Author: Sheila
Move Yer Hurdies
Today is the birthday of Robert Burns (1759-1796), national poet of Scotland, who wrote over 900 poems and songs and collected and made available hundreds of traditional Scottish songs as well. This is all the more astounding when you consider his impoverished background, spotty education, delayed launch into literary life, and, sadly, his premature death at age 37. All over the English-speaking world today, Burns’ birthday is celebrated with recitation of his poetry; the festive presentation, and even the consumption, of haggis; toasts, speeches and songs; and a concluding round of Auld Lang Syne.
Although Burns is probably best known for his beautiful and poignant love poems, generally written in honor of one of the numerous ladies Burns admired, my offering today is a seasonal verse appropriate for a Monday morning in January.
Translation:
Move your buttocks, you lazy fool. It’s breakfast-time!
Stop talking nonsense, you unmannerly blockhead.
Knitting/Nature Table
In the dining room we have a “nature table” that displays whatever the current season brings our way—violets, dandelions, seashells, squash. It’s where we set up the Christmas crèche, the family photos for Día de los Muertos, the pot of winter rye grass grown for Easter. And it’s been a handy destination for the acorn caps, seed pods, and interesting rocks that come home in everyone’s pockets.
The other day my daughter left her knitting project on the nature table. I was struck by the colors and fortuitous arrangement so I asked her not to move it until I’d drawn it in my sketchbook. She was patient, but happy to retrieve it.
Roxy
Elsita
Jurors’ Lounge Part 2
Being called for jury duty is never convenient, but there are two benefits. One is that whenever I have been empaneled and have served, I am each time impressed by the conscientiousness of my fellow jurors, the seriousness with which we all perform our job, and the fact that we live within a democratic system that calls upon ordinary citizens for this task. The other is that I get to pack a bag with work, lesson plans, and a sketchbook, and spend hours with them in a quiet room. And on my lunch hour I go to the National Gallery of Art around the corner.
This turned out to be a slow day, though, and a lot of us were dismissed mid-afternoon.
Jurors’ Lounge Part 1
One January a couple of years ago I was called for jury duty. (Hmmm… I ought to be hearing from them again soon.) As usual there was some sort of movie playing on the monitors overhead, but the woman assembling the juries was more entertaining.
New Year’s Resolution: Recipe
This was inspired by Deb, who last week hosted book club and decided to abandon all her tried-and-true desserts in favor of something new: an amaretto-and-apricot-glazed gâteau with fresh berries and vanilla ice cream. We were contented guinea pigs. (Deb keeps a far tidier kitchen than does Daphne.)
Alena
Christiane
Something to Tell the Grandchildren
A year ago today over a million people converged upon Washington, DC to watch, or at least get as close as possible, even if it was only a nearby tunnel, as Barack Obama was sworn in as President of the United States. It was a day of extremes—vast numbers of people, below-freezing temperatures, ecstatic good humor. A splendid milestone in the country’s history: an optimistic, energetic, wise and good-hearted young man arrived willing to take on an unimaginably horrible mess. And it’s been like trying to clean up and repair the squalid and deteriorating family home of your recently departed mentally unstable grandfather while some of your cousins look on impatiently and others complain bitterly about the tile you chose for the bathroom.
Norman
Visiting the Hair Salon
I recently went to get my hair cut and I was fascinated by what was being done to the hair of those around me. All I ever get is a cut and blow dry so I am clueless about the other rich possibilities. I began to wonder how our fellow beings on other planets shape, color, and decorate the substances that grow out of their bodies. Is this a “universal” phenomenon?
Perhaps she was not actually using roasted red pepper hummus (it sure looked like it) but I bet that would make a great conditioner.
Jean-Claude
Claude
Man of Many Words
Today is the birthday of Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869), scientific writer, lecturer, and author of the Thesaurus, a project that he did not even begin to pursue seriously until his 70s. That ought to encourage the rest of us slowpokes. Roget was a lifelong and compulsive list-maker, a practice that apparently comforted him and helped sustain him through the terrible depressions that plagued him and his extended family, although he suffered tragedy enough throughout his life to justify serious despair. I love my Thesaurus and was inspired by this birthday to get on the library waiting list (speaking of lists) for a recent biography of Roget, Joshua Kendall’s The Man Who Made Lists. Among Roget’s many other admirers is J.M. Barrie:
“The night nursery of the Darling family, which is the scene of our opening Act, is at the top of a rather depressed street in Bloomsbury. We have a right to place it where we will, and the reason Bloomsbury is chosen is that Mr. Roget once lived there. So did we in days when his Thesaurus was our only companion in London; and we whom he has helped to wend our way through life have always wanted to pay him a little compliment. The Darlings therefore lived in Bloomsbury.” —Introduction to Act I of Peter Pan
Natsukashii: A Japanese word used to express the feeling described above. It is not yet in the Thesaurus.
Matilda
Susan
A Little Light
Another verse from our dinner-table collection, from a longer poem by Matilda Betham-Edwards (1836-1919). I came across this verse long ago by chance, never having heard of its author, and recently learned that she was an extremely prolific writer of poetry, short stories, novels, and accounts of her travels in Europe and North Africa, unusual for a single woman of her day.