioned a while back that she still had a box of stuff from high school and one of those things was this Matrix issue.  She had the box stored and would dig it out and share since I had lost my copy long ago.

When she found her box of treasures she let me know that she couldn't find my poem.  I explained to her that I had used a nom de plume because my eighteen year old self thought the poem was dumb and I was okay with having it published but I didn't want anyone to know I had written it..  I used the name Margui Berger.  Margui was for my most loved Aunt Margui,  Margarette Watson, but the Matrix staff had spelled it Margee.  Berger was for a boy I was dating at the time.  She said then that she had already read the poem and she would send me her copy.

 I was so happy I remembered that the poem started out "If I had a penny" but couldn't remember the rest of it and as a matter of fact I hadn't even submitted it to Matrix.  It was written in Mrs. Jochem's English Class and she had submitted it.  It's not half bad if I say so myself  and I can see my love for rhyming.  I'm a rhyming fool.  Here it is:

A Penny

If I had a penny
I'd buy a little lace
To sew upon your collar
And frame your pretty face.

If I had a penny
I'd buy a flower's bloom
And put it in your parlor
To decorate your room.

If I had a penny
I'd buy a horse and carriage.
I'd bring it to your cottage door
And ask your hand in marriage.

Wanda Brown Purdy, thank you so, so, so, much.  Love, Sandy

BUTTERFLY EVOLUTION

Enhanced Copy of Original  I

The Original Drawing

Cut Outs and Copies of Enhanced Original I

Cut Outs and Copies of  Enhanced Original Copy II

Plus Enhanced I and II Cut Outs

                                                             VARIATIONS

With Added Flower Stickers

TWO RICKS FISHING - Assateague Island

OOGLIE BOOGLIE LOVE

OOGLIE BOOGLIE, 
I DREAMED OF YOU
ON MY TIPTOES
TWIRLING LAUGHING.
YOU PUT A SPELL ON ME.

OOGLIE BOOGLIE,
I DREAMED OF YOU
IN A COLD SWEAT
HOT AS ICE.
YOU PUT A SPELL ON ME.

OOGLIE BOOGLIE
I DREAMED OF YOU
FLOATING ON AIR
I DRANK THE WINE.
YOU PUT A SPELL ON ME

THE CHAIR IN THE WOODS

At the end of the meadow
At the edge of the wood
There's a place to rest
And mellow your mood

And

Read a  book
Or take a nap or
Pet the kitten
Asleep in your lap

So

Kiss it's ear
And rub it's fur
Give it a treat
And hear it purr

Now

Relax in the chair in the wood.

ROAD WARRIOR

Born To Be Wild - Steppenwolf


Get your motor runnin'
Head out on the highway
Looking for adventure
In whatever comes our way

Yeah, darlin'

Gonna make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space

I like smoke and lightnin'
Heavy metal thunder
Racing in the wind
And the feeling that I'm under

Yeah, darlin'
Gonna make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space

Like a true nature's child
We were born
Born to be wild
We can climb so high
I never wanna die
Born to be wild
Born to be wild




Get your motor runnin'

Head out on the highway
Looking for adventure
In whatever comes our way

Yeah, darlin'
Gonna make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space

I like smoke and lightnin'

Heavy metal thunder
Racing in the wind
And the feeling that I'm under

Yeah, darlin'
Gonna make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space

Like a true nature's child
We were born
Born to be wild
We can climb so high
I never wanna die
Born to be wild
Born to be wild

http://vimeo.com/260
84164



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PRICED TO SELL

I was reminded today of a few years back when we lived in our South San Francisco house and my niece used to come over on Sundays and we'd go look at houses for sale.  It was fun to look at homes that had been staged for sale and how they were decorated and what changes had been made to the original design of the house.  There's no new building on the San Francisco Peninsula unless something is torn down and something completely new built.  There's no new land unless you fill in the bay to make new land or build up the sides of San Bruno Mountain.  Both have been done.

One home we went into on an Open House Sunday was on the street on the hill behind me up about two blocks.  It had been freshly painted and staged with beautiful furniture and had a wonderful view across the small valley that was actually the rip zone for the San Andreas fault line that ran through Westborough subdivision.  My own house lies about a thousand feet from the rip zone.  It had three bedrooms and two baths, and a kitchen completely redone with refaced cabinets, new floors, counter tops and appliances.  Everything smelled and looked wonderful.  The walled entrance led past a glass enclosed garden between the garage and the front door.  This had been done in lieu of an open front courtyard.  My niece was entranced and put in a bid and I'll say now she was outbid.

I was entranced myself until I walked into the two car garage from the sitting room off the kitchen.  It was like walking into a room in a scary black and white movie.  It was cold and dark and grey and looked older than the fifty years since the house had been built.  As I was standing on the top step ready to step down I stopped and really looked around.  It was of course empty of anything personal from the people who had lived there. There was the furnace and built in cabinets and sink ready for a clothes washer and dryer and the ceiling was open to the roof.  The garage door was closed.  On the side of the steps was a wooden ledge that wasn't anything but a box which seemed out of place.  I stopped there and went back into the bright and warm house.

What we didn't know at the time was that a ninety year old woman had lived there alone.  She had taken her own life by hanging herself from a rafter in the garage and had been there a while before she was found.  This, of course, was the reason the person who was showing the house had incense burning in the living room and the reason for the lower asking price for the house.  When I found this out I couldn't help imagining the old lady standing on that ledge beside the steps and somehow throwing the rope over a cross beam and tying it to something......then stepping off.

We don't know who bought the house although that's public record and we know the suicide would have been disclosed in the sale.   A couple of months later I drove by that house and saw that the new owners were replacing the concrete floor in the garage and the driveway.  I wonder if they found the garage as creepy as I had.

My niece is still living in her lovely townhouse on the other side of South San Francisco and it's accruing more value every day.  Buyer beware.  Sometimes being outbid is not a bad thing.


 

INDECIPHERABLE WRITING - A Game

Hold me to a mirror
Find where I begin (Mary)
Follow me around and around
Till you find the end.

SHE'S GONE AHEAD

SHE'S DIED.  SHE'S DEAD.
SHE GONE AHEAD.
HOW WILL I GO ON?


SHE'S LOVE.  SHE'S LOVED.
SHE WAITS ABOVE.
HOW WILL I GO ON?

I'LL JOIN HER THERE
IN THE GREAT SOMEWHERE
TILL THEN I'LL JUST GO ON.

SWEET COWBOY

Unsaddle your horse, Darlin',
And come on inside.
Sit next to me, Darlin',
You've had a long ride.

Kick ofF your boots, Darlin',
Take your hat off, too.
I'll wipe your brow
And whisper sweet things to you.

Be my sweet cowboy
You've lassoed my heart
It's been so long
That we've been apart.

DAUGHTER

"She is the shape of my hand" - Paul Eluard

She is the love of my life.
She said to me when she was so little
I didn't know she knew the words
She hoped she never got another family
Because she loved her's so much.

Now she has her own daughters
And a husband of her own.
I love her family so much
I didn't know I knew the words.

Writing Doris' Story - untitled so far

I'm writing my first piece of fiction.  I've been writing my own memories or this and that from my own family's lore but this is based on an actual happening in my husband's family and fictionalized because there's no one left but my husband and his brothers who remember....and their memories are those of small children my husband being just a lap child when it all happened.  I've built my story to the turning point but am having trouble with the transition to the climax so am busy refining what I've written until I figure out how to tell the rest.  I have relics from what happened......should I include the pictures?  Maybe.

Until then I'll go on writing my rhymes (I love rhymes) and drawing my pictures which I hope you enjoy.   Stay tuned.

MOONLIGHT

IN THE MOONLIGHT TOILING
YOU SPIN AND CAST YOUR SPELL
SOFTLY DEFTLY WEAVING
A WEB OF GOSSAMER HELL

TO CATCH A LITTLE NIGHT WING
FLYING UNAWARES
A STICKY WEB O'  SILK
MAKES THE PERFECT SNARE.

FEAST UPON ITS CARCASS
THEN MUMMIFY ITS SOUL
IN NATURE'S LITTLE MADNESS
A SPIDER'S LIFE UNFOLDS.

IN THE MOONLIGHT TOILING
YOU SPIN AND CAST YOUR SPELL.
SOFTLY DEFTLY WEAVING
A WEB OF GOSSAMER HELL.

TAKE ME

TAKE ME

Dripping liquid
Like melting rubies..
Savage wound at my wrist
Wrought by me
Flaming crimson.
Bubbling, gurgling,
Weeping life.

Take me.

SOULLESS

Got a monkey on your back?
Does it shriek and screech the same?
Would your give your soul and first born
If it didn't know your name?

Do you see it's image
When your nodding in a haze
Lolling, drooping, drooling
Till he jumps back on again?

HOW THEY MET

    They met on a blind date the first Friday after New Years.  It was January 5th.  They were both single parents and she had just turned twenty one and he was twenty three.  He had three kids, twins three years old and one under two.  Her child was six months old.  They were the first person each  had dated after failed relationships.  He was divorcing and she was abandoned and both of them were living with their parents.

     It was a blind date arranged for by a friend she worked with.  He was a friend of the person her friend had been seeing.  It was evening and they drove to the beach for a while then the friends wanted to go dancing and he and she didn't so they drove them back to his parent's house to get his car.

     They went in and sat on the couch in the living room after greeting his mother and family.  While they were sitting on the couch the cutest little blond girl came and stood in front of them wearing a white flannel nightgown with angel wings and lopsided pigtails and she asked if she was his little sister.  At this point he hadn't told her that he was divorcing and had children and she hadn't told him she had a child so when he said no, that this was his daughter visiting him for the weekend she kind of made a sigh of relief.  They both had baggage.

     They left and went to a pizza place and ordered a mushroom pizza and he had a beer and she had a coke and they spent the evening getting acquainted.  He worked for an airline and had been through the apprenticeship program which paid for college.  He was divorcing and his ex wife had custody of his kids.  She worked in the office of an engineering company.  It was here she told him about her child and her broken engagement.  He was very kind.

     When they left the pizza place and he drove her home he kissed her at the door.

THE ROAD AT DUSK

Thank you, Gianluca Penzo, for sending me this photo.  I love it.  It's magic.

         
          Thoughts of owls and bats and things                          Harvest moon rises high on high
          Guide me faeries to your ring.                                     A Golden orb in a sapphire sky.
          Setting sun shines down the lane                                 Nightwings singing songs of fate
          Rays of light begin to wane.                                        Bewitches any answering mate.
          Waving trees in evening's breezes                               Lustful songs full of burning
          Shadows into twilight eases.                                       Swirling swirling midnight's yearning
          Dusky road leads into night                                         Moonbeams light the midnight sky
          Rolling on and out of sight.                                          Whispering softness sleep is nigh.

Photo shared from Cartoon Yourself  appearing on FB 6-26-13

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BERMUDA TRIANGLE

Maelstrom, Tumult, and Clamor
Wave arms and move the clouds
Swirling swirling the vortices
Calling to the winds
Calling to the waves
Keening keening
The Sirens roar
Come to us
The sirens whisper
Rest here
Stay with us
Rest here
Lost forever.

A MONKEY CHAIR

In the chair that Daddy made

Come little one and sit
Have a cookie with a chocolate chip
On a little plate with 'nanna slices
And a cup of cold cold milk.

Sing a song about Yabba Dabba
Say UUH UUH UUH!
Say AHH AHH AHH!
Laugh and laugh
An scratch your sides

In the chair that Daddy made.

"ALL GROWTH IS A LEAP IN THE DARK" Henry Miller

And that's what some good stories are all about.

Lewis Carroll's Alice's adventures in Wonderland began with a trip down the rabbit hole or through the looking glass.  "One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small and the one's that mother gives you don't do anything at all." from the song White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane.

Wendy and her brother's adventure began by following Peter Pan out of the nursery window at bedtime and flying on pixie dust to a land among the stars.  She mothered lost boys and loved Peter but grew up and left childhood behind........originally a play written by J.M. Barrie

How many suspensions of disbelief began in the dark of the Twilight Zone?

"There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call The Twilight Zone."......Rod Serling.


A Yankee from Connecticut learned a lot about himself in King Arthur's Court and that even though you might know what the future brings you can't change the past.   A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is a novel by Mark Twain.

In Brigadoon a Scottish town appears for one day every hundred years and the modern character Tommie who accidently wanders in falls in love with a girl and the town and finds "when you love someone deeply enough anythin' is possible.  Even miracles."  Originally a play, then a Vincent Minelli  film with music by Lerner and Lowe.

L. Frank Baum's Oz is the penultimate leap into the dark and coming out on the other side with a new understanding of life.  Everyone gets what they want but must fight hard to attain it....a heart, a brain, and courage....and there's no place like home.  The movie with Judy Garland is in my top ten if not my most best loved film.

THE BREW THAT IS TRUE

"DOUBLE, DOUBLE TOIL AND TROUBLE FIRE BURN, AND CAULDRON BUBBLE.
FILLET OF FENNY SNAKE,  IN THE CAULDRON BOIL AND BAKE;
EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG,
ADDER'S FORK, AND BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S  LEG ,AND OWLET'S WING,-
FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE,
DOUBLE, DOUBLE TOIL AND TROUBLE; FIRE BURN, AND CAULDRON BUBBLE."
From Hamlet by
William Shakespeare

FROM THE COURT JESTER WITH DANNY KAYE - A movie

......for Rich, Ray, and Rod

         
I've got it! I've got it! The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true! Right?

Griselda: Right. But there's been a change: they broke the chalice from the palace!

Hawkins: They *broke* the chalice from the palace?

Griselda: And replaced it with a flagon.

Hawkins: A flagon...?

Griselda: With the figure of a dragon.

Hawkins: Flagon with a dragon.

Griselda: Right.

Hawkins: But did you put the pellet with the poison in the vessel with the pestle?

Griselda: No! The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the dragon! The vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true!

Hawkins: The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the dragon; the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true.

Griselda: Just remember that.

THE NEW NORMAL

I

On a tightrope strung
From pillar to post
Reaching.......


Come here go there
Whirling wildly flailing
Failing to catch the ring
Again.......                          

STAR CROSSED

I would time travel to be with you,
Would circle the earth to be with you,
Journey through the cosmos to be with you,
And die a thousand deaths to be with you.
Be with me.

I will be with you in the moment
Or the hour or for all eternity and
Ever and ever and tomorrow.
Be with me.

Time won't wait
For star crossed lovers.
Be with me.

TO DREAM

Pray now, a dream, my mind what's there?
A peek in the recesses most lucid.

CRYING IN THE DARK

Creature Within

Jumping out of my skin
So sensitive to light
Crawling and burning.

Eyes of my palms staring
Seeing as I hold them near
Face to Face.

Die creature die
Smirking smile laughing
At me.

Standing On The Edge

Be careful, the rocks are slippery
Be careful, the granite's sharp
Hellfire and brimstone beyond the chasm
Oh God, it's so very dark.

Hell's numeral is six six six
Heaven's numeral is three
Make a place in Purgatory
For especially
Most particularly
me.

RESPECT FOR THOSE WHO SERVE

All have served and now serve with dignity, honor, pride, and have this American's heart

THOSE WHO HAVE SERVED:

Curt Pearson, my Dad, was marine Air Corps in the Pacific in the Solomon Islands on Beauganville in WWII.

Uncle Carroll Simpson served in the Korean Conflict.  My first memories of a president was President Truman coming on our Muntz TV in the evenings and talking to the country about how that war was going on.  Daddy had bought the Muntz TV because he thought he would have to go to Korea but it was Momma's baby brother Uncle Carroll who went instead as a young Marine.

My brother-in-law Mike Burke from Vienna, Va. served in Viet Nam.  He had his R&R in Hawaii and my sister Linda flew over to be with him.

My brother Fred Pearson, a young Marine, served during Nam but was never sent overseas because he was an only son and I wonder if they still do that.  He would rather have gone.

Nephew Nick Starzer served in the Army in the Iraq War.


THOSE NOW SERVING

Nephew Brandon Quackenbush serves in the Navy.

Nephews Shane and Justin Abold, brothers, both serve in the Coast Guard.

Cousin Patricia Kutch, Coast Guard.

These are my family members.  Thank you for your service.

Who else will serve?  Will my grandsons be called?  We will never be without conflict.  God Bless America.

HORSE WHISPERER.....NOT!

Not a kid story, not a bike story, not even a hometown story but if you're talking about horseback riding stories here's my memory.  1978 San Francisco CA.....

My boyfriend Aaron, nine year old daughter Robin, and I went to the stables  and rented horses at Thornton State Beach.  The only horse I had ever been on I was in fourth grade and the horse was pregnant at my cousin's farm in Aldie VA and I didn't ride her I just sat on her.  Oh, I forgot the pony rides at Bailey's Crossroads when I was a little kid and the guy led you around a ring.  Anyway, someone said  tell them you know how to ride so they'll give you a good horse.  So we saddled up and with a guide and a group we headed down the trail through the cliffs to the beach.  On the way down I lost the reins they kinda slipped out of my grasp and I was holding on to the horn of the western saddle and the guide looked around and yelled at me.  I did manage to get back ahold of the reins after that.

When we got down to the beach the guide left us and went back up to the stables and everyone rode off, even Robin.  I tschked tschked tschked and hit my horse's side with my heels and said "gitty up!" and tschked tschked tschked  and shook the reins and couldn't get the horse to do anything.  After trying I don't know how long to get him walking I looked around at Aaron and his horse was bending down on his front knees and before you knew it he was rolling over.  I'm exclaiming to myself  "Oh, no! We're going to have to walk back up the trail to the stables and tell them their horse is dead on the beach!!!!"  What I didn't realize was Aaron didn't know how to ride either and this was the horse's way of getting him off his back.

Well, Aaron is now standing on the beach and his horse takes off at a run.  I climb down and we start walking back up to the stables leading my horse who has decided he was alright with being led.  At this point my daughter comes running down the trail as her horse had headed back to the stable and she was coming to find me.  Robin got up on the horse and rode him back to the stable with Aaron and me following on foot.  Aaron's horse had gone back to the stable, too, riderless.  I have never been back on a horse and don't really mind that I haven't.

The only thing I could add to this story of inept horseback riders is what my co-worker at the time, Nancy, told me about her experience at the same stable.  She mounted her horse and it took off galloping out into the traffic there on Skyline Boulevard and her wig went flying off her head.  I can just imagine that wild ride.....


EPILOGUE:  Almost forty years later.

Robin...I didn't walk back to you guys and ride your horse.  My horse decided to go back to the stable.  I was fighting it all the way up the cliff trail to turn around and go back to the beach.  It finally reared up, I lost my stirrups and it charged all the way back to the stable.  It was amazing that I didn't fall off.  I spent the next 45 minutes waiting for everyone to come back.

Me, Yikes!

 I found this picture of me taken in Cameron Valley, Alexandria, Virginia.  I'm sitting, not riding or being led around a ring, but it's my first encounter with a horse.  What a cutie I am!

I

WHAT DO I MEAN ?

Words that sound alike but are spelled differently or spelled the same but have different meanings and a language comprised of parts of all languages spoken worldwide.   ENGLISH  Ain't it great!

principle...principal  /  here...hear  /  we...wee  /
born...borne  /  sleigh...slay  /  so...sew  /  moose...mousse  /
whether...weather  /  which...witch  /  red...read
bite...byte  /  steel...steal  /  night...knight  /  break...brake  /
led...lead  /  bail...bale  /  threw...through  /  meant...mint  /
hour...our  /  two...too...to  /  some...sum  /  reign...rain  /
pair...pare...pear  /  by...buy...bye  /  reed...read /
there...their...they're  /  can (tin)...can (butt end)...can (able)
wood...would  /  horse...whores  /  piece...peace  /
fair...fare  /  lie...lye  /  see...sea  /  bough...bow  /
write...right  /  dye...die  /  deer...dear  /  genes...jeans  /
bass...base  /  plain...plane  /  mail...male / pore...pour /



Thanks to Nancy Maiorana, Barbara Woodward, Holly Lee Harris, and Frances Spindle Bindon for all their  great add-ons to this list.   If there's someone I've forgotten..I lost my original list just let me know.  My friend Rosanna Blair, who was born in Italy and is a retired Virginia Art Teacher, remarked during the compilation of this list  about the difficulty of learning English due to the confusion of sound alike words.  I know there's more combinations but this is good for a start.  If you think of more or if I come up with more I'll add on.

ALMOST

Oh dear.  What am I worried about now?

What is it about me that makes me feel so responsible for everything and to everyone.  It's exhausting.  Is it that I'm the oldest sibling, my parent's practice child?  They say the oldest is the child that says "How will I do this?"  The youngest is the one that says "Who will help me?"  I forget for the middle child they have problems all their own.  Lord help them.

Did my parents ever get it right?  They tried to be the best parents they could be.  Did I ever get it right?  I tried and sometimes I think I did.

Sometimes I failed miserably but don't tell anyone because that's just life.  I'm always trying to fix things, adjust things, make things right and that can annoy a lot of people and make them resentful. Cringe.

WORRIER......................Fix it.
WARRIOR.....................Fix them.
WEARY.........................Fix me!

 



   

ROBIN

Ginny with crayons and paper.

Here's a portrait of my daughter Kimberly Robin  drawn by her daughter, my granddaughter, Virginia Mae.  Ginny was five when she drew this picture on her mother's birthday.  See the three tiered cake in the lower right hand corner with the candle on top.  When Ginny was very young Robin sat with her at the dining room table with crayons and paper and they would draw layer cakes and decorate each layer.  I love the balloons and the sun shinning from behind her head making my daughter look like a Madonna.  Ginny drew pink cheeks, clear blue eyes, and a sweet smile.  It fills my heart with so much love.  Ginny will be nine this summer and she makes me laugh.

Robin's last pair of Buster Browns..bronzed. 2nd grade.

Robin could really put a spin on words and phrases.  How about "Frunky Fried Chicken" for Kentucky Fried and "Fweeping Booly" for Sleeping Beauty  (3-5 years old) and "two neeks wotice" when she was much older.

When Robin was a little girl she was very flexible and was forever running ahead of me and doing cartwheels and round offs.  One time my BFF Tommie Centeno babysat for me and when I got off work Tommie and her kids and Mary Carlson and her son and me and Robin went to a restaurant in the Mission District in San Francisco for dinner.  The restaurant was long and narrow with tables down each side of a center aisle which I think Robin found a little too enticing.  I looked around and caught her after the first cart wheel.  Believe me, she was normally very well behaved.

We moved back to Virginia when Robin was eleven and she went to the sixth grade at Fairview Elementary School.  She was the third generation to go to Fairview.  Mom had gone there when it was a one room school house with a vestibule and  a wood stove for heat.  This was during the depression and the parents got together and donated vegetables and the stuff to make a big pot of soup on the stove.  I went to Fairview when it was a brick school house with multiple classrooms and a beautiful full stage and my Aunt, a licensed dietitian, ran the cafeteria.  My being the first year of the baby boom they closed off the auditorium in fifth grade to make a much needed classroom.  By the time Robin got there they had restored the auditorium for use but they had opened walls between classrooms. The first time the bell went off signaling a fire drill Robin dropped under her desk because she was used to doing earthquake drills this way in California schools.

First dance class at Schmacher's third grade. 

She went to Robinson High School and was an average student, happy and healthy with wonderful friends.  The spring of her sophomore year she needed to fill out her schedule for the next year and looking over the courses offered we found Accounting.  I had read somewhere that that was one field where there was no difference in the salaries of men and women and suggested she take it junior year.  She did and fell in love with it and continued from Robinson to Northern Virginia Community College.

 From third grade all the way through high school Robin took dance classes.  At Showcase Dance Studio in Manassas VA under the direction of Carol Haute Gil Montero Robin took tap, jazz, ballet, and toe.  She was in the performing dance company there and continued dance at Northern Virginia Community College and choreographed several shows while there.

Robin married Rick nine years ago and they've given me two beautiful granddaughters.  He's the best son-in-law in the world and I love him very much.

Rick at Ocean City.

Evie about three with her baby.

Geneva Lorraine, Evie, is six years old now and about ready to graduate from kindergarten.  She's smart as a whip and absolutely fearless.  I can vouch for this because last year I watched her at a water park in Arlington slide down the water slides from 100 times higher than her height while all the other kids splashed under the  sprinklers.

 I wish we lived closer to each other so I could bug my daughter more often.  Thank goodness I'm retired United Airlines and can fly from California to Virginia.  I'll use those passes as often as I can.

ROBIN AT HER DESK IN HER KITCHEN

                                                               I LOVE YOU, KID!
                                                               Happy Mother's Day

TWEETY

I used to leave the door open on my parakeet's cage when I was at home and Tweety would come out and fly around the living room and sit on the window sill and enjoy himself.  If he was hungry and needed seed in his feeder he would come fly around my head to let me know.  My Mom came out to San Francisco to help me prepare to move back to Virginia and we'd been so busy doing this and that and I was working off my two weeks notice at Bearing Specialty, Inc. I kinda forgot to feed him.   My ten year old daughter Robin was already in Virginia or she would have remembered.  While I was at work Tweety flew out of his cage and started dive bombing Mom's head and she got down on her hands and knees and crawled in the kitchen and closed the door but remembered what I had said about Tweety being hungry so she got the birdseed out from under the sink and  crawled back into the dining room and just shook the box at the cage.  Tweety, satisfied that his needs had been met went back in his cage.  The way she was describing the scene when I came home from work reminded me of Hitchcock's The Birds.  BTW Tweety traveled across country with us in the middle of the backseat of my yellow '72 Super Beetle in his new little traveling cage between my violets and Christmas cactus and feasted on Christmas cactus all the way.

I got this picture off the internet and I thank whoever took it.  It's what reminded me of the Tweety dive bombs Mom incident.  Also, I just got off the phone with Robin to verify that our bird was Tweety not to be confused with my younger sister Kim's parakeet who was Petey and she reminded me of the Tweety flies out the door story which I'll tell you about another time.  Love, Sandy





.

EYE KNOW

I wish I'd written the line "blue eyes crying in the rain".   A simple line and so much emotion.  My eyes are green with envy.

I wish I'd written the line "don't it make my brown eyes blue". Lovely and soulful.  My eyes are green and sad.

I wish I'd written the line "I only have eyes for you, dear."   I love the "dear",  a sentiment that reminds me of holding a dirty martini in one hand and a cigarette in a long black holder in the other, wearing a little cocktail party hat with feathers and netting covering my eyes.  Provocative.  My eyes are green and haughty.

I wish I'd written the line "These eyes are cryin' these eyes have seen a lot of loves but they're never gonna see another one like I had with you".  My eyes are green and knowing.

I wish I'd written the line "There ain't no way to hide your lyin' eyes."  My eyes are green with jealousy.

I wish I'd written the line "When a lovely flame dies smoke gets in your eyes".  Sweet sadness.  My eyes are green with yearning.

Blue eyes in rain and brown eyes are blue and my green eyes can't hide these smokey tears for you.

I wish I'd written the line.
     





              

READ TO ME

.What my daughter wrote:  "On our way to an appointment this morning Ginny spontaneously read me a passage of her book that she thought was funny.  My Mother would do this all the time.  I see so many similarities between the two.  This one really touched my heart."  Ginny is my eight year old granddaughter and what Robin wrote really touched my heart, too.

I'm the first year of the Baby Boom.  After lunch when I was in elementary school in first through third grade our teachers would read to us.  In first grade we curled up on the classroom floor on a blanket left over from our babyhood while the teacher read.  In second and third grade we laid our heads on our desks.

 My second grade teacher, Miss Davis, was southern and she read to us the Uncle Remus stories in her wonderful voice bringing alive the characters of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox and Uncle Remus.  Please don't throw me in the briar patch you can do anything but please don't through me in the briar patch pleads Brer Rabbit to Brer Fox knowing full well he's home safe in the briars.  Brer Rabbit was a crafty guy.   We had a substitute teacher who finished the book for us but she couldn't read it like our teacher so the next day when Miss Davis came back we all begged her to reread the end to us and she did.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Remus

Miss Davis also read us the Freddy The Pig series.  I don't know how many books were in the series but the ones she read to us were barnyard stories for us country kids.  Freddy had a sidekick named Bertrand, a rooster, who operates from the inside of a boy robot which fascinated me.   I mentioned this series to someone I worked with a few years ago and he had actually bought a Freddy The Pig book online, a new issue of an old story, something about Freddy the Pig in the WWII era.    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddy_the_Pig
    https://www.google.com/searchq=freddy+the+pig&hl=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=Hx5vUZ-nH6jmiALbxYD4CA&sqi=2&ved=0CEQQsAQ&biw=1440&bih=785
            
There was another book in the third grade we loved.  Miss Guladger was our teacher and she came from a farm in Ohio and her Mom would send us homemade cookies.  She's the one who read us a book about a mole who just happens to somehow eat a cereal that, on the assembly line in the cereal factory, gets "fortified" with extra extra vitamins and  extra extra minerals by accident and it causes the mole to grow huge like a person!  I don't remember the name of the book or much more about the story and I tried to Google it with no success.  Thinking back now it occurs to me as an adult how paranoid this story was and perfect for the Cold War 1950's.

The new books for the time that turned into classics were read to us by the Librarian when it was our day to go to the school library.  She read to us Horton Hears A Who by Dr. Seuss when it was first published.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horton_Hears_a_Who!

 My favorite though is the classic for any age Charlotte's Web which she read to us over several weeks.  E. B. White wasn't afraid to let a much loved character die and it broke our hearts when, at the end of the book, Charlotte dies.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte's_Web

My own childtime reading was the funny papers every day in The Washington Post Times Herald.  Until I could read myself I used to get Daddy to read me the funnies.  My favorites were Li'l Abner, Smilin' Jack, Brenda Starr, The Phantom, Dick Tracey, Mark Trail, Mary Worth, Little Orphan Annie, The Katzenjammer Kids, Blondie, and Barnie Google and Snuffy Smith.  I know there were others I just can't fully visualize them on the tip of my memory.

I read to Robin when she was little.  Her favorite book was Never Talk To Strangers a long rhyming poem which made children aware in a fun way of danger.

"If you are hanging from a trapeze
And up sneaks a camel with bony knees.
Remember this rule, if you please-
Never talk to strangers."
http://books.google.com/books/about/Never_Talk_to_Strangers.html?id=siZpHjMbeZ0C

 It was lost but Robin found it again as an adult.  Robin collected children's books at one time before she was married.  I read 101 Dalmations, Alice in Wonderland, and I tried reading the original Raggedy Ann books but my tongue wouldn't turn in the British accent it was written in.  Winnie The Pooh was easier to read.

I have to admit I've read more to my grandchildren than I did to Robin.  Ally and Jimmy had a favorite book that was an alphabet book with Sesame Street Characters forming the letters and as I read it Jimmy and Ally would act out the letters and we'd laugh.  Then I bought a Fun With Dick and Jane reader for Ally when she was three, a reissue of the same reader I had in second grade, and she could already read when she started school and was grade levels ahead in reading.  Our favorite story was Baby Sally at her mother's dresser getting into her mother's powder and it's all over her and Spot and Puff and Tim.  She was four when she started kindergarten her birthday is in November.  In the country they let her go ahead and start.

 From the time the girls could crawl Rick and Robin read to Ginny and Evie.  Every night after bathtime a special book, chosen by the girls, would be read and then they were tucked in bed.  When Ginny was five and Evie three Rod and I babysat while Rick and Robin went to Hawaii.  Every night Ginny wanted  Raven read to her.  It was a tale of the Northwest where a raven turns itself into a baby, gets adopted by the chief 's daughter, then steals the sun and puts it in the heavens for all the people.  http://www.geraldmcdermott.com/raven.htm

Robin's friend Sally who is a librarian found a great book for Robin.  The book is titled Ginnie and Geneva.  Evie is short for Geneva because we couldn't have two Ginny's now could we.  http://www.amazon.com/Ginnie-Geneva-Book-Series-through/dp/B0030TVZIY
It turns out it's a whole series.

 I loved all the young kids books, especially Good Night Moon and Good Night Gorilla.  Robin says Evie's favorite is The Big Red Barn.  Evie is six years old now.  http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/401730.Big_Red_Barn.

Books are my favorite gift to give.

Read to me.

ABOLD ESSENCE

 In the late 1990's and early  2000's Rod started making wine. His teacher was a good friend he worked with at United Airlines, Nick Borg, who is from Malta and whose family have been winemakers for centuries.  The first season Rod chose Barbera grapes and got them from an old vineyard near The University of California at Davis which is an agricultural school.  A thousand pounds of grapes makes about 70-80 gallons of wine enough to fill a big oak barrel or a couple of smaller ones.  Barrels run 15, 30, and 60 gallons.  Barbera grapes are piquant think of pomegranates and are native to northern Italy.  Year two and three Rod made Cabernet and this is the wine we served at my daughter Robin's wedding in 2004.

This water color I did in 1977 reminded me of the way Barbara Streisand looked in A Star Is Born so when Rod made the Barbera wine I couldn't help but think this would make a good label for his wine even if it was only me who was in on the joke.  Abold Essence is an obvious play on our name and how good we thought the wine was.  Abold Essence, you'll only find it on our shelves.

DADDY'S PEN

I have my father's fountain pen that he used to pay bills with and write letters with when he was a young man.  He always used blue ink not black.  I used to use it to do my homework in the sixth grade.  I loved the way it wrote so smoothly on my lined school girl paper...I loved to lift the lever on the side and stick the nib in the bottle and draw in the ink to fill the pen.  It is black with a gold cap and the nib is 14k gold.  I don't know how or where he got it.  Was it a graduation present from high school...or a gift he bought himself as a adult?  He kept it in the bottom drawer of the buffet in the dining room and he'd sit at the dining table to do his record keeping.  Later he would have a beautiful desk his sister gave him and he'd sit there to do the work of the day.  It was a Shaeffer made in the USA.

When I was in my early thirties I gave him a Cross pen that was gold plated and worked with ink cartridges...modern.  I have that also.  He took it to work with him at Dowty Rotol the British firm he worked for after he retired from United Airlines.  He was a landing gear inspector and someone etched his name on the side...Curt Pearson.  The etching is somewhat faded now so I know he used it every day.  In his early eighties he told me he couldn't find ink cartridges for it anymore so I took it back with me to San Francisco and found a place that had the cartridges and bought five and installed one.  I took it back to Virginia and he was so happy to have his pen again.

After Dad passed I found the Cross pen.  The cartridge was dry.  There were four brand new cartridges in his desk.  I miss him so much.

NEW CAT

.....A new stray has arrived.  He's a grayed buff color and his scared nose and face tells me he's fought many battles since he's been on the road.  He's so thankful for a little dry food in a Pyrex bowl (with a dollop of wet food on top like a cherry) and he gobbles it down like he's afraid someone will take it away from him.  Silver, my last outside cat, is friendly with him so he must not be too hateful for a whole male as they touch noses in greeting.  He's fending okay because the other morning he was crunching on a mouse in the grass just off the kitchen porch but left it to eat the Meow Mix I put out....the remains of the mouse disappeared later so I know he came back for it.  We've named him "Lefty and Eugene" (Huh?) because he looks like a gangsta...after Lefty Fats Murdoch and Eugene The Fist who were characters from the movie "The Girl Can't Help It".  He's called Lefty or Eugene or both together whatever this brain of mine can conjure at the time.

PROSE AND CONS

.....HOW IN THE HECK CAN I GO TO SLEEP NOW?

    "Night  night sleep tight don't let the bedbugs bite."
     Good night good night
     Off with the light
     The bugs are in flight
     And it's me they will bite.
     Say a prayer say a prayer.
     I really do care
     If creepies and crawlies
     Climb in my hair.....
     And in my clothes
     And up my nose
     And in my mouth
     And all over the house.
     Say a prayer say a prayer.
     Hosts of bugs and critters galore
     Just stay off of me
     And down on the floor.
     Amen!


.....WHERE WILL MY BONES LAY?

Oh my aching bones, oh these lazy bones, oh no! breaking bones laid beneath the green Virginia earth play a sad country song for me.  Haunting, haunting and melancholy.  Oh these ashes to ashes bones, and dust to dust bones, and nails in my coffin rust to rust bones lay me beneath the green Virginia earth and play a sad country song for me.

.....HILL BILLY BOY

Mountain born and billy bred I'll be a billy till the day I'm dead.  Country hills and country miles and country boy till the day I die.  Plant my body on the side of a hill in the rolling land I love.  Plant me a maple at my foot to cradle my bones in it's tangling root.....till Judgement Day till Judgement Day I'll rise and sing a song for joy.  God loves the billy boy.

   

   
   

   

   

WHIMSEY

Original Artwork by S.  Pearson,  Prisma Color Pencil on Dark Paper  20 x  26

"...AND THOSE THAT WERE SEEN DANCING WERE THOUGHT TO BE INSANE BY THOSE WHO COULD NOT HEAR THE MUSIC........."  Nietsche