Tag: Writing

“A Thing (some might say funny) Happened On The Way To See”

by richwrapper, posted in J Richards

(July 1, 2025)

Then the Opthamologist intoned.”We’re not sure about Macular Degeneration – a new form of degeneration for me – but we did detect cataracts in both eyes and glaucoma. …

so much for getting glasses yesterday. My Sister-In-Law Jeanne said cataracts can be done to get your vision back to normal.

But.

But Glaucoma? Macular Degeneration?

No wonder I use Polish Landmine Detector techniques to fine the missing June VA check. Did get my grubbies on the Optum Serve travel payment which I cashed to give to Jeanne for t hat drive to Maquire Blvd in Orlando (or was it Winter Park?). Whatever. The comedy continues. I think I have the location of the banking portfolio which I hope a saner me used to stash the June VA check. It also has he starter set of checks for my bank. I’ve used the bankcard exactly once. Now I have to try to set up direct deposit….and see what fresh hell that entails. The rest of the news merely is grim.

The three feral cats remaining are a source of wonder and amazement. All three – the momma black (neon green eyed) and her two remaining “Tuxedo” domestic shorthairs – make me realize more News is OnTheWay. The first three cats sent to Spay-N-Save (Sanford’s version of cat rescue Trap, Neuter, Vaccinate, Release) got me some small surprise: the cat people were so happy with the first three of the feral cats they wanted to know if I’d consider letting them be adopted by other cat lovers – I didn’t have the heart ot say I rally am a Dog Person who sometimes sleeps in The Cat Pew of Pet Church – but I asked a few pointed questions: No, they do not want them themselves, and rarely do t hey offer feral cats for adoption, but mine seem to have made the grade.

The Spay People gave all seven names. The three I have all have the same name: “Cat.” Sometimes I add a “Damn” to t he Tuxedo who insists on jumping onto my lap and pushing whatever it is I am reading (remember: visual acuity about 2.5 inches) and present itself for head rubs, tail pulls and general ATTENTION. NOW! Poking is snout into a handy armpit seems to work so DamnCat gets its way. The Oher Tuxedo is shy and only rarely allows a passing caress. But it minds better than the other. Since it’s “Broken” and not “Fixed” I make allowances. I am pretty much feral as well. I sometimes fail to go all day with a half-masted zipper. Even to The nearby Winn Doozey grocery. Mamma cat had her kits inside and spent the first three months running wild in The Florida Room. She comes by for a head-butt to my shins and gets a spine rub and tail pull in return. She sometimes put both forepaws onto a handy LegOMe as if to say: Hey, Buster, It’s Chow Time. Get your arm outta that blood pressure device and get me and the kids fed, Willya!

I will. And I do.

Still want that Belgian Malinois(sp?). Should be fun getting that pup acclimated to The Four Ferals.

Later.

J

“Hope This Works, Butch West”

by richwrapper, posted in Personal Letters

by J Kirk Richards (with additional commentary concerning a mutual friend)

Got accosted recently in the 15th Street (And French Avenue – US Highways 17 & 92) parking lot to be told that You, Butch West, just had Triple Bypass Surgery.

What’s a triple pass, anyway. Does Archie Manning’s kids know how to throw triple passes? Must they be accomplished – at least the first two – Behind The Line of Scrimmage? My informant suggested it was all That Spicy Food You – Butch West – eat! Naaw, I rejoindered “it’s them big, fat, stinky ceegars he smokes. That’s what gives him InDeeJestion. Cant get the assrubs from hot peppers, little bitty bribes to the brain via the alimentary canal in toto.

Gosh, Sar’nt Major. Don’t you Sposed to have a heart to qualify for even a simple straightforward pas, much less a triple-whammy? And since you still a snapper of whippers, aren’t you too young to smoke? Or did Julie give you permission to throw triple passes just anytime you so feel?

And speaking of permissions: I failed to acquire one for what’s next. Our Pal Wormy – a nom du infancy for The Last Richards, just made the all star list. Yup. Waiting For A Heart. Maybe we need to get Cap’n Steve (Johnson) to climb aboard The Prayer Wheel’s Command Deck and issue a Pray For Storm?

Having been muchly off-line I am unaware Renee’s GabrielHornBlower still works at Calling The Faithful. Since hearing of your Hall Of Fame forward passes I have been semi almost religiously inclined to add you to my Oh, Yeah’s! conversations with My Deity. And now must do the same from Widdle Bruddah as well. Gosh. This getting old scheiss sure sometimes stinks. Figure my remarks to The Lord: “thanks for the super sunrise and Wast that You or just a massive Monarch FlutterBy come outta the house’s open door this morning. Like The Milkweed, Sir? Planted ‘Specially for you. Ya, know, Words To That Effect (and, hopefully, The That Affect!).

My brothers owners – and their dual progeny – get vexed when I include personal shit in my posts. Maybe it’s the inviolate nature of The Internet and everyone just knows gossip on lasts for half a second, right?

Thanks for taking the time to decipher Sar’nt Major Butch. Be well and get Weller and that’s an Order from the guy with the floppy bushhat instead of a brain bucket whilst underfire.

And to think The VA says I am disgustingly ly healthy for a man of my proclivities. Takes me almost a whole month to drain my complement of Cerveza Modelo Negra I just found for sale at The Winn Doozey at which I was shopping for a month’s supply of Miller’s bottled finest. Now I fear I will have to libationlay add a 21-year-old Single Malt Mushmills to my shopping list of year-long-supply of Patron Anejo. Just those two should keep me to my 80th (I do not count, as you are well aware, Butch, beer (or rather YeeBeerbs drunken in celebration of Triple Pass By Completions.

Almost makes me want to go visit The Colonial Room for some truly poor but faithfully served First Monday Monthly (fish) fry. Now that Thursday Nights no longer feature half-chicken fryups- I still miss the leg-thigh rendition but settle for the traditional breast-n-wing routine (does God Know I still thank Him for making me a Leg-N-Thigh Man.

Be (J says again) Well my friend. Even if you are U.S. Harmby.

Love,

J

“Okay, So Uncle ‘Milty’ A Flop Here (but revenge creeps up the Lake Monroe ‘Sea’Wall. – a non poetic non polemic non sequitir(one day I shall learn how to carry my poetry notebook and spelling books ….

by richwrapper, posted in Commentary, Excuses, J Richards, {rpse

(October 14, 2024)

By J Richards (who goes by J Kirk Richards to confuse the Issue)

So…I called the Sanford branch of the Seminole County Library as soon as I got power restored – in about 23 hours following the alleged perpetrator know as Hurricane Milton. Got this response from the voice-over, (I shall spare your delicate – and my indelicate natures and cut to the chase…and I paraphrase the pleasant young-sounding and female-sounding voice (see how Woke I be? Not!)…”will reopen pm\\on SUNDAY, October 14…Fourteen! In case you missed it…that’s TODAY, MONDAY! not Sunday…but I quibble. Didn’t even berate beautiful wearer of all kinds of fashionable garb, Lashawn whose tautly-run ship of books sails so wonderfully on despite all the direness of over-weeningly warning mass media (almost as if the writers and talkers we read, see, and hear all-three-often in the hallowed pursuit of more profits through sales of soap) I was happpy to hear from Mrs. lovely all went well with THE HURRICANE FROM HELL WHICH WAS PROMISED TO BR A CATEGORY FIVE!, THATS RIGHT A FREAKIN’ FIVE-which barely disturbed the natural ebb and flow of leaves and Spanish moss tendrils lining our streets….why, even Tropical Storm Faye (was in 1998 or 2008) had the limbs, branches and in some cases whole trees bedecking of sometimes brick-paved paradise.

By the time Milty got to Snaffurd it wheezed and whined its way as a HimA-Cane like its lady counterpart is wont to do. Seen now is the steadily rising Lake Monroe which is supposed to crest later today or tomorrow and overtop the Snaffurd SeaWall and maybee encroach further south to its fist street before it find water – that’s right, the dug-out hole that hosts annually the Sanford, Florida kiddy fis-a-thon which once I joined and found, what? a distaste for kids herded about by parents and other officious fools doing their damn-near best to spoil a good day’s angle. Fortunately I was old enough not to require familial adult supervision. I think Glenn and Storm were missing and those two miscreant brothers who bookend me still were elsewhere. Would that I had so been as well.

Did any minnow survive the assault of cane pole-wielding watery-warriors. whose take would perhaps require half the fishes from all the seas to fry up in a 10-inch Lodge cast iron skillet. Perhaps I exaggerate. But not by much, I trace my natural curmudgeonly cynicism to this day, buried in my elementary school past. Worse even than a just-passed pre-teen angst over the uselessness of Halloween. Years later when pals and perhaps even brothers discovered a pallet load of discarded eggs did I find fulfillment as a tosser of same on All Hallows Eve with eggfights in vacant lots near McReynolds pharmacy on Park Drive or roaming RatRace Style as taught by the venerable Doctor Stevens White Pearce (PhD in Real Science, Steve!) as some of us nascent criminals tore through Snaffurd’s twisty winding residential streets engaging in egg-artillery on other like-egging automobiles stuffed with fellow scofflaws. Nary a house was hit, nary a tree festooned with toilet paper rolls unrolled as they were, not a street sign dripping with egg offal. Besides, eggshells add calcium to Florida’s notoriously lacking soil of such amendments….just doin’ our parts to make this place eve more beautiful. And now…and now, we race caster-equipped couches filled will beer-swilling supposed adults down or city streets in Sudsy Couch Races once a year. Jolly fine idea. Easier to photograph the miscreants, too.

So…fellow NewNintedSnakesMohreen photo journalist and scofflaw without peer Brece Clay Jewett, asked what’s up with the J’ster. AND SINCE SERGEANT STUPID DID IT AGAIN…left the poetry notebook at t he manse at which time I waw engaged in feeding the almost-no-longer feral black cat with neon green eyes who now head-butts my knuckled hand and bounces said cranium off my shins while accepting kibbles and the occasional tuna or salmon swimming in a can, after which I evacuate my lower quarters nd remember – this time – to exit the house, shoo the cat, close and lock the door find the book/camera bag which serves few real purposes, and again find the big plastic bag to return the library books and haul back more, I hop on the bike and beat the school rush of future miscreants called at what not is termed middle school (prison) and read of yeat another high school advance placement history teacher and soccer coach in Lake Mary doin’ The PerpWalk (Alleged illegal contact and conduct of a supposed sexual nature with a student. This al has be held before. And knowing J aw well as anyone I can bless my stars I teacher not. Even if charges should find limbo. I advocate putting gopro-type camear

as (with sound) on anyone who cashes any kind of government checik 24-7. And possibly take a page from Communist China who used American know-how to turn that dictatorship in a real 1984. Facial recognition is a doorway down to a long dark staircase. All AI is for me a SkyNet InTheWoirks, If me, you have few fears, of what comes next Be Very Afraid.

In my unaltered state(s) I shall proload the notebook in the books/camera bag while hides my bicycle chain locks and running lights for dark and/or inclement weather. But the question vexing me now is which version of StoneSoup shall in upon myself foist? I shall require much fortitude to remember to take THE DBOOK BAG TOMORROW. But the good news is I can retire the two already rad books – just kidding. dear over-chewed tree pulp, you know it is my wont to read two, sometimes three – or more – tomes at a time even though the newish Tom Clancy (by proxy) and Jonathan Kellerman both are two-week must read before returning and no extensiions on 2024 imprints….Easy Day, to steal a phrase.

Best to all: J

10 More Great Quotes About Poets, Poetry, and Writing by Denise Duhamel

by richwrapper, posted in 10 Thoughts, Denise Duhamel, Poetry, poets, Writing

“My job as a poet is to say what is too hard to say in everyday conversation and to try to say it as beautifully and urgently as I can.” “I think our society is set up as so anti-poetry. Corporations, having to make a living – Having to make a living is really the […]

10 More Great Quotes About Poets, Poetry, and Writing by Denise Duhamel