By Jean Valentine
I am twenty,
drifting in la chalupa,
the blue boat painted with roses,
white lilies—
No, not drifting, I am poling
my way into life. It seems
like another life:
There were the walls of the mind.
There were the cliffs of the mind,
There were the seven deaths,
and the seven-bread offerings—
Still, there was still
the little boat, the chalupa
you built once, slowly, in the yard, after school—
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I got up early on my husband's birthday so I'd be awake enough to say goodbye to him properly before he left for work, and because Tiara Galleries was having a Vera Bradley summer release party with swag -- I came away with a mini purse, ear bud case, and tape measure, all in the very colorful Viva la Vera pattern. Then I ran to a bunch of the stores in the same strip mall (Whole Foods, Hallmark, Ulta, Child's Play -- a toy store that did not have plastic dingos in their vast collection of plastic wild animals) and came home to take a walk because I thought we were going to pick up Daniel from the Metro after the DC robotics competition and go out to dinner.
But Paul decided that what he actually wanted for his birthday dinner was pizza -- far be it from me to argue -- so he went and picked up Daniel and the pizza while I ran out to the food store for chocolate cake (which he also wanted) and cat food (which we realized we needed to pick up whether we were going out to dinner or not). So we had a glamorous birthday dinner, then we watched Studio Ghibli's Tales from Earthsea -- it has been a million years since I last reread LeGuin, so I can't have a coherent conversation about how much jumping around within the timeline took place, and the women don't kick butt as much as I wanted, but the animation is lovely. Speaking of lovely, Green Spring Gardens flowers and animals:
Thank you Arizona!
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