By H.D.
Amber husk
fluted with gold,
fruit on the sand
marked with a rich grain,
treasure
spilled near the shrub-pines
to bleach on the boulders:
your stalk has caught root
among wet pebbles
and drift flung by the sea
and grated shells
and split conch-shells.
Beautiful, wide-spread,
fire upon leaf,
what meadow yields
so fragrant a leaf
as your bright leaf?
--------
I had a lovely afternoon with Cidercupcakes and her mom, whom I have not seen since she left for Australia two years ago! We went out to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory because we wanted to make sure we could get good desserts, but then we got too full for dessert eating soup and chili and noodles and things, and we ended up taking the cheesecake to go. Then we came back to my house and they introduced me to Arrested Development, which I had never seen -- I had a brief moment of trauma when I realized that one of the three executive producers was someone with whom I went to elementary school, but I haven't seen him or spoken to him since before college, so it's not really possible for me to connect anything he produces with anything I remember about him, anyway. We all agreed that Angela Petrelli should be way more like Lucille Bluth.
Many of my friends obviously know my family, because several people sent me a link to this article (or the Yahoo version) about a newly discovered penguin species hunted to extinction in New Zealand about 500 years ago and how the very threatened yellow-eyed penguin probably replaced its habitat. And speaking of nature education, I got a belated comment in my blog from rattlerjen, a.k.a. Jennifer of Reptiles Alive, who had seen my photos of her and various animals at Rock Creek Park Day a few weeks ago.
Jennifer shows off a Reptiles Alive bullfrog.
Here she is with a toad -- like the frog, an amphibian rather than a reptile, but still very popular with kids.
Now, this box turtle is a reptile...
...as of course is the king snake.
This turtle is a permanent resident at Rock Creek Park Nature Center.
This screech owl was brought by the Raptor Conservancy of Virginia.
Here is presenter Linda with a Harris hawk...
...and a smaller broad-shouldered hawk injured in an accident.
TV was great this evening -- first this week's Sarah Jane Adventures, the first half of a sequel to an episode from last season, touching on themes from my very favorite new Who episode, Father's Day, and giving us new backstory on Sarah Jane...plus Clyde had fabulous lines, which always pleases me. Spoilers: I howled at Sarah Jane's justification for not worrying about the butterfly effect when she traveled with the Doctor -- "he knew what he was doing most of the time" -- and I like that she knows the rules Rose didn't, like that she can't touch herself as a baby. It's aggravating that she knows it's a trap, and rationalizes traveling back in time to find out who's behind the trap, but then forgets to be looking for the trap in her eagerness to see her parents, but at the same time, it's something the Doctor would do -- how many times did he let someone use his attachment to a companion or someone else to distract him?
And I love that the boy villain looks like Harry Potter before he turns into the Graske, and that Clyde makes young padawan and spider sense jokes, and that Sarah Jane and Luke introduce themselves to her parents as Victoria and David Beckham. And poor Big Ben gets destroyed AGAIN -- I love how that's always the symbol of the bad alternate future for Britain. But what I love most of all is that Sarah Jane shares things with Luke that she never told the Doctor or anyone else -- she doesn't treat him like a son, exactly, because he's much too perfectly behaved as well as her intellectual equal, but she does treat him as family, and knows enough to let him come with her when he insists.
Then we watched Pushing Daisies, which made me very happy by having lots of Lily and Vivian Charles, even though I'm sad that they're estranged sisters this season instead of euphemistic sisters. Spoilers: I really like Ned's pathetic half-brothers. It cracks me up that he identifies with Ralston because thinking of their dad makes Ned throw up and used to make Ralston wet himself, though Ned is surprised to learn that Ralston outgrew his bodily fluid problem, while Ned is popping lozenges all episode. I suppose this was the oral fixation episode -- the Geek rationalizing murder by declaring, "I would have eaten anything for that man!" I wish the magic itself had been more a part of the mystery a la The Prestige (oh, and my whole family laughed when Emerson said, "A magic show! Where did I put that rat's ass I could give?") but overall it was one of the season's more fun episodes, particularly with the touching end where Olive stood in for Chuck with Vivian while Lily was out on a secret date. If this show gets canceled, I hope it has time to wrap some of these loose ends up first!
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