Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Poem for Tuesday

Branch Library
By Edward Hirsch


I wish I could find that skinny, long-beaked boy
who perched in the branches of the old branch library.

He spent the Sabbath flying between the wobbly stacks
and the flimsy wooden tables on the second floor,

pecking at nuts, nesting in broken spines, scratching
notes under his own corner patch of sky.

I'd give anything to find that birdy boy again
bursting out into the dusky blue afternoon

with his satchel of scrawls and scribbles,
radiating heat, singing with joy.

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It was not a very good day. First, I got the kids up and organized and out the door, only to discover that the pool was closed because a water main had broken elsewhere in the county -- I am very glad not to be in the danger zone where water must be boiled, but we're still within the area that's not supposed to water lawns or do laundry, and while these are minor inconveniences, the closed pool during the first full week of summer is causing distress. Plus there were thunderstorms, so I couldn't even send the kids out on their scooters or bikes or anything; they put on Back to the Future 2 because they had never seen it and if I did, I had forgotten...it was pretty forgettable.

We did manage a quick trip to the food store before the big storm for summer necessities like sushi, raspberries, YoCrunch, cream cheese and bottled water just in case the water main problem ends up affecting us and we don't have boiled water chilled enough to drink. Then I tried to be clever and sync all my calendars using OggSync, which turned out to be a monumental mistake -- the program told me to turn off the calendar settings in ActiveSync, which wiped out all the dates in my Mobile Outlook, and then Google Calendar tossed all those dates as well! It took me hours and hours to figure out how to restore it and then it was pure luck, looking for some better way to sync Outlook 2002, Google Calendar and Windows Mobile calendars, when someone mentioned he used Plaxo to keep everything in sync and I opened my Plaxo and found that it still had my Google Calendar as of last night still saved. Took a while longer to figure out how to make the Plaxo rather than Google calendar the default one, but in the end it worked. Phew.


A reenactor near the rocks at Devil's Den in Gettysburg National Park this weekend.


It was nearly 90 degrees and the rocks were hot to the touch, so he must have been sweltering in his woolen uniform...much like many of the soldiers at the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863.


Here are two of the many battlefield monuments among the stones.


China from the Krauth home, occupied by Confederate soldiers on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg to use as a hospital. These pieces survived dumped on the lawn.


In a display of games and pastimes of soldiers, including dominoes, playing cards, musical instruments and writing letters home, here is the chess set of Union General Abner Doubleday.


The Hardee hat, worn by the Iron Brigade, was approved for US use in the 1850s by then-Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, later president of the Confederacy.


This is the telescope of Gouverneur K. Warren, the general who watched the Confederates approach Little Round Top and arranged a last-minute defense of the Union position, during which he was wounded.


A butterfly in one of the little streams off Plum Run that flows through the Valley of Death.


Congratulations to all the couples getting married in California! And to the Lakers for holding off the Celtics one more night! And now I must go to sleep, as older son has an early dentist appointment!

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