Poem for Wednesday

Dead Leaves
By E. Nesbit

Not Summer's crown of scent the red rose weaves,
Not hawthorn perfume blown o'er bloom-strewn grass,
Not violets' whispers as the children pass,
Nor new-mown hay, crisp scent of yellow sheaves,
Nor lilac perfume in the soft May eves,
Nor any scent that Springtime can amass,
Or Summer squander, such a magic has
As scent of fresh wet earth and fallen leaves.

For sometimes lovers, in November days,
When earth is grieving for the vanished sun,
Have trod dead leaves in chill and wintry ways,
And kissed and dreamed eternal summer won.
Look back, look back! through memory's deepening haze,
See -- two who dreamed that dream, and you were one!

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Younger son went on a field trip Tuesday to Seneca Schoolhouse Museum (photos here) for which he had to dress up like an 19th century boy whose family worked on a C&O Canal boat. He won the school spelling bee, but his character was still chosen to sit in the corner with the dunce's hat on because he allegedly put a snake in the teacher's desk. He had a very good time and came home happy even though they were only allowed to buy one souvenir in the gift shop apiece and he had wanted both the pop gun and the wooden chicken.

I had lunch with , who gave me a beautiful pair of silver earrings for my birthday and almost led me into temptation in J. Jill until I remembered that I can't have a new camera and clothes! Fortunately, sent me a package of hand-me-downs that her goth daughter apparently no longer wears, so I have lots of "new" cool clothes...and she also sent me Snape's wand! (No, , I have not broken it in properly yet. *giggling wickedly*) I love the Noble Collection stuff even if it is all overpriced and I love having something of Snape's! And while I am thanking people, I also must thank who sent me this gorgeous Tarot deck that I have wanted since it was a Major Arcana-only deck. I appreciate it so much! *smooch* My brother and sister in law in Oregon sent me a Pink Martini CD that is highly enjoyable, too!

Am still way, way, way behind on comments, e-mails and the like. Much of my afternoon was taken up with laundry, driving kids to and from school and Hebrew school and exciting things like that. The dermatologist called; the mole on my back was dysplastic, abnormal but fortunately not melanoma; he wants me back in six months and every six months hereafter. The surrounding skin tested clear so at least they don't have to remove any more skin, the way they did with the mole on my neck two summers ago that was even more abnormal.

Fandom made me grumpy today: I would like to state for the record that I am never writing for anyone's birthday community again no matter how much of a BNF I am assured the person is by others; you all know that I am terrible about remembering to look up birthdays and not in the least insulted when almost anyone overlooks mine, but when one person for whom I wrote fic never even leaves me a comment on the story, and another can't be bothered to leave me a two-word "happy birthday" on my own birthday after I wrote for her under duress from several people who insisted that I "owed" it to her even though she and I had never exchanged two words, it makes me rather cranky. And I am so not cut out for RPGs. Or maybe I am just not cut out for RPGs where I don't really know the players. For a long time I swore I'd stay away because there seems to be wank surrounding pretty much every RPG, and now I really see why; lots of personalities, lots of people wanting to do specific things with their characters and wanting other people to help make it so, and it's hard to know what will count as OOC for your own character when other people are writing things that seem OOC to you for theirs.

But tonight, after my new evening shower tradition due to my stitches, I had Boston Legal! Which once again skirted the shark and made me so happy! Most of the episode was taken up by Brad's trial (Denise wants him now and who can blame her -- hell, I want Brad AND Denise, so I'd be perfectly delighted to see them together) and Alan defending his a-little-too-perfectly-bimboesque secretary excuse me administrative assistant, which storyline had me rolling my eyes until Alan launched into one of those trademark David E. Kelley rants, this time against the credit card industry milking consumers with financial difficulties, and he just kicked ass!

Speaking of which, there is a hilarious moment early on where Brad announces to Denny, Shirley, Denise and Paul that he licked the prosecuting assistant district attorney's ass in law school moot court, and they're all thinking very somberly about what this means about the assistant D.A.'s vendetta against Brad when Denny asks in some confusion, "You licked a man's ass?" It was Denny's week to be outrageously OTT for most of the episode -- he announces that he wants to try to case right away because he has an erection, and runs this theme into the ground a bit -- but he has two completely lovely moments with Shirley in which he basically tells her not to underestimate him and proves to be right, and then at the end of the episode, where he's worried because Shirley had said that Denny always makes everything about himself, Denny asks Alan whether this is true and Alan says straightfaced that it's not: "Sometimes when I talk to you, it's like you're not even in the room." Oh the love! Even on weeks when we don't get to see them sleeping together!

Also, while driving home from taking the kids to Hebrew school, I saw this. Any day with this must be counted as a good day.


Not a great shot, I know -- I only had the little Nikon with me -- but seeing those familiar features even imperfectly always makes me happy.


This is the long shot of the neighborhood; here you can't see the lunar features at all, but you can see how prominent it was above the sunset colors.