Poem for Wednesday

Penelope
By Dorothy Parker

In the pathway of the sun,
  In the footsteps of the breeze,
Where the world and sky are one,
  He shall ride the silver seas,
    He shall cut the glittering wave.
I shall sit at home, and rock;
Rise, to heed a neighbor's knock;
Brew my tea, and snip my thread;
Bleach the linen for my bed.
    They will call him brave.

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Ferdelance said that Jack Gilbert's "The Abnormal Is Not Courage" reminded her of this. Incidentally, if anyone ever has any poems they think I should be posting, please send them on -- I posted most of my favorites 3-4 years ago, and am always looking for new ones!

I completely forgot over the weekend that Adam had half-days of school Tuesday and Wednesday of this week for parent-teacher conferences, so I had him home at noon today. The good news is that he brought home a report card with straight As, even in honors algebra, something I was lucky to squeak by with Bs in when I was his age. I dragged him to Target with the promise that we'd look at Bionicles, but they didn't have the one he wanted, so after I bought him gloves and various other things we needed, we came home so he could finish his homework before Hebrew school. By then Daniel was home, with a report card that was not quite perfect but was still quite good, so it must be counted as a good afternoon.


A bat carving on National Cathedral.


An upside-down dragon gargoyle.


A gargoyle in the shape of clasped hands.


Some reminders of the fallen state of the world (I think the snake is beating the chicken).


The underside of a goat gargoyle.


A winged dragon.


A gargoyle based on one of the construction overseers, who apparently was not thrilled at this portrayal of himself.


There are literally dozens of gargoyles and grotesques all around the building!

My evening consisted of The Sarah Jane Adventures, Merlin, and Brotherhood, all of which I enjoyed, though Brotherhood really is such an inherent downer that I should always watch it early enough to watch something happier afterward (tonight it was Stewart and Colbert). Sarah Jane made me quite happy even though, for the second week in a row, the title character wasn't involved in the majority of the action: that was all right, though, because I had no idea that Maria and her dad would be back! In DC, with the Capitol Building in the episode! There were many, many delightful moments in "Mark of the Berserker, Part Two" -- Luke surprised to hear that Berserkers of Norse mythology are aliens, the kids discovering that their school site was once a barracks destroyed by a German bomb, and of course Sarah Jane chasing a giant three-eyed sluggie through a hospital promising she's going to find it. And while the ending was awfully pat, I was glad that Clyde realized he's a much better man than his father is.

Merlin: The Legendary Journeys is just plain fun -- even when it's bad, it's fantastic, like the low-budget Buckbeak playing the Gryphon and Uther in the role of Denethor in "Lancelot" (I'm not sure who the Orcs are yet in this one, hee). Merlin is playing Paul Bettany's Chaucer from A Knight's Tale -- he is often channeling Paul Bettany, but here it's a direct riff -- while Lancelot himself is scripted as Sir Ulrich von Liechtenstein, though prettier and without Heath Ledger's depth. It's very, very entertaining, particularly when Lancelot and Arthur are sitting thisclosetogether and pretending they find the girls attractive.

Whereas Brotherhood is more real and gritty than I find at all interesting -- maybe Providence really does have the highest homicide rate for lawyers in the nation, but I really don't like all the whacking-and-coverup that goes on. I really do enjoy Eileen, though, coming in, tripping over her child's bike (raises hand), finding dirty clothes strewn in the living room (raises hand), seeing dishes in the sink (raises hand)...I'm still holding Eileen at a distance because I figure the drugs and the cheating will return as soon as the writers decide it'll serve the drama, but boy do I relate to her sometimes!