By Federico García Lorca
Translated by Robert Bly
I want to sleep the sleep of the apples,
I want to get far away from the busyness of the cemeteries.
I want to sleep the sleep of that child
who longed to cut his heart open far out at sea.
I don't want them to tell me again how the corpse keeps all its blood,
how the decaying mouth goes on begging for water.
I'd rather not hear about the torture sessions the grass arranges for
nor about how the moon does all its work before dawn
with its snakelike nose.
I want to sleep for half a second,
a second, a minute, a century,
but I want everyone to know that I am still alive,
that I have a golden manger inside my lips,
that I am the little friend of the west wind,
that I am the elephantine shadow of my own tears.
When it's dawn just throw some sort of cloth over me
because I know dawn will toss fistfuls of ants at me,
and pour a little hard water over my shoes
so that the scorpion claws of the dawn will slip off.
Because I want to sleep the sleep of the apples,
and learn a mournful song that will clean all earth away from me,
because I want to live with that shadowy child
who longed to cut his heart open far out at sea.
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On what is frequently one of the worst shopping days of the year, I had to venture into a shopping mall because son's orthodontist's office is there and he had broken a bracket. Fortunately, I got an appointment early enough that it wasn't too much of a zoo. I brought our packages for Paul's brothers to mail at the post office in the mall and waited maybe 20 minutes, so by the time I got upstairs to the orthodontist, son was already in the back having his braces repaired. There were high school teachers both in front of me and behind me in line at the post office -- we all ended up chatting while we waited -- and the dentist's office was far less crowded than the late afternoon we were last there. Afterward, I took back roads to bypass the mess on Rockville Pike and took the kids to Lebanese Taverna for lunch, then stopped at Whole Foods to get some things we needed before heading home.
Having been stuck mostly in the house for the past many days, I have no really exciting photos to post, so here are Rosie and Daisy being adorable again and sharing the coat this time.
And here are Daisy and Cinnamon vying for turns to drink out of the sink in my bathroom...
...where evidence of Daisy's invasion of the tub moments after I stepped out of the shower could be seen on the floor mat.
Also, I got fabulous holiday mail on Wednesday! Sra Danvers sent me this necklace and earrings!
And Ribby not only sent me homemade holiday cookies...
...but a penguin from the Monterey Bay Aquarium! We met their penguins last summer so younger son was very pleased about this. Huge thanks to everyone who sent me holiday cards -- there were many penguin cards this year in particular!
This was a belated birthday present -- after I saw The Princess and the Frog last week, I went looking to see whether Disney had actually licensed a Tarot deck based on the one used in the film. So far it seems that they have not, but they gave out this fortune-telling game as a promo to D23 early premiere guests, and some of those people sold them on eBay.
And these are some of the Brighton charms and spacers my mother got me for my birthday. I picked these out -- I love ladybugs, and I love red.
Paul found out because the Japanese stock market was closed that it was the Emperor's birthday, so he made chicken yakitori for dinner. Afterward we all watched Throw Momma From the Train, not a movie I actually like -- it's very misogynstic and must be enjoyed only with one's brain turned completely off (I actually feel that way about a number of Billy Crystal movies, give me Adam Sandler's crudeness over Crystal's subtle woman-bashing any day) -- but there are fun Hitchcock references scattered throughout the film, Danny DeVito and Ann Ramsey give wonderful performances (watching it again I swear Ramsey was the prototype for Peter Jackson's Gollum), and I always get a kick out of Kate Mulgrew playing a shallow bitch breezily chatting with Oprah and getting it on with the gardener. I'm bummed about Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, but hey, it's Hollywood.
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