Saturday, August 07, 2010

Poem for Saturday and Wild Animals

Hurry
By Marie Howe


We stop at the dry cleaners and the grocery store
and the gas station and the green market and
Hurry up, honey, I say, hurry hurry,
as she runs along two or three steps behind me,
her blue jacket unzipped and her socks rolled down
as she likes them.

Where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave?
To mine? Where one day she might stand all grown?

Today, when all the errands are finally done, I say to her
Honey, I'm sorry I keep saying Hurry –
you walk ahead of me. You be the mother.

And Hurry up, she says, over her shoulder, looking
back at me, laughing. Hurry up now darling, she says
hurry, hurry, taking the house keys from my hands.

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Most of my Friday was occupied with three things: writing an article, driving kids places, and visiting the baby bird. The first took longer than usual because it was a review of a two-part episode, Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Gambit", which I always want to like better than I do; Stewart and Frakes are both terrific in it, but it's an awfully thin story for a final-season two-parter and doesn't serve the characters well. The driving involved taking Daniel to Silver Spring, from which he carpooled to Baltimore for a robotics competition; the Beltway was a nightmare, and I wound up with a headache I never really shook off later in the day.

Adam and I stopped at a few stores for supplies for us and for the baby bird, who is still eating plenty and growing and being adorable. We got some baby applesauce and paper towels for Rose and offered to do her bird laundry, since she had run out of towels and baby blankets after staying up half the night feeding Itty Bitty Birdie. Adam and his friend Daniel went looking for worms to feed the bird, though none of us wanted to be the one to puree the worms into baby bird food. We tried to watch Eureka in the evening because it's a sequel to this week's Warehouse 13, but although Claudia was in the episode, I found it hard to follow without ever having seen the show before.

Fannish5: Name your five favorite evil characters.
Any good actor will tell you there are no good or evil characters, just people who need and want different things than other people.
1. Kai Winn, Deep Space Nine
2. Lucius Malfoy, Harry Potter
3. The Sheriff of Nottingham, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
4. Callisto, Xena: Warrior Princess
5. Lucifer, The Prophecy

Maryland Zoo elephants, giraffes, and camels, because elephants, giraffes, and camels are awesome:















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