Poem for Saturday, Sheep and Wool, Infinite Vulcan

Near Misses
By Laura Kasischke

The truck that swerved to miss the stroller in which I slept.

My mother turning from the laundry basket just in time to see me open the third-story window to call to the cat.

In the car, on ice, something spinning and made of history snatched me back from the guardrail and set me down between two gentle trees. And that time I thought to look both ways on the one-way street.

And when the doorbell rang, and I didn’t answer, and just before I slipped one night into a drunken dream, I remembered to blow out the candle burning on the table beside me.

It's a miracle, I tell you, this middle-aged woman scanning the cans on the grocery store shelf. Hidden in the works of a mysterious clock are her many deaths, and yet the whole world is piled up before her on a banquet table again today. The timer, broken. The sunset smeared across the horizon in the girlish cursive of the ocean, Forever, For You.

And still she can offer only her body as proof:

The way it moves a little slower every day. And the cells, ticking away. A crow pecking at a sweater. The last hour waiting patiently on a tray for her somewhere in the future. The spoon slipping quietly into the beautiful soup.

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It's Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday (sorry, it is Adam's fault that I said that). Mine was uneventful. Daniel did not sleep as late as he did on Thursday, but we had a quiet morning of bagels and internet work -- he was researching computers, I was writing a review of "The Infinite Vulcan". In the afternoon, at his request, we watched Airplane II: The Sequel, which has so many wonderful moments even if it's not quite as funny as the first one: Shatner's pep talk, the 2001 parodies, "The Earth cooled, and then the dinosaurs came..."

We had dinner with my parents -- Greek food, which was great, and it's my father's birthday on Saturday so there was cake too. At home Daniel wanted to watch Monty Python, so we had on the Elizabethan Pornography Smugglers episode in which Philip Sidney catches his wife reading Gay Boys in Bondage and says how lucky they are to have such a poet on these shores when she claims it's by Shakespeare and is about man's love for his fellow men. We also had a huge thunderstorm that knocked branches down all over our neighborhood -- we had to drive home the long way around because half a tree was across the road -- but our power stayed on, so I am not complaining.

The Friday Five: Cooking Ingredients
1. What is your favorite condiment? Chutney.
2. What is your favorite spice? Dill.
3. What is your favorite cooking oil? (Canola oil, sesame oil, butter, etc.) Depends on the other ingredients.
4. What is your favorite starchy food? (Bread, rice, potatoes, noodles, etc.) I've never met a starch I didn't like.
5. What is your favorite flavor for candy? There are flavors other than chocolate?

Fannish5: Five unfortunate uses of pregnancy as a plot device.
I reserve the right to move Doctor Who to the top of this list at any time.
1. Nymphadora Tonks in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
2. Deanna Troi in "The Child" (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
3. Gabrielle in "Gabrielle's Hope" (Xena: Warrior Princess)
4. Martha Kent in "Exodus" (Smallville)
5. Quinn Fabray in "Preggers" (Glee)

Here are a few last photos from the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, including some of the craftspeople and Maggie Sansone performing on hammered dulcimer with other local musicians: