Bethlehem or Bust

There was a plane reflecting in the canal today.
Down in the water...a plane
Up in the sky.... a plane.
Bleeding down the runway
Bound for home
Bethlehem or Bust

I will be so glad to see my mother
It's a shame it costs so much to pop in for a cup of tea with her
Instead, we have exhausting holidays
Cramming all the cups of tea into one big teapot
The year is summarized into briefings on holidays and school reports
So the little things....
Luckily she knows those too
And then I come back to my cement box
with a few photos
over sized books
and a pair of blue suede gloves

Meanwhile...Mari and Ken tend to the algae in the pond, Mari has taken down her teepee, Ken has quit accounting at the sod farm, They are selling pies or something in the local market, Ron and Sue, the happy couple....are together...not...together...in peru, in an old farm house in the wilderness swinging off the port on the porch...knot. final this time. The Becknells. Roger had his stomach tied in Las Vegas...the same surgeon as Ozzy Osbourns wife...then became miserably thin. irreversible. The girl next door has moved to Dixon. Gonna have to go a long way to bake cookies with her. I hope to see Becky Youngman in Champaign and have a pint at the Blind Pig. And I hope to see Running Grass one day, but probably not this trip. Goes without saying...always good to see John and Shilan.

Canal, Cinema

A lovely long day as usual starting with the cinema. This film..two chipmunks or squirrels. I didn't catch any of it. Vomiting twice from the breakfast. Sam off to get his charger. Hannah off to Camden Market. Both of them looking at me as if I'm supposed to supply breakfast. Feel like a hotelier. This daughter of friends of friends I haven't seen for fifteen years hasn't even offered to buy a pint of milk and she's been here for five days. It's not my place to tell her how to be a guest. Nevermind. I say this everytime...I need to put up some bloody house rules.
After the film, the chapel street market. Ben gets lost in a jewelery store. The police write him a citation for wandering off and it works for a while...he holds my hand. A wander along the canal. Leaves falling into the water, some falling on the ice. Ben asks if he can tread on the ice. I say no. He would fall through. We do a stick test. Some sticks fall in... some sticks break through the ice. I explain that in a few weeks' time, he can walk on the lake at Rock Cut State Park. Even go ice fishing if he has a drill and a tent. Old man used to take a camping stove and a six pack and head up north to Wisconsin with his hunter friends for winter sports...sitting down sports.
Sleigh bells ring...are you listening? All it is.
Longboats, Chunky chihuahuas at McDonalds. Two parents yelling India India...then realise it is their daughter.
Tony...now five postcards on his kitchen door. Not speaking to me for a week now since seeing sam pass out the front door. No lunch, no dinner, no bringing breakfast actimel. And the replacement for that? can't even show up with a bus pass. Ain't worth it. At least Tony doesn't take his anger out on Ben. It's just me he ignores. Come on mate...you're over seventy and you can barely speak English.

Limited by Reality

Such a good title and not written anything until today otherwise known as tonight. And for all it's worth...yet again, limited by the clock. Bedtime. For a certain chappy. Learned enough from last night. jan nine...wigmore...vanita and eileen...chilling with violin and piano and few beers later...a great rest after midnight....some fools beeping at me as I made it there in under fifteen. 830 is the golden hour...although, he was up at some obscenely early hour...like five or six. Tears we know. Pancakes....You mean you got no flour? Poison purple pancakes. Green is less appetizing. Her flower...today given myself some flowers from the skip. Your baby. My Chicago. Ow. Owls mooning me from the trees. tattoos on tv. Dog of my future. Who's saint am I today and whose dog? What misfit woof and mellow howl? What gift has not been made? (JSE) Her gurgle. Yes I know when a babe is sick you stay home. Luckily, Ben didn't remember you were coming. Let down so many times that he rolls with it now. Rolls with the punches...off to karate...no time to remember that you were coming over to fix the remote. Ballet and modern got me remebering the pirouetes a few hours at Bedford house and cool times with Riense. I scrubbed up. Tidied up the fridge. Throwing it out. Need someone to help me toss it out. Sent skater boy on his way this morning. Over to babysit. Destructive nerve wants to help him but only so far. Need the door mate. Unhinged by your helpless demeanor. You notice I ain't listening and shorten your babble. Brook. babbling brook of broke. Be gone. And come again when I need you...to babysit.

Leap beer

Bin it--toss it out
Too polite or gay no doubt
Time and energy awastin'
Got a brain that needs replacin'

Emotions are expensive
It said so in the news
and this is a recession
And these are the blues

I shall click the lips of my purse so tightly now
and save whatever coins remain for victory
old horizontal in champaign
Old Flames
It will burn off like the dag on a furry flaming sheep
or the capsule that drops
to the bottom of the sea
as the space shuttle
climbs out of reach
I'm gonna climb out of reach too
I'm gonna climb until I fall
Fall away eventually
with or without event

It's no secret anymore
The secret wanting that couldn't find the door
Couldn't shake the smell
Couldn't find the bell
A blank stare as if you couldn't tell

It's not his fault, he's British.
He's too polite and I'm too skittish.

Gauguin

Ben bounced like a silver ball in a pinball machine through the Gauguin exhibit. Luckily Veronique and I will make a date to go again. V said she thought the colours had faded in the paintings. Possibly. It's hard to imagine that in such a vibrant place a Tahiti that his palette would be so dull more reminiscent of Degas somber cafe girls with green faces. Some treatment of the figures the same. Some fun with the gallery attendant. Ben had several questions for her. Do you sleep here? Don't you get bored on that chair? Invited her to our house. She gave up her seat and then Ben got busy telling the browsers to mind the rope. Gets involved. Got entertaining the people in Eat. Chats to everyone and why not..He is six and he can do that. And later in Ping Pong, we weren't sure if he could manage to sit still for half an hour before we got seated, but he was dub stepping in the cocktail lounge. ho ho. And even had a few appetizers. Still plain rice and butter or sushi he'll do. And sweet little kite that lasted half an hour along the river. Happy moments. Today unusually good kiddy party. They made things out of clay in a studio. I made a bird man jug. Talked with the kiln lady. Will be seeing her next year in class.

Hotel Sayonara

Custer's last stand. The last abode I had in Napoli, not really, not the hotel...above the hotel. The flashing lights of Otel Sayonara and a pity the H was missing but appropriate as really it struggled for motel status. Really it was a seedy dive with the stench of men who had no place to shower wafting through the entryway. Take a tenner off just for having to endure the smell from the bottom of the stairs. Too late for a deep breath. The door had already buzzed open and shut. Click...you're in it. You are in the shit girl. Maybe it was five men to a shower and six men to a toilet or maybe they just used the shower unless they had to do a dump. I could only guess the details and was relieved to find it was a men only otel. But for me, he would make an exception. He dangled the keys to room 19 with a sick glint in his eye and the spare key in his pocket. His jism master glance had me backing up a mile. I would have spit my guts out, but I was hungry.

The head of the English school was truly sorry. The phone rang off the hook with clients. Contract after contract. The aeronautical high school, the Media Statale, the toy factory in Pozzuoli...friendly Mr. Fracasso. Unanimous. No one had any spare change for ESL teachers once the Twin Towers hit the tubes. Talk of war, financial crisis, who knows ways of out this? no one. No one knew what was going to happen. They only knew how to close their purses as tightly as their lips and wait it out. Even NATO came up with a good excuse. Sorry, tightening surveillance and security. ESL teachers don't have clearance anymore. Half my pay packet for the month, a string of medallioned officials who had one on one lessons.They didn't panic in Rome, but Neapolitans love to panic. It's their default. Panic and default are the same button. They panic on normal days, but no day is ever normal in Naples. I knew nothing about the mafia when I lived there. They were a mythology. Glassed in under tinted bullet proof windows on Renato Muratore's black sedan, I was sure he was incapable of being anything but a nice man who preferred to study using the newspaper. His body guards were just out for the ride. And here we are in Little Bo Peepland--cognac and idioms in his private chambers. Renato didn't panic. That is why he is the boss....a boss with a choice of three cars to drive home in and serving up an agenda that took him several routes home.
So the default for me was to sleep on the floor of Mr. Sacco's school lobby and get up at 7 before the remaining students trickled in. Me just coming out the washroom after a sink basin shower. My back pack in the book closet right next to the xerox machine. After a week or so, he asked me to move on...then I ...I found the door open across from the school...a tidy but abandoned warehouse with stacks of books not dusty enough to be abandoned, but a warm place to sleep and keep my belongings. They found me one morning. I was coming home noticing that the books were piling up and moving. Not a ghost. Someone had actually been there. They came early...two men in suits peering at me sleeping....They said nothing. I left.
From there I went to Pedra Parisi's--a former student. Her parents' house a lovely place at the bottom of Mount Vesuvious. They gave me the top floor. I showered outside overlooking Capri and to the left, the cliffs of Amalfi, Positano, Sorrento and finally hidden away Ravello.

Remote

Fiona fiddles with the remote. Technology has gone so far. FF, rewind, tm, emp, fmfb,hm, hmb, hmd km, lmc, lmn, pmn. So many functions. Where's the manual?
Finds manual. Print's too tiny. Oh batteries too. They ask a lot. Let's just put it down and use the buttons. I remember when tv's just had one or two knobs. Less choice....three channels we had...channel 13, 23 and 17. and on a good day if the weather was right, we could get PBS out of Madison....watch some ballet, get sum culture or something. Love boat, Gilligan's Island, MASH, and Fantasy Island. The Plane The plane. That and a grilled cheese sandwich with a cup of tea, my afterschool ritual. School ended at 3. Pom Poms 3 to 5 everyday. Thirty girls...one new routine every fortnight...Everybody's working for the weekend....Back in Black....Don't stop believing. Some songs stay in my head as we played them over and over again. drive home, eat, out again from 7 to 9 for ballet or modern dance. plus gym class makes five hours of dance or PE everyday.