Poem for Saturday

Don't Make It a Choice
By Kirmen Uribe
Translated by Elizabeth Macklin

Don't make me choose
Between the Sea and Dry Land.
I relish living on the edge of the sea cliff,
On this black ribbon the wind waves,
On this long hair fallen from an errant giant.

Of the Sea I love especially its heart,
As idiotic as a great child's.
Now headstrong, wayward, now drawing
Impossible landscapes.
Of Dry Land, however,
I most love those great hands.

Don't make me choose
Between the Sea and Dry Land.
I know my residence is a fine line of thread,
But I'd be lost with only the Sea,
Drown with Dry Land.

Don't make it a choice. I'm going to stay here.
Between the green waves and the blue mountains.

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It was a stunningly beautiful Friday and I got to spend a decent amount of it outdoors. Had lunch with at an outside table at Tara Thai, wandered around Barnes & Noble a bit, looked unsuccessfully for goslings who seem to be late this year, like the azaleas. Came home and wrote a review of "Hide and Q", which is a particularly frustrating episode because it shows hints of the greatness that will appear in the later Q episodes...it's worth watching just for the scene where John de Lancie and Patrick Stewart swap soliloquies from Macbeth and Hamlet, but Riker is so boring as a god!

Took the kids to a friend's house to trade new Pokemon in Diamond and Pearl, drove through that neighborhood admiring the flowers, had dinner with my parents who have just had all their windows replaced and are now having new siding put on their house so there is construction equipment everywhere. Have spent the evening listening to Sylvia Tosun, organizing lots of downloaded photos, videos and music not yet transferred to the external hard drive where I keep such files, and celebrating virtual Beltane.

: Horses and Tequila
1. Do you gamble? When I was in Las Vegas I bet maybe $3 on slots. I pretty much broke even.
2. Have you ever rode a horse? I used to ride during the summers at camp.
3. Do you drink alcohol? In about the same quantities as I gamble. Miniscule amounts of dessert wine and Bailey's Irish Creme.
4. What is your favorite Mexican food? Anything with really good spicy salsa.
5. Friday fill-in: On Saturday, I plan to ____. Visit with my in-laws who are coming down for the first time since going to the west coast a month ago to visit their other two sons. We will probably watch the Derby if we are home by the time it starts.

: My life would not be the same without this...
1. song/movie/book: "Closer to Fine"/The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring/The Mists of Avalon.
2. person: My freshman English professor at Penn.
3. place: Hyde Park, Chicago.
4. event: The Modern Language Association annual conference, 1991.
5. self indulgence: Having bought the entire James Blish and Alan Dean Foster series of Star Trek books in middle school.

: Movies vs. Books
1. Which character do you actually prefer the movie version of? Lucius Malfoy, by a huge margin and despite the attempted AK in Chamber of Secrets.
2. Which character do you usually love, but dislike his or her movie portrayal? There's no one I love in the books whom I hate in the movies. I'm kind of um bored by Ron in both for instance...
3. What is your favorite moment/line/etc. added to the movies that doesn't show up in the books? The phrasing of Lupin's "people like me" speech from the end of Prisoner of Azkaban. In the book it's kind of a vague AIDS metaphor. In the movie it's a much more direct allegory about homophobia.
4. In a perfect world, ________ would play _________. I've been pretty happy with the casting overall and I was so happy when the original Bella dropped out and Helena Bonham Carter took over. All my fantasy casting now is for very minor characters, like in a perfect world, Grace Kelly would still be young, gorgeous and performing, and she would play Narcissa Malfoy. I can't think of anyone who could play Greyback because it needs to be someone who's both ten years older than David Thewlis and taller than him...
5. What is your overall opinion of the movies? They brought me into the fandom. I love them pretty unreservedly, even when they cut stuff I wish they had left in.


Here are some of the lawn ornaments in my neighborhood, like these see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil frogs...


...this black cat (sitting in Cinnamon's favorite position, with the tail protecting the toes)...


...a garden angel...


...a mermaid overlooking the waterfall beneath the walkway of the house with the fanciest garden in the neighborhood...


...and the inevitable pink flamingos.


This is not actually a lawn ornament but a glow-in-the-dark traffic warning that someone put up in the cul-de-sac where cars too frequently go whipping around the corner heedless of the kids on bikes and scooters, other cars pulling out of parking spaces, etc.

I adore the Bigfoot Protection Plan. Oh those crazy Canadian MPs -- but they'll get protection for whooping cranes and blue whales if it passes. I want someone like that in Congress!