Archive for July, 2012

Monthly Archive
« Previous Page
Next Entries »

Wed 4 Jul 2012

Oddments of July

Posted by PJ under holidays, Min, the neighborhood
No Comments

Last night while driving down a residential street in my neighborhood I saw a flatbed truck parked in a driveway loaded with Halloween monsters and a banner on the side reading, “Halloween Fair.”  I didn’t stop to take in the details, already late getting home, but laughed at the idea of someone decorating their house for Halloween on the 4th of July.

I was up early this morning to take Mom to the clinic and driving home afterwards I saw a number of flatbed trucks lined up on Manchester, decorated in all sorts of odd homemade ways.  “The parade,” I said to myself, remembering the neighborhood 4th of July parade (generally a homemade affair) scheduled for today on Manchester and Loyola Boulevard.  The Halloween truck made more sense then.  Either someone has an odd sense of humor (which I can definitely appreciate) or they’re getting in some free early advertising for their Halloween Fair.  Never too late to flog the merchandise, I guess.

In other news, Min has been sick.  She has a benign growth on her thyroid which we’re treating with medication.  There have been some scary moments, but she’s doing much, much better—especially since I discovered Greenies Pill Pockets to bury the pills in.  She thinks she’s getting a delicious treat and gobbles them right down.  I am greatly relieved since giving her the pills twice a day was traumatizing both of us.  I hope she continues to like the Pill Pockets.  I’ve got three flavors I’m alternating: salmon, chicken, and duck.  She seems to like all three.

We’ve also taken to spoiling her even more outrageously.  We even set up a Kitty Cat Spoiling Station in the den: a TV tray (a nice little oaken table) that’s got her food and water, close to her preferred sleeping chair.  I added a carton of munching grass this morning.

The TV tray came about because Mom and I, when it’s just us, tend to eat dinner in the den on TV trays in front of the Tube. Min had a habit of coming in and trying to crawl on the trays to see what was for dinner, so we set up a third tray for her and would give her treats there.  (Naturally.  You wouldn’t expect us to discipline her, would you? She’d never stand for that.)  When Min got sick she started asking to be fed her cat food, et al., there.  Of course we obeyed—since, really, we just work here.

I can hear people moving down the street, kids laughing, heading towards the parade two blocks down.  Our street always gets parked up on parade days.  I can also hear my neighbor yelling, “You can’t park here!” He doesn’t like anyone parking in front of his house, even though it’s a public street.  People have such odd ideas.  But he’s been awfully good to us, so I am not going to judge.  Too much.

Happy 4th of July, everyone!  I hope you eat lots of tasty food and have lots of fun!

Tags:

 

Tue 3 Jul 2012

Lasting

Posted by PJ under quote of the day, that which abides, what the living do
No Comments

Random quote of the day:

 

“The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.”

—William James, Great Men and Their Environment

 

 


Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Tags:

 

Mon 2 Jul 2012

Another treasure

Posted by PJ under poetry
No Comments

Lines of poetry stick in my brain, little oddments that come out at the strangest times and places.  Two lines from this poem (by one of my favorite poets) often echo in my skull: the first being, “and now she thrives/Now is her time to thrive,” though I hardly understand why.  It’s a kind of encouragement in discouraging times for some idiosyncratic reason of my own.  The second line is the last line and a half, which I won’t ruin for you.  Discover it on your own.

 

Things
by Jane Kenyon

The hen flings a single pebble aside
with her yellow, reptilian foot.
Never in eternity the same sound—
a small stone falling on a red leaf.

The juncture of twig and branch,
scarred with lichen, is a gate
we might enter, singing.

The mouse pulls batting
from a hundred-year-old quilt.
She chewed a hole in a blue star
to get it, and now she thrives. . . .
Now is her time to thrive.

Things: simply lasting, then
failing to last: water, a blue heron’s
eye, and the light passing
between them: into light all things
must fall, glad at last to have fallen.

Tags:

 

Sun 1 Jul 2012

Something for my storm-tossed Mid-Atlantic friends

Posted by PJ under poetry, power, storms
No Comments

To enjoy once your power comes back on.

I’m slowly going through every ancient Word file I have to make them openable by the newer versions of Word.  It’s been a painful lesson in keeping things current, but every once in a while I come across a gem that makes the whole process worthwhile.  I came across this one today.

Of course, this is about a cold storm, not violent winds with heat, but…

 

After the Storm

by Billy Collins

Soft yellow-gray light of early morning,
butter and wool,
the two bedroom windows
still beaded and streaked with rain.

The world calm again, routine with traffic,
after its night of convulsions,
when storm drains closed at the throat,
and trees shook in the wind like the hair of dryads.

In the silent house, its roof still on,
too early for the heat to come whistling up
and the guest room doors still closed,
I am propped up on these pillows,

a gray, moth-eaten cashmere jersey
wrapped around my neck
against the unbroken cold of last night.
I am thinking about the dinner party,

the long table, dark bottles of Merlot,
the odd duck and brussels sprouts,
and how, after midnight,
with all of us sprawled on the couch and floor,

the power suddenly went out
leaving us to feel our way around
in the tenth-century darkness
until we found and lit a stash of candles

then drew the circle of ourselves a little tighter
in this softer hula of lights
that gleamed in mirrors and on rims of glasses
while the shutters banged and the rain lashed down.

A sweet nut of memory—
but the part that sends me whirring
in little ovals of wonder,
as the leftover clouds break apart

and the sun brightly stripes these walls,
is the part that came later,
hours after we had each carried a candle
up the shadowy staircase and gone to bed.

It was three, maybe four in the morning
when the power surged back on,
and, as if a bookmark
had been inserted into the party

when the lamps went dark,
now all the lights downstairs flared again,
and from the stereo speakers
up through the heat register

into our bedroom and our sleep
blared the sound of Jimmy Reed
singing “Baby What You Want Me to Do”
just where he had left off.

So the party resumed without us,
the room again aglow with a life of its own,
the night air charged
with guitar and harmonica,

until one of us put on slippers,
went down to that blazing, festive emptiness,
and turned everything off.
Then, without lights or music,

even the ghosts of ourselves
had to break up their party,
snub out their cigarettes,
carry their wineglasses to the kitchen,

where they kissed each other good night,
and with nowhere else to go,
floated vaguely upstairs
to lie down beside us in our dark and quiet beds.

Tags: