Sunday, February 25, 2007

Getting wrinkles out of clothes

I am trying throwing them in the dryer with a damp t-shirt. Think it will work. Apparently I left our dinosaur of an iron somewhere along the East Coast while traveling. Just shows how often I worry about wrinkle free clothes doesn't it LOL

wish me luck - I guess I will be shopping later in the week for a new iron -- any tips or recommendations -- this one was about 35 years old - I doubt new ones will last that long though hehehe

Sunday, February 18, 2007

ouch - from the other day...


forgot to take pictures while this was all colorful but here is part of it winding down - - There is much more just yellow and green bruising on the front of my leg but it was just yucky..

Jeez my legs are dry - I really need to moisturize them ...

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Sometimes the Universe provides in unexpected ways

for example - I picked up the book I had ordered from our local bookstore - because we have a storm coming - I had planned on having the book to read and knitting to do and since we probably won't be going out to get our lobster in the storm tomorrow I bought shrimp to make scampi for dinner tomorrow. But I guess the universe decided I wouldn't stop and enjoy the book and the knitting so it put a bump in the frozen ground for me to trip over -- Ouch -- Let's just say I am going to have a spectacular bruise on my shin and I am afraid to look and see what is causing some really impressive twinges....

This is going to be a spectacular year I know - Heck - I am getting all the crud out early in the year :D Oops - I just realized that may be a cryptic remark if you don't know that I had the stomach flu from hell last week -- I did about 2 miles for the 100 miles by April Fools Day just running from my chair in the living room to the bathroom with bodily fluids coming from one side or the other - not fun. So you see -- things have to look up after the past couple of weeks heheheh

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Things only a Bonacker would know!

I got this in an email from another Bonacker today and laughed hysterically at it - hopefully non-bonackers will think it is amusing at least

LONG ISLAND.... You can use the back roads to get home quicker than the average tourist, but you don't know the names of any of the streets...it is all intuition.

You live in the shadow of the greatest city in the world, but you almost never go there.

You don't live in Long Island. You live ON Long Island. You don't live in the Hamptons... you are from Amagansett, East Hampton, Montauk, Springs or Wainscott. You say Bonac Crick for Creek.

You know how many lanes go over the Shinnecock Canal and where the speed traps/state troopers hang near there. You don't go to Manhattan, you go to "The City." You never realize you have an accent till you leave. Everything north of the Bronx is "upstate." New Jersey sucks.


When you're away from Long Island, you love it and when you're there, you don't. You are proud you are from Springs. You think if you're not from Long Island or NYC, you're not really from New York. You know people from the Oak View Trailer Park.

At some point in your life you've gone clamming. Either your parents or your grandparents lived in the city. You'd pay $11.50 for a movie. You ran outta toilet paper and bought it at Hess, because it was the only thing open.

Your distant future might involve the state of Florida and living in a trailer does not sound crazy. You can correctly pronounce places like Hauppauge, Wantagh, Massapequa, Amagansett, Napeague. You can also pronounce Schenck's.

You know the location of 3 malls and 4 McDonalds and thirty six 7-11's on Long Island. You know where the best hunting, clamming and fishing spots are. You can navigate through Northwest with your eyes closed.

You never, ever want to "change at Jamaica..." You've missed that "Drunk Train," the 2:42 out of Penn and had the dreaded wait until 5:30. You have or someone you know has fallen asleep on the LIRR and ended up in one of these three places; Babylon, Speonk or Montauk.

No, you don't want mustard on that burger!! You know what a Villa Combo is. You've had a seagull or goose crap on your car. You've tried to find the Amityville Horror house, at least once. You've been to the Radar Tower in Montauk and been spooked.

You went to an elementary school that promoted dodge ball as the number 1 game among children 5-13.

You know what a John Burger is and have eaten food at either Mc Kendry's or Wolfies, and regretted it in the morning. You know what a Morning After is from One Stop. You can name the brothers that own Fierro's and have a charge/house account there.

Quick! Who's your county Executive? Don't know do you? But you can name the local fire chief can't you?

You've never taken an MTA bus. The Long Island Expressway isn't really as bad as everybody thinks. You don't associate Fire Island with gay men. You don't cross the Shinnecock Canal unless you have to from Memorial Day to Labor Day...EVER! You know which parts of the Godfather were filmed on Long Island. You go to Riverhead to go shopping, cause it's cheaper.

You know where the movie stars live, but really don't care.

You've paid a $20 cover charge to get into a bar, but got nothing for it. You've paid $12 for a drink in the village, but been too drunk to care. You've gotten into the Talkhouse free, at least once. You've been pulled over by the Sag Harbor Police Department and think they are all pricks.

Billy Joel said it best, " either you date a rich girl from the North Shore, or a cool girl from the South Shore." You've always liked Billy Joel and you own several of his "records."

You don't really see what the big deal is about the Hamptons. You have gotten smashed at the Boardy Barn. You know at least 5 local cops by name, cause they pull you over and then laugh. You are related to in someway to a Lester, King or Bennett. (some of us are related to all three groups - rho)

When people ask "where are you from?" you answer Long Guy- Land and automatically assume everyone in the world knows that answer means New York.

The Belt Parkway sucks! You've been stuck in a traffic jam for more than 2 hours (without moving). You know not to turn the corner by the Diner in Southampton in the summer-EVER! You remember when Wainscott had no traffic lights. You can remember when Bridgehampton had the Drive in.

Regular gas -- $2.69-$4.19 and you still pay it to fill up your 2-5 inch lifted truck!!! You know who Kenny is, and don't have to say his last name.

You remember Grumman. You know where Republic Airport is. You have never been to East Hampton Airport, for anything.

You've gotten drunk on the bleachers of some high school. You know what Albert's is. You didn't like the kids from Pierson.

You have said "I love the guys at Mt Fuji" after downing 5 Sake Bombs at Mount Fuji.

You can spout off all the LIRR stops between Babylon and
Montauk, laughing when you say SPEONK!! Paying $50 for a haircut doesn't sound so crazy.

You think the people from Brooklyn are "da wunz dat tawk wit a accent." You knew of Massapequa before the Amy Fisher-Joey Buttafuoco nightmare.

You've partied on a golf course in the middle of the night. You used to party at the bar in the bowling alley.

The first time you heard the term "Long Island Iced Tea" you were somewhere else and you laughed. When you live somewhere else and are astounded to see that people actually stop at yellow lights. When you just sort of presume that wherever you live, they have Schwenks green box Iced Tea.

You can name at least three bands that came from Long Island, including Twisted Sister. When you see two men holding hands...it's normal to you.

No word ends in an ER, just an AH.

You actually remember most of these things and pass this on to other friends from Eastern Long Island-BUB!!!

Friday, February 02, 2007

Another (Silent) Poetry Reading

This was hanging in my home as long as I can remember (and in a bright red frame so everyone would read it as they walked by) - I had a devil of a time finding a copy of it to put here - but it was so worth the search. I had forgotten how much I loved this and how perfectly it puts into words the memories and feelings, and spirit that was the Bonac I remember as a child.

Bonac


I

This is enchanted country, lies under a spell,
Bird-haunted, ocean-haunted--land of youth,
Land of first love, land of death also, perhaps,
And desired return. Sea-tang and honeysuckle
Perfume the air, where the old house looks out
Across mild lowlands, meadows of scrub and pine,
A shell echoing the sea's monotone
That haunts these shores. And here, all summer through,
From dawn to dusk, there will be other music,
Threading the sea's music: at rise of sun,
With jubilation half-awakened birds
Salute his coming again, the lord of life,
His ambulatory footstep over the earth,
Who draws after him all that tide of song-
Salute the oncoming day, while from the edges.
Of darkness, westward, fading voices call,
Night's superseded voices, the whip-poor-will's
Lamentation and farewell. Morning and noon
And afternoon and evening, the singing of birds
Lies on this country like an incantation:
Robin and wren, catbird, phoebe and chat,
Song-sparrow's music-box tune, and from the slender
Arches of inmost shade, the woodland's roof,
Where few winds come, flutelike adagio or
Wild syrinx-cry and high raving of the thrush,
Their clang and piercing pierce the spirit through--
Look off into blue heaven, you shall witness
Angelic motions, the volt and sidewise shift
Of the swallow in mid-air. Enchanted land,
Where time has died; old ocean-haunted land;
Land of first love, where grape and honeysuckle
Tangle their vines, where the beach-plum in spring
Snows all the inland dunes; bird-haunted land,
Where youth still dwells forever, your long day
Draws to its close, bringing for evening-star
Venus, a bud of fire in the pale west,
Bringing dusk and the whip-poor-will again,
And the owl's tremolo and the firefly,
And gradual darkness. Silently the bat,
Over still lawns that listen to the sea,
Weaves the preoccupation of his flight.
The arch of heaven soars upward with all its stars.

II

Summer fades soon here, autumn in this country
Comes early and exalted. Where the wild land,
With its sparse bayberry and huckleberry,
Slopes seaward, where the seaward dunes go down,
Echoing, to the sea; over the beaches,
Over the shore-line stretching east and west,
The ineffable slant light of autumn lingers.
The roof of heaven is higher now, the clouds
That drag, trailing, along the enormous vault
Hang higher, the wide ways are wider now.
Sea-hawks wander the ocean solitudes,
Sea-winds walk there, the waters grow turbulent,
And inland also a new restlessness
Walks the world, remembering something lost,
Seeking something remembered: wheeling wings
And songless woods herald the great departure,
Cattle stray, swallows gather in flocks,
The cloud-travelling moon through gusty cloud
Looks down on the first pilgrims going over,
And hungers in the blood are whispering, "Flee!
Seek otherwhere, here is no lasting home."
Now bird-song fails us, now an older music
Is vibrant in the land--the drowsy cry
Of grasshopper and cricket, earth's low cry
Of sleepy love, her inarticulate cry,
Calling life downward, promising release
From these vague longings, these immortal torments.
The drowsy voice drones on--oh, siren voice:
Aeons of night, millenniums of repose,
Soundless oblivion, divine surcease,
Dark intermingling with the primal darkness,
Oh, not to be, to slough this separate being,
Flow home at last! The alert spirit listens,
Hearing, meanwhile, far off, along the coast,
Rumors of the rhythm of some wakeful thing,
Reverberations, oceanic tremors,
The multitudinous motions of the sea,
With all its waters, all its warring waves

John Hall Wheelock

and to give you one bonus poem that I love too - by himself again.....

Afternoon: Amagansett Beach

The broad beach,
Sea-wind and the sea's irregular rhythm,
Great dunes with their pale grass, and on the beach
Driftwood, tangle of bones, an occasional shell,
Now coarse, now carven and delicate--whorls of time
Stranded in space, deaf ears listening
To lost time, old oceanic secrets.
Along the water's edge, in pattern casual
As the pattern of the stars, the pin-point air-holes
Left by the sand-flea under the receding spume,
Wink and blink out again. A gull drifts over,
Wide wings crucified against the sky--
His shadow travels the shore, upon its margins
You will find his signature: one long line,
Two shorter lines curving out from it, a nearly
Perfect graph of the bird himself in flight.
His footprint is his image fallen from heaven.



So - can you picture the area and time I grew up in? To give credit to where I finally found these poems so I could show you the whole verse instead of little snippets I could remember I thank

Modern Verse in English, 1900-1950
Book by David Cecil, Allen Tate; Macmillan, 1958

Also for bringing this to my attention thanks to Jane
and Crazy Lanea