Poem for the New Year

The Year's Awakening 

By Thomas Hardy 

How do you know that the pilgrim track

Along the belting zodiac

Swept by the sun in his seeming rounds

Is traced by now to the Fishes’ bounds

And into the Ram, when weeks of cloud

Have wrapt the sky in a clammy shroud,

And never as yet a tinct of spring

Has shown in the Earth’s apparelling;

     O vespering bird, how do you know,

          How do you know?

How do you know, deep underground,

Hid in your bed from sight and sound,

Without a turn in temperature,

With weather life can scarce endure,

That light has won a fraction’s strength,

And day put on some moments’ length,

Whereof in merest rote will come,

Weeks hence, mild airs that do not numb;

     O crocus root, how do you know,

          How do you know?

-------- 

I had a fairly quiet final day of 2024. Paul worked half a day, so I did chores in the morning, then we ate lunch while watching Michigan beat Alabama. In the afternoon, we did some shopping (I bought two dresses to wear for wedding events, plus two pairs of extremely discounted Kohl's holiday pyjamas and a sweater). I got home late for my usual Tuesday night call, but since only three of us were there, we didn't watch Voyager, just chatted for a while. 

Cheryl and I watched Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, which had even more plot holes than previous weeks (what kind of pirate planet demolishes working ships instead of selling them or stripping them for parts?) but is still fun Goonies in Space. Then Paul and I got in the mood for the Rankin-Bass Tolkien movies, so we put on The Hobbit, which is always better than I expect. Now people are shooting off fireworks across the lake, though it's not midnight yet!

Poem for Monday and Marymoor Park

Year’s End 

By Richard Wilbur 

Now winter downs the dying of the year,   

And night is all a settlement of snow;

From the soft street the rooms of houses show   

A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere,   

Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin   

And still allows some stirring down within.

I’ve known the wind by water banks to shake

The late leaves down, which frozen where they fell   

And held in ice as dancers in a spell   

Fluttered all winter long into a lake;   

Graved on the dark in gestures of descent,   

They seemed their own most perfect monument.

There was perfection in the death of ferns   

Which laid their fragile cheeks against the stone   

A million years. Great mammoths overthrown   

Composedly have made their long sojourns,   

Like palaces of patience, in the gray

And changeless lands of ice. And at Pompeii

The little dog lay curled and did not rise   

But slept the deeper as the ashes rose

And found the people incomplete, and froze   

The random hands, the loose unready eyes   

Of men expecting yet another sun

To do the shapely thing they had not done.

These sudden ends of time must give us pause.   

We fray into the future, rarely wrought

Save in the tapestries of afterthought.

More time, more time. Barrages of applause   

Come muffled from a buried radio.

The New-year bells are wrangling with the snow.

-------- 

Monday was damp but not as rainy as Sunday -- lots of water in the air but not falling. I had laundry and various other chores to get done in the morning, which I did while watching the Music City Bowl, unfortunately won by Missouri over Iowa, but at least it was close for the Big 10 team; then after lunch we took a walk to Idylwood, where the beach is still closed but as a result there are many ducks hanging out at the lake shore. 

We watched most of Monday Night Football around dinner, rooting for the Lions since it won't affect any teams we care about more than them (it's too late for the 49ers anyway). We lit the sixth night Chanukah candles and now we're watching Alien: Romulus, which was pretty good (I demand a lot of sci-fi in my horror and a lot of brave women, which I got, though it's no Aliens). At Marymoor yesterday, storm remnants and heron nests:

Greetings from Bellevue

It rained on and off all day Sunday. We spent the morning watching the Cowboys-Eagles game, which had implications for the Commanders' playoff chances, then we ate lunch and went to Crossroads Bellevue, where we looked at the holiday decorations still up in the mall, listened to the Susan Pascal Quartet who were playing on the Market Stage outside the eatery, and went to the Trudy's Hallmark sale, where I found Bag End and a Jim Shore tomten at half price. We picked up food at the QFC in the mall before coming home.

 

I watched the final episode of What If...? with Cheryl and Paul (which did right by the Watcher but killed off my second-favorite character and never circled back to my favorite as I expected, though the very last image left me with a big question mark about him). Then we watched the Commanders victory before getting ourselves The War of the Rohirrim for Chanukah and watching it. I enjoyed pretty much everything about it -- the shieldmaidens, the scenery, the connections to The Lord of the Rings, the Rohan music!

Greetings from Edmonds

Quickly because we just got back from Edmonds, where we met Daniel, Cahaya, her sister, and her sister's husband for dinner at Epulo Bistro, which shares a building with the Cascadia Art Museum -- the main exhibit hall of the museum was closed but there's art on display in the shared hallway. We hadn't met the sister and husband yet and the food was excellent (I had pistachio fettucini) so that was a lovely evening! 

 

The rest of our day was less exciting, since it was drizzly early. I dragged Paul to DSW and Ulta to look for shoes and makeup for younger son's wedding next month (the makeup cost more than the shoes, ha), then since the rain had stopped we went to Marymoor and walked along the river past the dog park. We also watched the penultimate What If...? episode (yay Storm, and yay Peggy's team of women).

Greetings from Bellevue

I had a quiet morning trying to clean up after being sick for two weeks, then I had an ophthalmologist appointment, which was not great -- he wants me to see a neurologist to find out whether I need to worry about a visual field test that went fine at the optometrist yesterday on one machine but not as well today in the VR goggles that don't really fit my face, so light is always coming in through the bottom, making it really hard for me to focus on the tiny flashing lights in the goggles. Apparently this might mean the nerve is bulging? IDK.

This will be another quick post since we just got back from our next door neighbors' place, where we swapped desserts and holiday presents (these are our catsitters, so many of the gifts were for the cats or cat-themed). Before that, we watched What If (Kate Bishop in the wild west episode), this week's Silo (so good this season), and The Agency (Michael Fassbender making so many bad decisions). We stopped at Petsmart on the way home from the eye doctor, where I met an adoptable cat who looks like Cinnamon and some other animals:

Greetings from the Sammamish River

Just a quick note because I spent a lot of the night watching the livestream of Adam's fiancee Haley's sister Solveig's wedding to Sagar, with vows officiated by Adam and several hours of fabulous Indian dancing! My day wasn't too eventful until afternoon, when I had my annual optometrist appointment (no significant changes since last year so no new glasses), then we took a walk along the Sammamish River nearby. Evening involved usual Thursday fangirl chat followed by What If...? and dinner! Happy Chanukah night two and Kwanzaa!

Greetings for the Holidays

Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas! We spent the morning talking to relatives on Skype and watching What If...? (hahaha of course Howard the Duck would father the MCU messiah) and sports. Then we headed to Cahaya's parents' house, where we ate a mix of holiday foods -- Daniel made tzimmes, Paul made latkes, Swedish meatballs, and Christmas cookies, Bill and Sally made mashed potatoes, Cahaya made rosemary shortbread and charcuterie including boards for the dogs. Everything was delicious and we exchanged gifts, plus Secret Santa presents that included the pets -- though certain ones ended up in the doghouse for misbehaving -- before we came home to light the first Chanukah candles. Hope everyone else had a lovely holiday!