By James Schuyler
Detected little things: a peach-pit
basket watch-chain charm, an ivory
cross wound with ivory ivy, a natural
cross. The Tatoosh Mountains, opaque
crater lakes, a knickerbockered boy
who, drowned, smiles for a seeming ever
on ice skates on ice-skate-scratched
ice, an enlarged scratched snapshot.
Taken, taken. Mad charges corrupt to
madness their sane nurses. Virginia
creeper, Loose Tooth tanned black snake-
skins, shot crows for crow wings for
a black servant's hat, lapped hot milk,
flung mud in a Bible reader's crotch:
"You shouldn't read the Bible nekkid!"
Family opals, selfishness changes hands.
Tatoosh Mountains, opaque crater lakes,
find me the fish skeleton enclosed in
a fish skeleton (fish ate fish) he had.
--------
Another from this week's New Yorker.
I don't have a great deal to report from my day -- did four loads of laundry including the beach stuff from the weekend, sorted the remainder of the clothes for pickup by VVA tomorrow, folded most of the laundry while watching an episode of Pushing Daisies on DVD ("Comfort Food" -- the one where Kristen Chenoweth sings "Eternal Flame"). Also watched Obama on the White House's streaming feed while eating lunch so I could talk to my kids about the speech, which everyone got to see in this county without a permission slip (we were only supposed to send a note if we did NOT want our children to watch). As it turns out, Daniel was at lunch while Obama was speaking and playing cards rather than paying attention; Adam watched on the interactive Promethean Board in his classroom, didn't think it was one of Obama's better speeches, which I think is true, though I also think that Adam's middle school was not the primary target audience; a very high percentage of kids go to college right out of high school in this area, and I'm sure Obama kept the speech bland and general on purpose so the idiots accusing him of Democratic Party recruitment would look as ridiculous as they've sounded this past week.
Evening was pretty quiet too. Paul made stroganoff for dinner, Daniel regaled us with interesting anecdotes from his world history textbook, Adam saw a bunny while out walking with friends and regaled us with hilarious disasters from FailBlog. We watched The Universe episode "The Day the Moon Was Gone" on the History Channel -- I was hoping they'd talk a bit more about what life would be like (if indeed life would exist) if Earth didn't have a moon, rather than graphics of disastrous monsoons engulfing Florida -- I could not help but think of "Breakaway" from Space: 1999, in which the moon goes sailing out of Earth's orbit -- but it still had some interesting things we didn't know, like the fact that the Earth's core is larger than would be expected if we didn't have a moon. Then we watched this week's "Warehouse 13," which I found a lot more engaging than last week's, maybe because Artie was playing Skinner to Cancer Man's cronies while Pete, Myka and Claudia were left to play on their own.
The light on the water was spectacular late in the afternoon Saturday at Flag Ponds State Park.
It was a bright, sunny day that turned into a glorious autumn evening...
...and the Chesapeake Bay water was as warm as the air.
We could see nearby Calvert Cliffs and the nuclear power plant there. I visited it in high school, but it's no longer open to the public.
As are the dunes for much of the Atlantic shore, the Chesapeake dunes are protected.
The ordinary waves at Flag Ponds are tiny, though, with a high tide only once a day, and one can wade a quarter mile offshore without getting wet above the waist.
In the evening we went to dinner on the Solomons waterfront...
...and saw a gorgeous sunset driving away from the Eastern Shore.
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