Bake and Shake

Antiquing Finds:

3 vintage casserole dishes.

Jessie Wheeler Wilcox print.

Wicker plant stand--awesome for ferns. Top's shaped just like a tulip bulb.

Alabaster Fu bookends--awesome. Husband collects fu dogs.

Perfect white narrow kitchen cupboard with vintage fruit/vegetable paper.

Food Flights:
Invention of New Decadent Milkshake--two scoops black walnut ice cream, 1 scoop dutch chocolate ice cream, plus chocolate syrup. Tastes just like a liquid version of the Walnut Chew from Whitman's Sampler candies (more on these later).

Anti-Milk Shake: Add 3 scoops orange sherbet and pour in Sundrop for the only caffeine containing shake you'll ever want. So good!

Eggplant parmesan/shrimp scampi/flourless chocolate cake--even better.

Paint-by-Numbers:
Shutters are all done, swing is done, porch window and ceiling, mailbox, and front door are all done. Today's the day we finish the columns and maybe most of the railings. Then all we'll lack is the 2nd story gingerbread/millwork. This house is going to have 7 total colors by the time we are done. One more and we'd qualify as a PRIMARY CRAYOLA BOX.

Query:
Has anyone ever built a deck? We are hesitant. I think I'd rather have a flagstone/brick patio with moss between the bricks. Our backyard gets very wet, and I think we'd have major problems with a deck.

Poetry: William Empson.

C. Dale Young posted Empson's "Missing Dates" villanelle. I prefer his "Aubade." Especially since here in Kentucky we're having earthquakes! Small ones, not like California's, but tremors nonetheless.

"Aubade"

Hours before dawn we were woken by the quake.
My house was on a cliff. The thing could take
Bookloads off shelves, break bottles in a row.
Then the long pause and then the bigger shake.
It seemed the best thing to be up and go.

And far too large for my feet to step by.
I hoped that various buildings were brought low.
The heart of standing is you cannot fly.

It seemed quite safe till she got up and dressed.
The guarded tourist makes the guide the test.
Then I said The Garden? Laughing she said No.
Taxi for her and for me healthy rest.
It seemed the best thing to be up and go.

The language problem but you have to try.
Some solid ground for lying could she show?
The heart of standing is you cannot fly.

None of these deaths were her point at all.
The thing was that being woken he would bawl
And finding her not in earshot he would know.
I tried saying Half an Hour to pay this call.
It seemed the best thing to be up and go.

I slept, and blank as that I would yet lie.
Till you have seen what a threat holds below,
The heart of standing is you cannot fly.

Tell me again about Europe and her pains,
Who’s tortured by the drought, who by the rains.
Glut me with floods where only the swine can row
Who cuts his throat and let him count his gains.
It seemed the best thing to be up and go.

A bedshift flight to a Far Eastern sky.
Only the same war on a stronger toe.
The heart of standing is you cannot fly.

Tell me more quickly what I lost by this,
Or tell me with less drama what they miss
Who call no die for a god for a throw,
Who says after two aliens had one kiss
It seemed the best thing to be up and go.

But as to risings, I can tell you why.
It is on contradiction that they grow.
It seemed the best thing to be up and go.
Up was the heartening and the strong reply.
The heart of standing is we cannot fly.