HE HACKED UP THE RHUBARB!...?...!

First, here's my (unedited) blurb for Michelle Cruz Skinner's next and forthcoming short story collection, DISPLACEMENTS:

Evocatively written. Deftly offers how life can unfold as a series of uncertain transitions. But redemption can surface when one realizes through these stories how much we share with each other -- an effect made possible through full-blown characterizations that allow for nuanced portraits, thus reader empathy.
--Eileen R. Tabios

Also just finished reading Tom Beckett's and Geof Huth's 680-page conversation, INTERPENETRATIONS. There is this absolutely fabulous joke about a woman and pork. Hard to beat that joke -- but most meaningful to me in this deep engagement is the notion of *kindness as part of poetic praxis*. Now THAT is what Moi am talking about!

Elsewhere, the garden sprouts forth randomly...or maybe not so randomly. First, I got a report from my garden helper Debra that some "strange animal has made a bed among your rhubarbs, entirely destroying your rhubarb output for the season."

All concerned (well, not really, as I don't really know why rhubarb exists), I reported said tragedy to the hubby. The hubby snorted and clarified, "It's not an animal. I did it. I'd told Deb I detest rhubarb and for her to get them out of the garden. She didn't. So I went down there last weekend and hacked them all up myself."

I'm looking at the hubby and thinking, "Is my life an effin' telenovela or what? What do you mean, Oh Busy Abogado, that you have time to go down to the garden to hack up the rhubarb?!!!!"

But Moi bits moi tongue. If the hubby has Reagan's cauliflower problem but with rhubarb, I don't have the psychiatric training to address such. Entonces, let us move on with -- drum roll! -- my latest Relished W(h)ine List:

CITY SLICKER'S SPRING/SUMMER GARDEN HARVEST (to date)
1 red cherry tomato (yes, Mark: counting tomatoes is still the "New Poetry"! Woot: and the tomato season is starting!)
21 golden cherry tomatoes
5 artichokes
70 green onion stalks
14 onions/scallions
70 strawberries
22 yellow squash
14 zucchini
120 basil leaves
5 Japanese cucumbers
17 cucumbers
25 pepper leaves
1 green pepper
30 mint leaves


PUBLICATIONS
THE PARIS HILTON, poems by Keith Tuma (wow. that's one of the most powerful cover images I've seen...)

THE SHUNT, poems by David Buuck

HUMANIMAL, poetry by Bhanu Kapil

THE METHOD, poems by Sasha Steensen

TUNE DROVES, poems by Eric Baus

ZERO READERSHIP; AN EPIC by Filip Marinovich

AIM STRAIGHT AT THE FOUNTAIN AND PRESS VAPORIZE, poems by Elizabeth Marie Young

HYPERGLOSSIA, poems by Stacy Szymaszek

LAST CALL AT THE TIN PALACE, poems by Paul Pines

HOUSE ORGAN, No. 67, Summer 2009, literary zine Edited by Kenneth Warren

INTERPENETRATIONS, poetry conversation by Tom Beckett and Geof Huth (in manuscript)

DISPLACEMENTS, short stories by Michelle Cruz Skinner (in manuscript)

GONE TOMORROW, novel by Lee Child

RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, novel by James Patterson & Michael Ledwidge

THE SPY WHO CAME FOR CHRISTMAS, novel by David Morrell

A CURE FOR NIGHT, novel by Justin Peacock

MEDUSA'S CHILD, novel by John J. Jance

THE TOURIST, novel by Olen Steinhauer

NAKED IN DEATH, novel by J.D. Robb

SOUVENIR, novel by Therese Fowler

KNOCK OUT, novel by Catherine Coulter


WINES
2006 Peter Michael Ma-Belle Fille chardonnay
2005 Fritz Haag Brundeberger Juffer Sonnenuhr riesling spatlese
2005 Saxum James Berry Vineyard
2001 Torbreck "The Factor"
2006 Dutch Henry chardonnay
1993 Ravenswood "Monte Rosso" Zinfandel Sonoma Valley
2005 Chianti Classico
2006 B&G cabernet
2005 Dutch Henry chardonnay
2007 Dutch Henry rose
2004 Dutch Henry "Argos"
2003 Chase Family Hayne Vineyard zinfandel
1970 Lynch Bages
2003 Larkmead cab/merlot blend
_____ Barnett cabernet
_____ Cliff Leder cabernet
_____ Orin Swift zinfandel syrah blend

[Last 3 wines imbibed during St. Helena's Cheers but couldn't confirm years as I was too busy focusing on that taco truck...]