The Answer, My Friend, Is 271....

A little music for today, classic in every way....

Happy Halloween!

This entire post is stolen blatantly, word for word, from today's Wonkette. Thanks, Wonkette, for making my Halloween witchilicious!

Lil’ Sarah Palin Wants Welfare Handouts 

Friday, October 31st, 2008

Family Circus

Dolly’s sadistic parents have dressed her as America’s most-hated angry dingbat, so the neighbors will feed her poison. 

Flashback: 1964

One of the memories that crossed my mind when I voted for Barack Obama was watching my mother pay her poll tax. 

For those of you unfamiliar with that term, the "poll tax" (along with other practices such as "literacy tests") was a particularly pernicious form of disenfranchisement, abolished in federal elections by constitutional amendment in 1964 and in state and local elections by the Supreme Court in 1966.  

My mother often took me along when she voted. When possible, I take Small Child with me.

But, in a change of seasons, today I took my mother to vote.

With a spiffy cap covering her chemo-hairless head and a cane to steady her ever-weaker gait, she made her way into the courthouse for early voting. She was able to handle the ten or so stairs down into the courthouse entrance nearest our parking spot, and fortunately the elevator was working. 

When we reached the second floor, the stairs loomed so very large.  She was ready, though. Ready to climb to vote in what is, realistically, at age 87 her final presidential election. 

But in one of those moments of grace, all too rare in this season of sniping and vicious campaigning, the worker stationed to greet and guide those arriving to vote took one look at us and said, simply, "We're so glad you're here. Would you like us to bring a machine down so you don't have to climb those last few stairs?"

Mother paused a moment, then replied, "Yes, I think that would be best."

I wish I could say that in the 44 years since the poll tax was repealed the world had changed enough for her to vote for Obama. In truth, I think she was voting for McCain rather than against an African American man. 

But as I sat there, watching a patient Latina assist her with the electronics and a rainbow of diverse voters pass by, I felt so very grateful that my world has.

History.

Yesterday, I voted for Barack Obama for President of the United States of America.

Texas has "early voting," and turnout has been brisk.

All sorts of memories of discrimination -  de facto and de jure -  flooded through me as I worked through the screen. 

And with one touch of a flashing red button I blasted them all away.

Good luck, Senator Obama.

And all you folks out there... go make some history, okay?

Melancholy, Thou Hast Thy Music, Too...

It's happened. Fall has come (and gone, with today's warm sunshine, but will come again).  On Thursday morning, we officially saw our breath and the overnight low dipped to 39. 

Or has it? The drought continues, giving the grass a bonus crunch. The mosquitoes are still biting. 

Nothing seems quite right.

Astrologers claim this is a result of some pretty dramatic planetary dancing. Pundits attribute it to the election. Common sense suggests a look at the financial crisis. 

All I know is that I am not feeling fall. And that is a bad, bad thing. 

Friends of Blue know I am prone to Fall Fever: giddiness, spurts of activity, glee, joy, and the tendency to lie on blankets with books.  The first symptom is the annual Keats Email, in which I expect my friends to share, once again, a sentimental attachment to A Beloved Poem. Last year, I experienced a second symptom, the first annual Keats Blog Post: a cry of bliss to the universe.

Earlier this month, I alluded to my autumn-ennui on these pages. I thought that might banish the funk, but it did not.  

Maybe I wasn't explicit enough. Maybe I need to summon seasonal joy in a different way. 

Maybe if one of Keats' Odes is good, two would be better?

So this year it's a two-fer. We're going to begin with "Ode on Melancholy." Feel free to skip the first stanza (I always do), but don't miss the opportunity to roll around in the gloom of the second and third.  If you sink into it, really feel it, you'll begin to feel better. And then you'll be ready for "To Autumn."  It's a wine-ripe apple of beauty.

Enjoy.

Ode on Melancholy

1.

NO, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
  Wolfs-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d
  By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries, 
  Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
    Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries;
  For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
    And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul. 

2.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall
  Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
  And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, 
  Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
    Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
  Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
    And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. 

3.

She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
  And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
  Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight 
  Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
    Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine;
  His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
    And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

To Autumn

1.

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
  Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
  With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, 
  And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
    To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
  And still more, later flowers for the bees,
  Until they think warm days will never cease, 
    For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

2.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
  Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
  Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
  Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
    Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
  Steady thy laden head across a brook; 
  Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
    Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

3.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
  Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 
  And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
  Among the river sallows, borne aloft
    Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 
  Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
  The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
    And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Just Say No to No!

I received a disturbing email from a friend last night.

The local junior high is presenting the Aim for Success abstinence program next week.

As it turns out, the kids who attend the assembly get a homework pass.* The kids who don't attend the assembly have to bring a signed form from their parents saying that they are not going to attend. And guess what? No homework pass.

Of course, part of the assembly is The Signing of the Abstinence Pledge, a statement that the signer promises not to have sexual intercourse until he or she is married.

Let's forget that CDC statistics show abstinence programs don't work.

Let's forget that asking very young teenagers to broadcast publicly private decisions about their sexual choice is offensive and intrusive.

Let's forget that, should an individual be gay (in most states) or unable to find a spouse he or she - under this ludicrous model - is signing away a basic human need.

Let's forget that the "science" behind this program is suspect at best.

Let's forget that our children need knowledge to protect themselves from pregnancy and disease.

But let's do make sure to "reward" those students who participate in this sick charade and "punish" those who don't.

Wonder what the homework load will be on the night in question?

*Correction: I was wrong about the method for homework pass distribution. Parents will receive the homework passes, presumably to give to their children, if they attend the parents' meeting.

Harvest

Today, Small Child and I saw our first V of geese.

A few days ago, a beautiful, giant full moon hung low in the sky.

Here and there, leaves go golden.

The squirrels have been frantic for a couple of weeks, and Large Dog has been in what can only be described as a manic state.

And exactly one year ago tonight, I wrote a post that ended with the words, “I wish it would rain,” words that crossed my mind endlessly today as my feet crunched across dry grass on cracked earth.

All signs point to autumn. To fall. To harvest.

But I’m anxious.

I have not been tending my garden lately. Since I began blogging 18 months ago, I’ve sown many seeds (consciously and otherwise). I grew weary of carrying water when the rains stopped. I’ve veered off into the easy subjects, partisan politics, sentiment-at-hand. 

Honestly? I’m not even sure I remember what seeds I threw in which direction. I didn’t keep good records. Some plants looked promising but withered in the brutal summer sun. Others I just abandoned, too busy to water. Entire sections fell to mysterious blight. I put a few seed packets down and forgot about them; plants sprouted right out of the paper. The months have been that way.

The months have been so much that way that often many go by without a glance at the garden. But autumn forces the gaze.

Some of those seeds have grown into plants I really can’t ignore any longer, the kind that crack walkways, ruin foundations, choke out desirable species. The tough, spiny ones that can live without irrigation or attention. It’s time for me to face my fear of runaway vegetation. Gotta thin, prune, mulch.

I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way. You only have to flip on the news or walk through a store to hear uneasiness, fear, and worry.

But not all gardeners have been dithering or wringing their hands. I admire their work.

One is seeing her children through transitions joyous and painful, making enormous sacrifices yet still finding time to laugh, play, create and be a wonderful friend.

Another has, in what most find a daunting economic climate, listened to his heart and birthed a second successful business that feeds his soul.

Yet another, who completely plowed under a marriage of many years and lost much in the process, found not only freedom but also a second go at love and parenthood.

Finally, a friend and fabulous writer with talent and discipline and wit persevered right into a two-book deal.

It’s been a heavy year, friends. I don’t know what I’m going to find out there when I pull on my gloves, pick up the shovel, and start digging. Somehow, I don’t think I’ll find succulent autumn vegetables, as much as I adore them.

Whatever I find, I’ll do my best to make it relevant and readable. If not, you can always toss it in the compost.