By Susan Wheeler
So long gone had I been
that when I returned
I did not know me, the one
who called—warily, through the trees,
as I approached like a thief or a
ground mole—Who is it?
I saw her whiten in the doorway,
she could have been my cousin.
Linda, is that you?
That’s what I answered.
From the lintel she took me in, the length
of me, with my one good eye.
Nearing her, I was a worm on end, an indigent.
That was when I knew I had arrived.
The last step is the longest, impassably long, now I will always
be twinned, wanting
to not know returning.
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I had plans with Gblvr but she woke up not feeling well, so we postponed and I had a pretty quiet day, though not a bad one. I received my replacement Shadowscapes Tarot from Amazon.com to replace the one they sent me with cards missing, and it's just as stunning as the work on the artist's web site. Plus I went back to look at the web site because I remembered that she had rough sketches of the cards and discovered that this deck has an online Happy Squirrel card, which makes me very happy -- I collect decks with Happy Squirrel cards and am hoping she'll put up a PDF like the creators of the Victoria Regina and Revelations Tarot decks did for a printable version. (The Touchstone Tarot has an actual glossy Happy Squirrel in the deck!)
I have no idea what possessed me in the afternoon -- it must have been in honor of the absent Gblvr and of Robin West, whose birthday it was, since both of whom love Sandra Bullock -- but while I was doing chores, I put on The Proposal, which showed up when I was searching On Demand to see whether anyone had Flatland, which Adam saw at school and really wants to see again. (Both my kids are having fabulous weeks -- Daniel had no high school assessment exams this year so he got to go to Puzzlepalooza and play, while Adam got to watch movies and have a party geometry class while the algebra students were taking that HSA.) I liked The Proposal much better than I expected, since it was less sexist than the previews made it seem; I thought it was going to be "career woman needs to be taken down a peg by the right man," not "woman who grew up without family bonds with Betty White." And really I prefer Bullock playing a bitch to someone who's supposed to be sweet, which she has never once convinced me that she is. (How much can you complain when your husband cheats if he was married to someone else when you met him and he cheated with you? Meeeow!)
Anyway, in the course of all the On Demand-searching, we discovered that the Science Channel's Sci-Trek was available, and since Adam is reading Michio Kaku for fun, we watched a few episodes in the evening. I am still largely clueless about brane theory, how a starship might be powered, or why stargates make more sense scientifically than a matter-energy transporter, but it was fun and interesting to hear Kaku explain different states of matter, and we got a kick out of the fact that he opened an episode in the funky "starlit" passage with the moving walkway between the National Gallery of Art and the East Wing. Here are some more photos from Flights of Fancy, Brookside Gardens' butterfly exhibit, plus the gardens outside:
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