Remembering; or, One Year Later

So I'm cheating a little bit again today for NaBloPoMo by re-posting an entry from last year in honor of this first anniversary. But I still think it counts. :)


Three for Grandpa, 1914-2009
The Secret

We have a secret, just we three:
The robin, and I, and the sweet cherry tree.
The bird told the tree, and the tree told me,
And nobody knows it but just us three.

Of course the robin knows it best,
Because she built the -- I won't say the rest --
And laid the four little --somethings-- in it.
I'm afraid I shall tell it every minute!

But if the tree and the robin don't peep,
I'll try my best the secret to keep.
But when the little somethings fly about,
Then the whole secret will be out.

- Anonymous


The Swing

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside --

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown --
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

- Robert Louis Stevenson


Icarus

A girl. Arms outstretched, swooping wildly
across the sky, returning mildly
to earth, on the end of a string
madly running, she catches the wind,
rises aloft. She holds the twine
to her ear to hear the wind sing.

A grandfather. Smiling slightly,
weathered hands grip his own string tightly
hovering steadily in the sky,
teaching her to hear the wind sing,
watching her swoop. He is remembering
the giddy new thrill of first learning to fly.

- ELE


Touched you last, Grandpa!

No Mo?

So November is the month of Mo's. NaNoWriMo, NaNoReaMo, NaBloPoMo, etc. We'll see what happens.

As far as blog posting goes, though, I think it still counts even if it's not an exciting post and is barely squeezing in under the deadline. So there.

See you tomorrow (perhaps. It all depends on the whim of the new master of the house).

And now, an even bigger surprise.

I don't have time (or energy) for a full post right now, but just wanted to let you all know that our little guy decided to make an early entrance (or it was decided for him after my blood pressure was dangerously high at my 36-week checkup). He arrived at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday night via c-section and is, quite simply, perfect. No complications for baby or for me so far. I'll share the full story later, but for now, here are my 1000 words:


Yeah, you just WISH your toes were that cute. :)

OH MY STINKING HECK I ACTUALLY PASSED.

And best of all, so did Shallow Man!

WE BOTH PASSED THE BAR, YO!

(Our poor kid officially will have two lawyers for parents. Maybe you should pray for him. . . .)

Waiting. Impatiently.

Yeah, we still haven't gotten our bar results yet.

But a lot of our friends in other states are getting their results. The good news posts on Facebook keep trickling in.

And my confidence is steadily being undermined.

See, going into the bar I was So. Not. Ready. As in, knew I was not going to pass. Failure was imminent.

Coming out, I at least felt cautiously optimistic, and I've managed to hold on to that feeling of cautious optimism in the intervening weeks (it helped that there have been plenty of distractions as I try to get ready for this impending baby, but that's a whole different "waiting" story).

Now that the moment of truth is creeping up on us (even though I don't know for sure when it will actually get here), that feeling is rapidly dissipating and I am not afraid to say that I am more or less terrified.

So, please, if you see me in the next few days/weeks and I haven't made a big "OH MY STINKING HECK I ACTUALLY PASSED" type of announcement, PLEASE, do not, under any circumstances, ask me any questions about the bar or bar results. Because that will mean that either 1) I still haven't heard back and am falling further into my paranoia and panic, or 2) I have heard back and have no desire to discuss it.

Thank you!


Also, please refrain from posting helpful, optimistic comments on this post, as I know you want to do because you're my friends (I assume) and are awesome and supportive like that. Because people do fail the bar regularly. And telling me you know I passed won't help my panic right now because that will only make me dread facing you later and having to confess that all your confidence was grossly misplaced. Wait to give me the "Well, duh, I KNEW you would pass" comments until I actually know that I've passed. Thanks!

Airing out.

Today was perfect weather—cool and crisp but still warm enough that you wouldn't need to take a jacket. Perfect weather for opening every window in the house and letting the place air out.

We opened the windows, pulled up the blinds and pushed back the curtains to let the light in. Today's light was perfect, too, to match the weather—my favorite kind of light. It was coming from just the right angle and made our house bright and cheery and light.

During the summer we keep the windows closed most of the time because of the direction our house faces (most of our windows open either to the south or to the nearby train yard, letting in excess noise and/or heat, and letting out the cool air from the AC). The last time we really had our windows open was when the AC broke the weekend before the bar. That was NOT a good time for opening windows, because the air coming in was still too hot.

It was glorious to just let the breeze waft through the place, freshening the air and the house. It felt like it was cleansing all the stress that has bottled up this summer from the bar and the pregnancy and everything else, and blew it away like cobwebs. I was content for a good part of the afternoon to just sit on the couch, doing nothing in particular but enjoy the breeze, look out the window, and watch the cats try to decide which window to sit in first.

It's nice to have days when you can give your house and your soul a little chance to air out and feel fresh and new again.

In the interest of full disclosure; or, I am a bad person.

When people post things on the internet and spell words incorrectly (especially common words like "there" vs. "their" or "they're"), I judge them.

When people post things on the internet and either blatantly misuse or eliminate punctuation altogether, I judge them.

When people post things on the internet and forgo capitalization completely, I judge them.

When people post things on the internet without proofreading, resulting in a mangled jumble of what I can only guess was supposed to be English, I judge them.

In short: I judge people for not proofreading. Seeing a post that demonstrates a less-than-minimum competency for the English language makes me jump to conclusions about the education or intelligence of the poster. And that is bad. Because I am a bad person.

But I am also an English major, an editor and a writer, and I just can't help it.

So now you know.


P.S. In the interest of further disclosure, if you are a person I know and love and make one of the above errors, I still love you and make excuses for you. If it's someone I don't know, though, their reputation sinks drastically in my estimation. Yes, it's biased and unfair. I still do it. (See supra, "I am a bad person.")