Friday, March 02, 2012

Poem for Friday and Wandering with Penguins

To a Steam Roller
By Marianne Moore

The illustration
is nothing to you without the application.
   You lack half wit. You crush all the particles down
      into close conformity, and then walk back and forth
         on them.

Sparkling chips of rock
are crushed down to the level of the parent block.
   Were not 'impersonal judgment in aesthetic
      matters, a metaphysical impossibility,' you

might fairly achieve
It. As for butterflies, I can hardly conceive
   of one's attending upon you, but to question
      the congruence of the complement is vain, if it exists.

--------

Last night while Adam was cleaning out his room, he put a CFL lightbulb on top of the freezer right near the edge with aerosol cans behind it. This morning one of the aerosol cans fell over onto the lightbulb, knocking it onto the floor, where it shattered into ten million pieces that scattered eight feet in every direction -- into the rug in the living room, under the refrigerator, under the oven, under the kitchen table where there was a cat. You can guess how I spent my morning. Now our dustpan, hand broom, mop sponge, and many other items are in sealed plastic bags in the trash, but I am betting we have mercury all over the house. Someone tell me again why this is a better idea than our good old non-toxic disposable lightbulbs, which may be less energy efficient but by definition must be better for the environment?

I would declare the entire day (indeed, the entire week) as deserving of the rubbish bin had Governor O'Malley not signed gay marriage into law this afternoon in Annapolis. The law doesn't go into effect until January and there is likely to be a referendum to try to stop it in November, though polls of Maryland residents suggest that more than half of us will vote to keep gay marriage legal if we actually show up at the polls which an awful lot of us have a tendency not to do, but today I am just going to be happy that the law is what it should be. We watched the first episode of Awake, in which I liked the acting better than the police storylines (I am so tired of procedurals and I don't even watch any regularly) but we've already ascertained that I will watch Jason Isaacs in pretty much anything and he's terrific in it.

I am sure I have mentioned here that Superpoke Pets is going to cease to exist next week. The people still playing have been very generous about sharing their habitats so we can all save them while there's time, and Cara Chapel let me swipe a bunch of hers including the Star Trek and Stargate backgrounds. I wasted far too much time in the past couple of days moving my penguin around, and here is some of the evidence:


On the Mayflower


In Rainy Seattle


At the Oscars


In Legendary Ireland


At a Mad Tea Party


Celebrating Carnival


Being a Werewolf


Arrrrrr!

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