Poem for Monday

From "Red Foxes"
By Robert McDowell

When she was younger Nessa shot a bird.
She was playing Annie Oakley. Her friend Ramon
Had handed her his Christmas BB gun.
She raised the barrel, sighting a mockingbird
On a telephone wire. "One shot," she told her friend.
Impossible. They both laughed at her bragging
As she squeezed the trigger, then the bird fell down.
Ramon picked up the rifle, ran for home,
While Nessa, unbelieving, held the bird,
Refusing to accept the death she'd made.
So that was how easy making death could be.

--------

This reminds me of Robert P. Tristram Coffin's "Forgive My Guilt" only in tighter modern language. I can't find the poem online, but I remember the opening lines: "Not always sure what things called sins may be/I am sure of one sin that I have done:/It was years ago, when I was a boy./I lay in the frost-flowers with a gun..."

Had another relatively quiet family day; kids had a friend over in the morning, we brought pizza in for them for lunch, then older son had to go to visit the friend from school with whom he is working on his science project, so after dropping him off the rest of us went to the pet store for food and cage fluff, then walked into Circuit City since it's next door where I inspected the digital camera I want to buy myself before we go to England, preferably with enough time to play with it and see what it can do. (Would love to get the Nikon 4100, will settle for the Nikon 3200, and would buy the 2100 if I could find it for under $100 because spouse is annoyed that I feel the need for a smaller, lighter camera -- he doesn't carry the 995 around his neck all day, along with the digicam for video. The 2 MP cameras are only about $50 less than the 3 MP cameras, so it would be nuts to buy one, but it's another $75 for the 4 MP cameras so I am not anticipating that happening even if I sell stuff on eBay to compensate for the cost. We have to have the deck repaired in the spring, so there goes any potential play money for all of next year, really.)

Amusement for the day: discovering that Mary Chapin Carpenter and Shawn Colvin performed "I Want It That Way" at the Kate Wolf Memorial Music Festival last year, and it's online along with the rest of the concert at EZTorrent. (Whenever I hear this song, I sing the "Which Backstreet Boy Is Gay" version of it almost automatically so it was really fun to hear two women folkies singing it.)

had a contest in her journal to identify Christmas carols, and I came in second, so she owed me fic in recompense, and I said I wanted happy Lupin/Snape and if she could throw in happy Black as well, I would be her love slave. She wrote me "Bound". Now I owe her sexual favors. Hehehehe.

asked for:
1. top five cds that came out in 04. Which I absolutely cannot answer, because I bought almost no new music last year. U2? Barenaked Ladies? Reunited October Project? Most of my new CDs were movie soundtracks consisting of old music!
2. top five movies that came out in 04. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Finding Neverland, The Phantom of the Opera (because I very nearly said De-Lovely, but the gender politics of that film bug me even more than Phantom), and -- okay, fine, ridicule me all you like -- National Treasure. Keep in mind that I have not yet seen Kinsey, Sideways nor The Aviator.
3. top five memories/experiences you had in 04. Mystic, Cape Cod, Plymouth, Salem, Boston.

, posted late on Sunday:
1. How often do you cook at home? When the spouse can't or doesn't want to and we don't have time for takeout.
2. How did you learn how to cook? Hahaha, from a Kraft Macaroni and Cheese box. Not even being in love with my eighth grade home ec teacher could make me want to learn.
3. What is a meal that has special meaning to you? Soup and applesauce. Latkes, I guess, because they're the only thing I've cooked for my in-laws. All Passover-specific foods.
4. What is the last meal you cooked? See aforementioned Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.
5. What is your least favorite thing to cook? Absolutely anything that requires the use of the stovetop where something could spatter.

I haven't forgotten the Philly and Smithsonian photos, but since this was likely our last outing for the break, I shall post pictures from this evening's activity. Since we had to pick older son up from his friend's house near Wheaton Regional Park, we went to the Brookside Gardens' walk-through Garden of Lights.


The sea monster in the fountain where, in summer, frogs hide between the plants.


"Flowers" blooming in front of the herb garden.


A dragonfly for .


The walk-through caterpillar tunnel for .


Thunderclouds, rain and lightning (which flickers on and off, accompanied by sound effects)...


...leading to a rainbow.


From across the pond, the lights of the pagoda, some of the bushes and the giant dragonflies in the trees.