Sunday night – Latkes… again

Another great, slow, peaceful day..   Last night My folks took us all out to dinner to Mexicali.. the official restaurant of the post-post apocalypse in Vermont. I always love seeing the guys there.. After

They  left this morning.. It was nice having them up here. Before they left., I had to share this Billy Collins poem that I came across last night. with my mom. . It felt appropriate..

The Lanyard – Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly

off the blue walls of this room,

moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,

from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,

when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary

where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist

could send one into the past more suddenly—

a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp

by a deep Adirondack lake

learning how to braid long thin plastic strips

into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard

or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,

but that did not keep me from crossing

strand over strand again and again

until I had made a boxy

red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,

and I gave her a lanyard.

She nursed me in many a sick room,

lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,

laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,

and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,

and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.

Here are thousands of meals, she said,

and here is clothing and a good education.

And here is your lanyard, I replied,

which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,

strong legs, bones and teeth,

and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,

and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.

And here, I wish to say to her now,

is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,

but the rueful admission that when she took

the two-tone lanyard from my hand,

I was as sure as a boy could be

that this useless, worthless thing I wove

out of boredom would be enough to make us even.


Here’s a recording of Collins reading that poem

The re..st of the day was pretty uneventful:.. some house cleaning, a sloggy run through the melting snow with the dogs, a trip to the town garage to pick up sand… 

 I also managed to build a little cool contraption with an arduino processor that wirelessly checks on the the number of hits on this blog. Originally I had the little thing send a twitter message every time it checked.. … which dumped a bunch of cryptic messages to me twitter and facebook feeds. It’s only when you do soemthing really dumb like that. that you find out who’s whatching oyur feeds.. (sorry abotu that folks)

Tonight was a special treat, Max accidentally had a party.. it didn’t ‘t start out as a party.. Diane had offered to make Max some post-Chanukah latkes because he’d been at school for the holiday. then Mason showed up, then elsa.. then raye and josh and .. then .. Merideth came in from eastern VT.. and mariah and her folks showed up.. then Brendon.. It was pretty festive.. the house filled with proto-grownups and the air heavy with frying potatoes.. Yum…


Ugh… just looked t the time.. its nearly 1:30… Programming always makes me lose track of time.. I better hang up now..

Nite folks.. Nite Sam !
-me