I’m remarkably pleased with the heel turn on sock #1. I really don’t think I could have timed the color changes better if I’d actually been trying.

Recipe for Persuasion is good so far, as I would have expected from a Dev novel. It’s a loose adaptation of the Austen story, featuring Ashna and Rico, who must team up for a Cooking with the Stars piece despite having been an item in the past.

Once upon a time, bloggers used to share poetry on February 2nd to mark St. Brigid’s Day and the Imbolc festival, which span the first couple days of February and mark, like Groundhog Day, the midway point between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox.

Largely, the practice has faded away, but I’m fond of it, so I’m sharing a poem with you today anyway. I picked up iNK BLOTS, Vol. 1, by the local D.C. Poetry Collective at Lost City Books on Saturday, as I (and everyone else in the city) was out and about soaking up the rare bluebird day.

Daisies
     ~Vadim Kagan

Who writes of daisies at a time like this,
When worlds are quickly coming to an end,
When states of fear replaced the state of bliss?
But daisies are still beautiful, my friend,
And golden is the dandelion wine.

Who writes of daisies as we lose the fight,
When thousands and thousands are dead,
When states are failing, falling left and right?
But daisies are still beautiful, my friend,
And golden is the dandelion wine.

Who writes of daisies when we live online,
And die with cabin fever taking hold,
But golden is the dandelion wine
And daisies are as beautiful as ever —
Let’s write of daisies. They might save the world.

Kagan shares his poetry on Instagram.

If you’ve enjoyed this poem and would like to support D.C. poetry (and Bread for the City, where proceeds are going), you can order the collection from Lost City’s website.

In previous years, I’ve shared poems by Tom Disch, Sharon Olds, Emily Dickinson, Kyle Dargan, Barbara Crooker, William Stafford, Mary Oliver (twice), Wislawa Szymborska, Stuart Dischell, Jean Esteve, John Frederick Nims, Grace Paley, Heather McHugh, and Barbara Hamby, all of which are worth another read.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl focuses on books from my to-be-read list that were written before I was born. Here are ten I’ve been meaning to read for a while:

1. The Odyssey by Homer (I’ve had a pretty copy sitting on my desk for several years. Maybe 2021 is the year to crack it open.)
2. The Sagas of Icelanders (I dragged this ~800-page tome with me to Iceland thinking I’d hunker down and read myths from the 1200s while on vacation there. I did not.)
3. Walden and Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau (Karen and I were supposed to read this together a decade or so ago and I totally kept flaking on her. I’ll get to it someday.)
4. The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim (My two best college friends and I watched the movie, a travel adventure set in an Italian castle, a quarter century ago and I’ve been meaning to get back to it for a while. Maybe this year I’ll check out the source material, which dates from the 1920s.)
5. Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham (Don’t you want to read it based just on the title? Add to that it’s a satire skewering the literary world of London in the early 20th century and I’m doubly in.)
6. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (This routinely makes it onto lists of underappreciated, humorous novels of yore. There’s also an edition with Roz Chast illustrations, which tempts me even more.)
7. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte (I’ve long meant to read all the Bronte novels, and this is my college roommate’s favorite of the bunch.)
8. The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens (While I’ve intended to read this since I first devoured Little Women in elementary school, I haven’t tried since middle school. I can probably get through it now.)
9. Le Petit Nicholas by René Goscinny (I picked up a copy of this French children’s classic when I was in France more than a decade ago and I should really get around to reading it.)
10. Around the World in 72 Days by Nellie Bly (A memoir (based on the newspaper columns) of a journalist’s attempt to beat the 80 days it took the fictional Verne hero to circumnavigate the globe. Who doesn’t want to read a travelogue of a cutting-edge Victorian era newspaperwoman?)

What old books are on your reading list?

Here are some of the snow people I saw today:

The girl who lives next door built the first snow person I saw. Her family owns the art gallery, and her use of cherry tomatoes indicates a good understanding of color.

The farmers market is using their snow person as an extra employee to direct traffic. Note the correct use of a mask (neither carrot nose nor corncob pipe are visible).

Trader Joe’s had two snow people. I’m calling the larger one, Trader Snow.

And his younger brother, Little Trader Snow.

You’ll be seeing some more of my snowy stroll around D.C. through the week.