Mini-Topic: Name That Fruit

After discovering an heirloom tomato named "Eva's Purple Ball", I was not only excited to tell my sister Eva about this plant, but I also couldn't wait to purchase seeds to plant next year! In addition, it got me thinking about a mini-topic for DitPress ...

If you had to name a tomato, what would you call it? Why do you choose that name?

*the tomato pictured here is an English variety, called "Tigerella"

All Things Grow

So sorry for the delay, but I just had to double-check with Burkett and Holder before I shared the details with you. And they said "Yes!"

I’ve been teaching all my life, why would I want to do anything else at this stage of the game? Teaching, teaching, teaching has been my joy, other than my involvement with Toastmaster’s and my semi-annual weeklong jaunts. I’ve made the Winter Break International Garden Tour and my Little Christmas (week of June 25th) North American Garden Tour a top priority during my time off since I began teaching 27 years ago. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s been oh-so fulfilling!

So when my inheritance from Aunt Sophie came with a stipulation that I use it for business, I had to come up with a scheme. And my lawyers just approved it . . . approved my plan conditionally, that is. I have to come up with matching funds within a year, I have to agree that as director that I can take salary only equal to what I’m making now and I have to commit to a five-year plan. Little do they know that I’m willing to commit to a lifelong plan. In fact, if all goes well, my plan will involve many and should easily survive me! You see, I’m planning to start a non-profit organization and I’m just finding out what all that entails. The first thing I did was register the domain name AllThingsGrow.org. As I’m seeking donations from grant-making foundations and some fine philanthropist friends I’ve made through Toastmaster’s, I’ll be writing the curriculum. K-3 for starters, but that will expand to include the upper grades as well.

My passion for gardening often spilled over into the classroom where I was always surprised when so many of the students did not know where their food came from or how to plant a flower. Even I, who have so much gardening experience have recently discovered that the fragrant lily-of-the-valley is not a bulb, as I had thought – but a rhizome! So definitely The Lily Project will top the list. And it will be an ever-expanding list of Projects. Flowers, herbs, trees, and many-a-variety of healthful food. I’ll involve teaching arts from across the spectrum – science and art classes, music classes, writing classes, and math classes to help with garden design and layout. We’ll take field trips near and far, emulating the trips I’ve taken over the years. We’ll organize plant exchanges. And we’ll have visitors come to our schools to see what we’re doing, how we’re doing it and why! I’ll write a Homeschool curriculum as well.

What has inspired me so is the fantastic new children’s book - The Boy and the Worm -which will be the very basis for the entire All Things Grow program. No more just sending the students home at the end of the school year with a "Fare-thee-well!" and a packet of sunflower seeds. Our students will be involved with the planning and care of living, vital, growing plants every day, starting with the soil.

It was e. e. cummings who said “The Earth Laughs in Flowers.” If he was right, with the world as my classroom, the Earth will be laughing heartily, indeed!

June Topic

WATER

Happy June everyone! The June topic is rather straightforward, but hopefully can draw some inspiration nonetheless. The Ditalini Press creative writing topic for June is to compose a piece that takes place entirely in or on a body of water. Have Fun!

Day in, day out

Sunday-Feelings of melancholy and peace ebb and flow like wisps of smoke that I am unable to fully grasp. bluish-grey or slate. Leonard Cohen plays often and without warning.

Monday-Productivity and purpose replaces last night's longing. Pilates with a view of the bay puts mind and body at ease. butter yellow and turquoise. Jamie Lidell's Jim puts a spring in my step. 

Tuesday-List-making and planning dominate my thoughts as they turn from the everyday to what the future holds. chartreuse and lilac. Feist on my ipod. NPR on my radio.

Wednesday-French tutoring in an authentic French brasserie in Los Feliz takes me out of my mundane everyday and into a new world mentally and emotionally. Doubt of my abilities creeps in. brick red with gold. Coconut Records consoles and transports.

Thursday-Thoughts of the weekend and plans with friends take shape. Restless and sometimes lonely. blog posts written and erased in contempt simultaneously. midnight blue and sandstone. Jazz and sultry blues.

Friday-Morning Pilates energizes and leaves me feeling clean and new. Family and friends upstage my inner dialogue. Crisp white and yellow. Nous Non Plus and other uptempo eccentrics set my toes to tapping and my smiles to widen. 

Saturday- Begins sleepy with brunch or ballet stretching. Moves into relaxation and reconnection with friends later on in the afternoon, and ends with impassioned conversations on art, politics, and nostalgia into the night. caramel-colored like a glass of body-warming whisky. Sounds vary from karaoke and raucous laughter to subdued nostalgic songwriters depending on setting and cast of characters. 

In the nick of time! My new theater!

(I've been traveling all but 4 days of the month of May and wanted to contribute to the May topic. I wish this was thought out more precisely, concisely - and I wish I had more time.)

I've received my inheritance in the mail Friday. As I have been traveling most of the month of May I am weary and would much rather not have to bother myself with things as inheritances and the such, but who am I to disrespect my dead relative's wishes?

And so, in accordance with said dead relative, I wish to open an arts center that will dabble in all things we here at Ditalini Press cherish - theater, poetry, painting, sculpture, music, etcetera and so forth. It will be a place where I can submit my own plays (to myself) and approve them for production. It will be a place where Eva and Daniel may submit their paintings, where Katie can submit her poetry, etcetera, etcetera, and I will approve all of it (most of it). We will have public readings and gallery openings and art classes and discussions of all things deemed relevant - for adults and children alike. You, members of Ditalini Press, will sit on the board and WE will help guide Glen Mar Collective (as this venture and venue will be known, named after the rock trio my father performed in) to new heights and aspirations.

This venture will be an expression of US. And it will be good.

A Tale of Tulips Malloy

(not fitting into any assignment theme, I had an itch I
had to scratch, hope you don't mind)


I was born on a hunter's moon.
Mother was an emotional Irish immigrant.
We lived in Carbondale Illinois. Father dug coal.
He worked scared, and lived scared.
Irish were a mean sort. Folks sometimes called us
land-pirates. Irish meant that you worked. You were born a given day,
and that was your only day of grace, cause two day old infants were given
a bucket and mop and told to clean up.

I remember ruthless songs, and ruthless stories.
My happiest memories are days that I didn't suffer
lacerations. Me mother, for her burden I, I did pay a price.
I was granted life, fed and clothed. Aye, a lad I was.
But, branded with a namesake.
Irish live with a cloud of
vengeance hovering, looking for the distant day wherein their
soured grapes of wrath can be wrung out like a tired God,
disgusted over its creation.

Tulips Malloy. It was enough to kill me many times over.
Save for the providence of fallen angels sent to protect me.
I would have gladly be burdened with a hundred-weight stone,
chain and shackle, and exiled to the South Pole.

The stark cold school houses we as children were obligated to attend were enough
to deaden everyone to the bone. Yet, for my luck. My first name broadened the
bleak picture to a roaring bonfire. Laughter is good for the soul it is said.
And, I know there are some very healthy souls I grew up with.
Fate is the real fist you are handed, not the one you imagine, or want.
Father, expected me to stand up like Ramses the Great and
defeat entire armies. If I dared limp or show despair at the end of a day,
Father would entertain lashings which would kill an oak tree.

Sullen, I grew sideways, instead up upward.
My inside world was one of constant vigilance calibrated
in micro-seconds, and that was on easy days.
I could shift from this into pico-seconds in a femto-second.
We learned about Darwin's theory, and survival of the fittest in
6th grade. The class realized, as I should have succumbed years earlier,
that I was a contender in this race for survival.
I was fast in running contests, the fastest, if you don't mind me bragging.
You see, fleeing for ones life bolsters a gusto for genuine motivation.
Tulips became a gift when the awful period of transmutation finally came to a fruition.
I became the shrewdest, most outrageous clever lad in all of Carbondale.

There were outsiders who would travel a few miles just to see what a Tulips might
look like. Most of them had ill intentions. Most of them, when looking me dead in the eye
would see clear warning signals. A few dared to stand up and start a verbal match. Then
a shoving match. I would always allow the courtesy of first contact right on my jaw.
My solidity would often distract the aggressor and diffuse the violence.

Life didn't stop becoming a challenge, it was assumed that I would quickly move into
employment to work coal. My father, in a span of 2 years, had fallen off so badly that
I knew his death was coming before next winter.

I was leaving. If I had to crawl out blindfolded through woods and swamps, I would.
I was leaving everything I had grown up knowing. No endearing memories to
surrender anyway. I had mustered the gumption to make bold moves without saying
anything about my intentions. They said that Tulips was brash and legendary as
any Irish hero, but mysterious as blinding fog. I shall move along in life, but will hold onto
Tulips as my given name. Both curse and charm in it.

Marc

not my week

My weeks go so fast. They are always good and each day feels strangely like every other one. They start on Tuesday and I can't believe how quickly Tuesdays come back to me. My weekly impression is that I love my life. Here is a weekday impression list for someone else:

Tuesday: Week begins. Feeling of motion. Ending with a motion sick stomach.

Wednesday: Feverish nightmares.

Thursday: Dizzy.

Friday: Attitude that eats away at my spirit and everyone elses.

Saturday: I like to think I'm productive but lately, I'm not.

Sunday: Wishful dreaming, realizing those dreams are but tools for recreational hatred toward myself.

Monday: Whatever

Friday nights

Friday nights were all about Mario Party.
Ang & Michael would get off work at 8:30 and bring their dinner to our apartment.
We would play until after midnight without a care in the world, always having the time of our lives.
The game was never the same twice but the one constant was Valerie falling asleep with the controller in her hand.

When we moved out of the apartment and into our house, the atmosphere stayed the same and Friday nights lived on.
As the months went by 8:30 became 6:30 and we started to have dinner together.
I would try to make something new or special every week and that is when I truly developed my love for cooking and cooking for others.
We no longer had to ask Ang & Michael if they were coming over on Friday, they just started asking us what was for dinner.

Valerie was pregnant in 2005, and she stopped playing Mario Party with us on Friday nights.
She could no longer stay up that late, so we had to replace her by playing with one computer player that we called "the droid."
Our one goal was not to let the computer player win, it didn't matter who won, as long as it wasn't the droid.
After Ari was born, things really didn't change too much, we just had to keep our voices down a little when we played.

Now that we have Ari, Piper and Emilie in the mix, we rarely play Mario Party anymore.
We continue to get together every Friday and still make new and exciting dinners and desserts.
Eva & Daniel have been coming over on Friday nights when they are in town, and sometimes Katie too.
Having them with us make the evenings we spend together even more special because of all the memories we share.

What started as just getting together to play a simple video game has turned into so much more.
Friday nights are about good food, good conversation, and family and friends creating memories together.
Even after all these years, I am genuinely disappointed when something causes us to miss a night.
I can honestly say that there is no other way I would want to spend an evening.

Mother's Last Wishes

There were three things I disliked about planet earth. For one thing, the women were frighteningly similar to the men, spare some parts. Two, the food looked nothing like anything that should be eaten. And three, I was growing fond of a person and his name was Charley. He was what earthings called “Elderly”, so I enjoyed calling him Charley Elderly, since I never learned of his last name. What Elder Charley didn’t know is that besides me being a refreshing friend, I was going to be his ticket off of this soil-and-corpse-laden sphere in the sky. Earth didn’t suit such a refined and classy gentleman. I could see Mr. Elderly had to drain his evolutionary capacities to avoid social persecution and see himself blindsided by loneliness, day after day. His intelligence surged into involuntary hiatus in order to linguistically engage with those in lesser form around him; the thick-throated, foggy-eyed prisoners of their circumstances, such backward and poor circumstances. He couldn’t have too many lives to live yet. He had already 83. For an earthling, that was plenty. Why anyone lives more need still be explained.
I feel that the duties prescribed to me from my contagiously heroic mother, must be carried as the Earth goose wears its down. After witnessing her having been carried away by the ancient Floxed Farrens of Sacrifice I feel I am fit to proceed with her orders, and now that I have acclimated my temper to the new environments, I am closer than ever to accomplishing the mission mother was so restive to exonerate before her cleansing.
Now that I’m back home and have Charley with me I can finish the mission, complete all mandatory procedures. But first I must explain an oddity of the earthling nature exhibited so well and often by the race, and one I witnessed for the first time yesterday. I caught Charley in the Muskill Mountains when he went to eliminate his body of his breakfast, tying a piece of his shirt into a thick loop. I noticed he had his sights on a Feze Tree limb which was about out of his reach as he was not a tall man. I watched from the path’s edge as he began wrapping the tail end of the shirt around the limb to secure it. Finally it occurred to me that he might be tying what the earthlings use to recover their spirit; a noose.
I told him that in order to survive he must not kill his body, because now he was in a new land and must subscribe to our world’s regulations, especially those concerning the dealings of his own mind.
He watched me in a horrified state, walk closer to him and take his hand away from the Feze.
Charley wasn’t responding to his name and also showed signs of Nebular 6 Intergenic Phaseout, which helped the cause seeing as how the first step in his organ removal is tranquilization.
The first organ to be taken is always the liver, the most toxic of the earthling inner-bodies, it is quickly eaten by evaporation chamber to make sure its destruction is replete of any harmful substances that strand out into larger exhibitions of danger. Charley’s stomach was sucked clean of all earth food during transport to my home, so the stomach is safe to remove and insert for sale at market. These sell the most prolifically, and during family days the stomach is roasted and enjoyed in small pieces within Sau plant broth. Earthling Elders, it is clear to our species now, have industrious inner-bodies which favor an advanced palate, formidable jaws, and a flexible purse. Mother’s last request was a mission most successful thanks to the procurement of an old man on Earth who had no one left and who would never be missed. The business of selling earthling inner-bodies at market continues to remain a tradition on my planet. The highly prized meat is worth so much more than any animal in our region and the taste is unsurpassed in its complexity. Thank you Charley Elderly and to the smooth operation.

Family Tradition

A good stretch back, maybe three or four months ago I was asked to take over my grandpa’s tobacco fields. Now that’s grandpa Jasper Bertrand from my momma Lisette’s side. I guess tobacco has been in my family since damn near the time it came to this part of the country. My daddy told my cousin Hazel that we probably even had kin on the ship that that Walter Raleigh feller was on. Uncle Cecil said he figured Raleigh was the one responsible for tobacco being in Carolina in the first place…. and I don’t guess I’ve ever known Uncle Cecil to lie. He’s stretched the truth a time or two, but never so far as to make something untrue.

I’ve had a devil of a time deciding whether or not to get tied up in this whole tobacco farming business. Years ago it might’ve been an easier decision because things were done by hand. I guess the work was harder but it seemed simpler in nature. With the year now being 1956 a lot has changed in the industry. Hell, it seems like hand labor are dirty words and people act like they’ve never even seen a goddamn mule. It seems to me that nine hundred man hours to work and cultivate an acre is still movin’ pretty datgum fast. On a good day you can beat that record. I’ve seen it done.

I guess my biggest fuss comes from the farming industry now being run by a bunch of kids who’ve never had their hands in the soil. All they seem to care about is how to save that next penny. When it comes down to it, tractor or no a season is still gonna be a full year.

The seed beds have to be prepared by early January and planted in February. Then you have to stake the ground and cover it in linen. If the weather holds out the earliest you can transplant to the field is April 1st. But depending on the weather is like telling God your plans. It’s only worth the laugh. I know that the work of a John Deere is cleaner, but it still can’t match the work done by three experienced farm hands. All you need is one guy to make a hole in the furrow with a hand peg, another guy to place the seedling in the hole and one more to water and fertilize it. As far as those pesky horn worms are concerned, my three year old could do that in an afternoon and I don’t even have a three year old.

When it comes down to it, tobacco farming requires four things. You gotta harvest it, you gotta tie it, you gotta barn it and you gotta watch the furnace. All in all tobacco has one ingredient….tradition. Or maybe I’m just scared of the future.