THE EARTH MOVED

   What about that earthquake!  I didn’t think I’d survive the shaking, and screamed in bed for the full twenty-two seconds that felt like the end of the world.  Luckily, my house and I, as well as my neighbors, made it through unscathed.  We gathered in the parking lot and comforted each other, checking to be sure everyone was accounted for and ok. 
  

     What a great bunch of neighbors I’ve got.  I’m grateful to this community of good people, and to this place where I live.

     Visits to the grand-kids make everything worthwhile.  Solid Gold.  Now I’m trying to learn the Pokemon card game, but nothing in my long experience of game-playing has prepared me for that.  I don’t believe anyone truly knows how to play the game but the kids make it up as they go along.  I think it’s all a hoax designed to sell expensive cards. 

    

     I attended a forum of school board wannabe candidates.  It seems our badly run Vallejo schools cause underpaid, unappreciated teachers to run away, and keeps new families from moving in to our fair city, holding real-estate values down, crime high, and causing hard times for many.  Gotta work hard to change that.   Gotta speak up, and vote. 

     I like Shellee, the young college board fellow, and the one who didn’t show up (why not?).  We can’t keep anyone who’s already on the board because they’ve amply proved their incompetence, and worse.  At the participatory budget voting, I voted to turn that field of dust and grime, between the road and the river, into a park, but alas, not enough people care about this like I and a few of my neighbors. do.

    I went to the Poetry by the Bay Open Mike event at the Hub one night, got on stage in front of what I believed would be an illustrious audience of poets and other lovers of the muse.  What I learned, alas, is that in Vallejo, as far as poetry is concerned, anything goes.  Not my cup of tea; I don't belong to this group, and I'll say no more on that subject, but I read my poem anyway.  I also promoted my memoir, sales of which haven’t exactly been soaring recently.  I'd hoped for a group of poetry lovers with the literary inclinations of book buyers, but not one of them bought my book.  (I know, believe me; Amazon tells all.)

    Now I hope the well-read, intelligentsia who read VIB will check it out.  Please!  You can read the entire Prologue on my website: FLATBUSHPRINCESS.COM, for free, and buy it, if so moved.  You will love it, I promise.  Only $2.99 – a bargain for tens of thousands of good words.  Lots of sex, too.   If you don’t like it I’ll return your money.  How’s that for a deal?