Poem for Friday

Composed by the Side of Grasmere Lake
By William Wordsworth

Clouds, lingering yet, extend in solid bars
Through the grey west; and lo! these waters, steeled
By breezeless air to smoothest polish, yield
A vivid repetition of the stars;
Jove, Venus, and the ruddy crest of Mars
Amid his fellows beauteously revealed
At happy distance from earth's groaning field,
Where ruthless mortals wage incessant wars.
Is it a mirror?--or the nether Sphere
Opening to view the abyss in which she feeds
Her own calm fires?--But list! a voice is near;
Great Pan himself low-whispering through the reeds,
"Be thankful, thou; for, if unholy deeds
Ravage the world, tranquillity is here!"

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This is actually Lake Windermere, not Grasmere, but they're fairly near each other and we visited both when we were in the Lake District two years ago while en route to Wordsworth's Dove Cottage in Grasmere.

Having done the right thing and called Amazon.com, it took a mere three hours to track down the rightful owner of the watch they accidentally sent me with my camera bag (a college student whose mother returned the camera bag she had bought for him that wasn't the one he wanted, not realizing that the very nice watch she had gotten him was still inside it). I am returning the watch in exchange for a gift certificate for my time and trouble, and they are paying postage. Since the bag appears untouched except for having a watch and stuff inside it, I did not complain overmuch about the fact that it was not brand new, since Amazon.com's prices are significantly better than most places already on this bag and shipping was free. Meanwhile older son desperately wanted to go out and get Rocket Slime with accumulated allowance and I needed to return the smaller camera bag to Ritz, so we went to the mall for dinner, though I had been there a few hours earlier for California Pizza Kitchen with and the very end of Bath & Body Works' seasonal sale...how come whenever they make a vanilla I really love, they promptly discontinue it? So yeah, that was the excitement for the day!

Have just had a great deal of trouble getting younger son to sleep because 1) he accidentally ripped a page out of his cat page-a-day calendar, the sort most people rip a page off of every day, as older son does with his Stupid Presidential Comments calendar and I do with my *cough* Thomas Kinkade calendar, but younger son does not; 2) he was upset that I could not find a watch pillow, those little pillows that expensive watches sometimes come wrapped around, which I thought I might have but in fact apparently do not; and 3) he remembered that one day he will be expected to go to college and leave home. The latter is an issue because his best friend may be going to boarding school next year (at least, this is what the friend said -- this is the hyperactive one whose mother has a one-year-old and is expecting another baby in four months, and it is possible this was an empty threat, but it also might be real); the second one is an issue because by the time Amazon.com called to tell me they had located the watch's rightful owner, son had become attached, not to the watch itself, but to the pillow; and I really can't explain why the first is an issue at all except to quote when I told her about it: "Children are all insane aren't they?" I knew it couldn't be just mine. *g*

Smallville did a pretty poor job ripping off one of the most brilliant Buffy episodes in a long list of brilliant Buffy episodes, but I loved it anyway because it confirmed that the writers are aware of two things I've said for years: Clark is utterly obsessed with Lex and Lana does nothing but drag him down! I howled at Clark getting confirmation from an ostensible medical professional that his obsession with Lex Luthor is pathological! And it's fun to have him facing the idea that in anyone else, believing he has special powers and a nemesis would be paranoid schizophrenia. But the best part is that Lana being an adoring, whimpering, simpering puppydog is part of what's defined as a sick delusional fantasy. Though in a pathetic twist, Clark realizes in the end that he likes that so much, he would almost give up the universe for it! I hope she and her spawn move to the remotest corner of Siberia and stay there very happily forever. Wait, that's too close to the Fortress of Solitude, but I can't wish her in Antarctica or younger son will tell me I am being cruel to penguins!

And Chloe is right there, supporting Clark as best she's able, which even Clark defines as believing in him even when she's supposedly insane. It's like that doesn't count for shit with him because she doesn't bat her mascaraed eyelashes and tell him girly-poo stories about being given a ring in fourth grade (I was so hoping there was Kryptonite in that ring). Whyc can't Lana be more like Martha, who MARRIED LIONEL OMG HOW COULD THEY NOT SHOW US THEM KISSING JUST ONCE!!! ...sorry. *g* I know I am shallow, I know I should be talking about what a great performance Michael Rosenbaum gave as Lex in the wheelchair with no legs and with tears in his eyes calling Clark a crazy sonofabitch, "If there's one thing I regret in my life, it's that I didn't just run you over," because he was phenomenal, but I was still in OH PLEASE PLEASE BRING LIONEL IN AND LET HIM AND MARTHA HAVE HOT MONKEY SEX mode. I did get a kick out of all the items worked into Clark's "fantasy" -- Jorel soap, The Fortress of Solitude as a prison memoir, Oliver Queen as the employee of the month, 331 as the building capacity. But when Clark gets his powers back and Chloe announces, "I guess Kryptonite's not your only weakness," he just doesn't get it! Gaack get Lana and her lipstick out of there please and next time give us Lois and Lionel instead!

And then I had to sit through "The Savage Curtain" so I can review it. Abraham Lincoln, meet Genghis Khan...oh, and Lieutenant Uhura. Totally cracked and not in a good way. Am trying to figure out what to say beyond "The producers must have smoked a lot of something really bizarre before going ahead with this one!"