Saturday, February 04, 2006

Poem for Saturday


The Ballad of the Oysterman
By Oliver Wendell Holmes


It was a tall young oysterman lived by the river-side,
His shop was just upon the bank, his boat was on the tide;
The daughter of a fisherman, that was so straight and slim,
Lived over on the other bank, right opposite to him.

It was the pensive oysterman that saw a lovely maid,
Upon a moonlight evening, a sitting in the shade;
He saw her wave her handkerchief as much as if to say,
"I 'm wide awake, young oysterman, and all the folks away."

Then up arose the oysterman, and to himself said he,
"I guess I 'll leave the skiff at home, for fear that folks should see;
I read it in the story-book, that, for to kiss his dear,
Leander swam the Hellespont,—and I will swim this here."

And he has leaped into the waves, and crossed the shining stream,
And he has clambered up the bank, all in the moonlight gleam;
O there were kisses sweet as dew, and words as soft as rain,—
But they have heard her father's step, and in he leaps again!

Out spoke the ancient fisherman,—"O what was that, my daughter?"
"'T was nothing but a pebble, sir, I threw into the water."
"And what is that, pray tell me, love, that paddles off so fast?"
"It 's nothing but a porpoise, sir, that 's been a swimming past."

Out spoke the ancient fisherman,—"Now bring me my harpoon!
I 'll get into my fishing-boat, and fix the fellow soon."
Down fell that pretty innocent, as falls a snow-white lamb,
Her hair drooped round her pallid cheeks, like seaweed on a clam.

Alas for those two loving ones! she waked not from her swound,
And he was taken with the cramp, and in the waves was drowned;
But Fate has metamorphosed them, in pity of their woe,
And now they keep an oyster-shop for mermaids down below.

--------


My day started with chaos as I had totally forgotten younger son had an orthodontist appointment, and had he not remembered because any excuse to miss school is a good one, I would have forgotten all about it! So I left the house without even having had time to take a shower, spent the morning in the dentist's office and then got myself California Tortilla turkey chili for lunch because I was starving after dropping son off at school!

In my disorganization, I completely forgot to talk about Thursday night's Smallville, which was actually really interesting and strangely morally ambiguous for all its declared certainties! So Clark basically learned the tricks of the superhero trade from a woman who ended up being defined as the bad guy, having crossed the line to the Dark Side by killing someone out of a sense of vengeance...they're all supposed to do the Batman thing, "I won't kill you but I don't have to save you," even if they lost a parent, right? What's the message...that the fundamentals of Superman, changing in a phone booth and wearing glasses on the job at the newspaper, came out of a context of obsessive, pathological behavior?

I am so glad Masked Avenger Chick did not die (which I thought she would, for her crime) and can come back. And poor Lex -- jealous Lana knows how Clark is and he doesn't! I think I loved seeing an episode with a strong female character, almost no Lana and so much awesome wicked Lionel...though I did expect him to fire that gun he said was a collector's item. Could Lionel have moved on Martha any faster! And she IS going to take Jonathan's seat...yay! And Chloe hating playing damsel in distress...I love that! She can't even FAKE being Lana -- how is Clark not in love with HER?

In other TV news, I reviewed "Catspaw", which was lots of fun to watch but difficult to write up because it's really quite a bad episode both in terms of the fantasy elements and in terms of all the actors' difficulties keeping a straight face during the zombie sequences and while being chased by a giant cat (which my younger son loved...every time the witch-kitty mreeeoowled, he said, "Someone forgot to feed her!") I did not mention the fact that any scene involving Kirk, Spock, a dungeon and handcuffs would alone make an episode worth watching for me because there are many slashier episodes coming up and I want to save my ammunition for when it counts.

: Weekend Update
1. Any plans to watch the Super Bowl?
My very oldest friend, whom I have known since we were both six, has a Super Bowl party every year with 30-40 adults. We all have gone since before we had kids and the party has just grown.
2. Friday or Saturday: Which is a better date night? For me it's Friday, since I need my parents to babysit to have any hope of a date and they usually have plans of their own on Saturday.
3. Do you do anything special on the weekends that you don't do during the week? Stay up till 1! Sleep till 9!
4. Where do you get your news from? A mixture of the Washington Post, New York Times, Village Voice, AlterNet, a handful of blogs, Yahoo and Google's news pages, CNN and occasionally my local TV station if it's something that's big locally.
5. Kevin, Norm, Colin, Jimmy, Tina or Amy? Kevin, if I can't have Chevy.

: What are your five favorite fannish icons (yours or anyone else's)?
I so suck at remembering 1) whose they are and 2) who originally made them. It's the funny ones that stick with me. I am sure I am missing about 50 that deserve to be remembered...
1. That one where Harry asks Remus if he's a werewolf and Remus says yes, and Harry asks if he's fucking serious and Remus says "That too."
2. "Here's a Vader, there's a Vader, and another little Vader, fuzzy Vader, funny Vader, Vader Vader Darth!"
3. "Do not leave your Baggins unattended."
4. 's Luthorcest icon from Michael Rosenbaum moving in to kiss John Glover on the blooper reel.
5. "My fandom does it with fourteen-inch wands."

: a #5 with an egg roll
1. What is your favorite specialty restaurant (Italian, Mexican, Thai, etc.)?
Indian is usually my very favorite, but I will happily eat any Asian or Middle Eastern cuisine that isn't lunch truck Chinese or mall sushi.
2. What do you order to eat there? Tandoori chicken, navratan korma, chicken tikka masala, dal makhani, chicken makhani, tandoori seafood, idli, naan, kheer...
3. What is your favorite specialty food or dish to cook? Latkes.
4. If you could travel to the home country of your favorite specialty food, what would you do there? Are we counting latkes as Russian or Israeli? In either case, I would like to track down as much of my history and relatives as possible, visit synagogues, see an enormous list of cities, archaeological sites, art museums...food would be the very least of my worries, I'd eat bread and water if I could go.
5. What is your worst experience with a specialty food restaurant? The actual chicken claw in the General Tso's chicken at the grungy Chinese place in Silver Spring.



More National Aquarium Birds





I got some good news: I don't need a tetanus shot. Seems that the one I got after Boromir bit me is sufficient to protect me from Aragorn. The little bugger is playing innocent, trying to get me to take him out of his cage to play. But I know a gerbil under the influence of the Ring when I see one.

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