Poem for Saturday

Though Frosts Come Down
By Taigu Ryokan
Translated by Burton Watson

Though frosts come down
night after night,
what does it matter?
they melt in the morning sun.
Though the snow falls
each passing year,
what does it matter?
with spring days it thaws.
Yet once let them settle
on a man's head,
fall and pile up,
go on piling up—
then the new year
may come and go,
but never you'll see them fade away

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Well, I went to the doctor, who very helpfully told me that I do not appear to have strep (won't know for sure until culture comes back but quick test was negative), bronchitis (lungs sounded clear), significant tonsillitis, fluid in the ears or anything in particular that should have been making me cough for nearly three weeks. Suggested to my surprise that mild reflux can be a throat irritant (and all this coughing is definitely causing that), suggested that taking Prilosec for a few weeks certainly won't hurt anything. So once again I am facing fall with no Indian food! Though if it stops my throat from hurting, so be it.

Otherwise it was a pretty uneventful day...wrote a review of "The Tholian Web", got an Exceeds Expectations on my second W.O.M.B.A.T. (if we pass all three of them do we get a scholarship to Hogwarts or something?), watched the Battlestar Galactica catch-up episode on Sci-Fi because I figured it was time to give that show another try. Now, after three hours including that and the two-part season premiere, I am pleased to report that I did not fall asleep but I also did not fall in love. I love Laura Roslin, as I did before, and I like both Adamas, and I know I am supposed to love Starbuck but I really, really did not like what they were doing with her in this storyline. Yeah, fine, it's all dark and relevant and clever and I might watch again next week, but can I still admit (again) that I not only like Doctor Who better but Atlantis as well?

Speaking of Doctor Who, I know I am not supposed to enjoy watching the royal family dissed, since (as my friend from New Zealand told me) it's not very nice of me to criticize other people's governments, but HAHAHAHAHA poor Princess Anne! Okay, that was neither one of the more impressive Queen Victorias I've seen nor one of the more impressive werewolves I've seen -- after all the teeth-gnashing I heard over movie-Lupin, I am surprised no one I know cried foul -- but it's a much more fun episode than last week, with Rose calling the Doctor a big old punk with a bit of rockabilly thrown in and the wolf telling Rose that she has a bit of the wolf about her and the Queen refusing to declare on cue that she is not amused. I still think the Princess-Anne-is-a-werewolf suggestion is hilarious but the bit about hemophilia being because Queen Victoria was bitten by a werewolf, not so much...when I interviewed Dean Haglund of The X-Files back in the day, he told me people were always sending him insane conspiracy theories, and the ones about European royalty involved impure Hapsburg bloodlines and all kinds of inanity and there are probably people who do believe something supernatural got into the royal family, and I just found it a little icky. The fact that I know people with hemophilia probably has something to do with this.

So I have given sufficient chances to most of the new television season, I think, and except for Boston Legal, Doctor Who and perhaps a few more weeks of Heroes and The Nine if they don't conflict with other things I need to do, shall go back to DVDs for the most part now!

: Mush
1. Name one of your bad habits: Procrastination.
2. What do you expect from friends? To forgive me when they're pissed off about something, even if I deserve it.
3. What is the last thing you wrote down? On paper as opposed to the sentence above? A reminder to my son to turn something in at school.
4. What is the last favor you did for someone else? Loaned a little money.
5. What is your favorite TV show? Present moment, Boston Legal. All time, Star Trek.

: Superheroism
1. If you could have a super power, which one would you have? The ability to see the good in everyone.
2. What would be your supername? I'm happy to keep Your Cruise Director. *g*
3. Who would be your arch-nemesis and what would be their superpower? Narrow-minded fundamentalist religious fanatics of all denominations. If I knew where they got their power I'd stop it without superpowers!
4. Who would be your sidekick and would they have a superpower? My husband would be my sidekick and he wouldn't need a superpower but it would be nice if he learned to hang shelves.
5. What would be your motto? "We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded by a sleep."

: Name five fanfic cliches you hate.
1. Real men never cry.
2. All couples want formal weddings.
3. All women have maternal instincts.
4. "Non-con BDSM"
5. "I love you" is a cliche and must always be said some other way.


Stone being skipped on Buck Branch Creek behind Locust Grove Nature Center in Cabin John Park.


Light filters through the trees to the creek.


A deer print in the mud by the water. We wondered whether this belonged to the buck whose photo I posted here.


The last big storm left some damage in the woods.


The trees were just beginning to show signs of change last weekend, but after this week's storms, they are changing more quickly.


Spilled oil made these rocks iridescent but is bad for the creek, the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay.