May 2016
Friday Links
1. I took the day off because the weather’s looking like I have a good window for getting the deck and pergola re-stained between storm systems. I will be climbing a ladder on Friday the 13th, though, so good thing I’ll have Doc here to supervise.
2. Via my brother, “What Hiking Does to the Brian Is Pretty Amazing.” Nature Rx is REAL!
3. And some insanity for the end of the week: A Busby Berkeley choreographed number from Gold Diggers of 1933 that features i.) Ginger Rogers singing “We’re In the Money” while wearing ii.) a coin bra and iii.) doing a verse in PIG LATIN around 1:35.
My Fantasy Camping Life
Last night Doc sent me a link to a new tent line at REI: Tepui Tents. They are tents. That go on your car’s roof rack. And fold out like a pop-up trailer. So you can sleep ON YOUR CAR. My reaction was 49% “that’s silly” and 51% “I want that” like the lady in Napoleon Dynamite.
Sure, I only camp about 6 days a year but when I do, I don’t sleep well knowing that my head is on the same level as whatever critter wanders by. If I had this $1500 contraption, I could sleep in elevated comfort! With a built-in foam pad! High and dry!
The site even shows Subarus like mine doing it!
I totally could get one–it would make me go camping so much more than I do now, and all my campfires would light immediately and all meals would be gourmet Dutch oven ones and I’d never be stinky and probably be able to rock climb to boot.
Wise Wednesday Words
Truth.
And if you’re so inclined you can read an interview with the writer of all four (!) Sharknado movies, Thunder Levin (!!), right here.
#goals
Happy Birthday, Fred Astaire
He was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1899. Whenever you’re feeling bad about yourself, remember that the comments from his first screen test when he was 33 were this: “Can’t act, can’t sing. Balding. Can dance a little.”
Yeah, maybe a little. (Skip to 1:25 if you want to skip the acting part and jsut see singing; the dancing starts at about 3:30.)
It’s Monday
Friday Links
1. I am not anti-raccoon at all (they were here first and they don’t do any damage to the place) but I am…cautious…around them. And fascinated by how they run and their little hands. So this piece from The Toast is pretty great (bonus points for all caps):
YOU SCRUBBLEMENT UP YOUR WITCH HANDS AND I DON’T TRUST IT, THAT IS A HUMAN ATTRIBUTE AND I WANT YOU TO LEAVE THAT TO US, STOP BEFORE-WASHING AND RUBBLE-SCRITCHING YOUR FUR-FINGERS, YOU MASHED-DOWN SMALLBEAR
2. This is a series I stumbled on about surviving cancer and wearing lipstick and this recent entry in particular was really beautiful. Pull quote: “A person can change the uncaring universe into a world that cares and matters: the ordinary is extraordinary: the fabric of our lives is shot through with gold.”
Making Me Laugh
The “Lists” section of McSweeney’s is always funny but this was awesome, in a music-joke kind of way. I’m sharing the whole list here because I couldn’t pick just one.
TITLES OF BACH CHORALES, AS TRANSLATED BY MY NIECE
AFTER ONE SEMESTER OF GERMAN.
BY NOLAN BONVOULOIR
Valet will ich dir geben
I will give a deer to the valet
Kommt, Seelen, dieser Tag
Come, seals, this day
Wie bist du, Seele
How are you, seal?
Christus, der uns selig macht
Christ, make us a salad
Nun lob mein Seel den Herren
Don’t throw that herring to my seal
Was willst du dich, o meine Seele
What are you gonna do now, O my seal?
Christ lag in Todes Banden
Christ is late to every band rehearsal
Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele
My dear seal, you are such a schmuck
Wednesday Words
Tuesday Poem
I was going to post a recent Mary Oliver poem about being alive! and staying awake! and wandering through the forest noticing everything! but you know what? I think the reality for most of us is really this Billy Collins one–“busily missing God knows what.”
It’s ok, though. Billy doesn’t make it tragic.
The Sandhill Cranes of Nebraska
by Billy Collins
Too bad you weren’t here six months ago,
was a lament I heard on my visit to Nebraska.
You could have seen the astonishing spectacle
of the sandhill cranes, thousands of them
feeding and even dancing on the shores of the Platte River.
There was no point in pointing out
the impossibility of my being there then
because I happened to be somewhere else,
so I nodded and put on a look of mild disappointment
if only to be part of the commiseration.
It was the same look I remember wearing
about six months ago in Georgia
when I was told that I had just missed
the spectacular annual outburst of azaleas,
brilliant against the green backdrop of spring
and the same in Vermont six months before that
when I arrived shortly after
the magnificent foliage had gloriously peaked,
Mother Nature, as she is called,
having touched the hills with her many-colored brush,
a phenomenon that occurs, like the others,
around the same time every year when I am apparently off
in another state, stuck in a motel lobby
with the local paper and a styrofoam cup of coffee,
busily missing God knows what.