sprite writes
broodings from the burrow

February 12, 2009


upsadaisy, spring?, and cheerful
posted by soe 4:55 am

How did it get to be quarter to four in the morning? I could have sworn it was just two… Anyway, before I load up my iPod, finish my packing, and head to bed for a few minutes to get a little shuteye pre-flight, I thought I’d better offer up three beautiful things from the past week:

1. The Dupont escalators have been particularly bad this last week, often with none of them working. (In case anyone’s forgotten, the rise-to-run ratio of the stationary escalator makes it more difficult to climb than normal stairs. Plus, it’s something like three stories straight up…) I come across an older woman who probably ought to have waited for an elevator. A 20-something man has taken her rolly bag from her already and pauses to offer her an additional hand. “Lean on me,” he urges, blocking traffic from shoving past her. “It’ll make it easier.” At the top, he hands her bag back to her and wanders off.

2. Walking back from the bank last Friday, I see snowdrops blooming by the Smithsonian. This week, bulbs are starting to push their shoots through the ground, and the corner house has forsythia blooming by their stairs.

3. The last few weeks the flower vendor at the farmers’ market has had tulips for sale. I always pick an assortment to sit in a vase atop our refrigerator. This week’s bouquet was a frilly yellow one, a restrained magenta one, and one that’s yellow with bright fiery red-orange tips.

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February 9, 2009


music on mondays: jamie cullum
posted by soe 8:57 pm

I thought today we’d mix it up a bit, so I offer you these covers by my favorite jazz pianist, Jamie Cullum:

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February 5, 2009


diamond-like, inevitable?, and thanks for asking
posted by soe 9:40 pm

Today would not be one of the good days, which is why it’s all the more important to think of some of the beautiful things that I saw this afternoon. Here are just three:

1. The water in one of the “bays” off the Potomac near the airport sparkles, reflecting the clear, cold blue sky and brilliant midday sun.

2. Leaving the airport, I wonder if I will end up in D.C. or on Spout Run Parkway. Rudi assures me each time I pick him up from the airport that the detour is not necessary and that roads in Virginia do NOT move about like Hogwarts staircases. I mentally pat myself on the back when I notice the sign that offers me the exit for Memorial Bridge and correctly make the turn. Self-congratulations, it turns out, is a bit early, as I fail to exit the highway and end up back on my timeworn path. A final escape is offered to me, though, and I find myself off the highway, next to my parents’ old apartment complex. A twisty jaunt through Georgetown and I’m back in Dupont Circle.

3. I circle the neighborhood hunting for a parking spot … for nearly an hour. Each time I approach the light at Florida and Phelps, it turns red. Finally, I say aloud, “I’m getting pretty sick of this. What am I missing?” Turn right, drive a block, and the final spot a block from my house is open with nary a car in sight. I hope I hadn’t driven past it twenty times.

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the good thing about rats
posted by soe 9:22 am

You have to admit there aren’t too many upsides to having rats in your ceiling. But there is at least one — that you have to tidy the apartment sufficiently to let the landlord and handyman have access to the ceiling in two spots — the living room and the bedroom, where there are boarded-over spots from previous pest-control efforts. (This is one of the perks of renting — rats or termites in your ceiling ultimately are someone else’s problem.)

Rudi leaves for his ski holiday in three hours; let’s see if the work is done before he departs or if I have to try reassembling the bedroom on my own. Either way, I foresee a lot of this weekend being spent going through random bags of things that require shredding.

Three beautiful things from the previous week to follow later in the day…

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February 3, 2009


for 50 years we’ve been on our own…
posted by soe 2:26 pm

I fear that the Don McLean song is the only reason young people know Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens anymore, but the music is worth revisiting. I include the best of the videos (they died back in 1959; not a lot of footage remains), but I encourage you to seek out better audio sources of their greatest hits. The Big Bopper’s songs are particularly enjoyable to listen to for their humor.

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February 2, 2009


poetry reading around the world
posted by soe 11:03 pm

Poke about the web a bit and you can’t help but notice an abundance of poetry every February 2. It’s not because rodents are terribly fond of a bit of poesy, but merely because it marks the annual Bloggers’ (Silent) Poetry Reading. The event honors Brigid (or Brigit or Bridhe), Celtic goddess and Catholic saint of poets, dairymaids, blacksmiths, healers, cattle, fugitives, Irish nuns, midwives, and new-born babies. It was her celebration marking the impregnation of the ewes that Christians co-opted to become Candlemas (which, ultimately, was celebrated by German immigrants in Pennsylvania as Groundhog Day).

I offer you this year a poem by John Frederick Nims because I would love for something similar to be said of me. I found it in my freshman English textbook, bookmarked by a note from my college roommate, wishing me a happy 21st birthday:

Love Poem
    ~John Frederick Nims

My clumsiest dear, whose hands shipwreck vases,
At whose quick touch all glasses chip and ring,
Whose palms are bulls in china, burs in linen,
And have no cunning with any soft thing

Except all ill-at-ease fidgeting people:
The refugee uncertain at the door
You make at home; deftly you steady
The drunk clambering on his undulant floor.

Unpredictable dear, the taxi drivers’ terror,
Shrinking from far headlights pale as a dime
Yet leaping before red apoplectic streetcars —
Misfit in any space. And never on time.

A wrench in clocks and the solar system. Only
With words and people and love you move at ease.
In traffic of wit expertly manoeuvre
And keep us, all devotion, at your knees.

Forgetting your coffee spreading on our flannel,
Your lipstick grinning on our coat,
So gayly in love’s unbreakable heaven
Our souls on glory of spilt bourbon float.

Be with me, darling, early and late. Smash glasses —
I will study wry music for your sake.
For should your hands drop white and empty
All the toys of the world would break.


Previous years have brought you poems by Mary Oliver, Grace Paley, and Heather McHugh and Barbara Hamby.

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