Odd Thoughts

I passed a local elementary school and thought that when the sixth grade students enter college half of my friends will have gray hair, white hair, or dyed hair. The other half enjoy a great genetic make up for hair color.

The insults of getting older: chin hair, hardened nails, weight in the least wanted places. Add to that list the people who routinely hold doors for you.

I'm reading four books at the same time. At the moment the characters in the mystery refuse to confront the theology in the spirit filled memoir. I respect characters who know boundaries.

 I am about to take my first sip of a hot water honey/ cinnamon  tea brew. The recipe comes from a site that lists remedies for those times that your voice refuses to act appropriately. Even whispering comes out as a hoarse croak. Incidentally it doesn't taste horrific-- just sweet.

A man in the hardware store was looking for a sprinkler for his eighty foot by forty foot vegetable garden. It made me tired to think of harvesting zucchini after zucchini.

How long will it take for this medicinal brew to work? Or will it work? It is soothing if nothing else. My magical thinking means that I'll wake up tomorrow, try out my voice and delight in the clarity of my Bronx accent.

Sometimes I wonder why that accent hangs around my shoulders. Yet, do I want a middle American accent, the broadcaster's accent? Don't I want to own that Bronx background? After all I was forged by the geography and people in my neighborhood.

The shoemaker who could hold nails in his mouth and spit them out one by one as he repaired the sole of your shoe.
The butcher who kept sawdust on the floor of his store.
The man in the Chinese laundry who handed out receipts written in Chinese script.

Minnie, who owned the small grocery, gave me a wood Philadelphia cream cheese box.
The pharmacist sold tubes for your television.
The candy store's egg creams and long pretzels were divine.

My mother told me not to stare at the woman with numbers tattooed on her upper arm.

Today tattoos are ubiquitous-- choice.

An update: the miracle has not happened -- yet.











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