Saturday, July 22, 2006

Poem for Saturday


South Wind
By Siegfried Sassoon


Where have you been, South Wind, this May-day morning,—
With larks aloft, or skimming with the swallow,
Or with blackbirds in a green, sun-glinted thicket?

Oh, I heard you like a tyrant in the valley;
Your ruffian haste shook the young, blossoming orchards;
You clapped rude hands, hallooing round the chimney,
And white your pennons streamed along the river.

You have robbed the bee, South Wind, in your adventure,
Blustering with gentle flowers; but I forgave you
When you stole to me shyly with scent of hawthorn.

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MY E-MAIL IS STILL DOWN. Hostway says it's back, but I have only received two pieces of e-mail in the past 24 hours, and I know I received nearly 40 LJ comments in that time that haven't arrived yet, so I can only imagine how many e-mails have not been delivered. If I owe you a tag or a comment to your comment or anything, I apologize. Please if you want to get ahold of me for anything, write to me at my user name here @ gmail!

It was mostly a quiet Friday, since we're doing lots of stuff this weekend and I've had to take headache medicine every day this week, including Excedrin with a chaser of Imitrex last night. My father took the kids swimming in the afternoon, and our original plan was to eat dinner early and then go see a free production of The Two Gentlemen of Verona in Laurel outdoors on the grounds of the Montpelier Mansion, but it was still 90 degrees at 6:30, the traffic reports weren't promising, the kids don't know the play at all -- they are far more attentive when they're somewhat familiar with the source material, like Midsummer Night's Dream or Much Ado or Macbeth which we are going to see at Blackfriars in a few weeks -- so instead we went to Toys R Us and another store to look for stuff younger son might want with his birthday money (and POTC action figures I might want but refrained from buying...well, okay, not completely, I did order an Elizabeth in boy's clothes off eBay because I just cannot resist).

The other thing younger son wanted for his birthday was a compilation CD, with some songs that were on his compilation CD from his birthday last year ("Pain", "Donkey Riding"), some songs I like ("Somebody Told Me", "The Kraken" from the POTC:DMC soundtrack), and then the nightmare that began when he said, "I want that Numa Numa song." Looking it up on iTunes initially turned up a bunch of Latino singers but not the right song, so we did some investigating and discovered that it was the electronic dance horror "Mi Ya Hi" that he wanted (and then we had to figure out whether it was the club mix, the Valentine mix, the Italian version or the freakin' original Romanian version which proved to be the right one).

I know there are lots of people on my flist right now shrieking in revulsion and possibly unfriending me, as I have just demonstrated beyond hope of redemption that I am a part of the ultra-uncool Parental Generation! But this song sets a new standard for songs that get stuck in your head until you want to claw out your brain...a position previously occupied by Boston's "Amanda", Springsteen's "Born in the USA", No Mercy's version of "Where Do You Go" from the Night at the Roxbury soundtrack and most recently Great Big Sea's "Captain Kidd", all of which now seem not only harmless but quite desirable by comparison.



Frog hiding from the heat under a bush.


: The Road Less Traveled
1. What don't you understand?
Trigonometry. Faith vs. free will. Why the cat lies on her back looking like she desperately wants her belly rubbed but then sits up and gets all snarky when her belly is in fact rubbed.
2. Name someone in your life with blue eyes: My husband.
3. When is a lie not really a lie? When the person asking whether the dress makes her look fat clearly does not really want to know.
4. When is the last time you got really dirty? Yesterday when my son managed to get his ice cream all over the back of my silver cotton dress. Graaar.
5. Are you a lefty or a righty? Righty.

from last week: My First, My Last, My...
Name the last person you...
1. Hugged:
My older son when he was on the way to bed.
2. Smiled at: Probably the same.
3. Deceived: My mother, when I told her I would take 50 things she wants at the Bar Mitzvah into account.
4. Glared at: My cat, but she started it.
5. Lusted after: Severus Snape.

: Famous
1. What talent(s) do you have that could make you famous?
I'm a famous historian! No wait, that's . Um. I can pack rat with the best of them.
2. If you could be famous for one day, what would you do? Hide.
3. If you were so famous that money was no object, where would you live? In a castle with a moat in Scotland...no wait, already been done. In a tasteful not very big house on the Atlantic Ocean.
4. If you could meet any famous person, who would it be? George Bush so I could give him a piece of my mind. I've met a lot of the famous people I really admire and it was nearly always a letdown...Glenn Close and Louise Fletcher (whose birthday is tomorrow) being important exceptions.
5. What would be your famous catch phrase/quote/motto/last words? Making no compromises with the public taste. (Which is already my web site catch phrase but I can't take credit for it -- it belongs to The Little Review and Margaret Anderson.)

from last week: Unique
1. What about you makes you unique?
I have a very screwy personal theological system.
2. What aspect of your physical appearance do you think makes you stick out from the crowd? I'm 4'10" so if I am with anyone over age 10, I am short by comparison.
3. What do you always have with you while out in public? (for example, earrings, purse, wallet, watch, etc.) My MDA.
4. Is there anything about your body that you think isn't normal? Other than the being short thing, not really.
5. What are you complimented on (looks, smarts, anything) the most? Why do you think that's the case? Quick wit. Which is not to be confused with true smarts, but I went a long way on it in college.


Happy Birthday Louise Fletcher!

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