Since we missed Cute Kitten Picture Day, here are some alpaca babies (crias), courtesy of Blue Moon Ranch. (The one below is named Karma. She’s my favorite.)

I’m interrupting regularly-scheduled Cute Kitten Picture Day to bring you…

PICTURES FROM THE TOOELE COUNTY FAIR DEMOLITION DERBY

(The food item is a funnel cake. The monkey was from the carousel on the midway.)

I love the derby experience so much.

Things on my mind today:

1. The Tooele County Fair and Demolition Derby, tomorrow at 6:00. I not only have tickets, I have pit passes. Hopefully, I’ll remember a camera.

2. Antoine de Saint-Exupery

3. The Library at Alexandria. Wish I knew what happened to it. Wish I knew what was in there.

4. This Proust quote, from Within a Budding Grove (I haven’t made it past Swann’s Way; I found this as part of the ongoing quote project):

“Your soul…is a dark forest. But the trees are of a particular species; they are genealogical trees.”

Yesterday, someone at the office diecovered a site that’s cataloged theme music of popualr TV shows form the 70’s into the early 80’s. I heard the “He-Man: Masters of the Universe” theme for the first time in about 12 years, which lead to a great loss of productivity but a good time remembering my childhood:

“I have the power!”

The lovely Teela and her outfit:

And don’t forget the evil Skeletor (to whom Orrin Hatch bears a resemblance, I’ve always thought).

Last night I made a freeform peach tart thing, since it was cool enough to bake; we went from a high of 101 on Saturday to a high of about 76 yesterday.

I’ve always noticed a change in the light here come August. It makes you realize summer is over–when the heat breaks, too, like it did this week, it really drives it home.

So imagine how surprised I was to find out yesterday was the ancient Druidic holiday of Lughnasa. Not being a Druid myself, this was news to me: “Lughnasa marked the midpoint between Beltane in May and Samhain in November, and symbolized a turning point in the lifecycle of Mother Earth. It was both a joyous celebration of plenty and a solemn wake for the decline of the potency of the sun god Lugh, from which the festival takes its name.”

See? Someone else noticed the beginning-of-the-end phenomenon in August. Those Druids.

A geology word I learned this morning, reading about the Gulf of Mexico (my roommate was watching Armageddon last night and that sparked some desultory scientific talk about the Gulf’s depth and if it really was formed by a meteorite and what a good role for an aging Bruce Willis that was): orogeny (or’-o-jen-ee), “a process in which a section of the earth’s crust is folded and deformed by lateral compression to form a mountain range.”

Other words that have come up recently: fabulist and tragedian. A fabulist is, of course, someone who composed fables; a tragedian is either an author of or an actor specializing in tragedies.

And, to top it off, I ran across this word in a Neruda poem over the weekend (no, I’ll spare you a Neruda poem today) and remembered when I learned it from my old boss: amanuensis (a-man-you-EN-sis). The original meaning was someone who took dictation specifically for a blind person, but now it’s “a literary or artistic assistant, in particular one who takes dictation or copies manuscripts.”

I’m sure you will have all sorts of opportunities to drop these words casually into everyday conversation.

I know today is Cute Kitten Picture day, but this was in my head all evening last night. It seemed pretty perfect for my mood, the events (I was sunbathing), the moon that evening, the end-of-July poignant indecisive feeling (yes, that’s the technical term for it).

Section XVI from Dark Harbor, by Mark Strand:

It is true, as someone has said, that in
A world without heaven all is farewell.
Whether you wave your hand or not,

It is farewell, and if no tears come to your eyes
It is still farewell, and if you pretend not to notice,
Hating what passes, it is still farewell.

Farewell no matter what. And the palms as they lean
Over the green, bright lagoon, and the pelicans
Diving, and the glistening bodies of bathers resting,

Are stages in an ultimate stillness, and the movement
Of sand, and of wind, and the secret moves of the body
Are part of the same, a simplicity that turns being

Into an occasion for mourning, or into an occasion
Worth celebrating, for what else does one do,
Feeling the weight of the pelicans’ wings,

The density of the palms’ shadows, the cells that darken
The backs of bathers? These are beyond the distortions
Of chance, beyond the evasions of music. The end

Is enacted again and again. And we feel it
In the temptations of sleep, in the moon’s ripening,
In the wine as it waits in the glass.

That’s so good: “…a simplicity that turns being into…an occasion worth celebrating, for what else does one do?” What else does one do, indeed.
And here’s a cute kitten picture to boot:

Not too bad for a Monday. The kitten here looks less than thrilled.

1. Here’s a kitten looking like it’s going to pounce on you:

2. Last night I sewed a dress and watched The Way We Were, which was silly but in a good way. I liked Streisand’s hair throughout.

3. A not-necessarily-encouraging-but-not-overtly-discouraging quote popped in my head this morning, from The Hours. Here it is:
“They could have had a life as searing and potent as literature itself.”

4. I think there’s a wildfire somewhere on the mountains. It’s smoky.

This is a video entitled, “Cats Being Awesome.” It delivers what it promises. It’s worth waiting for it to download if your connection is slow. (The video quality isn’t that great even on a fast connection.) But it contains cats. Being awesome. Enough said.

Here is a link to a site entitled “Poulpe Pulps,” poulpe being the French word for octopus and pulps referring to–of course–pulp fiction. Because why wouldn’t someone collect (and post online) covers of pulp fiction novels that have octopi on them? Really, there’s no good reason not to.