Life is a symphony, or not

I'm not very good at multi-tasking, and since I'm involved with several things at once just now and trying to cope with them all simultaneously, my brain tends to get frazzled and wants to fight back by shutting down altogether. "Stop the world, I want to get off!" it cries, and not much gets accomplished when that happens.

I like to read one book at a time, so naturally I am reading two at present. Over a year ago when Mrs. RWP and I were visiting our daughter's family in Alabama, I noticed Sam's copy of To Kill A Mockingbird and asked if I could borrow it if he was through with it. He was, and I did. I read it when it was first published nearly sixty years ago and I thought it would be interesting to re-visit it now that I am past eighty. I laid it aside in a drawer when we returned home and didn't find it again until last week. The other book I have begun, which was sent to me over a year ago as well by my blogger friend Snowbrush out in Oregon, is The Long Loneliness, the autobiography, as the cover states, of "the legendary Catholic Social Activist" Dorothy Day, who was born in 1897 and died in 1980.

Since Mockingbird is fiction and Loneliness is non-fiction, I am hoping to navigate them more or less simultaneously, although literally simultaneously would be something of an impossibility.

My daughter, who began chemotheraphy for breast cancer two weeks ago today, lost much of her hair yesterday. Fortunately, the wig she had ordered arrived in Friday's mail. We had made the 3-1/2 hour drive over on Thursday to keep her company while her husband was teaching a class in Mississippi and we returned to north Georgia on Saturday afternoon. We had a good visit although she has already begun to experience some side effects from the chemo. Her next treatment is a week from today and will continue every three weeks until July, at which time the oncologist will assess the situation. That is on our mind at all times.

I am scheduled to receive injections in both eyes on Wednesday (intra-vitreous injections, they're called) for the macular degeneration that was first diagnosed in 2017. These injections typically occur every four to six weeks. Our son, who has been transporting us to these treatments, is without a vehicle at the moment. A deer ran out of the woods and collided with his car recently and the repair shop had to order replacement parts from Japan to repair some of the damage said deer caused. If his car is not ready today or tomorrow, I will need to make other arrangements. I can drive myself when only one eye is being treated but not when both eyes are being treated. Mrs. RWP doesn't drive any more. A neighbor who had been very helpful and more than willing to assist underwent surgery for anal cancer recently and is now wearing a colostomy bag, so though her spirit is willing, her flesh is weak. I am hoping to hear from my son soon so that I can ask the doctor's office to treat one eye only this week and make a follow--up appointment for the other eye for next week. This novel way of solving my dilemma also means that I will be required to pay two co-payments to the doctor instead of one.

Our little dog has decided to go on a hunger strike of sorts and is eating far less than usual. We have tried giving her dry kibble, kibble with goat's milk, and kibble with pumpkin puree, but it is anyone's guess from one day to the next whether she will eat her food. She was a little on the pudgy side anyway, so losing two pounds of her fifteen in the past month may not be a bad thing, but one tends to worry about one's furry pets.

I don't want to sound like a whiner, a complainer, a lily-livered low-life of a specimen of humanity who doesn't realize that lots of other people have far worse things to deal with, but neither am I ready to sing tra-la-la with Pollyanna and accept whatever comes my way as being the best of all possible worlds. (I have no idea whether Pollyanna sang tra-la-la, but it sounds good, doesn't it?)

Another Dorothy, Dorothy Parker. wrote the following:

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania.

In case you are wondering why I would include those particular lines in this post, you can find out by reading this.

Even prose can be poetic

Earlier this morning I was reading today’s edition of The Writer’s Almanac when the whole thing turned into a rhyming poem. Today, it turns out, is the birthday of Virginia Woolf. Her first masterpiece, it said, was Mrs. Dalloway. After going on some more about Virginia Woolf (it also mentioned her To the Lighthouse and The Waves and her long essay, A Room of One’s Own), another factoid announced that today is also the birthday of the man who wrote, “The best laid schemes o’ mice an' men / Gang aft agley” and “Should auld acquaintance be forgot, / And never brought to mind?” and “O my luve’s like a red, red rose, / That’s newly sprung in June; O my luve’s like the melodie / That’s sweetly played in tune” -- none other than Robert Burns, who, said The Writer’s Almanac, was born in 1759 in Scotland in the town of -- wait for it -- Alloway.

All of a sudden it struck me that Dalloway and Alloway rhyme and I thought of (a) my childhood friend John Galloway and (b) how the entire reading for today in The Writer’s Almanac was suddenly transformed from dull prose into a kind of lovely poem that someone like Ogden Nash might have written on a very good day.

The effect was short-lived, however, because a short final paragraph in which the writer of The Writer’s Almanac used the phrase “Burns’ poems” when any editor worth his or her salt knows it should be “Burns’s poems” brought me back to reality.

If you think “Burns’ poems” is just fine you obviously have never read The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White. Strunk, who was White’s English professor at Cornell in 1919, had written the little book himself as a textbook for his classes. White re-published it in later years, adding an Introduction.

Here is Rule 1 from Will Strunk’s first chapter, Elementary Rules of Usage:


1. Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding ’s.

Follow this rule whatever the final consonant. Thus write,

Charles’s friend
Burns’s poems
the witch’s malice

Exceptions are the possessives of ancient proper names in es and is, the possessive Jesus’, and such forms as for conscience’ sake, for righteousness’ sake. But such forms as Moses’ laws, Isis’ temple are commonly replaced by

the laws of Moses
the temple of Isis

The pronominal possessives hers, its, theirs, yours, and ours have no apostrophe. Indefinite pronouns, however, use the apostrophe to show possession.

one’s rights
somebody else’s umbrella

A common error is to write it’s for its, or vice versa. The first is a contraction, meaning “it is.” The second is a possessive.

It’s a wise dog that scratches its own fleas.

(End of first page of Chapter 1 of The Elements of Style)


E.B. White, in his Introduction to the second edition of Strunk’s book, said:

“Some years ago, when the heir to the throne of England was a child, I noticed a headline in the Times about Bonnie Prince Charlie: “CHARLES’ TONSILS OUT.” Immediately Rule 1 leapt to mind.

Charles’s friend
Burns’s poems
the witch’s malice

Clearly, Will Strunk had foreseen, as far back as 1918, the dangerous tonsillectomy of a prince, in which the surgeon removes the tonsils and the Times copy desk removes the final s. I commend Rule 1 to the Times, and I trust that Charles’s throat, not Charles’ throat, is in fine shape today.”

I note happily that Will Strunk foresaw not only Charles’s tonsillectomy but also today’s edition of The Writer’s Almanac with the phrase “Burns’ poems” that jumped out of the blue to shatter my Alloway-Dalloway-Galloway reverie and return me to the cold light of day.

Just for good measure, I am going to throw in here Rule 13 in Strunk’s own words:

13. Omit needless words.

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.


E.B. Write called that paragraph “sixty-three words that could change the world.”

Elements of Style has its critics. Not everyone likes it or agrees with its rules. The world changes, time marches on, and language is not static.

But I like what Dorothy Parker said in her review of Elements for Esquire magazine in 1957: “If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”

The week in review, sort of

I say "sort of" because it won't be the complete week, and it won't include world headlines or the latest gaffes, foibles, and outrages from the entertainment world. I'm going to let others report on Al Gore's Nobel Peace prize, Hillary Rodham Clinton's standing in the polls, Britney and K-Fed's battles over their children. The week being reviewed here will be MY week or rather OUR week, Ellie's and mine.

On Sunday, we went to church. Bob sang in the choir. Pastor is in the middle of a series called "Transformed From Within." After church, we attended the first session of a small group six-week course on prayer led by Walter and Margaret. We all ate lunch together; Judy (of Bruce and Judy) brought lasagna and someone else brought three pies for dessert. Then we watched portions of a DVD led by Jim Cymbala, pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, and discussed it afterward. Then we actually prayed.

On Monday, we recuperated from Sunday.

On Tuesday, Ellie saw her orthopedic surgeon for the one-year follow-up of his operation on her left shoulder's rotary cuff. No problem there. But her knees need attending to (he said she is pretty much walking "bone on bone"), so he is going to start off with a series of Euflexxa shots. If they don't work, possible knee surgery is on the horizon. Two or three years ago, at another doctor's office, Ellie received a series of Synvisc shots in her knee. Synvisc is made from the combs of roosters, and the animal protein in the medicine caused Ellie to have rapid heartbeat. Since Euflexxa is synthetic and contains no animal proteins, we are hoping it will work.

On Wednesday, we attended the sixth session of Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University, a thirteen-week course. It also contains no animal proteins, and we are hoping it too will work. So far we have learned some important lessons about budgeting, debt reduction, investing, and stopping the use of plastic.

On Thursday, we had an evening (okay, late afternoon) meal with a group of senior adults from our church who have met for several years. We usually eat at Folks (formerly Po' Folks) or Family Tradition Restaurant. Some of us are just barely seniors, and some have been seniors for quite a while. Rosemary, Laraine, and Kate are all in their eighties. Hugh and Jean, Carolyn, Esther, Sharon (and sometimes Wayne), Ellie and I are scattered across our sixties and seventies. Esther's son, Patrick, who always comes with her, was hit by a car while riding his bike when he was twelve and lay in a coma for six months. He survived, but with brain damage. Patrick, now 41, brings joy to us all. Rosemary's daughter, Lexi, is visiting from California so she came to dinner as well. Lexi is older than Patrick but younger than the rest of us. Bob and Audrey no longer are able to come, and neither are Bob and Amalfi, because both Bobs have health issues. This is not an exclusive group, just a group of old friends who like to get together.

On Saturday, there were once again two football games to attend. Noah's team lost this week, 15-0, but Elijah's team won in overtime, 9-8. I cannot discuss either game with you because the doctor doesn't like my blood pressure to rise.

So now the cycle starts over again. I'm typing this as Ellie finishes getting ready for church.

I am reminded of a very cynical poem by Dorothy Parker:

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong,
And I am Marie of Rumania.

Thank God for the decided lack of cynicism hereabouts. I think sermon series with titles like "Transformed From Within" have a lot to do with that.