Poem for Monday

Domestic Work, 1937
By Natasha Trethewey

All week she's cleaned
someone else's house,
stared down her own face
in the shine of copper--
bottomed pots, polished
wood, toilets she'd pull
the lid to--that look saying

Let's make a change, girl.

But Sunday mornings are hers--
church clothes starched
and hanging, a record spinning
on the console, the whole house
dancing. She raises the shades,
washes the rooms in light,
buckets of water, Octagon soap.

Cleanliness is next to godliness...

Windows and doors flung wide,
curtains two-stepping
forward and back, neck bones
bumping in the pot, a choir
of clothes clapping on the line.

Nearer my God to Thee...

She beats time on the rugs,
blows dust from the broom
like dandelion spores, each one
a wish for something better.

--------

This morning the kids had Hebrew school, and afterward we met up with them at the synagogue Purim carnival. Unlike previous years, they didn't have slides and a train set up in the parking lot; they had two moon bounces inside and more show-oriented entertainment. Older son was working at the carnival for community service credits for both Hebrew school and public school, and looked very out of his element when we first got there; he and a couple of confirmation-year kids were at the booth where you try to throw ping pong balls into hollowed-out floating candles in a tub of water. *g* But once the older kids went to lunch and he actually ran the booth himself for awhile he looked happier. And we had pizza and hamantaschen. Purim is one of my favorite Jewish holidays -- it's very goddess-oriented despite the revisionist mythmaking (Esther/Ishtar, Mordechai/Marduk) and one of the happier "they tried to kill us, we triumphed" stories. Even if I am often appalled at the story as told to youngsters about the king, his disobedient dead first wife and the pretty Jewish girl-for-sale who saved her people!


The wizard moonbounce -- there was a Scooby Doo moonbounce as well -- at the Purim carnival.


The somewhat transformed or at least decorated sanctuary.


There were lots of little Queen Esthers playing the games.


Here are two of the rabbis as two of the Three Blind Mice. People call the taller one "6'6" since that is the first thing he claims everyone asks him.

When the carnival ended in the afternoon, we took the kids to a friend's house for awhile, and then this evening after dinner we watched the inevitable How William Shatner Changed the World. (Note to editor if you are reading this: I know I did not finish the news bullets but I was doing Star Trek work! How could I not watch How William Shatner Changed the World? *g*)

From the beginning, when Shatner shows up in a shirt that appears to be spattered with bird poop, my old crush was back. The show of course is really about how Roddenberry and Star Trek changed the world, even Shatner acknowledged that, but being Shatner he also took all kinds of credit for things. I mean, Shatner on the toilet saying he needed to be alone to grieve for the original series, saying there was a "desolate void" between TOS and TNG. "Why is there a bald guy named Jean-Luc Picard sitting in my captains' chair?" And then they cut to Picard, "I don't want excuses, Number One! I want answers!" And later, Frakes in bed dreaming and moaning Shatner's name, just before he admits he was not an original series fan, talking about it while brushing his teeth!

There are so many fun images of geek viewers and science nerds. Professor Lawrence Krauss of The Physics of Star Trek wearing a "Gravity Sucks" apron while Bill has "E=mc2 and Stuff" on his, and they cook together, discussing physics. "The anchovy is the Enterprise? There's something fishy about that," Shatner announces. It's nice to see George Takei there talking about Asian characters in the 60s and why he wanted to play Sulu -- Takei and Shatner must be speaking again! And Kate Mulgrew doing her usual "I only had three days to prepare for the technobabble, blah blah blah" stuff (, was that filmed in her house? *g*). But there is a hilarious montage where Shatner talks about women's outfits he really likes, miniskirts and one in a thong, while Janeway and Seven exchange disgusted looks onscreen. Whooo!

Plus I was really happy to see Ira Behr with his blue goatee -- "the sunny optimistic vision of Star Trek's future was awful" for Behr, says Shatner while showing a clip of nudists in a nice green setting. Ira says that, growing up in New York City, star Trek looked like Connecticut to him -- too nice. The History Channel had a serious glitch at one point and I think we missed several minutes, so since Smallville is a rerun this week, I may watch again on Wednesday just because the Star Trek nostalgia combined with the 60s nostalgia and the science is so much fun!

After that we watched the Everest: Death Mountain rerun on the Discovery Channel -- I hadn't seen images of the fate of some of people documented via the IMAX and Into Thin Air, just read about them, so that was really interesting -- and then The West Wing. Okay, I know I suck about Josh/Donna because even though I am rooting for that to work out before the end of the series, as soon as Matt interrupted the kiss to hug Josh about the numbers, I was thinking, man, I wish Josh would kiss Matt the same way! And really if Matt had gotten there before Donna I think he might have -- that was exuberance and exhilaration, not "Oh my god I have just realized I love you." I do admit I was amused by Donna being transparent, particularly the bit with Will where he wouldn't tell her what was up with him and Kate. And poor CJ with all this lust going on around her!

That was a hard episode to watch though -- John Spencer in scenes he couldn't have known were the last work he would ever do, and advising the president as his friend before he had to go back to being Santos' VP candidate. I really hope that if Vinick does pull the Traditional Republican Bullshit, it costs him the election, but I am not actually counting on it as I think Wells might want to make a statement about what the Republican base is like...I could see Vinick winning and then being appalled at why he won. Which would be an interesting if sucky ending for the series.

Here is my review for GMR of Snake Eyes, a very underrated Brian DePalma movie. And now I must sleep!