Mein feline…

This is my kitty Miet who was a little blinky at the flash.

A new link on psychics

Think there is no harm in believing in unprovable claims from folks who seem innocuous but who often have hidden agendas? This site, by a software engineer named Tim Farley, really tells the sad tale. Thank you Tim. He covers many topics.  Here is one on Psychics.   http://whatstheharm.net/psychics.html

Riverwood's Last Hurrah open mic had some gems

This is John Jeffrey with his long long poem very funny, which was published in Bent Pin Quarterly

My Dad's Truck at Molten - a good time and a sketch

My Dad's Truck is a fun and eclectic band that often plays at Molten Java in Bethel. I've heard them several times now, I enjoy Susan Lang's big bright vocals and Leif Smith and Bill Wisnowski's rumbly ones. They each play a whole collection of acoustic instruments to keep the sound changing and lively. (guitars, fiddle, slide guitar, acoustic bass guitar, mandolin, banjo, harmonica, etc.) They call their style "Free-Range Acoustic"

This small mechanical pencil drawing I made in a little book while I was watching the band. I ripped it out of the book and scanned it at home, then digitally tweaked the hell out of it since the lines were so light and hard to see.

I'm opening at for Riverwood's Last Hurrah! Music, then Poetry

The Riverwood Festival has quite a line up for this year!  Check out the poster on the right, which lists the events the venues, the poets - and the many open mics.

This year I will be opening at the Last Hurrah at the City Steam Brewry hosted by Kathryn Kelly.   Starting around 6PM I will be playing a few tunes. At 6:30 the poetry begins. I will read for around 20 minutes followed the fabulous poet John Surowiecki - That's on Sunday, June 27, 942 Main Street in Hartford. A "MEGA" open mic is planned as well.

"Twice before I was asked, but this will be my first appearance there."

// UPDATE AND ASIDE: Actually this is apparently NOT TRUE.  My previous invites were for the CONNECITCUT BEAT FESTIVAL. THIS last one WAS FOR THE RIVERWOOD. I had thought they were the same but apparently they are not at all, though for a while they seemed to converge..... ///

In 2008 Tom Nicotera asked me to read at the venue he was running for the festival.  I accepted and  two days before my scheduled date, my 34 year old boss, friend and music director/mentor suddenly died. We were all in shock. He wasn't' ill. To boot,  for his funeral, I had to learn the mezzo soloist part to a quartet from  the Mozart Requiem  and I only had three days to do it. (I am not a quick study really at this sort of thing.)  Depressed and stressed out, I asked Anne Marie Marra to read in my place. She was a big hit, as she always was and she had a great time.

In 2009,  Yvon Cormier asked if I'd read  at the Outlaw Poets venue - (How cool is that!)  but that March Anne Marie Marra died.  The date of the reading was the same as a memorial gathering for Anne Marie. This gathering given by her brother Reggie, was held on her birthday in June. It was a terrible loss for us all as we'd also lost poet Terry McLain the previous November.And I had lost Rob the year before.  I was really numb and  I needed to be there at the gathering fully present, not thinking about reading or having to rush off to perform.

So this year, Kathryn Kelly kindly asked me if I would read some poems and also add a little music to the festival's Last Hurrah event.  SOOOO  if I live that long - and though the creek may rise, and winds blow  --- I WILL BE THERE on June 27th to read some poems  and play a few tunes at the Festival's last Hurrah at the City Steam Brewery! WooHoo!

The details of the Last Hurrah:

Hospital cost containment leaves people barefoot with bad breath

At a hospital nearby the new patient's automatic package of freebies apparently has been cut  and I applaud this cost saving measure.  Or maybe they just ran out?

The requisite plastic basin, bedpan, cups, kidney dishes all in hideous matching pink, etc were a useless recycling nightmare.  But there are some notable and useful exceptions ->>>  toothpaste, toothbrushes, and those nonskid slippersocks

When a relative of mine was there this week, she and her various roommates were asked to walk barefoot on hospital floors. After her second night in the hospital she asked for a third time for a pair because her feet were cold and was finally given one. We would have brought slippers in - if we had only been told this was no longer a policy to distribute nonskid slipper-socks to all patients.

In the hospital people leak and staff steps in it. People bleed, puke, have diarrhea, urinate, ooze all sorts of pus which is dabbed at which things that wind up on the floor. Relatives also track in stuff from the street to mix with all of this. Walking barefoot, even on a freshly mopped hospital floor is nuts. (Have you ever looked in a mop  bucket?)  Of course maybe the socks just hold icky stuff close to your feet and carry it into bed with you. No rationale for or against the socks was given.

In addition she went two days without brushing her teeth - we would have gladly provided a brush and paste if we only knew the hospital no longer did.  Dear local hospital -- if you are not going to provide these items - we understand ---BUT YOU NEED TO TELL PEOPLE. Or maybe if she had asked these would have been forthcoming as well. Maybe this is the Don't Ask, Don't Get policy. Fair enough. Just tell us.  Of course some things you ask for and do not get. My relative, whose chart contains a whole era of syncope due to dehydration, asked six times for  water until she got some. This might be the result of understaffing.... But it is a problem....

There were other changes from my relatives multiple previous visits over the last ten years. The method of re-situating people in a hospital bed has changed.  There used to be an extra sheet under the torso, nurses could each grab a side and heave without touching the patient. They have reverted to dragging them by the armpits and asking them to hitch up while pushing - which is sort of futile without nonskid slipper socks.  Another reason to keep the socks. I guess the extra linen was too expensive.

Something happened that has never happened before to us in many life-saving trips - a near miss at a wrong IV treatment.  A person appeared at my relatives bedside early in the morning and said "I have your sugar."  This is my relative who cannot take statins and whose triglycderides are already stellar.  My relative who is not diabetic.  If she hadn't been awake and alert  or hadn't the presense of mind to argue that she didn't get sugar and had never had it before - the drip would have been attached to the pre-installed just-in-case IV Shunt.  No name checking, no order checking, just fill -er up and hurry off to the next mistake.

Another thing was going on - rooms I noticed were being scrubbed out by people in disposable blue suits.  My relative was not allowed to use the bathroom in the second room she was in (which is why she was asking for water)  --  and she believes that was because the rooms other occupant was contagious and was already using it.   The doctors who visited this patient spoke to her with masks on....  One can only imagine-  and still they were all walking barefoot.  It makes you wonder for sure.

I will give kudus for niceness. People were very pleasant.  And to the transport people who repeatedly asked for names and dates of birth to make sure they were wisking away the right patient. Of course this is academic for me, as this hospital which is a three minute drive from where I live will not take my Charter Oak Insuranse. I have to drive to Waterbury, Hartford or New Haven. After this recent encounter -  I don't really mind.

Oddities: The British Invasion 40 Years Later

This incredulous expression, on an aging brit face with pursed lips and plentiful bags under crossed eyes - is worn by one of my polymer clay sculptures currently hanging in the Artwell Rocks Show in Torrington. The colors are acrylic and permanent ink pens mostly. The hair is a doll wig..... The theme was music. So this is the British Invasion, 40 years later.....