Saturday, March 13, 2010

Poem for Saturday and National Cathedral

Last Day on Planet Earth
By Simon Armitage


Lippincott takes a photograph with his eye.
Wittmann paints in the crust of salt with a finger of spit.
Yoshioka wheels the last piano onto the fire.
Owens throws stones at a rock.
The afternoon turns over in its sleep, then sleeps.

Kirszenstein trades her kingfisher skull for a tinned peach.
Jerome traps air in a screw-top jar.
Bambuck plants the last of his teeth.
Johnson dresses his gangrenous wound with a carrier bag.
Bolt pulls up the ladder, secures the hatch.

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I spent Friday fiddling with my computer, trying to figure out why my admin account couldn't make changes in the Start Menu or access the Documents and Settings folder, trying to find out how to configure various programs, still unable to use my memory card reader and without a date yet to get it repaired. I have nothing exciting to report and didn't even finish my Trek review (it's "Chain of Command, Part One," so I think I'm just going to write a double review of both parts next week, since that episode deserves more than a cursory "THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!" anyway).

My parents had a much more frustrating day -- they were supposed to be flying to St. Maarten with friends, but they took off late in DC and missed their connecting flight in Philly so they were stuck there for the day. I told them to go to Penn's wonderful archaeology museum. We had Shabbat dinner without them (leftovers from mom's birthday) and watched BBC America's rebroadcast of John Barrowman: The Making of Me, which was very interesting and funny (and sad in parts -- I don't agree with him about wanting a genetic explanation for homosexuality, I think that will lead to a whole round of gene therapy and attempts to mess with fetal development and "cures" rather than simply accepting that some people are gay just like some people are left-handed).

Fannish5: List 5 fictional doctors you'd want treating you. (Or not.)
When it comes to my own personal medical care, I tend to have a bias toward female doctors, so...
WANT:
1. Joanne Springsteen
, Heartbeat
2. Beverly Crusher, Star Trek: The Next Generation
3. Helena Russell, Space: 1999
4. Martha Jones, Doctor Who
5. Dana Scully, The X-Files
NOT:
1. Elizabeth Renfro
, Dark Angel
2. Alti, Xena
3. Helen Bryce, Smallville
4. Jennifer Keller, Stargate: Atlantis
5. Mildred Ratched, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

And some National Cathedral photos from last year:















I am happy about the new baby dolphin at the National Aquarium but unhappy about the dying bats at the National Zoo. Does anyone know what happened to the WeatherPixie? Oh, Maryland, my Maryland, you aren't going to get to the Final Four playing the way you did tonight... *sighs*

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