Saturday, September 8, 2012

Not so petty: Sandy D'Amato's Chinese Lacquer Squabble; Brian revisited; A Vine Grows In Waukesha, portents thereof


Last week we discussed the pigeons we've noticed
on our windowsill here at the Odd fellows Lodge.

Dee in perpetual waste-not want-not mode
prevailed upon me to snatch a couple birds
using a quickly unfolding window screen insert -
(see below).

So, we've enjoyed a squab recipe
at our dinner table to our great 
lower crustacean delight:

We tried famed Milw. Chef Sandy D'Amato's
Chinese Lacquered Squab
- recipe is on the internet -

We enjoyed the squabs' piquancy 
so much that we have begun
laying in a store of the snared 
 birdseed-eating pigeons
 for harder times.

We find the ready availability
of Putneyed Wild Game pigeons yet another
blessing of living in lintel-
fluttering downtown Waukesha,

where all may eat, whether it be 
window-sill pigeons,
 The New Hope meal program,
Dave's Cafe, Dady-Oh's
or The Rotunda.

As you may find them,
try downtown squabbles soon.




...

Next,


THE PREVIOUSLY-MENTIONED BRIAN

MOVES OUT OF THE ODD FELLOWS LODGE
WITH THE HELP OF A FRIEND
WHO’S NAME WE DIDN’T GET
BUT SHOULD HAVE

ADVENTURES WERE HAD WITH BRIAN
A REAL ODD FELLOW
BY OUR LIGHTS;
HE’S BOUGHT A SMALL CONDO

NOT FAR AWAY ON DISABILITY FUNDS
HE GETS FOR BI-POLAR & ETC;
DEE AND I WISHED HIM WELL

IN A NOTE SCRAWLED ON ELEPHANT
PAPER SLID UNDER HIS DOOR SAYING
ALL WE KNEW OF HIM

WAS THAT HE WAS KIND AND GENEROUS
WHICH IS ALL WE NEEDED TO KNOW;
AND NOW HE SAYS

HE’S GOING TO INVITE US
TO DINNER AT HIS NEW PLACE
AND WHEN WE GO

WE MIGHT BRING THE STRIDER,
KEN, ANOTHER ODD FELLOW;
MUTUAL, UBER-ALLES FRIENDS.

  
...

Next,

OBAMA AT FARMERS MARKET



Another Odd Fellows resident, Sam, heads up the Democratic
headquarters on Clinton Street in downtown Waukesha.

He lives right next door to us on the 3rd floor.
He was having no trouble signing up volunteers
in erstwhile Conservative Waukesha
 when spied last Saturday.

Sam, like Brian, is a temporary resident at the Odd Fellows
scheduled to depart upon the re-election of the man
 standing next to him to whom he defferentially points.

Behind Barack is the red sign (restored) of Friedman's
Clothing store.  Another Sam, that was.  Sam Friedman.
When I pass by that building, now housing other people and ventures,

I remember when my dad lived on the third floor there, 
after WW II, following his separation from my mother. 
 It was an indelible marriage casualty of that war,

This was 1945-46, and I remember the scary
Nazi souvenirs Dad had accessorizing the place. He'd painted
the walls red, with black appointments.

The Avon Theater (the Bucket of Blood)
just a block down the street
had only a year earlier featured newsreels
depicting Hitlerian horrors.

We've lived to have seen both those 1940s times
and now in 2012, the downtown
 effigy of Barack Obama at a farmers market
all within walking distance,within sight, of
our address.




Imagine the mental state of those who fight in wars.
My surmise is that Dad came home with a trove of banners, knives,   a Lugar,
Goehring souvenirs AND ETC,
just to prove for all time that he had actually seen
and done all that.

I still have the letter opener he gave me.
http://raccoonnews.blogspot.com/2011/09/langweile-ich-sie-ingesamt.html
...

Next, 


Raccoon News editor re-reads 1943 novel, A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN.
Attn:  New York readers Lee Dix, Jeffrey Means


Former Federal prisoner, School of The Americas protestor Judith Williams, peace activist, operator of the Waukesha catholic worker house,
gave Dee an aloe shoot she'd culled from a larger cactus plant.  We'v e always loved cacti for reasons we've considered obvious.  Judith dug some dirt from a flower bed in back of her mission house for the young offshoot.

That dirt, unbeknownst to Judith, and us, contained a Morning Glory seed.  As we watered the aloe we were also watering the MG seed, and it soon came up alongside the aloe.

It was allowed to grow, too.  It began to spiral in the air, seeking purchase on which to climb to do its viney thing.  It grabbed some chives strands and quickly wrapped itself upward, counter-clockwise, and in a day or two it was reaching up into void space again.

We thumb-tacked a length of copper wire we had in the desk drawer.  The plant wound around that in due course and was soon reaching for more of something to grow onto.

So we put a length of green twine above the copper wire.

It is presently going up that.

In the spirit of live and let live we watch what this plant will eventually do.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LZ2R2zW2Yc


...



Closing photo taken with the l. crustacean cell
just prior to retiring.......