Look what I stole from Moose:

1. Wrapping paper or gift bag? Gift Bags

2. Real tree or artificial? I think my parents had a real one for my first Christmas, but ever since we have had artificial. When I got married, I inherited one sad looking tree from my cousin, Kathy. Two years ago, the day after Christmas we bought a new artificial tree, dirty cheap from K-Mart.

3. When do you put up your tree? Thanksgiving weekend

4. When do you take down your tree? The weekend of Epiphany

(This just in from John Bowman of the WGA Negotiating Committee.)

Fellow Guild Members:

(Breaking news from the WGA - the AMPTP has agreed to come back to the table on November 26th. Now, let's hope they are prepared to make a fair deal. This is progress. Everyone wants to go back to work. Everyone wants fair compensation for their work.)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 16, 2007

The WGAW responded to the AMPTP today with the following statement:

Mr. Counter's charge is as offensive as it is untrue. To accuse the Writers Guild of America of blacklisting, when it was we who suffered the most from it in the past, is simply Mr. Counter's desperate attempt to divert attention from the fact that it was he who walked out of the negotiations, and it is he who refuses every day to return to the table. The WGA has an offer on the table and is ready and willing to meet with the AMPTP any day, anywhere.

photo taken on the wise advice of Victor :-)

It's been a brutally busy January.

Shakespeare is just too big to be limited to one day, so here is another of his sonnets. I like this one because of the way he plays with his own name and all its varied meanings:

Sonnet 135

(The following is from WGA Member Tom Schulman.)

Fellow Members,

The Essential George Johnston / selected by Robyn Sarah
Erin, ON : Porcupine's Quill, c2007.

This is the first volume of a new series by Porcupine's Quill, called "Essential Poets" in which, they say, an attempt will be made "to offer the best possible introduction to preeminent figures in Canadian poetry."

Wow! I’ve had the most relaxing weekend
Ever. While winter has been frosting the
Windows and filling the driveway, my
Friend and I have been lazing about
In the hot-tub talking, reminiscing
About so many things. Listening
To a lot of terrific music. Also
Just generally catching up
With each other. Eating
And laughing 2 much.
At one point, I even
Wrote a poem, &

(This just in from the WGA... I've heard similar sentiment from friends and family all over the nation. The temperature I'm reading -- the whole country is fed up with corporate conglomerates caring only about the bottom line, and not about the welfare of their workers.)

(News Release from the Writers Guild of America)

Hundreds of Screen Actors Guild Members Join Picket Lines Outside Universal Studios

on Day Nine of WGA Strike

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 26, 2008

Writers Guild Members Overwhelmingly Ratify New Contract

Let Me Kiss Your Tongue

What happened next, I love.
No questions. You did not hesitate.
Someone may have had something to ask.
But, oh. Dearest.
In that certain darkness, my eyelashes playing horizon
Drinking, drank up the spectacle of that glistening muscle
Emerging from your full-wet lips,
On my sentence.
No clarification.

Looking Behind

I

Especially on quiet, satiated evenings it will happen.
Walking down the street I will suddenly stop
And turn toward a sense of myself approaching me.
Not of being followed or stalked, but quite the opposite.
The impossibility of pursuit. As though I alone exist
And my steady apparition.

II

Book Number 46: The Red Tent, tells the story of Jacob and his family through the eyes of his obscurely known daughter Dinah. The bible only says that Dinah was rapped and her brothers avenged the rape by tricking and killing her rapist and all of his family. The Red Tent tells the story though through the young girls point of view. The main point I got out of the story is that this was a story about celebrating women and mothers. We each have a story to tell and we deserve our moment to be heard. All over the world there are red tent events where women gather together and tell their birth stories as well as other activities. Its goal is to educate and empower women and girls. To learn more about it, click here. As for the book I enjoyed the fictional female perspective of the story.

Baby Update: Week 21 (20 weeks, 3 days)

Or in my case pass the Mac and Cheese. My food aversions are slowly but surely lessening as my appetite begins to regain its vigor. This last week I have noticed that the food cravings are starting to kick in. This weekend all I wanted to eat was cucumber sauce (gyro). Last night I had a whole box of Mac and Cheese all by myself. I am also getting nosebleeds, which are freaking annoying. On the plus side, baby’s movements are so strong that they can be felt by everyone else, which Dan is excited about. My weight gain is about 7 lbs.

Toilet Paper

This morning, elbows on knees
I gazed at a roll of it,
Wondering what the ancients did.
Long ago. Way before toilets even.
And which came first, the toilet
Or the paper?

All we really know is that
Everywhere, ubiquitously,
There is some -- or so we hope.
But it is even beyond hope.

Woohoo it is Friday, which means that after today my big work project will be completed and I can finally rest again. Writing major grants is always a major stressor. I usually want to pull my hair out by the roots at some point in the process. It doesn’t help when I have people needing things from me at the same time I am trying to complete a grant. This weekend I need to finish Bel Canto and start on the Color Purple. I had planned to finish Bel Canto on the plane Tuesday night but there was screaming babies and toddlers on my plane that made it difficult to concentrate.

In the News:

Title and Author of the book: Belly Laughs by Jenny McCarthy
Reading Goal For the Year: 40/52
Rating for Book: 3.5 stars out of 5

Blackwing

Poison lies in wait, not about
To fill three trumpets with spit
While someone beats a drum. Not
Quite. It knows to tread softly up

It is so nice to sleep in late today!
It is "Family Day" here in Ontario, and the first ever.
A newly instituted statutory holiday.
Thankfully, not all businesses are closed, but most are.
This means that my only real chore today, is to find a coffee-shop that is open. And then drink all their coffee....
Have a great day, y'all, Family Day or otherwise!
*********

Contemporary Elf Woes

Have a great Thursday!

Phantasm

I walked across a field last night
And though you were not there…
The scented, memory-laden
Mists of you were in the air.

And these were scattered by a breeze
Whose message was the same…
For distantly were whisp’ring
Aspen leaves that knew your name.

And even when the gathering winds

Baby Update: Week 24 (6 months pregnant)

Your Love For Me

If you the hills chant and me in them run
To find naught but tree and shadow
Conspiring, and an owl hooting ridicule,
What will touch my face, then?

human

i looked up.
they had made their webs
in the rafters,
these two silent architects.
so i knocked them into a foil pan
where they lightly clattered.
exoskeletons, spinning
and disoriented.
so i sprayed aerosol on them
in great amounts, until
swimming to the center of the pan
they found each other,
grappled,
and broke their own necks.
i heard it.
two faint snaps.
i did not look up

I want to stand with you on a mountain.
I want to bathe with you in the sea.
I want to lay like this forever.
Until the sky falls down over me.
-- Truly, Madly, Deeply – Savage Garden

Cranberry Lake

An August sun baked our canoe
Where we had beached it, in the sand.
And, taking your small hand
Toward shade, I led you.

Or was it you, me,
Who followed, who led,
When gaily laughing, you said
This bunch here are portabellini?

This bunch of what? said I
Dumb as three brooms.
These here, see the mushrooms
‘Neath the tree where they lie?

How do you know this?
When I stopped you were shaken -
Thinking me angry, mistaken