Inauguration Day g-chats

evs: Aretha's still got it.

marsh: Yes Pecan? http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1871912,00.html?iid=tsmodule

cowboy: keep the dream alive.

gretky: LOVES dr. Lowery. please do the benediction again.

k8: what a benediction should be. wow. http://socialmode.com/2009/01/20/president-obamas-inauguration-speech-transcript-and-benediction-transcript/

on inauguration day 2009

Ev noticed the book Teaching with Fire on my bookshelves last week, and started thumbing through it...it's a sweet little collection of poems that teachers submitted, poems they find sustaining their work, the ones they turn to for energy and inspiration.

I went through the poems again after Ev left - so many good ones, from Marge Piercy to Denise Levertov. This one, excerpted from Seamus Heaney's translation of Sophocles' the Philoctetes, stood out to me for this inauguration day 2009. I do not know what the next 4 years will bring, but I am thankful that the American people elected Barack Obama in November.


from "The Cure at Troy"

Seamus Heaney

Human beings suffer,
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.

The innocent in gaols
Beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker's father
Stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
Faints at the funeral home.

History says, don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracle
And cures and healing wells.

Call miracle self-healing:
The utter, self-revealing
Double-take of feeling.
If there's fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term.

happy sunday

at the fremont sunday market with ringo in the sunshine. made me miss Cab, she loved fremont. but it was beautiful out and we stopped and got theo chocolates for the ride home. yum.

"you'll want to eat the rest of your life with me." - Simon

I am in love with simon from In Her Shoes. I would go on a date with him, even though I don't believe in dating. Except he's married to toni colette. And of course, there is the problem that they're fictional characters, so they don't exist.

There's a lot of fictional characters I'm in love with. Melrose Plant and Richard Jury top the list, Melrose for laughter and Jury for steadiness. And of course Mr. Darcy comes to mind, although I think I root more for Wentworth and Knightley, because it's always seemed to me a bit more dicey for them - not as sure they would get their girls in the end.

I wonder what it says about me that these are all British guys. Hmm. I can't think of an American character I've been in love with....well, maybe.

I'll get back to you on that.

"are we supposed to eat this stuff? Or is it supposed to eat us?" - anita manning

K8 is rooting for the Obamas to plant a victory garden. (Brief history, see knol.) Well, let's be honest, the chef would probably plant it, and maybe not even the chef but some gardeners. How cool would it be to be the White House Gardener? That would be awesome.

Also, she thinks I might meet a farmer if I get to know the people who compiled this resource for Washington state beginning farmers and ranchers, and perhaps get some money to start a farm. This would also be awesome.

Michael Pollan was in town Monday and he is a fan of gardens. I'm a fan of his advice: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. And there's other thought of his I like, too: Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. Don't eat anything you don't have ingredients for at your house. Etc.

Also, he is funny, and pragmatic.

When asked for his thoughts about Obama's food policy choices, Pollan said that Obama had a community organizer perspective, having said "Show me the movement" when someone asked him about sustainable agriculture. Pollan then suggested if Michelle Obama takes on sustainable agriculture, the food industry will likely not attack her, and such a movement might gain more traction.