By Mary Oliver
I wish I was twenty and in love with life
and still full of beans.
Onward, old legs!
There are the long, pale dunes; on the other side
the roses are blooming and finding their labor
no adversity to the spirit.
Upward, old legs!
There are the roses, and there is the sea
shining like a song, like a body
I want to touch
though I'm not twenty
and won't be again but ah! seventy. And still
in love with life. And still
full of beans.
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Another from "Absence, Opera, Beans, Dreams", a selection of verse from new collections published in The Washington Post Book World's poetry issue the week of April 20th. This one is from Oliver's Red Bird, published by Beacon.
I was going to have lunch with CiderCupcakes, but it was rainy and miserable all morning and she had to work in the afternoon, so we decided to postpone a week. I expect to be well-fed for Mother's Day, and we had dinner with my parents (barbecue chicken, mini potato knishes) so it's probably just as well if I did not eat out again! I wrote a review of "The Vengeance Factor", the episode I did not remember at all, and howled and cheered at Katha Pollitt on Backlash Spectacular!
Friday Fiver: Buy me flowers
1. Who do you adore? My children.
2. Who adores you? My cats, though mostly when they're hungry.
3. What's in your pockets? I have no pockets in these jeans!
4. Who can you talk with for hours? MamaDracula.
5. What sounds great today? Great Big Sea's "Gallow's Pole" which arrived as a free download when I preordered Fortune's Favour!
The Friday Five: Meaning of life
1. If you knew that you had only one day left to live, what would you do for the 24 hours? Go somewhere gorgeous with my family and friends close enough to get there in time, preferably by the shore.
2. Do you think that life has meaning? Yes.
3. What was your favourite childhood toy/object, or some of your favourites? (Remember childhood according to the United Nations is anywhere from 0-18 years, so this is a fairly broad span of time). A stuffed rabbit named Big Bunny, my Sunshine Family and their house, an incomplete Tarot deck given to me by the son of my parents' friends, my Star Trek action figures (plus a Glinda the Good Witch doll also made by Mego).
4. When you clasp your hands, do you put your right thumb over your left thumb, or your left thumb over your right thumb? Right over left, which I understand is typical of right-handed people.
5. If you had to teach the most ignorant person on earth the most difficult thing you have ever learned, how would you go about doing it? With chocolate as incentive.
Fannish 5: What 5 series/books/movies can you rewatch/reread time and again?
1. The Tempest, the only play of Shakespeare's that I think actually reads better than it plays.
2. Star Trek, no bloody A, B, C, D or E...the original.
3. A Wrinkle In Time, Madeleine L'Engle's masterpiece, which I read several hundred times before college.
4. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, though if time were no object, I would reread all 20 Aubrey/Maturin books regularly.
5. Jesus Christ Superstar, to which it took me a while to warm up after Evita -- whose original Broadway cast album I listened to once a day throughout high school, and which I have seen on every stage from the National Theatre to a local high school with great pleasure -- but as movies and movie soundtracks go, JCS never fails to delight.
A white stork in the Maryland Zoo's Africa region.
Two African rhinoceroses (rhinoceri?) and an ostrich.
Two adult female giraffes and a young male, the newest addition to the colony.
Polar bear sleeping in the sun in the Arctic region.
Mother camel nursing a baby. Her mate gives rides -- kids can ride on him.
Last weekend, Baltimore's Druid Park opened a new bike path that runs right past the zoo.
Zookeepers and volunteers brought out animals to greet the first bikers...
...including a kookaburra, toucan, tortoise, rabbit and chicken.
Friday night TV was wonderful -- I was going to watch Battlestar Galactica no matter what because of Nana Visitor, but I actually enjoyed the episode more than the last, oh, twenty or so, even if it's no Sarah Jane Adventures. Spoilers: The second part of "Warriors of Kudlak" did such a lovely job paying tribute to Star Trek, too. "Yeah, right, like 'Beam me up, Scotty,'" scoffs one of Luke's new friends among the kids kidnapped from the laser tag place, and then, when they find out where they are and Luke asks for a cell phone, "We're in space, Luke! Who're you gonna ring? Have you got the number for Captain Kirk?"
And there were other lovely moments, like Sarah Jane looking out at Earth with Maria instead of the Doctor this time and saying she thought she'd never see such a sight again, then adding, "Maybe if everybody could see the Earth from up here, they'd appreciate it more." And turning into Warrior Mom! "My name is Sarah Jane Smith and I want my son back!" Interesting that in the next episode she chooses Maria rather than Luke as the person she trusts the most, though there's so much Luke doesn't know about being human that it makes a kind of sense, though of course I just love the female bonding. And then Sarah Jane vanishes with the Dementor, no, the Nazgul, and Maria has to save the world again all by herself! What an awesome girl. I am going to be so sad when Sci-Fi runs out of episodes.
I'd seen "Planet of the Ood" before so I had the annoying experience again of noticing cuts, but that's still a fantastic episode, so many moments I love. Spoilers: I really want the music for that episode, and I love Donna's journey from fear to "You've got a box, he's got a Ferrari" to the lecture she gives the Doctor about judging humans to wanting to go home to hearing the Ood sing with joy.
Then there's BSG. Where the women are still batshit crazy. Should it make me feel better that most of the men are at least moderately batshit crazy as well? Spoilers: If one Six is losing it over who killed her, does that have implications for the rest of the Sixes, especially since Cavil already thinks she's almost as crazy as the Threes? (Gratuitous lesbian kissing thank you very much.) Meanwhile the dying women may have their medication to blame for their craziness but they're listening to Baltar the Messiah -- even LAURA is listening to Baltar the Messiah, and it makes me want to puke. Not even that lovely scene at the end between her and Bill could get rid of the bad taste of that.
Okay, I think I have answered my own question, because Bill is not batshit crazy and Lee is not batshit crazy and Helo is not batshit crazy, and even though maybe none of them will be inspired genius-nutters like Starbuck, they also won't ever be, well, genius-nutters. My favorite female, Sharon, isn't batshit crazy but the Eights clearly have issues of their own. Nope, still not feeling good about the show, but I certainly wasn't bored and if Lucy Lawless is really coming back, that alone may keep me happy enough to see it through to the end. Though I reserve the right to change my mind.
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