By Rachel Hadas
Blue January light, cold, scoured, clear.
From the Sandia foothills looking down
and back to where I came from, and the town
spread out below, then back to the past year,
or three or more years carrying this load,
how do I feel unburdened: free and light?
Unanchored, dizzy, my precarious tight-
rope lowered to a mere terrestrial road?
The blank new month requires divination.
Sword, wand, ship, sandal: at the Flying Star
(we talk our way along; improvisation),
the cards laid out spell struggle, choice, and pain;
also a white horse champing in a green
meadow; a maiden moving down a long dark stair.
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We planned a low-key last day of the year, which is just as well because there was an ice storm in the morning and it was so windy all day that the city of Baltimore canceled the Harborplace fireworks for fear of burning something down. I went out with the kids to Barnes & Noble, where I had a disagreement with the manager, which I ultimately won, about the fact that before the holidays they promised a two-week return period after the holidays, but today they were claiming it was two weeks from date of purchase. Then we went to Bath & Body Works (whose semiannual sale has Fresh Vanilla lotion for $3!) and Target, which was on the agenda because Adam wanted to get a ski mask to keep his face warm while playing outside, and which Cidercupcakes had alerted me was selling seasons of Arrested Development for $17, whoo!
Before we went out, however, we thought we might be stuck in the house due to a hailstorm.
It had been a fairly sunny morning, but the sky grew very dark just as the storm hit.
None of the ice stuck around long because it was above freezing, but we got decent-sized pellets.
The cats were not happy about all the noise the ice made while it was falling.
They are always happiest when Paul comes home early, as he did today.
Cinnamon's favorite spot is the fishie cat bed...
...while Daisy has been known to sleep anywhere, including the kids' dirty sink.
This cat is not one of ours, but a wanderer that we saw on a porch in Brunswick near the train tracks.
Paul decided that we should celebrate New Year's Eve properly, so we had lobster tail for dinner, along with the sangria that DementorDelta gave me for my birthday (well, the kids did not get any of the latter). We spent the evening having a Futurama fest following tonight's rerun of The Simpsons, the episode with The Poseidon Adventure parody -- hee! In between episodes we checked football scores, but there's no way I would have made it till midnight watching bowl games. At a quarter to, we put on Dick Clark, except Ryan Seacrest was the host, but I guess that's how it goes, generationally!
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