Protected: The art of revision

Red

Sometimes things just fall in your lap. I was taking a walk today - more accurately put I was taking the Boychen on a walk today in a desperate attempt to force him to fall asleep in the stroller, something I haven’t had to do it quite a while. I was annoyed. I did not want to be taking the Boychen for a stroller nap, I wanted him to nap properly in his bed so that I could try to get some work done on this day when the Small Boy is with the Tagesmutter. But it was not to be, and I was taking the little one for a walk and I was annoyed. It was windy, and whatever direction I turned the wind seemed to blow into Boychen’s face, keeping him awake. Draping a blanket over the stroller as a wind-screen only annoyed him. Finally he started dozing off and the sun came out - ordinarily a cause for cheer but the sun was shining right in his face. I made a quick turn and walked down two shaded blocks I have never walked before in my life. Considering the many miles I walked with the boys during the collicky-baby-post-partum-depression nightmare that was January and February it’s amazing to me that there are two blocks near both the zoo and the river than I’ve never walked.

I turned the corner and saw this. I only had the point-and-shoot with me so the photos don’t begin to do it justice, but I literally stopped in my tracks and said, Wow. So thank you, Boychen, for fussing. Thank you for staying awake and hating the wind-screen. Thank you for driving me down those two blocks, and showing me this.

Day One

Day one of single parenting is off to a rollicking start. The Boychen threw up* and the cat pooped on my bed.

Sigh.

* I’m pretty sure I just over-fed him and then when he was gnawing on a pizza crust he triggered his gag reflex on a super-full stomach. Still. Bleh.

Dark days ahead

So my husband is leaving tomorrow for a 13-day business trip in London. (Well, it’s 12 1/2 days but 13 bedtimes, and we all know it’s the bedtimes that count in this sort of thing, right?). Leaving me single parenting two boys under four. He will miss Boychen’s first birthday, and in all likelihood his first steps as well, so that’s probably punishment enough, but perhaps I should make him bring this back for me. Or this? It is London after all.

Bundeshaus (Swiss Parliament)

The chapbook challenge

I found this Chapbook Challenge via ReadWritePoem - though I found it a few days late into the month, it’s a perfect challenge to drive forward my chapbook project. I’ve stalled on writing new poems for this manuscript I’m building in my mind. I’ve made massive revisions to one poem - the poem that would open the collection, the poem Brewer would call the “hook” poem - and minor revisions to two more, but I’ve only written one new poem: a villanelle that, upon re-reading, is far too similar to another in the collection. It’s my intention to have a running theme, but there’s a running theme and then there is flat-out repetition. Because villanelles are, by their nature, repetative within the structure of the poem, two similar villanelles is too much. At least my two are.

At any rate. The chapbook challenge. I’m taking it up, but forgivingly.

And really, when did it become November?

Awake.

I was unable to stay awake until the first returns started coming in. I slept. And woke to a new day.

Counting

Small Boy is sleeping at The Farm tonight - he spends Wednesdays with his grandparents anyway - so that I can stay up late and/or wake up early to watch election returns come in (the earliest poll closings - parts of Indiana and Kentucky - occur at midnight Swiss time; Florida, Georgia and Virginia will come in at 1 a.m. these parts). It’ll be sad and lame to be sitting up alone watching polls close. I used to live in DC and somebody was always having an election night party. The best was probably the one held by Chuck Schumer’s then-Legislative Assistant because it was chock-full of policy geeks. Charles Dickens would appreciate the sentiment that it was also the worst election night party because the year was 1994. In 2000 we finally gave up and broke up the party when it turned into an all-night “Florida Gore! No, Florida Bush! Wait, too close to call. We’re putting Florida back in play!” fest but even then my best buddy and I wound up trading phone calls for another hour after arriving at our respective apartments. Tonight it’ll just be me and the quiet Swiss night.

These are the times I remember how much my life has changed. These are the times I feel in the very soles of my feet that yes, I really do live in Switzerland. How strange it all is sometimes.

I voted. Again.

After having already voted by Federal Absentee Write-in Ballot, I received my official ballot from the District of Columbia. Some quick research at the Federal Voting Assistance Program website indicates that I should go ahead and vote my official ballot even if I have already voted the write-in ballot; my “local election official will ensure that only one of the ballots is counted.” Okay, if you say so. Here’s hoping my second ballot won’t invalidate the first. Though I have to say, I vote in the District of Columbia which is as safely Democratic as it’s possible to get (if you don’t want to read the whole article, the take-away is that out of 399,127 registered voters in the District, a mere 29,622 of them are registered Republican), so Barack Obama doesn’t really need my vote to get those three Electoral votes.

I’m also assuming that by following the directions on the VFAP website I am not committing voter fraud by sending in two ballots.

Totally unrelated PS: Best Halloween picture ever.

Snow, fleeting

It snowed last week (before Halloween), wet heavy snow though not much of it. Just enough to introduce the little boy to snow

and to remember how much the big boy loves the snow.

And to make this.