Gearing up for KIA

Well, for awhile I didn't feel like writing. Anything. For too long, different things drew my attention away from my story, broke my concentration, and niggled at my brain: Business taxes, company coming, school starting, applying for the Masters program, etc.

But now, the decks are clear! The taxes are finished, the guests have all gone home (not that I didn't love their visits--I did), the kids are in school, and I've been accepted to the Masters program (I start classes in March). Woohoo!

So, starting tomorrow, I participate in RWA Online's KIA marathon!!! I will write until I drop, and with any luck I'll either finish my story or make great headway. The following item will become my best friend:

Good luck to everyone participating in the marathon! Happy power-writing!

Celebrating Autumn

As many of you know (and are probably groaning "not again!"), the poetry of Keats holds a special place in my heart. Of all his work, which was not enough since he died so young, my favorite poem is "To Autumn." In fact, it may be my favorite poem -- period.

In it, he celebrates the season using all of the senses. He describes a farm in autumn, personifies autumn, and as he ventures outward from the center of the farm that is buzzing with activity and moves to the borders of the property, rather than encounter bleak winter, he moves back to the center and soars upward. Autumn, for Keats, was not a prelude to winter or death, but a veritable feast of rich sensation.

John Keats (1795-1821)
TO AUTUMN.

1.
SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

2.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,

Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

3.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Thanks...for the memories

Who sang that? Why do I picture Bette Midler?

In this case, the memories of which I speak are of my folks who left last night after visiting for a wonderful week filled with laughter and love and of course, Cold Stone ice cream.

My dad and his wife, Lynda, drove out from Michigan, which is a fairly long trip (about 4 days each way). They're on their way home with a new friend called Biscuit -- a sexy sounding brainy lady who is channeled through the laptop's GPS system.

They were great house guests -- tolerated our chaos, left the place cleaner than they found it, and took my kids to cool places, like to the fair and on the city's tram. I only had to tell Roxie a few times "Ignore Grandpa" when he tried to tell her things, such as our dog needs to go to the special doggy research lab in the sky.

MARK. MARK. LOL!

If Dad and Lynda are reading this, they will get that bizarro reference. Also, if you're reading this, thanks for coming! We LOVED having you!!! *hugs*

WOW

Sunday, we had a few guests for dinner, courtesy of my MIL. They are her first cousins and all over the age 80 -- my favorite kind of people.

I LOVE old people. Always have. When I was in elementary school, our street was filled with seniors, and I went from house to house visiting them. I ate their cookies, heard stories of the children (who were grown and gone), and saw their letters from exotic places, written to them when they were younger. Now, I realize these were World War I (mostly) and WWII folks. I wonder if because I've always loved this oldest generation in our society, I'm in fact an "Old Soul." Perhaps.

What WOW'd me this time is that Dolores, one of the cousins, sat down at our piano, and without having played any of the songs (or even heard them before) in a book of songs we had there, she played one song after another. She set toes to tapping and octogenarians to dancing. WE HAD A BLAST!!!

Witness my prayer for the day: Dear God, Goddess, or Lord of the Rings (I like to cover all bases), please let me be that COOL when I grow up. Did I tell you I LOVE old people?