"It's snowing!"

Amos, 12:00 last Friday night: A little kid is yelling outside, "IT'S SNOWING!"
Me, half-asleep: Mmmm, okay.

Well, that little kid, whoever he is, was right.

It snowed!  Not much, but enough for me to wander around outside for a few hours and get some good pictures.

As always, click the pictures to enlarge them. :)

The view from our porch

Mistletoe!

If you look very closely, you can see my reflection in the berries :)

This reminds me of Lord of Rings, where Sam and Frodo go through
the bog of dead people...

Duckprints!

I don't know how their little feet don't freeze off!

Blurry flight

Read, Reading, To Read

Here we go again, another month, another post about...books. :D

Books I finished recently:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling
For the seventh time

The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir, Thi Bui
A memoir in graphic novel form of Thi Bui's parents' experience in Vietnam before and during the Vietnam War, the family's transition to America, and the author's wrestling with how to relate to her parents and to her own young son.
I really liked this book; it was a good introduction to the Vietnam War, a war I know very little about.  I have Ken Burns' new documentary, "The Vietnam War," on hold at the library.  I am number fifty-five, in line for eight copies...for volume one.


A poem:

I Go Back to the House for a Book

I turn around on the gravel
and go back to the house for a book,
something to read at the doctor's office,
and while I am inside, running the finger
of inquisition along a shelf,

another me that did not bother
to go back to the house for a book
heads out on his own,
rolls down the driveway,
and swings left toward town,

a ghost in his ghost car,
another knot in the string of time,
a good three minutes ahead of me--
a spacing that will now continue
for the rest of my life.

Sometimes I think I see him
a few people in front of me on a line
or getting up from a table
to leave the restaurant just before I do,
slipping into his coat on the way out the door.

But there is no catching him,
no way to slow him down
and put us back in sync,
unless one day he decides to go back
to the house for something,

but I cannot imagine
for the life of me what that might be.
He is out there always before me,
blazing my trail, invisible scout,
hound that pulls me along,

shade I am doomed to follow,
my perfect double,
only bumped an inch into the future,
and not nearly as well-versed as I
in the love poems of Ovid--

I who went back to the house
that fateful winter morning and got the book.

-Billy Collins
from Picnic, Lightning


Books I am reading now:
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowling
For the seventh or eighth time...

Whose Body?, Dorothy Sayers
A body is discovered in a bath, and Lord Peter Wimsey sets out to find out whose it is.

The Secret Adversary, Agatha Christie
Tommy and Tuppence are "demobbed" after World War I and go into business together, being hired to find a person who is supposedly holding a potentially dangerous international secret...

Picnic, Lightning, Billy Collins
More poetry


A few books on hold at the library:
Exiled: Memoirs of a Camel, Kathleen Karr

Smitten Kitchen Every Day: Triumphant and Unfussy New Favorites, Deb Perelman


Number of books purchased on our epic Goodwill day in Lincoln, NE:
Eighteen, plus one to give away

Poetry and time and stairs

Poetry is best read while climbing stairs.

I work on the ninth floor of a fifteen-floor building. On the days that I arrive a few minutes early, I take the stairs. I start on the first floor, walking through the elevator lobby and turning right at the security desk.  I open the door next to the letter drop, step inside the stairwell, adjust my lunch bag and Nalgene in my left hand, and dig out my poetry book with my right.  I read two or three poems as I climb up to the twelfth floor, cross the elevator lobby, and walk back down to the ninth floor, where I emerge right next to our office door.

Currently I am reading Aimless Love: New and Selected Poetry by Billy Collins.

Why am I reading this particular collection?  Well, a few months ago I visited a nearby library (versus the library right across the street :D ), and I saw this book of poetry sitting on a shelf.  I remembered something our Sunday School leader and church elder, Brian, had said a few months before, something about Billy Collins being his favorite poet.  I opened the book at random and read the poem "Hangover," which is hilarious.  I promptly added Aimless Love to my stack.  I read many of the poems at home, one right after another, but I was pretty sure that poetry is better spread out over time.  I took the book to work and tried it out as my stair-climbing read.

Fast forward a few months, and I was once again taking the stairs to my office, reading the poem "Quandary."


Quandary

I was a little disappointed
in the apple I lifted from a bowl of fruit
and bit into on the way out the door,
fuzzy on the inside and lacking the snap of the ripe.

Yesterday it was probably perfect,
I figured, as I held it out before me,
soft red apple bearing my tooth marks,
as if I were contemplating the bust of Aristotle.

I considered all the people
who would be grateful to have this apple,
and others who might find it in their hearts
to kill me before slipping it into a pocket.

And I considered another slice
of the world's population, too,
those who are shielded from anything
as offensive as a slightly imperfect apple.

Then I took a second bite, a big one,
and pitched what was left
over the tall hedges hoping to hit on the head
a murderer or one of the filthy rich out for a stroll.

-Billy Collins


Later that day, I ate a fuzzy apple.  Haha!  When Amos got home, I read him "Quandary."  (He had eaten the other half of the fuzzy apple at lunchtime.)


Why do I read poetry while walking up stairs?  For one, it helps me to keep going.  Climbing twelve floors is not easy, and sometimes I want to give up.  The poems keep me focused on the word pictures he is painting, rather than on my legs that want to ditch the stairs and take the elevator at the sixth floor ("Come on, some exercise is better than none!  Maybe the elevator would be good today...").  For another, I am easily distracted these days (stupid social media).  Billy Collins' poems are all short stories, usually with a surprise or a twist in the last few lines; I can easily visualize the short scenes of his poems.  Also, I just love words.

In discovering this combination of poetry, limited time, and stairs, I feel like I have discovered a secret.  I am almost done with Aimless Love, and I wonder what poetry I will find next...

Shrooms

Sometime in April or May...

Me: Are you going to replace our stairs?

Construction worker: No, the apartment complex said that they were replaced a few years ago, so they are fine.

Me: Oh, okay.

--------------------------------

Today...

Me: Why do we have mushrooms growing on our landing?

Humid

Well, hello, long-neglected blog. :(

Have some pictures, memories from a humid afternoon.


As always, click the pictures to get a better view.

I love the water flowers

Reflections

Don't go in the light!

Sneaky...