Today's Diary. Thrusday April 11. 2023

 

I've given up on postcards. I like to create them and send them to real live people, but like you say the price is getting ridiculous. Besides, postal art no longer fits into my Life Triangle. I wrote it down and shared it with Amy after General Conference last Sunday.  It looks like this (you have to draw in the lines from one subject to the next to get the geometric figure of a triangle):

                                                                 Christ/Temple work

Amy/our marriage/our family                                                                                                         My Poetry.

If something doesn't fit one of the three points of the triangle, then it's of little importance to me and I'm not going to spend much time and effort on it.  (Of course there's always the meals I'm cooking/baking -- but I keep trying to eliminate that from my life and replace it with going to the Temple more often with Amy -- she would go every day if I could stand the physical strain -- right now we go twice a week -- when she finishes work at H&R Block we may bump it up.)

Speaking of food . . .  I made molasses/raisin bars last night and put them out in the community kitchen this morning. We have a clear plastic donation box now, and we netted exactly one dollar for the bars.  I gave the last four bars remaining to the Hispanic Office that shares our front lobby now.  I just put on some clam chowder to offer for lunch at noon from our door. The only reason I did that is that I bought a big bag of the stuff and there is too much for me to eat all by myself.

Today I got out the door at 7:30 a.m. to sit in my wheelchair in front of the kolache bakery to display my haiku.  Today's verse:

under white blossoms

I sit and sigh at my life --

covered in dandruff.

In the first hour I netted fifteen dollars.  After that, nothing -- so I came back home at 11 a.m.  

I got my first ten dollars from a guy who I see every morning -- he reads my stuff, nods his head, and never gives me a dime. But today he stopped to count the syllables to make sure I was following the 5-7-5 rule, and I asked him sarcastically while he was counting:  "What are you gonna do if it's off -- call the Poetry Police?"  He laughed at that and dropped a ten spot in my bowl.  And I did get one bacon egg and cheese kolache given to me, just before I packed things up.

I'm not staying out as long as I used to.  I find that two or three hours is my limit, especially if the wind is blowing or I'm in direct sunlight.  Direct sunlight just sucks the life out of me, even in mild April.  I may go out again this afternoon after I rest up, but it will be in the shade of the supermarket just up the street. I'll bring a book along to read, cuz I know there won't be that much traffic. But Amy works until 5 this afternoon and I get bored being at home by myself.

Well, gotta go check on the clam chowder. Start taste testing it . . .