Poem for Saturday and Arboretum Color

Going for Water
By Robert Frost

The well was dry beside the door,  
  And so we went with pail and can  
Across the fields behind the house  
  To seek the brook if still it ran;  
  
Not loth to have excuse to go,
  Because the autumn eve was fair  
(Though chill), because the fields were ours,  
  And by the brook our woods were there.  
  
We ran as if to meet the moon  
  That slowly dawned behind the trees,
The barren boughs without the leaves,  
  Without the birds, without the breeze.  
  
But once within the wood, we paused  
  Like gnomes that hid us from the moon,  
Ready to run to hiding new
  With laughter when she found us soon.  
  
Each laid on other a staying hand  
  To listen ere we dared to look,  
And in the hush we joined to make  
  We heard, we knew we heard the brook.
  
A note as from a single place,  
  A slender tinkling fall that made  
Now drops that floated on the pool  
  Like pearls, and now a silver blade.

--------

My Friday was quiet. I forgot all morning that Adam would be home by lunchtime, since the kids are only obligated to stay at school through their midterm exams and are then allowed (in fact encouraged) to leave, though Daniel remained till the afternoon bus since the robotics team was working. I was working on a review of Star Trek: The Next Generation's finale, "All Good Things...", which was more difficult than usual, in part because it's a double episode and in part because it's the last episode and I couldn't decide how personally introspective I should be. It's really NOT a great episode, certainly not by science fiction standards (and there's a big continuity error that throws everything off), but I also don't think the use of the cast is very well balanced...yet it always makes everyone's must-see lists, in large part, I think, because Patrick Stewart's performance is so good. I wondered whether the nostalgia factor would hit harder this time, but I still don't wish there were more Next Gen episodes to come; you could tell everyone on the series was tired. What I really want now is to watch Deep Space Nine.

The rest of my day was pretty fannish as well. Cinemax had Mystery Men on in the afternoon and I took a break from reviewing to watch it; Unfortunately, I saw the last few minutes of Marley & Me while waiting for the film to start, so now I know I can never watch the rest of the film as just the out-of-context ending was really hard to take. I'd never seen Mystery Men and howled with laughter through the entire thing (Furious on seeing Casanova Frankenstein's visitor his first night out of prison: "A little booty call from Captain Amazing.") So THAT'S where PMS Avenger is from, heee! And Geoffrey Rush was a lot of fun in that, but after dinner we watched The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (SHUT UP I AM NOT OBSESSED) which is one of the most extraordinary performances by an actor in existence. Really, everyone in it is excellent -- and what a cast, Charlize Theron, John Lithgow, Emily Watson, and on and on. Rush is always unnervingly attractive playing total bastards. (Okay, fine, maybe I am obsessed, but he's freakin' amazing.)

A totally appropriate Fannish5: Five favorite tv series that started with bad pilot episodes.
1. Star Trek: The Next Generation
2. Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
3. La Femme Nikita
4. Battlestar Galactica (the MooreRon version)
5. Star Trek

Some fall photos from the National Arboretum that I forgot to post at the time: