Poem for Wednesday and ArtsFest

Rat Song
By Margaret Atwood

When you hear me singing
you get the rifle down
and the flashlight, aiming for my brain,  
but you always miss
and when you set out the poison  
I piss on it
to warn the others.

You think: That one’s too clever,  
she’s dangerous, because
I don’t stick around to be slaughtered  
and you think I’m ugly too
despite my fur and pretty teeth  
and my six nipples and snake tail.  
All I want is love, you stupid  
humanist. See if you can.

Right, I’m a parasite, I live off your  
leavings, gristle and rancid fat,  
I take without asking
and make nests in your cupboards  
out of your suits and underwear.  
You’d do the same if you could,

if you could afford to share  
my crystal hatreds.
It’s your throat I want, my mate  
trapped in your throat.
Though you try to drown him  
with your greasy person voice,
he is hiding / between your syllables  
I can hear him singing.

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I got to see younger son briefly on Tuesday, which was nice -- we needed to drop off his fall clothes and take his bike to be repaired (yes, we did just do that, but the chain broke again), so we took him out to lunch at Rasoi, whose lunch buffet is as excellent as its dinner choices if not better because there's more variety for everyone. He had a good time at the hackathon (he got to eat poutine) and he's thinking about minoring in astronomy, something that has always interested him. The weather was gorgeous, we saw several deer in the neighborhood and lots of zippy chipmunks trying to GRAB ALL THE ACORNS before the squirrels get them. We had a haphazard dinner of leftovers because we were still pretty full from lunch.

For our Tuesday night premiere week TV watching, we started with The Muppets, but it was so terrible that we didn't make it through the first half hour. It was sexist, mean-spirited, more like Ted than past Muppets, and I actually liked Scream Queens better for a few minutes when we switched channels before that too went way over the top. Then we tried Limitless, which was okay -- nothing offensive or ruinous to its previous incarnation, but somewhat cliched in all the character interactions and not grabbing me the way Minority Report did...not even the way Blindspot did, since I'm looking forward to the second episode of that more than the next Limitless. Some more photos of art from ArtsFest at Annmarie Gardens:

















Have a good fast if you're observing Yom Kippur!