The Kraken
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Below the thunders of the upper deep,
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides; above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge sea worms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.
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I found this while I was chopping another tag up (the art tag, which had gotten too massive and reverted to day view -- so now there are tags for Pre-Raphaelites, Jewish art, modern art and sculpture). I posted it here but I bet no one remembers. Heh, that was also the day I first posted Harry Potter fic after swearing that I was never going to write any. Figures it was mostly Sirius/James, a pairing I don't like, never read and consider fairly canonical. *g*
And while I have you back here, may I just announce that if I do not get my period very, very soon, I am going to scream. Partly because I have miserable PMS, but mostly because if I don't get my period very, very soon, I run the risk of having it over the Bar Mitzvah weekend and I am REALLY going to scream if that happens.
Quiet day. My lunch date cancelled out, which was fine as I was working very slowly, trying to iron out Bar Mitzvah stuff and figuring out what in StarTrek.com's coverage of Comic-Con we had not already posted at TrekToday and reading about lakefront property on a Saturn moon discovered in satellite photos of Titan (and given that the temperature the rest of this week in the DC area is supposed to be over 100, it doesn't even sound all that unpleasantly cold, heh). The kids had camp but after soccer early in the morning, they were not allowed to go outside after lunch due to the county heat warning. Younger son played basketball, but older son played chess most of the afternoon and was then restless when he got home. He has been ordered to play basketball or some other indoor sport tomorrow!
It's funny how things work. In the evening The Patriot was on -- a movie I have scrupulously avoided for years because of Mel Gibson, even though it has several other actors I like very much in major roles, including Jason Isaacs, Heath Ledger, Joely Richardson, Chris Cooper, Rene Auberjonois, and Adam Baldwin whom I would not have noticed had it not been for Serenity a few days ago but who's really fun playing sort of the opposite of Jayne. As you can guess, I watched it...I figure now that Gibson is self-destructing so spectacularly in public, I don't have to boycott him as thoroughly (will go back to it if people actually buy this "Boo hoo, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it" crap he's spouting -- which didn't he mean, the drinking or the blaming Jews for everything in the history of the world?) I really liked it, too, particularly the excesses which made it so easy not to take it seriously when I didn't want to think of it as a good or important movie, just an entertaining one. Isaacs is amazing -- there's a teeny bit of Sharpe in him when he's telling off Cornwallis, the fat rich British guy who thinks Tavington isn't good enough in any way, but he's also utterly selfish and brutal, and it's kind of refreshing when we have to listen to Mel go on about how he used to be just as selfish and brutal but now, because he's doing it for his family, it's okay to kill other people.
...and on deck in their uniforms, sweltering in the heat.
The restored wardroom, directly below the captain's cabin...
...with the officers' cabins restored as well. This one belonged to the ship's surgeon.
This is the restored dispensary, where sailors were given various real and imagined treatments for various real and imagined ailments.
From here you can see some of the hammocks where those not lucky enough to have one of these cabins slept.
And still in need of restoration that is underway now, the bilge and fire pump.
Have a very happy Lughnasadh/Lammas -- I am not celebrating properly till this weekend with my pagan group!
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