Family

New dress for Mistress Pink, or, Package tracking as entertainment

5 Comments

Last year, my mother made a [jumper / pinafore] (depending on dialect) dress for Fiona. It was every pink-obsessed little girl’s dream garment, with tier on tier of floral ruffles. From a parental point of view, it’s also very good – corduroy, washable, looks good unironed, long and loose enough that she can wear it for some time before it is too small. Fiona loves it, and has to be wrestled from it when it’s time for a wash.

So in the tail end of the year, with the sewing machine and serger throwing inviting glances her way, Mom asked me if I wanted her to make another one. I thought about it, but Fiona only really needs one obsessive dress, or we’ll run out of shirts and tights to go under it. But I had an idea for the leftover fabric from the first dress. Why not make a matching one for Fiona’s favorite doll, Holly?

Measurements were taken in the dead of night. Guesses were made and rechecked. More measurements were required. Christmas threatened to squat like a toad on the postal services, so the decision was to wait till after New Year’s to send the package. Federal Express then required a crash course in Dutch postcodes (hint: looking at them on the US ZIP code database gets you nowhere). Finally, the thing was sent and all we could do was watch the tracking.

And watch it we did, with versification to keep it entertaining.

On January 3 it arrived in Memphis. Mom commented,

Give me Memphis, Tennessee!
Hep me find the party tried to get in touch with me.
She could not leave her number, but I know who placed the call
Cause m’uncle took the message and he wrote it on the wall!

I replied with a mangling of Marc Cohn’s Walking in Memphis:

Warehoused in Memphis
Would that I could see the sights outside
Warehoused in Memphis
Waiting for my transfer. Where’s my ride?

Then it was sighted leaving Memphis, destination unknown. I found myself humming:

I’m leaving on a jet plane
At last I’m on my way again.
Fedex can ascertain
Where next I’m set to go.

Paris, as it turned out, was the next step. Mom announced this with:

The last time I saw Paris, her heart was warm and gay,
I heard the laughter of her heart in every street café

The last time I saw Paris, her trees were dressed for spring,
And lovers walked beneath those trees and birds found songs to sing.

I dodged the same old taxicabs that I had dodged for years.
The chorus of their squeaky horns was music to my ears.

Holly’s dress arrived in that most magic of all cities at 8 pm today, January 3.

The first time I saw Paris I was 19 years old. We took a train into town, and we got there at about 6 am. (“We” being Mike Thacker and me.) I walked out onto a bridge over the Seine, and the city was misty and quiet still….the cathedral had been there forever. At that moment I fell in love, as one does at 19, unthinkingly. And forever. I can’t see the real city now, when I go back. All I can see is what I saw in 1965.

The last time I saw Paris, her heart was warm and gay,
No matter how they change her, I’ll remember her that way.

I Googled for Paris poetry, and settled on one that starts:

First, London, for its myriads; for its height,
Manhattan heaped in towering stalagmite;
But Paris for the smoothness of the paths
That lead the heart unto the heart’s delight. . . .

It swiftly became:

First, Piedmont, for the artistry that creates,
Flat Memphis that still Elvis elevates;
But Paris for its far-flung motorways
That bear the dress to where the dresser waits…

Before any more versification or doggerel could be committed, the Fed Ex van arrived here in Oostzaan. Fiona was delighted.

DSC02113

Thanks, Mom, for the dress and the entertainment.

Personal

Immoderately Pleased

6 Comments

I have a confession to make.

Over the past couple of years, I have been spending more and more time on another blog. After my experiences with Everything2, I never intended to join an online community again. But somehow, by accident, I kinda did.

It’s owned by the Nielsen Haydens, a couple with deep roots in science fiction and fantasy publishing and fandom. Patrick is a senior editor at Tor Books, and has won a Hugo for his editorial work. Teresa has edited for Tor (and is still a consulting editor, I gather), but is now – among other things – moderator in the recently reopened comment threads at Boing Boing.

The blog, Making Light, is what’s got me back into writing sonnets. I’ve spent a good deal of time there, punning and playing with words, getting to know and like the people. We kick around a lot of topics (the blog subhead is “Language, fraud, folly, truth, knitting, and growing luminous by eating light.”) I’ve hosted them here when the server there went down. And, when there have been quarrels, I’ve done my best to restore the peace. It’s a community of smart folks and good writers. They generally manage to impress me at least once a day.

I guess I must have been impressing right back, somehow, because I’ve been made a moderator and front page poster there (one of five). I’m very aw-shucks and embarrassed about it, because I’m writing on a site owned by editors, and moderating on the home site of one of the most skilled moderators on the net.

This doesn’t mean I’m abandoning Evilrooster Crows – the reasons I haven’t posted much here are not to do with Making Light. (They’re to do with the difficulty of summing up our experiences of moving to the Netherlands while we’re still in the trenches. Sorry.)

But hey – yay me!

Who can categorise everything?

Open Thread, Just In Case

10 Comments

There’s server work on a site I hang out on tonight. If it all goes wrong, people can come over here and discuss how to make it better, or just chat.

JM Barrie, of Peter Pan fame, once described his writing as “playing hide and seek with angels.”

How, in a good* moment, would you describe your work†?

—–

* or strange**
† either the thing that pays or your life’s work‡
** to the extent that there is a difference
‡ vide supra

Sonnets

Chop wood, carry water, pray

“Chop wood, carry water, pray” is a descriptor of practical religious practice that appeals to me quite strongly.

“O fire-feeding corpse of fallen tree,
Which now my granite-sharpened axe doth hew
(And may it cut like Justice, straight and true):
I praise thy Maker as I’m chopping thee.”
“O swiftly-flowing water, bright and clear,
Containéd in my pot like Grace once poured
Into a human soul by our dear Lord:
May thou be twice as sweet, though half as dear.”
The bell for Vespers rings. I calmly kneel,
Not praying, really, just inventing praise.
But then the silence comes, and phrase by phrase
Reclaims my wasted words, and makes them real.
And thus the evening justifies the day:
I learn to chop wood, carry water, pray.

Posted on Making Light.

Sonnets

Still no road

Since we declared the road betwen us closed
And let the gates be covered by the vine
That grows between the trees, and seems to twine
Around the very sunbeams, I supposed
You went on very well without me here.
I’d come through once before, and found the place
So little changed, the well-remembered space
As painful as before, and still as dear.
Today, the vines are withered in the frost,
The wall-stones slick and chilly on my hands
As, pausing at the top, I see it stands
Unchanged outside, but all its comfort lost.
And then I slide back down, for now I know
The road remains, but there’s nowhere to go.

(An answer to “No Road” by Philip Larkin. Originally posted on Making Light)

Sonnets

On being told to “have a ducky day”

I woke this morning, and I found a duck
Asleep beside me in the tousled bed.
I sat up, feeling something on my head,
And reached to touch it, shouting, “What on earth?”*
My toothpaste was all feathers, and my soap
Left slimy pond-weed trailing from my hands.
I got no toast – the quacking bread demands
Were just too much. I simply couldn’t cope.
My trip to work was very much a trip –
I stumbled over drakes and stepped on hens.
They shat on papers, shed on all my pens,
While ducklings drank my coffee, every sip.
And worse – it’s nine more days till they’re away:
The tenfold curse of “Have a ducky day!”

Originally posted on Making Light

Doggerel & Pastiches

The forest fires burn hotter

The forest fires burn hotter
But campfire coals are richer
Till quenched by sand and water
From fire-pail and pitcher.
The lust for human glimmer
Made all I had seem lightless.
My hoarded fires burned dimmer
In contrast to Man’s brightness.

To feed my need for fires
I left my mountain fastness.
A gleam like flaming pyres
Entranced me through the vastness.
Beyond my wooded valley
I saw a light, bright-burning
I made a winging sally
Emboldened by my yearning.

The roads were rich with red lights
Like coals they shone. I craved them
Yet brighter glowed the headlights.
I burned to keep, to save them.
But other sparkles drew me
As bees are drawn to flowers.
For I could, as I flew, see
The neon-shining towers.

I found a roof and landed
Where shadows would surround me.
My hidden perch commanded
A view of all around me.
And what I saw amazed me
When peering through the windows.
What did men as they gazed see
In panels with their dim glows?

I stayed awhile and learned from
The humans with their bright things.
I heard of “cash”, and earned some,
Enough to buy the right things.
For in the nights, while dreaming,
I knew that I must go back.
My hidden fires, still gleaming,
Without my care would go black.

Returning to my treasures
Within the mountains lightless
I rediscovered pleasures
Outwith electric brightness.
The embers glowed more redly
The fires had brighter spark
The lightning looked more deadly
Against a forest’s dark.

But still I miss the cities
That glisten, gleam and shine
With countless coloured pretties
All crying to be mine.
But Wi-fi goes a long way,
And now my laptop’s working.
I buy my lights on eBay,
And on this blog I’m lurking.

Originally posted on Making Light.

Sonnets

Making, an undragonish pursuit (also, clean your room)

The elder dragon stirs atop his hoard
And wakens, stretching out his scaly wings,
Rejoicing in the state of having things:
Possessions are, for him, their own reward.
He tallies up his silver and his gold,
Recalls the provenance of every gem,
But never feels the need to alter them:
He wasn’t born to make, but just to hold.
But we are not the same: we crave the new.
We strive to tell, to write, to sing, to build
Until the space around us is all filled
And still we carry on. It’s what we do.
But even we, when overwhelmed with stuff,
Must tidy up at times. Enough’s enough!

Originally posted on Making Light.

Doggerel & Pastiches

On whatever current fantasy creature we feel is overdone

Myth, that is intolerant
Of the coolly competent
And that treats with chill disdain
The practical mundane
Worships story and forgives
Everyone by whom it lives
Pardons arrogance and greed,
Calls heroic every deed.
Myth, that will no hero waste,
Pardons vampires and their taste,
And will pardon Happy Feet,
Pardons them, for being neat.

Originally posted on Making Light

a blog by Abi Sutherland