Eclair de Lune

True, I am doing my daughter's laundry today (ack, tidying up on a Slattern Day!) before she goes back to school, but, otherwise, I might be a bad mom. "What's for breakfast?" she asked, upon rising, rather late, since she and her beau went to see Her last night, the 10:10 show.

"Uh, lemon cake?" was my slatternly reply. Thinking aloud: "Oh, that's not very healthy. Well, it's no worse than a donut."

"Donuts," she said, with the quiet drooling concentration of Homer Simpson.

This conversation ended with me giving her a $20 to go to Denny's Donuts drive-through for Bavarians, the closest we could come to eclairs, for which I had a hankering, and for Highlander Grog, my favorite coffee flavor, and also Denny's favorite, apparently still on hand as a tribute to him.* So, yay!

Perhaps you will also enjoy the pastries (uh, feathered and blood-spattered) at Thirteen Myna Birds today, a new issue full of wonderful and provocative poems. I love the line, "The fog is manifest appetite--eating all in its path," by Annette Marie Hyder, in her poem "A Thick Stem." I have seen that kind of fog, been eaten by it, and have incorporated it into poems of my own, too. But not in my two poems in this issue.

My poems, "History" and "At Joliet," are from a series of poems about small towns. Headed south to Peoria by car, we pass Morton, and once our car broke down there, so I feel very fond of its police department and a particular auto repair place. Headed to Chicago on the train, I get a close up view of the prison at Joliet, made of the blond stone dug from the quarry there.

And why did I have a hankering for eclairs? Well, 1) I pretty much always have a hankering for eclairs and 2) I saw this delightful French thing on Facebook this morning (thanks to Sandy Longhorn), and it has various yummy things in it, including eclairs and hunk chocolate, so, naturally...

Speaking (of) French, I found this Creative Commons image, by Bertranfenne, while searching for virtual eclairs. It is a fermeture eclair, or zipper. An eclair is a flash of lightning! And a fermeture is a closing, or fastening. So a fermeture eclair is a closing that flashes open, eh? Voila!

*Dennis (Denny) Marquardt (1954-2011)

Blue Satsumas

Boy, it sure felt good to get out of the house yesterday! As soon as the temperature hit zero, we got out to shovel the driveway, our walk, and our neighbor's, so mail carrier and dog walkers can go by safely and not in the street! Then we went to the bank, the library, and the grocery store! Wooee!

And, boy, it sure feels good to be back inside, warm and safe. A pipe upstairs is frozen, as usual. Each year we take steps to prevent or solve this recurring problem.This year those steps included drilling a small hole in the bathroom ceiling downstairs, to let the heat get in and rise to the trouble spot. Since it's now 12 degrees outside, rather than 12 below, our hopes are high.

But don't those satsuma mandarins look cold? Heh heh. It's a study on blue paper by Jonathan Koch. And be sure to check out the blue Christmas tree and other snapshots by Terry Kinney, up today at Escape Into Life with some of his poems. He's a multi-talented guy, and a very fine actor!

Interior Sculpture

It's a Blue Monday in the blog, but I am not blue. The sky is blue on this sunny cold day, officially -15, with a "feels like" wind chill factor of -50 at the moment. Fortunately, schools and many businesses are closed, so people can stay home. My son gets to work from home today in Chicago, and my parents unfroze their pipes out in the country, so they have water as well as heat!

Here's the book cover for Interior Sculpture: poems in the voice of Camille Claudel, which might warm things up!  The book is already available at dancing girl press. (Maybe you'd like to order it online, a nice indoor activity!) I am tickled, and this makes it a Poetry Someday in the blog, as well.

The cover is based on Camille Claudel's famous sculpture, The Waltz. And here's a link to information on Columbus Dance Theatre and its upcoming production of Claudel, a world premiere. Plus, Juliette Binoche stars in a new film about her, Camille Claudel 1915, that I hope to see when it comes, but accounts of it do match much of my research and interpretation of her life. Looking forward to a busy January of dance and film!

Poems from the book appear now in Arsenic Lobster, Heron Tree, and Fickle Muses (see links in list to the right) and are forthcoming in Eclectica, Menacing Hedge, and Wicked Alice. Thanks so much for your interest and support if you look for the poems and order the book!

Twelfth Night

It's the Twelfth Day of Christmas, by some accounts, and Epiphany Eve. I hope I have an epiphany tomorrow.

My husband used to get his presents, in his shoes, tomorrow, January 6, on Three Kings Day. We expect to be snowed in tomorrow, or homebound due to bitter cold and the windchill factor, and since we did not hoard groceries in advance, I hope I have enough imagination to make meals from what's at hand.

The traditional food would be a cake with a bean and a pea in it. I have some beans. Or I could bake a King Cake with a baby Jesus in it. Not happening.

Instead, I offer this interesting account of Twelfth Night, or What You Will, Shakespeare's play performed as it would have been, in Shakespeare's time, with men playing all the roles. It's a production of Shakespeare's Globe in a limited run at The Belasco Theatre in New York, starring Mark Rylance and Stephen Fry. I'd love to see it.

I was in Twelfth Night in college, as Olivia, and in Chicago, with the Steppenwolf Second Company (doing Shakespeare for school groups), as Viola. I was a better Olivia. I'd been instructed in a convoluted rationale just to speak in my regular voice, as a boy would have been playing Viola/Cesario before his voice changed, but I'm not very deep-voiced naturally, so it could hardly have worked. Sigh... Plus my twin (Sebastian) was way taller. I think back on what would have been the more natural casting and wonder why we didn't do that!

Oh, well. I got to play two cool Shakespearean roles + all the women, at one point or another, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, not to mention a variety of fairies. What a nice life.

Tidying Up

I’ve been tidying up on a Slattern Day! Egad! I undecorated the tree and my husband and I carried it to the curb in a tarp. It was raining needles. I even reorganized the ornaments in labeled boxes. I did all my year-end tax accounting. I caught up on belated Christmas cards. I cleaned out two closets and did laundry. What is happening?! Well, the going up and down stairs part has certainly kept me nice and warm. 

We had a lovely holiday woliday with family wamily and friends. I hope you did, too. 

On New Year’s Eve, we took our annual short trip to Michigan to a house in the woods where we park our car at the foot of the drive because it won’t make it up without slipping back or tipping into the ravine. It acquired about a foot of snow on top, as did the deck furniture out the window! We celebrated with old friends and young dogs. 

We used every single white card and every single black card in the Cards Against Humanity deck and laughed till we cried. We’d been drinking a champagne toast once per hour from 8:00 p.m. on but still almost forgot to turn on the tv and see the ball drop at midnight. Almost, but fortunately the kitchen clock was five minutes fast!

While it was snowing, the new issue of Arsenic Lobster came out with 2 of my Camille Claudel poems in it, “Collage” (which means glue*) and “Working Small.” It’s a wonderful issue with a wonderful introduction. Many thanks to Arsenic Lobster editor, Susan Yount, and to Jonathan Koch for Scissors, Thread, Tailor’s Tape, the painting above.

Thanks to Kristi and Alex for the New Year's pix, including pix of their dogs, Lucy and Archie.**

Happy New Year!

*I did not glue my fingers together on Christmas gifts this year.

**And the lion shall lie down with the dog.

Hmm, what's that I smell? Ah, my husband has resumed painting with paint thinner..., so the new year may resemble the old year. 

But we might lose our awareness of that.