Poem for Wednesday

Che Fece...Il Gran Rifiuto
By Constantine P. Cavafy
Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard

For some people there's a day
when they have to come out with the great Yes
or the great No. It's clear at once
who has the Yes ready in him; and saying it,

he goes on to find honor, strong in his conviction.
He who refuses never repents. Asked again,
he'd still say no. Yet that no -- the right answer --
defeats him the whole of his life.

--------

I did not accomplish my major goal for Tuesday, which was to find awesome yet inexpensive new slippers -- I found nice warm organic expensive slippers and cheap acrylic fuzzy slippers, but not the perfect pair. My only other big activity was sorting, cropping, aligning and printing out photos of Adam's science experiment about whether plastic wrap, aluminum foil, or various types of bags did the best job keeping apple slices fresh. My printer was misbehaving, so the photos look quite red, but we'll get glossies before the science fair poster board -- this is just to turn in the results. This is what being sick reduces me to. Well, being sick and having a funeral to attend on Wednesday. The person who died is a very old friend of my parents' -- very old as in long-time friend, he wasn't yet 70 so not very old at all, and he was only diagnosed with cancer four months ago -- the father of someone with whom I grew up and graduated from high school.


Main Street Annapolis during the Midnight Madness shopping event last Thursday.


Here, decorated for the season, is the 1776 Maryland Inn, which housed delegates to the 1783-84 U.S. Congress in Annapolis for the ratification of the Treaty of Paris.


And another view of the still-operating inn and tavern, with the roof of the Maryland State House visible to the left.


Even at night, the State House -- the oldest state capitol building still in continuous legislative use -- dominates the center of the city.


The beautiful Georgian Reynolds Tavern, the oldest in Annapolis and one of the oldest in the U.S., has a historic pub in the cellar amidst the original foundation walls.


The stores in the downtown shopping district were all decorated for the holidays, like this jewelry store with a model train display surrounding the merchandise.


The Annapolis Ice Cream Company always has a penguin theme, but it was decorated for the season.

Last night we watched the second season finale of The Sarah Jane Adventures, which would make me sad except I'm going to watch the whole thing over again on Sci-Fi to keep up the ratings and unlike the vast majority of shows I like, it's coming back next year. Spoilers: I didn't love this two-parter nearly as much as the previous one -- if the threat of Luke being taken away is going to end every season, it's going to get a bit tiresome. I don't much like the sexual politics -- Rani's once mother again as mindless victim, Mrs. Wormwood equating the feminine with motherhood and warrior strength with masculinity (which the respective genders of the officials bear out as much as the Sontaran).

And I really don't like Mrs. Wormwood playing Dark Doctor, trying to persuade Luke to be her companion as well as her chosen son -- not because it reflects poorly upon her, but because it highlights all the weirdness of the Doctor picking up young women to escort around the universe, part father figure and part superhero. It's a bit dangerous to be casting Mrs. Wormwood as the White Witch with Edmund ("Sit beside your mother and preside over all creation, you are my prince") when the Doctor's lines are sometimes so similar.

Still, there are some things I really like -- Luke's dismissal of the notion of fate, Clyde's kindness to the Sontaran saving the world, and Sarah Jane's attitude through it all ("I always suspected that Maj Kilburn was a slimy creep." "People who understand love don't want to crush planets or take over the universe." "Do I look like the kind of girl who only has one lipstick?") Plus I'm a sucker for stories about neolithic stone circles that are secretly super-weapons -- was it Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh where Stonehenge could be used as a giant death ray? I'm a bit concerned at the lackadaisical alien-infiltrated security surrounding Britain's greatest secrets, but hey, we knew about that from Torchwood, right?

As for this week's Brotherhood, I am highly amused that the mob is furious believing that Tommy's on a moral high horse about keeping the waterfront clean while Declan thinks Tommy is behind all corruption surrounding the waterfront development. Michael really seems like a minor player at the moment, even if Freddy says he's the top of the chain of command. And I still think everyone is going to die horribly. That said, I want to know two things: is there really a miniature golf course in Providence with a volcano that "erupts" for a hole in one, and who's the general on the Civil War chess piece Declan's staring down at the end?