Prairie Home Companion is on and I have such a fondness for that show that when Mr. Moon asked me if I wanted to drive down to Spring Creek tonight for supper or to get Mexican food if that's what I desired I said, "Oh well. You know. I look forward to Prairie Home all week, and maybe we could do that tomorrow." And he said, "Drive to Spring Creek on a Monday?" and I said, "Tomorrow's Sunday," and he looked so happy and said, "GREAT!"

So Roy Blount, Jr. is on and he just read a poem that rhymed and it wasn't really that terrific of a poem although he did name the kids in it Vera, Chuck, and Dave which is pretty darn cool in an old doddering sort of I-remember-the-Beatles way and it made me think about the fact that I do love to write poems that rhyme and I should start doing that because what the fuck? If you've got a talent for rhyming, you should just rhyme your ass off, right?

Well, maybe.

I've had a great day with my old beloved Singer sewing machine which belonged to my grandmother who was born in something like 1892 or something (White- when was she born?) and I honestly used to also own her Electrolux vacuum cleaner which I called the Dead Pig because it was so heavy and maybe that's why I don't own a vacuum cleaner now. It did a pretty good job of sucking but it didn't even have wheels! It had little glider things. Anyway, I'm working on Owen's name blanket which is a sort of blanket quilt which will have his name on it and I made one for each of my kids. I suck at quilting/blanketing because I don't measure at all and I'm not a very good seamstress but Hank and May at least still have their name blankets so what I make does last. I'm pretty sure they don't have the matching pajamas and night gowns I made to go with the name quilts but I did make them some.
Oh, the sewing I used to do!

Anyway, I'm cooking turkey and rice with onions and celery and garlic and tomatoes and green peppers and yellow peppers and cayenne peppers and I'll make a salad and that will be a lovely supper, don't you think? And I'm thinking of all sorts of things from my past including the post-Thanksgiving supper my mother used to make which I loved and which she called Turkey Chow Mein which had ingredients like lots and lots of celery and soy sauce and canned water chestnuts and canned bean sprouts and leftover gravy and she put it over rice and topped it with those crunchy chow mein noodles and it was so good. So very, very good. And I'm thinking about that and how she made it in the electric frying pan because the wok had not made it to the USA yet and sometimes the past is so close to now that you feel as if you could simply reach forward one quarter inch from your nose and snatch it up but that's not really how it works but the powerful magic of smell can make you feel as if it did. The smell of cooking turkey with soy sauce and the smell of the 3-in-1 sewing machine oil that I use to lubricate the old Singer, using the precious original instruction book to know where to carefully squeeze each drop of the oil

and it's a winter night, the last night of November, and I am making a blanket for my grandson to keep him cozy and which will have his name on it, the letters carefully sewn on by hand, cut from dinosaur-printed flannel.

I put my hands to my face and breathe in deeply and take in the smells of my childhood, my life, the lives of my foremothers'.

It's Saturday night and that is okay. It's even a little great. Maybe tomorrow I'll write a rhyming poem. Maybe tomorrow I'll cut out the letters O-W-E-N and start to stitch them by hand onto the blanket with the appropriately named blanket stitch.

One never knows.

Time to make the salad.

Rest well, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon