Poem for Saturday

Eurydice
By Ellen Bryant Voigt

It bears no correlation
to the living world. It is
as if a malice toward all things
malleable, mutable,
had seized the universe
and emptied its spherical alleys.

How could you think it,
that I would choose to stay, or break
under the journey back? Like a dog
I had followed your unravelling
skein of sound —
     Orpheus,
                 standing
between me and iridescent earth,
you turned to verify the hell
I was thrown to, and got
what you needed for your songs.
They do not penetrate the grave,
I cannot hear them, I cannot know
how much you mourn.
           But I mourn:
against my will
I forgive you over and over,
transfixed by your face
emerging like a moon across your shoulder,
your shocked mouth calling "Wife, wife"
as you let me go.

--------

When I look back on this week I'm going to remember the first few days and forget the last couple. Not a lot to report from today: wrote a review of "Samaritan Snare", caught up nearly completely on correspondence, got a new battery for my T-Mobile MDA and spent two hours listening to music on it to see how well it holds a charge (very well thus far -- am thinking that if the MDA works with the new battery, I'm going to return the Wing and save the money), had Chinese food out with my father and family because my mother had to go to an event at the synagogue with the lower Hebrew school.

Friday Fiver: I'll show you what I'm made of
1. What are you missing? My job at AnotherUniverse.com before Fandom.com bought them out.
2. How do you feel? Grateful. Sad. Relieved. Cynical. Frustrated. Relaxed.
3. What have you let go? Any chance of returning to grad school and finishing my PhD.
4. Who have you hurt? Lots of people, I'm sure, but the one I regret most was something I said to my grandmother when I was an obnoxious young teenager. I'm sure she forgot all about it but now she's gone and every once in a while I remember it and am so ashamed of myself.
5. What do you deserve? Fairness.

The Friday Five: What are you listening to and on what?
1. What types of portable audio devices do you use? A Sansa mp3 player and my T-Mobile phone.
2. What format of music do you listen to most often? CDs in the car.
3. How do you get your electronic music files? (pay service [i.e Napster, iTunes, eMusic, etc.], file sharing, artist/label web sites, etc.) Mostly ripping them from CDs we already own. The rest were formerly iTunes until very recently but I've been very happy with Amazon.
4. What type of headphones do you use? External padded ones. I hate ear buds.
5. What is currently on your portable music player that you are using? The first song that comes up is Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat."


A tailor in a millinery shop in Colonial Williamsburg.


Here clothing, accessories and hats are made. I loved seeing that leopard print was fashionable in 1700s America.


Though cloth was woven in Williamsburg, like this from the weaver we saw at work...


...fashionable fabrics would have come from trade. (Note the illustration of corset-tying on the wall.)


I love the big buttons and buttonholes of the period.


This is the shoemaker's shop.


He told us that many men owned one set of buckles that they carried from pair to pair of shoes.

After dinner with my father, we watched Sci-Fi's Friday night minus the rerun hour, when husband was watching some sporting event or other. Flash Gordon did a cheesy Arctic episode, which disappointed my entire family by not having penguins (hey, it's Mongo and if they can have bird men and ice worms, they could have North Pole penguins), but yet again there are new kick-ass female characters ("I would rather be executed for poaching than kiss someone's behind") and Aura told Ming where he could stick it.

As for SGA, what a perfectly delightful episode! Harmony is awesome and for once I found Rodney so adorable that I could squish him, though I found John even more adorable in the end wearing his Long-Suffering Rodney-Lover expression. Spoilers: John wishing Ronon was there, Rodney objecting that John shouldn't say that with Rodney right there, John saying, "Nothing personal but he's a better tracker than both of us combined" and Rodney being forced to agree. Jealous Rodney when Harmony says she thinks she's in love with John -- "Don't get your hopes up!" -- and then promising not to come between her and John since she's actually more mature than the women he usually falls for. And John's Han Solo routine ("We're all fine here, thanks. How are you?" *weapons fire* "It was a boring conversation anyway!"). And I want to know: if John can summon the beast, does that make him the queen? No wonder Harmony had him painted as the sniveling coward! Hee!