Poem for Wednesday and Rock of Dunamase

Transplanted 

By William O'Neill 

But vain I wait and listen for Rory Og is dead, 

And in the halls of Dunamase a Saxon rules instead, 

And o'er his fruitful acres the stranger now is lord 

Where since the days of Cuchorb a proud O'Moore kept ward. 

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I had a fun Wednesday despite rainy weather, starting with chat with two of my high school friends, then bagels for lunch. Afterward, Kristen and I resumed our MCU watch with the first two episodes of Ms. Marvel, which remain excellent, and by then the rain had let up enough that Paul and I could walk to the lake, which we pretty much had to ourselves apart from lots of ducks, some coots, and an eagle.

We got home in time for the start of the World Series game, which it looked like the Yankees were going to win easily, but then they made piles of mistakes and the Dodgers won the whole thing. Cheryl and I watched the finale of Agatha All Along together, which was superb despite not resolving one of the key issues of the show. Now we're watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. 

Here are the ruins of Dunamase Castle on the Rock of Dunamase, once the seat of the Kings of Laois, first settled in the 800s and promptly pillaged by the Vikings, though this castle was built in the 1100s and inhabited by the Norman Irish, then the O'Moores as they resisted the English, until it was slighted to keep it from Cromwell's forces and eventually fell into disrepair.

Poem for Tuesday and Rock of Cashel

The Rock of Cashel 

By Aubrey De Vere 

Royal and saintly Cashel! I would gaze

Upon the wreck of thy departed powers,

Not in the dewy light of matin hours,

Nor the meridian pomp of summer's blaze,

But at the close of dim autumnal days,

When the sun's parting glance, through slanting showers,

Sheds o'er thy rock-throned battlements and towers

Such awful gleams as brighten o'er Decay's

Prophetic cheek. At such a time, methinks,

There breathes from thy lone courts and voiceless aisles

A melancholy moral, such as sinks

On the lone traveller's heart, amid the piles

Of vast Persepolis on her mountain stand,

Or Thebes half buried in the desert sand.

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Tuesday was a lovely cool day without rain, so after a quiet morning getting computer work done, we walked to the beach and discovered that the coot commotion has moved back for the winter into the lake behind our apartment. Then my Voyager group and I watched "The Void"; I really hated it when I first saw it and wrote a scathing review, but this time I just thought it was kind of boring and highly derivative and made most of the crew look bad. 

We ate dinner while watching the World Series, which did not go the Dodgers' way tonight, but that won't matter if they win tomorrow. Now we're watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which may objectively be the best of the movies, though POA is my favorite. Here is the Rock of Cashel, ancient home of the kings of Munster, where St. Patrick converted King Aenghus to Christianity in 450 and Brian Boru was crowned High King in 978:

Poem for Monday and the Blarney Stone

The Blarney 

By Samuel Lover 

Oh! did you ne'er hear of  "the Blarney,"

That's found near the banks of Killarney?

   Believe it from me,

   No girl's heart is free,

 Once she hears the sweet sound of the Blarney.

For the Blarney's so great a deceiver,

That a girl thinks you're there, though you leave her;

   And never finds out,

   All the tricks you're about,

 Till she's quite gone herself,—with your Blarney.

Oh! say would you find this same "Blarney?"

There's a castle, not far from Killarney,

   On the top of its wall—

   (But take care you don't fall,)

 There's a stone that contains all this Blarney.

Like a magnet its influence such is,

That attraction it gives all it touches;

   If you kiss it, they say,

   From that blessed day,

 You may kiss whom you please with your Blarney.

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Monday involved some chores and some bad weather, though we did get out for a walk in the afternoon during the brief period when the sun was out and saw lots of ducks, plus Halloween Pokemon. It was otherwise an uneventful day until late afternoon, when we talked to Adam and Haley about various wedding-related things, then ate dinner and watched the third game of the World Series, where the Dodgers did a fine job of beating the Yankees in New York. 

Now we're watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and ze Grindylows. Here is the legendary Blarney Stone, probably named for Sir Cormac mac Dermond MacCarthy, Baron Blarney -- who blew off Queen Elizabeth I's demands for a garrison at his castle so many times that she said, "I will hear no more of this Blarney!" and gave the word its current meaning of flattering nonsense -- here being kissed by my husband and seen from below in the Blarney Castle gardens:

Greetings from Juanita Beach

The bad weather forecast for the weekend finally arrived on Sunday. It was drizzling when we arrived at Daniel's house for brunch with him and Cahaya, and continued at nearby Greenlake Grill, to which we walked after greeting the dogs, where we had eggs, pancakes, and hash browns among other things. Then we left Daniel and Cahaya to their chores and her schoolwork and went to Juanita Beach Park for the PNW Witches' Market, which had been infiltrated by the evangelists who show up at sports events to tell us we're going to hell, and where it rained so hard that we did a quick swing through the tents before coming home.

 

I folded laundry while we watched the Seahawks lose to the Bills, and we weren't very hungry for dinner after our big brunch, so we ate bagels while the 49ers beat the Cowboys (the Commanders had already won, so it was a good day in the NFC East, though the Ravens played a terrible game that was not televised here). Now we're watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which is still my favorite of the movies (and books), and I really miss the days when I believed Rowling had deliberately created Lupin as a metaphorical closeted gay man suffering from AIDS in a way children reading her books could understand and relate to.

Poem for Saturday and Bellevue Square Halloween

Ghost Music 

By Robert Graves 

Gloomy and bare the organ-loft,

Bent-backed and blind the organist.

From rafters looming shadowy,

From the pipes’ tuneful company,

Drifted together drowsily,

Innumerable, formless, dim,

The ghosts of long-dead melodies,

Of anthems, stately, thunderous,

Of Kyries shrill and tremulous:

In melancholy drowsy-sweet

They huddled there in harmony.

Like bats at noontide rafter-hung.

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It rained on and off on Saturday, so we planned around the weather -- watched some football (UW-IU, then UMD-UMN), walked to the park when it was only drizzling, and when it started to rain in earnest, went to Bellevue Square mall to look for wedding clothes and to see the Halloween decorations. We didn't know that today was the day for kids to trick-or-treat in the mall, so that plus the weather meant that the mall was very crowded, but we got to see the festivities and I found a bolero jacket at Macy's on sale for $4.96. 

 

We came home for dinner (cheeseburgers on the couch) and the World Series, which like last night was delightful since the Dodgers won, though again it was close enough to be an interesting game. Now we're watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets because we haven't seen it in half a decade and I'm tired of apologizing for the wizarding world being my comfort food when I have to see Ice Cube in Dodgers Stadium on my television. Call me when Kanye and Mel Gibson and Roger Waters and Elon Musk are actually canceled.

Poem for Friday and Beltany Stone Circle

Beacons at Bealtaine 

By Seamus Heaney 

Delivered at EU Enlargement Ceremony 

Phoenix Park, May Day, 2004 

Uisce: water. And fionn: the water's clear.

But dip and find this Gaelic water Greek:

A phoenix flames upon fionn uisce here.

Strangers were barbaroi to the Greek ear.

Now let the heirs of all who could not speak

The language, whose ba-babbling was unclear,

Come with their gift of tongues past each frontier

And find the answering voices that they seek

As fionn and uisce answer phoenix here.

The May Day hills were burning, far and near,

When our land's first footers beached boats in the creek

In uisce, fionn, strange words that soon grew clear;

So on a day when newcomers appear

Let it be a homecoming and let us speak

The unstrange word, as it behoves us here,

Move lips, move minds and make new meanings flare

Like ancient beacons signalling, peak to peak,

From middle sea to north sea, shining clear

As phoenix flame upon fionn uisce here. 

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We had nice, chilly weather on Friday, though I first ventured out in it because I needed a fasting blood draw for my semiannual lab work...never my favorite way to start a day. Then I came back, cleaned up, did some chores, and attempted to keep my cats warm in between writing irate letters to The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times for being willing to let democracy die in darkness and refusing to endorse Harris. My sister is visiting our parents, so we all chatted on Google Meet in the afternoon before Paul and I took a walk to the lake and visit with the waterfowl. 

Our neighborhood had a kids' pumpkin carving event in the late afternoon with mini cupcakes, cinnamon rolls, and coffee cake for the adults, so we stopped by there before coming home for the first game of the World Series, which ended after ten close innings with a spectacular walk-off grand slam by the Dodgers. We ate dinner and watched this week's Disclaimer -- it's time for a non-misogynistic twist already -- and the rest of this season's convoluted Slow Horses. This is Beltany Stone Circle, overlooking a destroyed passage tomb complex in County Donegal:

Poem for Thursday and Burren Brachiopods

Fanore Beach 

By Ciaran Burke 

Across the dunes dotted with gentian blue, to where the shades of grey sky lie fallen on the mirror of retreated tide. 

Beyond the washed-bronze sands scribed with black calligraphy the Atlantic waves drone. 

And a foot carves the sand, a journey to the soul, waiting to be washed away. 

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My Thursday was relatively uneventful -- chores in the morning, a walk to the beach in gorgeous weather in the afternoon. All the ducks have returned from wherever they spend the summer; we saw dozens of mallards, a few wood ducks, a couple of grebes, even a coot, plus the eagles were up and about. After dinner, I chatted with three of my usual Thursday night crowd. 

After that, we watched a movie I'm not allowed to mention...fine, it was the first Harry Potter movie, which is still magical and I'll erase all trace of She Who Must Not Be Named when everyone else gets rid of Willy Wonka, Pink Floyd, and all the other antisemites. Here are some of the fossils we saw at Fanore Beach in the Burren -- gastropods, brachiopods, crinoids, corals: