Poetry Friday

I was going to do a little Robert Frost this week, because it was the anniversary of his birthday on March 26th, plus the kids used his poems for their memorizations this week. But then I got distracted (while checking some old Safari bookmarks) by a YouTube clip I've kept for so long simply because of its affiliations with the ever so charming Time Lord to the left. I've watched it countless times. Then I figured that I could inflict that on some of you instead of the Frost. Ever so charming of me, I know.

Anyhow, to introduce the clip (since I can't get the Doctor to do it), I'm starting with a little sonnet written by Shakespeare. The following sonnet has a cameo in the (also following) YouTube clip. All this is clear as mud, no doubt.

Alright then, go read the sonnet...






Sonnet 130
My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like The Sun

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.


You might have heard Sting sing this once upon a time. You might even have had a boyfriend, or girlfriend, quote bits of it in a love note. But I bet you've never heard it spoken quite like this (Kenneth Branagh, eat your heart out):





Poetry Friday is being hosted at Cuentesitos, where I see there are already some great poems to be checked out. Thanks for hosting, Gina, and I wish you many many more cancer-free years.

Purim Gifts and Things

No, we don't celebrate Purim, but last year a friend of Max's gave him this box, filled with dried fruit and hamentashen, and I just happened upon the picture I took as I was trolling through iPhoto.

It's charming, isn't it?

Happy Purim, Jake! Happy Purim, Jake's mum!

How My Week Went (guest post)

By Toffee, the Greenridge Cat. (click on all my photos to see them in glorious cat-like splendor)

First, I slept in every single day. Why get up when the humans are all racing around making a lot of noise and getting in my way? No, I wait until the wet food is in the dish, and they are all out of the kitchen. I like to eat in peace. Besides, after getting up at 5:30am to go out and pee, I feel I need a little cat nap before I face the day.

That's me there. Lovely, aren't I? It's nice to stretch out a little when everyone else has gotten up. Kind of bugs me when the adults snigger and take pictures, though. Not very dignified of them.

Tuesday I sat on Dominic's Singapore Math for a while. I felt as though Sheila had droned on long enough, and that it was time for a little comic relief.
I was right, as usual. Nevertheless, I tried to look as nonchalant as possible - a very good tip when interrupting humans.




Wednesdays are my day for catnip chewing. It's very fresh this time of year, but I do wish Sheila would get all the aphids off it before she gives it to me. I don't enjoy the way they crunch in my teeth and they make my breath smell bad. Ahh, the aroma of fresh catnip. Nothing like it.






Every afternoon this week I stared longingly menacingly at the budgies for a while. We're looking after them while their owners move house, and I think they found me deeply irritating intimidating. I spent several very pleasant hours sitting here, until everyone came home and Sheila made me get off the table. I think I asserted my paper tigerferocity authority over them, nonetheless.














Then it was back to bed. After such a long week I felt exhausted. I don't know how I do it.

Easter Chocolate, Did You Say?

I was casting around for some different egg decorating ideas this week, when I came upon Cami's Hot Rock Eggs at Full Circle. So that was what we did on Friday afternoon, right after track and field. Read her instructions carefully, because the eggs DO get hot and the crayon wax can get pretty singey on the fingeys (says the woman who no longer has any fingerprints).

Now I'm going to collect some rocks for the Hot Rocks version.


Later, in a fit of kitchen-themed madness on Saturday night, I made Nigella's hot cross buns (from my well-worn copy of Feast) and Martha's Truffle Eggs. That's Martha's eggs there on the plate, looking very pinkly at us. Martha made hers smaller and more egg shaped, and dipped them in blue-tinged white chocolate to to mimic a robin's egg, but I used pink (no blue, alas, in my food dye box) and then, deciding it was just a bit too weird having all these large pink blobs everywhere, reverted to some milk chocolate dipping wafers I had kicking around. Those were much easier on the eye. Facing a luridly pink Easter egg at 10am is not something for the faint of heart...not that anyone could ever accuse my kids of being faint of heart when it comes to eating chocolate, mind you.

After all that frenzy, Richard and I filled a bag of plastic eggs with jelly beans (orange sherbet! coconut!), chocolate coins (Canadian loonies!), and chocolate eggs so we could hide them around the yard for the kids to find. We waited until morning to hide them, in the event of marauding squirrels, but when we woke up it was raining so bleakly that we hid them around the house instead. Sigh. A typical Easter in the Pacific Northwest.

Then, finally, I congratulated my kids on keeping their Lent promises. I'd convinced them that Lent lasted a week longer this year (because they'd all agreed that this year's Lent would involve no Dollar Store visits), and I wanted that lovely empty space where the "Can we go to the Dollar Store?" noise used to be to last just a little bit longer. I think they all knew I was having them on, but they humoured me. Nice kids. No wonder the Easter Bunny was so good to them.

Downy Woodpeckers In Our Midst

Look at this. I had barely put the peanut butter in the feeder when the downy woodpecker was on it. I still had my hand on the lid when he started pecking away at it! In fact, when I opened the peanut butter block I reached up, with the block in my hand, and three bushtits landed right on the top of the block. I had to brush them off in order to get it into the feeder.

When I took this shot I was about 3 feet from the feeder.

The bushtits, sparrows, and this downy woodpecker are the most relaxed around us, even though we frequently burst through the door heading out to the deck and shriek and wave (we're waving and shrieking at the starlings). We've all come to the conclusion that the other birds know this, because they ignore us now. They remain on the various feeders. Some of them look rather apprehensive, but that's about it.

Yet More Signs of Spring

I know, I've used this title before, but it's hard to think of something more original when really, all I'm showing you are signs of spring in our yard. So, without further ado, here we go.
First, we have a nice spray of peach blossom, which was a very hot pink when still a bud, but the colours are softening slightly as the buds open.







Next, a lovely little number in a viola. I like violas, even if I have bought millions of them over my lifetime.
I like to think of them carpeting the roads to every house I've ever lived in (and yes, I HAVE bought that many).







I'm not quite sure what this is, some sort of wild toothed violet, but it is growing everywhere here: all over the lawn, all down the sidewalks, and in the cracks of all the rockeries. There is something about the shape and colour of it that is incredibly charming.










Spotted Pulmonaria. I bought this one for you, Matt James.
Just for you.
And boy, am I glad I did. It's so delicately delightful and delicious I could alliterate about it forever.







Water droplets in a lupin. Or, as FDPG says, sips of nectar for the fairies. Actually, it's getting slightly onerous having fairies in the garden. They're awfully temperamental. I can't touch the lupins in case they're thirsty, can't disturb the Totoro statue because the eggs are under it (exactly what kind of eggs FDPG isn't sure about), and we have to keep the geoduck shells in the same spot because the fairies like to hide under them when Toffee shows up. Never mind that Toffee is probably more afraid of them that they'll ever be of him, but I guess I'm nitpicking here.







Sorrel! I love sorrel. It's lemony, prolific, good in soups or salads or just standing in the garden, passing it around.









Rhubarb. I followed a tip from a new gardening book (I'd give the link but it's specialized just for this area), which says to upend a large terracotta pot over the plant just before it starts to bud, and remove it when the buds break through the soil. Looks like we are going to get a seriously good crop this year. And to think I found the root in an alley in Vancouver, awaiting the garbage.



So that's it from the Signs of Spring department here at Greenridge Chronicles. Well, that's it for now. You don't think you're going to get off that lightly, now, do you?

FDPG's Favourite Day (also known as St. Patrick's Day)

Why look! A little leprechaun was in our house last night! And we're not sure, but we think Toffee must have surprised him, because he dropped a bunch of gold coins on the floor. FDPG's theory is that he was trying to steal her green St. Patrick's Day hat, but dropped it and his gold when he bumped into Toffee. She and Dominic made sure they ate all the gold coins (which were made of - gosh, the luck of it - chocolate) in case the leprechaun comes back tonight to retrieve his lost gold.

Today is one of FDPG's most treasured days of the entire year. Not because it involves leprechauns, pots of gold, shamrocks, or even green milk (I know, it's weird and gross, but it thrills the twins), but because this day is all about GREEN, and green is FDPG's favourite colour.

So today we had green eggs for breakfast, a green smoothie for lunch (concord grape juice, frozen bananas, and fresh baby spinach), and green noodles for dinner (steam parsley, spinach, and kale then puree it with some chicken broth or fish sauce, dill, and a bit of cream) and the, err, green milk.

And while we were out in the garden FDPG saw at least 4 leprechauns flitting about the yard. No one else saw them, but she has pretty sharp eyes, so we all took her word for it. They had gold with them, but as soon as she touched it, it apparently dissolved in a puff of smoke.

Hmmm. That FDPG has some imagination, doesn't she?