1. I leapt out of bed early this morning to get some writing done and to meet a car repair appointment in CdA at 9:00. Our garage is full of remodel machinery and other supplies, so the Sube sat out all night. It was the Sube from Hoth this morning, encased in ice, the doors frozen shut. After some effort, I got the doors open, scraped the ice off the windows, and drove to CdA.
Lights in our instrument panel were out -- at night, we couldn't read the gas gauge or the speedometer. To my knowledge, after a little checking around, there isn't a garage in the Silver Valley who can repair this problem in a Subaru -- one of the unintended consequences of moving to Dave Smithville, I suppose! --, so I took the car into Reliable Auto and Truck in Hayden where I had paid a visit a couple of weeks ago when my Check Engine light came on while driving to CdA.
I'm always on the lookout for an independent garage and I'd had a good experience the first time I went to Reliable Auto and Truck, so I gave them another shot. Things worked out just right. The technician made a diagnosis. The guy working the front gave me an honest assessment of what needed to be done and the cost. Not long after, I was on my way back to the Silver Valley with functioning dashboard lights.
2. As I left Reliable, I realized I hadn't eaten and I was suddenly hungry for an Italian grinder with Italian dressing. I vaguely remembered that Capone's has that very sandwich on their menu, so I stopped in and enjoyed their Italiano grinder with a dinner salad. My lunch paired perfectly with the Coke I ordered and, while I ate, I reacquainted myself with the poetry of A. R. Ammons by reading a review ("The Great American Poet of Daily Chores") in The New Yorker of the recently published books, The Complete Poems of A. R. Ammons, Vol. I and Vol. II.
Like RIchard Hugo, Howard Nemerov, Richard Wilbur, and other poets of his age, "Archie" Ammons was a WWII veteran. I used to have an anthology of poems by American WWII veterans -- there were enough of them to form an informal "school" of poets. Many of them went to college after WWII with the help of the G. I. Bill.
His poetry is idiosyncratic. He often writes in very short lines with eccentric uses of punctuation. In his poems, he mines philosophical, often scientific, subjects, the world of nature, and the objects and deeds of everyday life.
I hadn't thought about A. R. Ammons for many years. and this review, like my Coke, paired well with my ham, salami, pepperoni sandwich, with all the trimmings, on a homemade Hoagie roll.
I can never remember if links to articles in The New Yorker work for non-subscribers. Oh, well. Here's hoping this link works in case you are interested in reading Dan Chiasson's review: it's here.
3. I have quite a trove of medical records available to me online through Johns Hopkins and LabCorp. My new primary care giver would like to see my records, so, this afternoon, I got started printing them out and organizing them and will deliver them to her at the clinic as soon as possible.
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