Party at my sister Donna Cartagena's house - Great food, great music! Hold yer ears, it's noisy inside!

We drove down in Neil O'Keefe's window-tinted stunning black Toyota. That man is an excellent driver.

My camera got a good talking-to when I got home and downloaded the photos. Very blurry.

You should always learn one or two new things when you're around people. I learned about the Netflix film Master of None with Aziz Ansari. Never heard of him, an atheist Muslim Tamil, according to Wiki.

 The birthday boy, David, was under the weather. He's with his dad Tyler and Jill, who just had back surgery.

 I thought Jill looked like Claire Danes, the actor who plays Carrie Matheson in Homeland.

Lynn and boyfriend Neil.

 Kamelia is David's mom. A wonderful cook, her hands were raw from working so hard. She showed em to me.

 Matt and Jade, who wore a darling short skirt. I told her she looked like a cheerleader. Here's Lynn who guided Neal with direx. He went by the instinct of a homing pigeon - what? they're all extinct - but we got there with no mistakes made.

Every single dish was delicious. Spectacular. Scrumptious.  Delectable and all the other synonyms in Roget's Thesaurus.

Trisha made bean dip with cheese and a spicy dip with a kick. Mmmmm.

 Mom and Carlos. His wife, Barbara, was home with something or other. He's holding a martini that Rich made with pineapple juice and almond flavoring. Yum!

 Hello Sarah Lynn. Mom kept on her coat bc "I'm always cold," she said.

Altho she had her walker, she was helped to walk by the guys there.

Quinn Roche and Anthony Cartagena. I did an about-face when I saw Quinn. His looks totally changed. Donna had told me that months ago. Could it be Pew-Burt-Tee?

Later Quinn and Anthony were trying to explode a big Coke bottle by putting Mentos in it - they only had the gum - by shaking the mixture. It did not work.

  Actually this is how NASA tried but failed to get the first spaceship off the ground.

 Dig those shoes! Sarah left early with a woman named Lisa who drove Sarah to the Philly train station where she then got the train home to Bklyn.

 Driveway filling up with cars.

 Best grapes I've ever had. I think they're from Mexico.

I injected 10 units at least four times. Before I left for home, I took my blood sugar. 78. So I ran back in the house and brot out to eat in the car, some more potato salad with parsley flakes and a new cheesey bean dish that must've emerged from the oven.

 Maria Cartagena, 91, does yoga and walks like a young woman.

 She was talking about someone in her family - a great granddaughter - Jana's daughter and how smart she is.

Steve Roche looks like a homunculus in this distorted pic I took. He was pouring martinis down people's throats, like Gerry in my short story Lethal Weapons.

 Maria, Melissa, Mom and Nikki.

 Maria busses her granddaughter Mel, who wore fishnet stockings, as did Sarasita.

 Yoly from El Salvador and husband Roberto from Ecuador. We always called him Herman, but I switched to Roberto.

The new president of Ecuador wears the above shirt Herman is wearing. It's made by an indigenous tribe in Ecuador who have changed little over time.

 Thought I'd share Yolande's photo with Stalin Campos, my transplant surgeon, who hails from El Salvadore.

 Under the stars, we heard a toe-tapping concert by Pat, who takes guitar lessons; his teacher and his teacher's friend, Doug.

Mom and Ellen's cookies. I heartily indulged. Where's my Novolog pen? Swedish wedding cookies.

 Sarah's husband Ethan and The Bad Plus are playing in Poland.

Maritza is in the middle. Everyone loves "Ritzy."

Anthony Cartagena roved around taking photos.

Ah, poor Persephone. She just couldn't resist eating six seeds of the pomegranate after Hades grabbed her.

 I wrote a poem about my account which I called The Prince of Corono. Then I fired him bc he never gave New Directions a contribution despite repeated requests. But the new guy did such a lousy job I got The Prince back.

 Brian and his partner, whose name I can't remember, are moving from Manhattan to Riverdale, the Bronx. Their old apartment, which they paid peanuts for, is now worth over a million.

They're friends of Joyce Burke Margolin, who flew up from Cleveland to be at the party. She's a childhood friend of my sister Donna. Joyce's daughter, Genna, would have been 40 years old today had she not died from a heroin overdose.

 Sandra is a friend of Rich's, working at the same office he does. Her BF Gerry was recently operated on for a brain tumor.

Luckily it's accessible, she said. He has a horseshoe-like scar on the side of his head. He takes two pills a day of chemo and is also still getting radiated.

His hospital?

Cornell Presbyterian, right across the street from Sloan-Kettering where my dad got experimental treatment for his brain tumor that didn't work. 

 Hello Josh Cartagena. Nice kid! He turned me onto "Master on None" with Aziz Ansari.

I watched the first episode last night on Netflix. It's about immigrants. It was a riot! Sexually explicit.

I told Josh about the great Indian filmmaker Satyrijat Ray and The Apu Trilogy, plus the Japanese Kurusawa.

Learning!

Today I had two stunning pieces I wrote REJECTED!

But three of my poems were accepted. Here's one of em

THE POTBELLIES STORM THE

JENKINTOWN IHOP

All across the nation

the International House

of Pancakes opens its

loving blue arms

a shelter from

the dark chilly

night

so brightly lit

we blink our eyes

as Brittanie leads

us to our seats

The endless pot

of coffee is brought

out and I fill myself

with the soothing

hot liquid I desire each

time I pass a

Dunkin or a Starbucks

Does the coffee have any

flavor? Not really but

it sure looks good in the

white IHOP mug

My potbelly could hold

a two-month-old baby

were my nubility not a

thing of the past

My friends

Harriet - Karen - Christopher

Brett - Ron and Elissa have

smaller bellies than mine and

order up!

Suddenly we are transported

to the African desert where

Mount Kilimanjaro soars

in the distance. Inside our

flapping tents, Brittanie and

a young Ernest Hemingway

with mustache and piercing

black eyes all women dream of

march in with our order

Blueberry pancakes with a

side dish of sweetened blueberries

French toast with banana and

strawberries,

“A favorite of mine,” says Papa

and Brittanie nods

For Karen, both pancakes,

eggs and hash browns

Christopher goes for the

piles of whipped cream

“My second wife Pauline

ate too much whipped cream,”

said Papa, “but by then I had

fallen for Martha”

The only potbelly who did not

drown herself in pancakes

was Harriet, not Tubman,

of the slave revolt,

but Harriet, president of

our Flat Tummy Club

Elissa has a cat to come home to

Brett a dad

Christopher a madhouse

Harriet a Steve

Papa a shotgun

Karen a man

Abrams a bike

Deming a red couch

Where she dreams of an eternity

sipping hot coffee

and eating reams and reams

of whipped cream on

chocolate chip pancakes

up to the sky.

*

Read new book about Hemingway and his wives - Hemingway in Love: Between Two Women - by A E Hotchner, now 94.