Poem for Tuesday

Isaac
By Ben Miller

Once there was another brother and he was
My brother, tall and strong, he
Swung me through the long air, laughing,
Both of us would laugh.

Why did he leave? Every afternoon
I stand out in the fading light,
Watching for his camels.
This, I know, is prayer.

--------

Have had a very nice but long day spent almost entirely out of the house. First I was with the delectable with whom I always have a wonderful time. We went to Congressional Aquarium and the Container Store and out for Thai food and to various places in the mall (because we had to have Bath & Body Works pumpkin bubble bath and certain Hallmark ornaments), and had an absolutely lovely too-short visit. Plus she brought me biscotti in a penguin cookie jar, so she is now even more beloved of my entire family, though younger son had already named two of his penguins Dementor and Delta in her honor.

Then I was supposed to pick up the kids for a late afternoon eye doctor appointment, but younger son absolutely refused to leave Mad Science until he had finished his "lava lamp" (actually a jar of liquids demonstrating relative density that sort of look like a lava lamp when they separate), and older son got off at the wrong bus stop so screwed up my timing. We arrived very late, which means we were put at the very end of the waiting list, but since we were scheduled to be near the end of the day anyway and the eye doctor has never kept us waiting less than 45 minutes, it was only about par for the course when we finally got in! Older son needs new glasses; younger son does not need glasses, which is good news.

In the evening there was a middle school meeting about the magnet program, which we had thought we needed to leave for by 6 p.m. due to traffic considerations. But at 6 p.m. was still in the food store trying to track down something for dinner and I was still at the eye doctor. So there was much chaos and running around and traffic and finally realizing that there was no way we were going to make the meeting in time, and then punting and trying to get everyone home and settled and into the shower and to bed at a reasonable hour when they had been unable to do homework earlier because having their eyes refracted had left them unable to read, write or play work on the computer.

I missed the beginning of Heroes but saw enough for my love to continue to grow, even though every time I read an interview with Bryan Fuller, I don't want to love it as he says idiotic things about Voyager in every interview; Heroes continues to remind me more and more of early X-Files where you couldn't tell who was really on which side, or for what reasons, and where there were abductions which might have been alien or might have been evil politicians or both. I've been saying all along that I thought Claire's father might be doing all this to protect her -- I really thought it was going to turn out that she was his biological daughter, though it doesn't sound that way right now -- though it may be wishful thinking as he clearly has an evil selfish streak no matter what. And Hiro was fabulous rewriting history.


Nemo and Marlin...that is, two clownfish in one of the reef tanks at Congressional Aquarium.


How come parrotfish always look like they want to kiss someone and they're surprised about it?


The spider arrow crab just looks like it doesn't know what to do with all those legs. Too cool!


Whereas the ropefish appears to admire itself greatly in the mirrored side of its tank...


...and the blue lobster knows he's a rare gem and can sit around looking pretty.

I was very naughty today, as I bought a pair of Grandma Pants Groovy Tye Dye fleece pants and had ordered a brand new-used copy of Forest of Souls for $4 which arrived in the mail, so Tuesday when I finish catching up on work and laundry I can chill out in my comfy clothes and read Tarot! (Because, as I meant to say earlier, hey, Nancy Pelosi: when you make your first major action endorsing for majority leader a pro-life special-interests invested Democrat with scandals in his past, you prove the point of everyone who hates your party as much as the Republicans...)