Poem for Saturday and Smithsonian Gardens

One Night
By Juan Ramón Jiménez
Translated by Thomas Walsh

The ancient spiders with a flutter spread
   Their misty marvels through the withered flowers,
The windows, by the moonlight pierced, would shed
   Their trembling garlands pale across the bowers.

The balconies looked over to the South;
   The night was one immortal and serene;
From fields afar the newborn springtime’s mouth
   Wafted a breath of sweetness o’er the scene.

How silent! Grief had hushed its spectral moan
   Among the shadowy roses of the sward;
Love was a fable—shadows overthrown
   Trooped back in myriads from oblivion’s ward.

The garden’s voice was all—empires had died—
   The azure stars in languor having known
The sorrows all the centuries provide,
   With silver crowned me there, remote and lone.

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We had mostly nice weather on Friday after the crazy rain and winds of Thursday! I did a bunch of chores and a bunch more scanning, which really counts more as a pleasure than work, and sent more photos to Holly, who had family stories about some of the events. Pokemon Go had an unexpected April Fool's Day event, so I walked around catching Dittos, and we tried to sort out my in-laws' tax information before we had dinner with my parents. 

When we got home we watched the start of the women's Final Four, then took a break to watch Death on the Nile, which was, well, not good, but not unwatchable; Gadot wasn't as bad as the mockers said, though her character's dialogue was terrible which isn't her fault, and Bening had more screen time than Wright or Brand, while Hammer plays a character it's okay to see as creepy and misogynistic. Flowers in various Smithsonian gardens: 

Poem for Wednesday and Futures Exhibit

Relativity
By Sarah Howe

for Stephen Hawking

When we wake up brushed by panic in the dark
our pupils grope for the shape of things we know.

Photons loosed from slits like greyhounds at the track
reveal light’s doubleness in their cast shadows

that stripe a dimmed lab’s wall—particles no more—
and with a wave bid all certainties goodbye.

For what’s sure in a universe that dopplers
away like a siren’s midnight cry? They say

a flash seen from on and off a hurtling train
will explain why time dilates like a perfect

afternoon; predicts black holes where parallel lines
will meet, whose stark horizon even starlight,

bent in its tracks, can’t resist. If we can think
this far, might not our eyes adjust to the dark?

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I actually got a lot done on Tuesday, though folding the laundry was not accomplished. I sorted all the greeting cards that I spent most of last week scanning, then listed them in my local Buy Nothing group. I'm hoping there's a Hebrew school teacher who can use the Jewish New Year, Chanukah, and Passover cards, which are lovely. I did some of this sorting while watching the season finale of The Gilded Age, which was as disappointingly bland and wussy as the entire season has been -- I feel like everything important that has happened this season could have been covered in less than two hours. It was a glorious day for a walk -- we have purple rhododendrons in bloom and pink azaleas starting and big loud bumblebees in our yellow pieris, plus a bunny who's been hanging out in our neighbors' daffodils. 

We had leftover Thai food for dinner because it was quick, then my Voyager group watched the still-terrible "Real Life" in which we learn that what 24th century men with women captains really want is Stepford wives who praise them while serving them their favorite meals and keeping their kids in line -- oh, and that what female engineers want to do is read romance novels, braid their hair, and visit the men's holonovels when the ship is in a big crisis with spatial anomalies. After that, we caught up on Billions, in which Chuck finally gets smacked down for being a massive hypocrite. From the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Futures exhibit, some treasures that thrilled me including a tortoise robot, a Goddard rocket, a Hyperloop vehicle, a flying car, and Octavia Butler's typewriter! 

Greetings from DC

We got up early on Sunday to get downtown before any crowds because the cherry blossoms are blooming! They won't be at peak until mid-week, but we wanted to miss both the traffic and crowds, and we had very little of either despite spending several hours out in glorious weather. There were lots of cherry blossoms, some ducks, about 1/6 of the tulip beds in the Tulip Library, and daffodils everywhere. We ate lunch in the garden behind Arts and Industries, then went into the museum to see the Futures exhibit, which has many delightful artifacts including Octavia Butler's typewriter and Marvel's Eternals costumes. These are all selfies, proper photos after I get them sorted: 

 

After we walked back to the car by way of the many Smithsonian gardens around the museums and the National Ag Day festival being set up on the National Mall, we watched the end of the Maryland women's game, which the Terps won -- one of the few non-upsets we saw this weekend, ha. My kids both had plans (one was visiting a friend, the other's girlfriend's brother is about to visit them) so we only talked to them for a couple of minutes, then we watched the season premiere of Sanditon, which I have missed and has lots of women, even Last Tango in Halifax's Anne Reid in a kind of similar role in a different century. We watched an episode of that too, which reminds me how much it can enrage me!

Greetings from the National Mall

We spent nearly all of Sunday in DC, mostly at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, which we'd never visited before -- one of the many things Covid put off for us for nearly two years. We met Daniel and Cahaya outside near the Washington Monument and spent almost five hours exploring the museum, starting with the arts and culture galleries on the top floor and working our way down to the History Galleries, which were by far the most crowded. Some highlights for me were the music, film, and theater exhibits -- costumes from The Wiz, a handwritten score by Duke Ellington -- the entire excellent sports gallery, and the entirety of the historical exhibition, which has so many poignant items and detailed maps and documents about the growth of slavery. 

 

We were very hungry by the time we left the museum, so we took some pictures of the sunset behind the Washington Monument, then walked to the nearby food trucks, where we had a variety of burgers and sandwiches (there's plenty of veggie food at the Mediterranean and Mexican trucks). Then we walked back to our car, dropped Daniel and Cahaya off near their hotel, and stopped at the food store on our way home for some things so we can have a belated Christmas dinner with Paul's parents later this week. Then we tried to watch the Washington-Dallas football game, which we were even in the mood for after seeing pictures of Doug Williams winning the Super Bowl in the museum, but it was more of an embarrassment than a competition (teammates punching each other), so we're catching up on Graham Norton!

Poem for Friday and Space Shuttle

Window Shopper
By Robert William Service

I stood before a candy shop
Which with a Christmas radiance shone;
I saw my parents pass and stop
To grin at me and then go on.
The sweets were heaped in gleamy rows;
On each I feasted - what a game!
Against the glass with flatted nose,
Gulping my spittle as it came;
So still I stood, and stared and dreamed,
Savouring sweetness with my eyes,
Devouring dainties till it seemed
My candy shop was paradise.

I had, I think, but five years old,
And though three-score and ten have passed,
I still recall the craintive cold,
The grimy street, the gritty blast;
And how I stared into that shop,
Its gifts so near and yet so far,
Of marzipan and toffee drop,
Of chocolate and walnut bar;
Imagining what I would buy
Amid delights so rich and rare . . .
The glass was misted with my sigh:
"If just one penny Pop could spare!"

And then when I went home to tea
Of bread and butter sparsely spread,
Oh, how my parents twitted me:
"You stood for full an hour," they said.
"We saw you as we passed again;
Your eyes upon the sweets were glued;
Your nose was flattened to the pane,
Like someone hypnotized you stood."
But when they laughed as at a joke,
A bitterness I could not stem
Within my little heart awoke. . . .
Oh, I have long forgiven them;
For though I know they did not own
Pennies to spare, they might, it seems
More understanding love have shown
More sympathy for those vain dreams,
Which make of me with wistful gaze
God's Window Shopper all days.

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On Thursday I went to a bunch of stores in a shopping center that recently acquired an Aldi, and I don't know whether it's the presence of the Aldi or the holiday shopping season in general, but the parking lot was so insane that I am seriously rethinking my plans to avoid shopping at Amazon wherever possible. The main reason I went was because Five Below, which recently moved to this shopping center from further down Rockville Pike, has very inexpensive cardboard scratching posts that Effie loves, but I also went to Michael's, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Tuesday Morning, none of which had anything exciting left on sale at this point.

It was a very shopping-focused day. When Paul got home, we went out to CVS (which sent me birthday coupons including one for free nail polish, which is odd since I don't wear nail polish -- do all customers get one? just women?) and to Giant (because cat food is an ongoing need), plus we ducked into Attman's to get bagels since Goldberg's closes in the afternoon. In between the beginning and end of the Bears victory over the Cowboys, we caught up on Black Lightning, which still could use more humor but at least is more focused on the main family again. From the Udvar-Hazy Center, here are several angles on the space shuttle:

Poem for Monday and Virginia Aviation

Takeoff
By Timothy Steele

Our jet storms down the runway, tilts up, lifts:
We're airborne, and each second we see more—
Outlying hangars, wetlands with a pond
That flashes like sheened silver and, beyond,
An estuary and the frozen drifts
Of breakers wide and white along a shore.

One watches, cheek in palm. How little weight
The world has as it swiftly drops away!
How quietly the mind climbs to this height
As now, the seat-belt sign turned off, a flight
Attendant rises to negotiate
The steep aisle to a curtained service bay.

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Daniel is on his way back to Seattle, though he will be arriving much later than scheduled because of the chaos caused by weather across much of the country -- his flight was supposed to be direct, but took off more than two hours later than expected and stopped in Minneapolis because the flight crew had logged too many hours. Since we knew there would be traffic on the way to Dulles, we decided to go to the Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center, which is one exit before the airport on the toll road. It's a little anticlimactic after having seen Boeing's museum in Seattle, but it's free and it does have the space shuttle Discovery!















After dropping Daniel off at Dulles, we stopped at CVS and Giant for toothpaste, hair stuff, cat food, and cream cheese, then we came home and ate Nicole's excellent leftover Thanksgiving macaroni and cheese for dinner. Batwoman and Supergirl were on -- the former interesting but very dark, the latter formulaic but I'm here for Kara/Lena until the end of the line. Madam Secretary was on late because of football, which I saw little of today but enjoyed following online (the Ravens beat the 49ers, DC beat Carolina), and I have not enjoyed one minute of the "impeachment hearings are political farces" storyline -- I won't actually cry when the show ends!

Greetings from the National Postal Museum

Quickie, have been watching Houston beat the Yankees after a stressful ninth inning -- if the Nationals are fated not to win the World Series, at least I won't have to watch them lose to the Yankees. Earlier we watched some of the Michigan-Penn State football game, but it looked like the Wolverines were going to lose and we'd already watched the sad spectacle of Maryland fail to come back against Indiana. In between, we caught up on Supergirl and Emergence, so that was lots of woman power to balance the sports, particularly the latter which is turning into a sort of Westworld-lite domestic drama (I'm waiting for Emily to be what Piper is, and on the former, WTF LENA!). Plus we went to Giant to get provisions for the week and cat treats.

Earlier we went downtown to the National Postal Museum, which was hosting the North American branch of the Royal Philatelic Society's 150th anniversary celebration, whose theme was George VI's 1939 visit to Washington, DC (they went through Union Station across the street, where we parked). George VI and FDR were both stamp collectors, but most of what I learned was about other historical stuff, like how mail got out of British WWII internment camps for Italians and how Persia taxed all postcards because they had to be inspected to make sure they displayed no pornographic images. The exhibit was in a small space packed with collectors who outclass any comic nerds I have encountered in their knowledge of minutiae like color variation!