Update on breaking news

Kales from Australia has helpfully cleared up the matter of dish rinsing and expanded the scope to include Australia too. I would like to think that rinsing dishes is a world-wide norm, but it seems I may be wrong.

Poetry Thursday - a glut of gluck

Flowering Plum

In spring from the black branches of the flowering plum tree
the woodthrush issues its routine
message of survival. Where does such happiness come from
as the neighbors' daughter reads into that singing,
and matches? All afternoon she sits
in the partial shade of the plum tree, as the mild wind
floods her immaculate lap with blossoms, greenish white
and white, leaving no mark, unlike
the fruit that will inscribe
unraveling dark stains in heavier winds, in summer.

Louise Gluck

I guess I did something right

When I put all the new plants in my flower bed, they all went into shock a little. Most of them recovered within a week or so. My plumbago, however, immediately dropped all of its flowers and got wilty. Large parts of it turned black. I thought it was going to die, but it just kept hanging on and looking all scraggly. Finally, a single little cluster of flowers bloomed way in the back. I was so proud that I showed B about fifty times and posted a picture of it here. I guess that was a test bloom. The plant then decided it was in an okay place and busted out overnight. Now, it's hard to notice any of the other flowers because there is so much blue everywhere.

I still can't believe that I can get so happy and excited over a plant.

Boot camp yoga

Yesterday, I had a brilliant thought: "hey, I've been doing yoga for four whole weeks now. I should try an intermediate hatha flow class!"

While doing my down dog, the instructor 'adjusted' my hips up about six inches. I tried to explain nicely to her that my body did not go that direction, but all that came out was a little squeak.

Later, while I was in a pathetic imitation of a reverse half-moon, she came over and observed my wildly shaking leg and commented that I was not breathing correctly. Honestly, I thought I was doing good to be breathing at all.
Finally, it was time to do shoulder stands. I was relieved, because I'm good at that one. But to make sure my elbows didn't splay out to the side, she tied them together. Yes, you heard that right. I was tied upside down during my yoga class. For like ten minutes. I swear.
When it was time to go, I namaste'd her like I was supposed to.


But the divine in me was not bowing to the divine in her. The divine in me was whimpering on the floor in fetal position.

All last night, I felt like a doll who had all of it's joints pulled out of their sockets and were dangling by strings. I felt like I had to be careful when I walked, lest my leg accidentally spin around 360 degrees. Today, to use the proper yoga words, I am very aware of my muscles.

Devil cat surrounded by light

This is approximately 10 seconds before she propelled herself off the bookshelf with her claws out and aimed for my jugular.

Breaking news

I just read the people in the UK do not rinse the soap off of their dishes after washing them. They just let the soap dry right on.

I have not been able to verify this fact independently. I asked someone I know currently living in the UK, and someone else who has lived there in the past, but both are/were expats, not actual British people, so they were not familiar with this custom. Does anyone know anything about this? Google provided tantalizing hints, but no definitive information.

I don't know why I am so fascinated by this.

Scorpions

When B and I moved into our last apartment a few years ago, we were not aware that it was infested by scorpions. But we found out soon enough. Since then, I have had a morbid fascination with them. I even kept two in a cage for about a year, and fed them crickets (our friends' young son liked to watch the 'lobsters' eating). People who did not have scorpion infestations would look at Big Stu and Little Stu and say "Those aren't very big." To which I would reply that it wasn't so easy to be brave when they were coming at you over the carpet with their tails waving around looking for something to sting.

Our new house was not infested with scorpions, I thought. Yesterday, I was sitting in my office playing on my computer. I have a subwoofer under the desk that I had stacked some papers and books on. I reached down and pulled a book out of the stack and something fell down and skittered across my foot. It was a scorpion.

I yelled at B, who came quickly, but we were out of practice. It took us awhile to find the special scorpion spray (regular bug spray doesn't even faze them), and we never did find the special scorpion spaghetti tongs. Finally, B managed to cut him into a few pieces with some scissors. But I am back to wearing shoes at all times in the house, and never touching anything you can't see.

There are many creatures that I am willing to share my habitat with, including wasps, spiders, and beetles. But scorpions give me nightmares.

Another margarita

I've never been one to drink much. I don't think I've ever finished a beer in my entire life. So maybe that helps to explain why a 6 oz margarita at Vivo, sipped at over a three hour period, and which I didn't even finish, got me a little buzzed. Or it could also be that Vivo's ratio of tequila to other ingredients is alarmingly high. In any case, a prickly pear margarita, in beautiful surroundings, drunk with friends makes for a nice evening. Imagine a patio filled with so many plants and waterfalls that it feels like a garden. Now imagine a waiter who didn't mind us taking up his table for three hours while only ordering two appetizers for six people and a lot of drinks. What a wonderful restaurant! They even give all the women roses on their way out. I think I have a new favorite hang-out.

Poetry Thursday - now with pictures!

Cuttings

This urge, wrestle, resurrection of dry sticks,
Cut stems struggling to put down feet,
What saint strained so much,
Rose on such lopped limbs to a new life?

I can hear, underground, that sucking and sobbing,
In my veins, in my bones I feel it,—
The small waters seeping upward,
The tight grains parting at last.
When sprouts break out,
Slippery as fish,
I quail, lean to beginnings, sheath-wet.

-Theodore Roethke

Advice

If you're in the Austin area and hungry for some good, reasonably priced mexican food, don't go the Tres Amigos. However, if you just want a really good pomegranate margarita (yum, antioxidents!), give it a try. The location on 360 also has a neat patio where they put out tortillas for the birds and squirrels.

If I have convinced you that Louise Gluck is a wonderful poet, great. But don't buy her first book of poems, Firstborn, published in 1968. It's awful. The best poem in it so far is Nurse's Song (below), and I'm not all that impressed with it.

Nurse's Song

As though I'’m fooled. That lacy body managed to forget
that I have eyes, ears; dares to spring her boyfriend on the child.
This afternoon she told me, ‘Dress the baby in his crochet
dress,’ and smiled. Just that. Just smiled,
going. She is never here. O innocence, your bassinet
is clogged with gossip, she'’s a sinking ship,
your mother. Wouldn't spoil her breasts.
I hear your deaf-numb papa fussing for his tea. Sleep, sleep,
my angel, nestled with your orange bear.
Scream when her lover pats your hair.

-Louise Gluck