I can do five things

My title may be misleading; I can actually do more than five things. But in considering how much I want to blog (fairly often) and how often I actually do (hardly ever anymore) due to various circumstances (FOUR children, ack!) (which is only a medium size family where I come from, but it's lots to me!) I've decided that I will give up (for now) trying to write long, detailed, eloquent posts about my deep inner feelings. Instead, I will try to post about five things each day through the month of August.

I already missed the first two days, oops. This project, like most I lay my hands on, will have to make do with imperfection.

So! We begin:


1. My sister, BIL and their adorable family spent the last week with us (or from Tuesday evening until Sunday morning, anyway). I miss them already! I did as soon as they drove away, in fact. I mostly know they won't, because other options make much more sense, but I secretly wish they would move into the house directly across the street for me, or the one ~three houses up the block (both of which are for sale and very attractively priced) when BIL is done with pharmacy school.

:: Let us pause for a moment of wistful dreaming ::

Or does anybody else I love want to move into my neighborhood? It's beautiful here, I promise.

2. Uno and Dos have discovered the game of Slug Bug. The only problem? They can't seem to tell the difference between a VW Bug and a PT Cruiser. I think it's hilarious; the two types of cars look nothing alike to me. But maybe their problem is hereditary, and my fault: I'm convinced I have a mild form of face blindness. Maybe my children have car blindness...? LOL.

3. I bought a MomAgenda last year to organize my crazy life. It worked very nicely until Cuatro came, and then (predictably) everything fell apart, organization-wise. I was happy just to make it through the day; never mind penciling in appointments and activities several days or weeks in advance! But now that school is about to start again and my life will return to some semblance of routine and order, I want to try again. Only I don't want to buy somebody else's planner. I'm currently teaching myself Adobe's InDesign program by trying to make my own August to August planner, with spaces for mine and each child's appointments, plus DH's work schedule. I'm a little confused about the data merge (I don't want to have to enter a year's worth of dates manually, UGH) but if I have some quiet time tonight (without children interrupting me every few minutes) I'm sure I'll figure it out.

4. The girls were adorable in their play, A Kidsummer Night's Dream. They were in the chorus line of fairies -- nobody 4th grade or younger was eligible for a bigger part -- but I swear they stole the show. ;-) Here are some pics:










5. Randomly glancing my hand across my bookshelf a few days ago, I found an old book I haven't looked at in years: A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Ahhh, the memories it brought back! Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg and Frank O'Hara, favorite poets of my youth -- they all make me smile. What I'd give to have been a black turtleneck or a pair of cigarette pants ca. 1961, LOL. I'd have been at all the cool poetry readings.

For your reading pleasure, here's one among many of his fabulous pieces:

I Am Waiting

I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier

and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Second Coming
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep thru the state of Arizona
and I am waiting
for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored
and I am waiting
for them to prove
that God is really American
and I am waiting
to see God on television
piped onto church altars
if only they can find
the right channel
to tune in on
and I am waiting
for the Last Supper to be served again
with a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes
and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered
by an obscure general practitioner
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am awaiting retribution
for what America did
to Tom Sawyer
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting
for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth’s dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder

"I Am Waiting" from A Coney Island of the Mind. Copyright © 1958 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.


~RCH~