Off we go to the Farmer's Market but Doc is discouraged by long line

He returned home but I stayed the course and came home with some delicious fresh produce. I was happy to see so many people buying good fresh vegetables. I bought tomotoes on the vine, yellow summer squash, fresh salsa, fresh cucumbers, and corn on the cob. I made pototo, corn off the cob, and green bean salad with roasted poblemo pepper in it, chopped chives, and wine vinegar, olive oil and Dijon mustard dressing for Dante. Dante said it was the best potato salad he ever ate and then he hit a hot poblemo pepper, first really hot one I have encountered. There must have been one pepper that was really hot out of 4. I roast them on high and then put them in a plastic bag to steam before I take the seeds out and peel off the skin. I sent his poor hard working Mom home a container and gave one to Doc who said he put lemon pepper on his and it was delicious. I used to be known for my potato salad with mayo, but this is a more healthy vegetarian salad, and now I want to be known for it.
Daughter Ronda came and she and Ethan visited for two hours. She bought pizza purchased just down the street, veggie for me. Dante and Ethan enjoyed playing a game together. Dante went home last night and I got a call from him very early this morning saying his mom could not take him out to Ronda's, which is 40 miles north, so we agreed she could drop him off here next Wednesday and we would go to the movies for his birthday, since we did not go yesterday. Now to pick a movie! He is kind of up in the air with his dad gone. His mom wants him to wait here until after his birthday to go to California. Moving time is hectic, but once his dad gets himsself established a little in Boulder, he and Dante can possibly make it up there together another summer and his dad can take him out fishing and trail walking. But his dad needs to pave the way first. Raymond has to see what he can do with his one man show, kind of a memorial for his disappearing dad. (never been found) My youngest son Dan has not been to the land of his ancestors but two or so days for years. This will be the longest stay he has had up there.
Dante will be all right once his mom gets moved and settle down, as he is used to spending summer in California with his Aunt Stephanie, who has to be a living saint, the way she cares for her murdered brother's children, Dante's mother Angelina and two others. Her other sister who had a nervous breakdown and gave up her kids lives with Stephanie off and on. Her brother who was once on drugs goes over there to see his aunt and uncle quite regularly.
Sadly Angelina's mother is back on drugs and living with a guy who deals drugs. She got government benefits when her husband was murdered while in the service, so her check attracts druggie BFs and because of long time off and on drug use she is not able to resist. Angelina was so upset she did not speak to her mom for a long time with this latest BF. This has been the story of their lives, her mom back on and off drugs with different BFs. Her mom called me up and told me her daughter would not speak to her. She actually sounded like she had just taken a hit, on the phone, but when I said I guess it is her fear of the drugs, and she said, oh no, I wouldn't do that. I know she would, so I thought well there is no use talking to her if she isn't going to tell the truth.
I remember one time she had a druggie BF who was also beating her up. He put her in the hospital and after she got out she went to the homeless shelter. She came to see Angelina and was going to walk down to the homeless shelter. Dante was insisting on going with her, and could not. He was about 8 years old. But he seemed very worried about her having to go live in a shelter, so he kept running around us and going with her. I finally walked with her and him clear to the shelter. She told him she had to go now and kids were not allowed here. He watched her climb the stairs all the way up before he would leave. I felt sad to think he was so worried about her, but he was raised in her home with her tending him about ten hours a day when his mom went to work.
Dan just called and we talked about his car and so on. He does not know how long he will be up there but will probably come back to Phoenix after he has done whatever he needs to in Utah. He does need to make sure he is not away from his son too long at this crucial age, 14. He said the sky is overcast, but tonight is the show. He took Angelina's phone number, I think, so he can call and talk to Dante so he won't get too agitated.
Ethan is in a much more stable home. His dad was just promoted to the job of General Manager of the plant where he works with about 250 employees. He has always been one of the most disiplined guys I know. Jamal has not been able to get a summer job before he goes to the University, but his mother Ronda also has a good paying job as a nurse. Ethan and Jamal both are much calmer than Dante who has had a lot more ups and downs in his life.

People, horses, dogs, and green green grass of home

I had not had a chance to comment on the Preakness when a filly, "Rachel Alexander" won, the first time in 80 years a filly has triumphed there. Aside from Mine that Bird who proved himself to be a very exciting racehorse who came from behind and almost caught up with her. They will both be running in the Belmont Stakes so that should be one spectacular race, coming up this Saturday.
I talked to Raymond as he was traveling to get lumber and supplies for his set and a fence for his new dog, "Baby." I was glad to see a new entry on his blog "Cowboys and Bohemians" (also on my blog list) after resting up in Boulder (pictured above) after his Los Angeles venture.
My sister Linda has been getting instructions on how to create a blog which is listed now on my blog list, "Vooman's Voice." She is planning to post some of her poetry, political cartoons, drawings, and opinions. But today is the day she finally is getting her long awaited MRI to see if it will show what is going on with her numb hands. She mentioned she hoped California where she is (SF) didn't go entirely broke before she got treated.
I am continuing to post the reading of my play, Prince from Saturn. I am so glad to get this play up on Youtube, written in 1986-90. Doc has been very restless since he was not featured in this series, but he and I watched some of our older DVDs, one he calls 4 X rated where we talk about subjects we don't think we can put up on Youtube. He now thinks these are some of the best we have done, so we always have subjects we can discuss and film. I was thinking about those as I have been reading the bloggers' comments on the fact that the blogger community that migrated from AOL journals is not nearly so active, but I think it is coming along as well as can be expected after that upheavel. Besides people have to get their second wind when it comes to blogging. At first in J-land, there was a great burst of enthusiasm as people took to blogging for the first time. Having written all my life, I am not surprised that adjustments had to be made down the road aways.
Writing has to become a part of one's inner life in order to retain enthusiasm. Adjustments have to be made for health concerns. I started keeping journals when I was in my teens so journaling on AOL seemed like a natural fit, and I have migrated to blogspot with little adjustment problems, but as with plays, there is always the struggle to find readers. In order to do that, reading other blogs is imperative I believe. The best way to make a writer out of yourself is to help others find joy and appreciation in writing too!
I have tried to help my sisters to become writers as well as my kids. To me, this is what education is all about, helping everyone learn to read and write and enjoy it. Writing a poem or a song is a joy people should not miss if they can help it. They may have a short story, a play, or even a novel in them. And everybody has a memoir to write. So there are a lot of writing challenges for those who want to continue to develop themselves.
I can picture the beautiful town of Boulder above becoming a mecca for art, summer theater, music festivals, etc, just as breathtakingly gorgeous Sedona has become in Arizona. My niece Charyl and Raymond are now offering creative workshops in connection to the festival (Boulder Heritage Festival listed on my blog list)in playwriting, acting, poetry writing. Cheryl's husband Steve is teaching birdwatching. Raymond is singing for his supper at the Hell's Backbone Grill. I am so looking forward to seeing one of my country plays, Happy Hello, Sad Goodbye, done in this setting, where it was written.
So put Boulder, Utah (pictured above) on your map as a place to visit one of these years in the summertime!

Walking on a spring morning...

I mailed some books this morning and took a walk around the block on a nice spring morning. I took my camera to photograph the new civic park next to the post office but the fence was too thck, so I will have to wait until it is gone. I paid a call to Circle K for some juice, etc, and when I came in the door why was I not surprised to see the invididual we have all been worrying about sitting there, still quite drunk. It looks like he has sprung out of Lark as fast as he went in, so I sat down to talk to him a little bit since he was a little less drunk than in past days. He then told me that he had a large round spot on his hip that had caused all the trouble in the first place by stinging and burning non stop. After 7 sleepless nights he started to drink. (some days ago) He said after all this drinking, it still stings and hurts. He said that he has been in 3 hospitals trying to get a diagnosis and treatment. Now they think it was brought in from abroad and is something they don't recognize, so he was waiting for a taxi to go have a culture of it taken, so someone else can try to tell what it is and how it must be treated! This is the first I have heard of this trouble. Sometimes there are simple physical causes to the beginning of a spiral downward you donot expect. I wished him luck.
Since I did not get any photos and the gorgous palo verde is just starting to blossom I decided to post the photo above of a tree my sister Ann sent me from Utah. I call that some flowering tree.
I talked to Raymond twice in Utah and he sprung this news on me. He wants to do my play, "Happy Hello, Sad Goodbye," in Boulder, probably not this summer, but next summer when he hopes to have helped build out a theater there. This was the first full length production he did in a theater in Phoenix, produced by his friend Bryan John. That was a wonderful experience for me. Happy Hello was written in Boulder with a mountain setting. (You can see an improv version of it on my Youtube Channel gerryking40 Doc and I made)
So I found out I had a pretty clean recently revised vesion of it which I intend to send to him as soon as possible. Bryan John had a lot of fun helping build the set of this play, a mountain cabin surrounded by firs. He rented about 20 fir trees from a nursery. He also wrote and sang an original song for it. I wrote the play for my little sisters then, Ann, 16, and Linda, 14. I wrote the spirit aunt character for myself, and the drifter for Raymond's father. When the play was done in Phoenix, my daughter who was around 17, played the part of my sister Ann. The character playing the drifter, a friend of Bryan's, forgot his cue to come on stage, and left her ad libbing for she said so long she gave up the theater then and there!


I thought of the log cabin in the play as one my Grandfather King built in Kings Pasture on Boulder Mountain when he homesteaded it's 400 acres, but it fell down, so I am posting the other log cabin he built on his homestead in Salt Gulch, as painted by his daughter Neta.