But on the Bright Side. . .

        Goodness me.  Apologizing for the disjointed" grammar, let me simply say, it's been hard to find any.  Goodness, that is.  I've been busily soldiering on with my post-op rehabilitation.  Again, with a sincere appreciation of tasteless word selection, I can only call this endeavor 'hardness'.  Three times daily, I doggedly walk for at least one hour - weather conditions notwithstanding.  Sans body brace, those back muscles are indeed feeling very 'put upon' when asked to perform.  Then there's 'work'.  Writing, for me, is not a matter of life or death.  It's infinitely more important.  Therefore, time spent away from this focused activity is time more painful than walking.  ONLY because acts of love super cede 'work', I am thrilled that my Godson, Brennan, elected to move from Massachusetts to Virginia and is temporarily staying with us.

        (The news-of-the-day - ever quietly in the background by habit, is ever so glum these days.  I have nothing but respect for consistency - in its place.  'Glum-chum' tidbits on a global scale strongly snuff out anything close to respect.  And the 'tidbits' seem to be escalating in magnitude as well as multitude with regard to wrong-doings, the varied legions of humanity involved in miscreant behavior and - perhaps MOST galling - the "watching-paint-dry"-brand of ennui assumed by the global audience.  By way of comic relief, we still have William Devane's love affair with that shiny and near erotically sensate metal, GOLD, to follow with morbid if not forced interest.  It remains safe in his 'free' safe in the wall behind the 'Currier and Ives'-like scenic tasteless wall art cum secret metal knob - the one he closes with an impish glint as the tag for this sixty second interruption of the 'news blues' boys and girls' reports.)

        Brennan is remarkably determined in his job search.  We revised his resume several times.  He has an impressive background/bank of experience in the upscale cuisine-restaurant business.  Starting out as a bartender, he's been successful - not merely successive - in his employment pursuits.  In fact, his last position, in a Five Star well-known establishment, was managerial and he brings with him glowing personal endorsements from the owners of these eateries.  Our resume revisions, therefore, were de minimus and he was by no means resistant.  He WAS curious, however.

        "What's wrong with 'Serving tables?'"

        "Nothing.  However, that is not what you were doing."

        "I don't get it."

        "You serve PEOPLE, Brennan, not TABLES."

        "Oh.  Right.  That's what I do."

And so it went.  Necessary, tedious for both of us and not adding any 'good cheer' to my already downward-trending mood swing.  Such were my ruminations yesterday whilst taking the necessary _errand run" which life requires and schedules confound.  Fortunately, a stop in a crowded store caused a pause in the action which proved a boon for us all.

        (The magazine rack proffered a treasure trove of remedial offerings gs.  I snatched - seemingly pedestrian at the time, but in retrospect heaven-sent.  Right there, in her September issue of "LIVING", Martha Stewart, in a subhead tease "Having a Ball",  gives us soothing salvation.  Once home, I rifled through to "the piece" that promised peace in the form of "puffs".  "Pom Poms" as in the remedy "Plastics" of Mrs. Robinson fame.  Martha supplies the skinny - and the OVERFLOWING - on the many and varied uses of these critically required-for-the-perky-pleasant-ambiance crowd's needs.  Dubbed "puff pieces", these colorful, infinitely varied - in function and form - accents of beautification, innovation, decoration and multiplication are de rigueuer in addition to essential. 

        We are provided the materials needed/preferred, the photographically captured effects and even the 'squad' of elves cum instructions - a company called "Clover", makers of pom pom-creation kits.  Martha shares the wisdom and methodology of how we "can create many different sizes."  So scotch any notion of going to all of this trouble only to find yourself sitting on a pile of pathologically identical pom poms.  She goes on with the good news of manufacture, allowing as how we are to ". . . use very fine yarn to make gum ball-size ones and tie them to key chains or the handles of buckets or boxes for a hit of color and whimsy."  There you have it, folks.  Gone henceforth all mopes-on-ropes, harried/worried and focusing on things negative - personally OR globally.  I daren't speculate as to whether the lady was dreaming or working sedulously at her brightly-lit office-at-manse, a benzene ring is a benzene ring.  So too, color/whimsy life is color/whimsy life.)

        I feel about tomorrow as though I'm awaiting Santa.  Probably won't be able to sleep knowing that whatever else fills my day post sunrise, I'll be fiendishly fast-forwarding to my debut in yet another activity - but one that will bring true change, gratification and - hating to emphasize the obvious - AGAIN - an abundance of COLOR and WHIMSY, the stuff productive, balanced, healthy folk are made of.  Who knew?  Negativity shall never cross my threshold again.  Like butter, I'm on a roll.  I've got color and whimsy.  And there's plenty to go around.  Enjoy! 

Later, Lorane. . . .

To Tell You the Truth. . .

      If I were to compose a compendium of phrases, habits, annoyances and the like, you can be certain that "to tell you the truth" would be number one on that 'miss' parade.  Can't even dance to it.  In my experience, it seems generally to fall out of mouths that, bent on speaking - or saying ANYthing - belong to the careless-of-expression, mute listeners of their own oration, often less than candid and tending toward fulsome responses that repulse rather than respond to the listener.
      Never, then, did I imagine an occasion when I would employ this over-used and reflexive phrase.  And imagination notwithstanding, the 'deans-of-discipline' in the real world would sever the instrument wielding the quill intent on using this verbiage as a TITLE of anything penned by yours truly.  What, you ask, caused this shocking breach of taste and literary comity?  I'll be quick about it - or is it too late - to dull the sting.  Simple is as simple writes: I simply couldn't fit my conscience into any other of this season's "Simplicity" patterns.
      There.  I said it.  No choice.  See, there was this quandary.And it didn't 'walk into a room or a bar.'  It didn't do anything.  Just plopped atop a pile of like cast-off cant ant would/could not be supplanted with an acceptable bon mot.  QUANDARY:
  wanted/needed to write today
  unfinished business past deadline
  It is Mothers' Day and I refuse to resort to the banalities of  what   conventional wisdom labels 'polite conversation'.
      Sooo.  You'll just have to imagine there's been a diaspora of all the smart people and what we have left id me, writing in a somewhat disjoint fashion.  In psychiatry, I believe it's called 'flight of ideas'.  Do come, then and fly my friendly, albeit disordered skies of tales told randomly - but honestly.

      (ANNIE CLARK:
While I lay in one of five different hospital beds (please see "While You Were Away. . .)  in Pittsburgh, wallowing in self-pity expressed with asperity, I heard a story on the local news, spoken as though it had  come straight from the Mount, of a beautiful child - one of a family of eleven children - who, having been born without hands, had just won a first place award for perfect penmanship.

      On presentation day, Annie, dressed on her sunny yellow school cardigan, matching yellow flower in her ebony hair, walked gracefully, decorously in her shiny royal blue patent uniform shoes to accept her trophy while her seven year-old classmates cheered her on with abandon.  Along with the trophy, Annie has earned a one thousand dollar prize to be applied to her education. 
      She was happy to oblige a request to demonstrate her skills and shared her ambitions enthusiastically.  Annie wants to write books about animals - fiction and non - when she grows up.  That was enough to rouse my sorry arse out of the doldrums of Gethsemane and dive into my physical therapy exercises with renewed elan.)

      Next up, a combo of my 'just wanting to write today' and Mothers' Day.

      (What's Mothers' Day without the Grand peeps?  Here we have Molly (UR), Mia (DL) and Emma (DR).  Molly, now 6, spent today with her older brother Declan, 10 and younger brother, Patrick, 3,  detailing, washing and buffing Mommy Robyn's car.  Mia, 3.5, above left, took Mommy Julie to the Boston Red Sox baseball game today and, along with Daddy, cheered the home team on to a 7-1 victory in a warm 'Beantown' sunbath.

      Emma, 4 and big sister to Charlie, almost 2, above in the pictorial collage they made to brighten up my hospital room, spent today making Mommy Jennie 'Queen Unquestioned' with performances like those pictured, story TELLING and a home-created outdoor Cafe festively adorned for the Mommy-no-cook cook out masterfully directed by Daddy.  Ya know, folks, just like the 'Hokie Pokie', that's what it's all about.)

      And Moi?  Well.  There were chats with my 'kids', my walk and exercises, some laundry and reverie.  This last is one of my favorite because  whereas I always fretted that my life might end up being a 'blank tape', it has/is quite a hoot.

      (I write because I refuse to let the past slip away.  You can't retrieve your life - unless it's on Wikipedia and, by definition, inaccurate.  And I'm not too comfy living in these 'google years' - all of its virtual/techno stuff bodes of my future becoming a constant affront.  For example, I'm SOOO techno-challenged, I couldn't figure out how to submit Emma's dear drawing to an exciting, new page for kids, "Youth Tube", sponsored by my beloved friends/colleagues at The Plum Tree Co., an organization for/by writers.  So, I'll just cheat it in here: That's me on

the left wearing glasses and a tad unsteady re: gait.  Emma's to my right looking for all the world like she's having sympathy 'gait issues' as well.  Charlie puts in an appearance on the following page but just as a signatory as his is a rather jammed dance card these days and 'art' is not on his agenda.  But Emma always is.)

The other passion - and it seems to be family-wide - that I cherish is the theater.  Some say that the lost tribe of drama fanatics has its roots in a form of compensation: it serves as a refuge for the unhappy child.  I prefer the Bard's theory - 'the world's a stage'.

      (The very essence of acting is the art of being someone else.  And the craft of the playwright is to make a fantasy of his own creation SO true to the lives of the characters he's creating, the audience accepts it as reality.  I've been working at both since childhood.  It was the day I asked myself, "What if I'm not me?" That little query launched me into sixty-seven years - and counting - of creating/being whomever.  The whole 'duality gestalt' really hooks me.

      And just when I'm having all manner of giggles being 'me' and 'the other' - and, mind you, I'm never confused as to where the 'I' stops and the 'thou' begins - along comes 'virtuality/we-can-do-it-with-computers'.  Not good.  I just know - KNOW - it does not bode well.  So, dear readers, I leave you this evening having revealed my 'boogieman'.  Perhaps, if you are of like mind - scratch that; if you were, you'd need adult supervision.  Perhaps you can just hope, for my sake, a little token of kindness, hope that one of the infelicities that stalk the script of my erstwhile dulcet and harmonious life's work - "Lorane, the Play" - is not teetering on the fringe of going 'dark'at the hands of "CyberScythe".)

Later, 'Ubermom' Lorane. . . .