Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Poem for Tuesday and Downtown Squirrels

The Decorative Airport Fern Is Not What It Pretends to Be
By Jennifer L. Knox

and it takes me a triple-take to realize its scanning
me, or something near my ear—that must be it. No plant’s
ever complimented my perfume—wait—there it goes
again. Did you see that? [Time passes, drinks] "Sure, I
remember when I thought you were a fern but you were!
Who could blame me?" I tell the what’s now a magnificent
purple tetrahedron, eggplant-sized cilia straining at its corners, just
a hint of ferniness remains in its fingertips—enough to blush.
We hug goodbye. The scent of flowers lingers around me
the next day. Flying home, a decorative airport fern that really
is a decorative airport fern says, "You smell nice." I don’t
believe it, but it's still a happy
ending.

--------

After weeks of delays because she had car issues, I finally got to see Dementordelta! We debated going out to lunch or out to the movies, but we ended up picking up samosas and crepes in the mall after a bit of girly shopping and coming home for a Paul Gross day -- first Passchendaele, which was a lot grittier than I expected (I'd read a review somewhere that the love story was cliched, which I didn't think was the case at all; my only issue was with the heavy handed religious imagery during the battle), then Gunless, which was hilarious (and I didn't even know Callum was in it, that's how uninformed I am).

It snowed all afternoon, though we had only rain forecast and the temperature never got anywhere near freezing -- it only stuck on plants and mulch, not on the street, but though it looked lovely, we got a little nervous late in the afternoon based on the sheer amount that seemed to be falling. However, I convinced Delta to stay and we decided we really needed a New Year viewing of The King's Speech. I would like to report that it is still awesome. In the evening we watched the Windsor Castle episode of The Queen's Palaces on PBS, then the BCS Championship Game. I did not actually care who won the Alabama-LSU game; Alabama is generally one of my least-favorite college teams, but I'm not particularly an LSU fan, they had a home team advantage, and I like things that make the BCS rankings a mess!


We saw several squirrels while we were downtown over the weekend.


Adam stopped to photograph one...


...and promptly found himself being begged for food.


Clearly these squirrels had no fear of humans...


...as apparently even our garbage is a constant food source for them.


Though it looked like they had plenty buried in the mulch...


...and did not mind getting food on their faces.


And look how adorable.

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