Poem for Friday

Nature: LXXII
By Emily Dickinson

The mountain sat upon the plain
In his eternal chair,
His observation omnifold,
His inquest everywhere.

The seasons prayed around his knees,
Like children round a sire:
Grandfather of the days is he,
Of dawn the ancestor.

--------

Since it was younger son's birthday I told him we could do whatever he wanted within reason, which means he played video games all morning and then asked to be taken to Burger King to use his free meal coupon. Older son hates Burger King with a passion (for reasons I do not understand, as he likes McDonald's) and managed to stall younger son long enough that they decided they wanted frozen chicken nuggets and then to go see Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties again, knowing that I would agree to this because it's set at Castle Howard. So off we went to the only theater in Maryland that still appears to be showing the film, which was actually more enjoyable than I was expecting -- much funnier than the first one, with less Jennifer Love Hewitt which is all to the good (few people in general except for a very funny Billy Connolly as the villain, and Bob Hoskins and Tim Curry did the major animal voices besides Garfield which is also all to the good). There are many gorgeous exterior shots of Yorkshire and a typical movie postcard-of-London montage, which I always like whether it's Match Point or Wimbledon or this.

We had dinner with my parents, who got younger son some books and the newest Bionicle DVD and some Legos; we got him the POTC version of The Game of Life, a couple of Nintendo games, a penguin CD holder and some more books, plus we're taking him next month to meet a penguin at Mystic Aquarium, staying with my sister in New York and taking some portion of her family with us (her youngest is too young to go to the penguin event and has fits if she is denied anything her older sisters get to do). We had teriyaki chicken and lo mein -- his choice -- and made a cake with little icing penguins on it.


Icing penguins...


...on the birthday cake...


And a penguin CD case!

TV meme, because I was on the phone with relatives and trying to occupy my brain: Bold all of the following TV shows which you've ever seen 3 or more episodes of in your lifetime. Italicize a show if you're positive you've seen every episode of it.

24
7th Heaven
Adam-12
Aeon Flux
ALF
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alias
Alien Nation
American Idol/Pop Idol/Canadian Idol/Australian Idol/etc.
America's Next Top Model/Germany's Next Top Model
Angel
Arrested Development
Babylon 5
Babylon 5: Crusade
Battlestar Galactica (the old one)
Battlestar Galactica (the new one)
Baywatch
Beavis & Butthead
Beverly Hills 90210
Bewitched
Bonanza
Bones
Bosom Buddies
Boston Legal
Boy Meets World
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Bug Juice
Chappelle's Show
Charlie's Angels
Charmed
Cheers
Columbo
Commander in Chief
Coupling
Cowboy Bebop
Crossing Jordan
CSI
CSI: Miami
CSI: NY
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Dancing with the Stars
Danny Phantom
Dark Angel
Dark Skies
Davinci's Inquest
Dawson's Creek
Dead Like Me
Deadliest Catch
Deadwood
Degrassi: The Next Generation
Designing Women
Desperate Housewives
Dharma & Greg
Different Strokes
Doctor Who
Dragnet
Due South
Earth 2
Emergency!
Entourage
ER
Everwood
Everybody Loves Raymond
Facts of Life
Family Guy
Family Ties
Farscape
Fawlty Towers
Felicity
Firefly
Frasier
Friends
Futurama
Get Smart
Gilligan's Island
Gilmore Girls
Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
Green Wing
Grey's Anatomy
Growing Pains
Gunsmoke
Hannah Montana
Happy Days
Hogan's Heroes
Home Improvement
Homicide: Life on the Street
House
I Dream of Jeannie
I Love Lucy
Invader Zim
Invasion
Hell's Kitchen
JAG
Jackass
Joey
John Doe
LA Law
Laverne and Shirley
Little House on the Prairie
Lizzie McGuire
Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Lost
Lost in Space
Love, American Style
M*A*S*H
MacGyver
Malcolm in the Middle
Married... With Children
Melrose Place
Miami Vice
Mission: Impossible
Monk
Moonlighting
Mork & Mindy
Murphy Brown
My Life as a Dog
My Three Sons
My Two Dads
NCIS
Nip/Tuck
Northern Exposure
Numb3rs
One Tree Hill
Oz
Perry Mason
Picket Fences
Pokemon
Power Rangers
Prison Break
Profiler
Project Runway
Psyche
Quantum Leap
Queer As Folk (US)
Queer as Folk (British)
ReGenesis
Remington Steele
Rescue Me
Road Rules
ROME
Roseanne
Roswell
Saved by the Bell
Scarecrow and Mrs. King
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?
Scrubs
Seinfeld
Sex and the City
Six Feet Under
Slings and Arrows
Smallville
So Weird
South Park
Spaced
Spongebob Squarepants
Sports Night
Star Trek
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Enterprise
Stargate Atlantis
Stargate SG-1
Superman
Supernatural
Surface
Survivor
Taxi
Teen Titans
That 70's Show
That's So Raven
The 4400
The Addams Family
The Andy Griffith Show
The A-Team
The Avengers
The Beverly Hillbillies
The Bionic Woman
The Brady Bunch
The Cosby Show
The Daily Show
The Dead Zone
The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Flintstones
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
The Golden Girls
The Honeymooners
The Jeffersons
The Jetsons
The L Word
The Love Boat
The Man from UNCLE
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Mighty Boosh
The Monkees
The Munsters
The Mythbusters
The O.C.
The Office (UK)
The Office (US)
The Pretender
The Real World
The Shield
The Simpsons
The Six Million Dollar Man
The Sopranos
The Suite Life of Zack and Cody
The Twilight Zone
The Waltons
The West Wing
The Wonder Years
The X-Files
Third Watch
Three's Company
Top Gear
Twin Peaks
Twitch City
Veronica Mars
Whose Line is it Anyway? (US)
Whose Line is it Anyway? (UK)
Will and Grace
Xena: Warrior Princess

But where are All in the Family and Space: 1999 and VR5 and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Andromeda and Relic Hunter and Freakylinks and Prey, and that most important SF classic, Quark?

My mail is down -- I haven't received any since some time this afternoon. Do me a favor and write to me at my usual name at gmail if you're trying to reach me Friday morning, and forward anything you sent after 1 p.m. Thursday!