By Gertrude Stein
Part I
Stanza XIII
She may count three little daisies very well
By multiplying to either six nine or fourteen
Or she can be well mentioned as twelve
Which they may like which they can like soon
Or more than ever which they wish as a button
Just as much as they arrange which they wish
Or they can attire where they need as which say
Can they call a hat or a hat a day
Made merry because it is so.
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Older son had an afternoon A.P. test in comparative government and politics at a church a mile from his school, so I let Paul take the van with working air conditioning, in case he was stuck in traffic picking up older son while I was taking younger son to tennis. As it turned out, I had my van back by the time tennis started, but since I was home without it all day, I stayed in and did work and folded laundry. A friend had sent me The King's Speech Revealed, which aired in England earlier this month and will be on National Geographic on May 23rd; it's Lionel's grandson Mark Logue's travels in Australia and England to rediscover his grandfather, and it is utterly enjoyable.
Some of my favorite moments are Mark talking to David Seidler about Lionel's sense of humor and observing from Myrtle's letters that his grandmother seems like his type of girl. Plus Mark talks to Geoffrey Rush, which he says is the closest thing he's likely to get to meeting his grandfather, who died 13 years before he was born; Rush remarks that Lionel really seemed to have a twinkle and reading aloud from a letter Lionel sent the King that started out "Your Royal..." which was then crossed out, which Rush thought might have been a joke between them. There are photos of Lionel that I hadn't seen before and footage of both George VI and contemporary London and Adelaide, too.
Then, since I still had laundry to fold and I was in the mood for it, I put on The Queen, where I noticed things that hadn't really impressed before, like Tony Blair's rant to Alastair Campbell about how the Queen has worked tirelessly for 50 years at the job that killed her father, and also things I loved the first time around, like Cherie Blair's relentlessly teasing her husband that he has a crush on Her Majesty and the Queen's little digs at Blair, like reminding him that he's sitting in Winston Churchill's chair. I have an embarrassing amount of adoration for the fictional versions of both Blairs, from both this film and The Special Relationship, which I blame entirely on Michael Sheen and Helen McCrory.
I took an hour-long walk in Cabin John Park while younger son was at tennis since it was a gorgeous warm afternoon, we had dinner, and we watched Glee, which had some songs that made me raise my eyebrows -- okay, I get not wanting to do "Forever Young" and "Because You Loved Me" because they're cliches, but something a bit more prom-ish before the end would have been appreciated. Speaking of proms, older son and his girlfriend decided today after weeks of stating otherwise that they want to go to their prom, meaning we have only five days to track down a tux for son. And I watched footage from the POTC4 premiere, and admired the New Justice League. And now I am watching an endless Orioles game! Here are some goslings from Brookside Gardens on Sunday:
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