And just b/c the tag reminded me to share this lovely poem from the geniuses of Monty Python:

All things dull and ugly,
all creatures short and squat.
All things rude and nasty,
the Lord God made the lot.

Each little snake that poisons,
each little wasp that stings.
He made their brutish venom,
he made their horrid wings.

All things sick and cancerous
All evil great and small.
All things foul and dangerous,
the Lord God made them all.

Each nasty little hornet,
each beastly little squid,
Who made the spiny urchin?
Who made the sharks? He did!!

All things scabbed and ulcerous,
all pox both great and small.
Putrid foul and gangrenous,
the Lord God made them all.

Horse Tales

So here is the list of awesome horse names:

1. Sultan
2. Taffy
3. Misty
4. Pinto
5. Candy
6. Turk
7. P.J.
8. Beau
9. Jo Jo
10. Cocoa
11. Rusty
12. Highboy
13. Velvet
14. Flicka [yes, someone has read her horse books]
15. Chip
16. Buttermilk
17. Banner
18. Smoke
19. Rocket
20. Lady
21. Duchess
22. Jingo
23. Lucky
24. Buck
25. Gypsy
26. Shorty [obviously a rougher, Western type]
27. Lassie
28. Bronco
29. Pegasus [a nod to mythology, it seems]
30. Tango [foxtrot, charlie]
31. Suntan
32. Nightmare
33. Sunburst
34. Spice
35. Ginger
36. Snappy [Snappy was a little wild at first, but when you gentled him, he was a good horse]

When I get a chance, I'm going to write up something from my friend's private, seeeekrit childhood notebook. Among other things, she wrote up a list of great horse names, and they are hilarious. She had a pretty good ear for a third grader. I think my two favorites were Buttermilk and Jo Jo. Wasn't there always a patient older female horse with a dairy-themed name in those kinds of books? And another horse that had a white star on its forehead and was temperamental but ultimately the heroine's equine soul-mate?

Things I'm Reading

Cause, you know, why not talk about what I'm reading? It fits with the overall tone of this blog (narcissistic). Right now: Pynchon's Against the Day. Because I have this overweaning fondness for books that feature talking dogs. And I never finished Mason & Dixon. For the same reasons that keep leading me to vote for Democratic presidential candidates, I am drawn to large books that most people won't read, b/c I kind of feel sorry for them.

Also, anything with the word Asperger in the title. The Asperger Cookbook, Asperger Yoga, Things to Do in Downtown Asperger, The Seven Habits of Highly Aspie People. I am drawn like a moth to the flame.

Also anche tambien: finished reading A Prayer for Owen Meany. Disconnect b/w Owen at the beginning, when he feels like a consistent character, and Owen 2.0, as the book proceeds. In my opinion, which isn't worth too much, apparently. Too schematic in general. And I'm not sure how unreliable I'm supposed to consider the narrator. Apparently not as unreliable as he seems to me.

Et aussi: Longfellow. B/c if I'm going to make fun of it I should actually read it. And Walden, though I hate it. I hate Thoreau and Emerson the way I hate Carlyle and Ruskin. I hate sages. I hate people who make youge generalizations about the tempora, the mores.

And Dead Souls. Because it is Russian and funny. And has the word death in the title.

And Mr. Popper's Penguins, b/c I can't get Secundo to read it. I'm finding it charming, but any book that includes a Ladies' Missionary Society is catnip for me.

La Dame Aux Camellias

I heart the Planting Fields Arboretum. Took Secundo to the peds today to see how his cuts were healing from his encounter with the "playful" pit bull next door . Took him to the school only to discover today was the field trip that had been postponed from last week. He was frantic, of course, so I insisted I'd drive him there. He wasn't sure if that was allowed, but off we went. We get there, we can't find the group, of course, b/c the property is huge. We finally find some nice employee named Betsy, who takes us on a little motorized cart over to where his class is. They're walking out and preparing to get on the bus. Secundo starts to cry, so they make a big deal of having him do his little planting project, and then this other nice docent person took us on a personal guided tour of the greenhouse, where we saw nice flesh-eating plants and an actual banana tree and where he easily answered the docent's softball questions. It would have been a nice opportunity if he'd been in a better mood, since he's Science Guy, but he did perk up at the notion of getting his own tour.

I feel like joining the Planting Fields just b/c they were so nice to my kidlet. He also got asked a lot of questions about his arm and what had happened to it, so he got a ton of attention, and then he got the bus ride back to school with everyone, which is the Most! Fun! part of the trip.

Walked around there for awhile; wish I could have stayed longer, b/c I do love it there. I started to do the same thing I do whenever I'm someplace like, I don't know, Le Hameau at Versailles, where I'm charmed and then the lefty daughter that I am kicks in and I start thinking about how it was built on the backs of labor, etc., and how excessive, really, it was, and how could one family have so much? And then the other annoying thing I do: "Oh, built by Olmsted? As in Frederick Law?" [No, as in Bill. How many landscape architects named Olmsted could there be?] "Didn't he help design Central Park?" [which I knew the answer to perfectly well, but still, at my age, I have to show off like the shmuck I am]. The docent didn't give me a gold star or otherwise identify me as a Model Tourist.

But there were bromeliads with their little teacup environments that hold frogs, and the cedar tree that wraps around and around the trellis, and the orchids, whole roomsful of them, and dahlias, few of which were blooming, and a greenhouse full of camellias that I couldn't visit because my feet were hurting so much (wrong shoes, yet again). I ended up reciting Hopkins, which may have weirded out the tourists who walked in right after me, but sometimes you need Hopkins:

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Another reason why I love my best friend--two haikus she composed:

If you were to kill
the dog who traumatized [son]
your best friend would help

Not all canines are
man's (or boy's ) best friend for life
some dogs must die early

Also: our idiot neighbors' idiot dog bit my beautiful perfect son. I have been contemplating homicide (canicide?) for the past two days. I feel a haiku coming on:

The big dog would die
So beautifully if hit
By a 4 x 4.

Poisoned meat o'er fence
Would stop the slavering beast
From its rampages.

I hate that dog so:
Would like to run it over;
Bad role model, mom.

My dog is always being misidentified as a border collie (he's apparently a spaniel mix, or so he was billed at the animal shelter where, on a particularly blessed day, we picked him out). He really does look border collie-ish. Those of you who know him, what do you think of the resemblance?

By contrast, there's a meltingly cute picture of a springer spaniel puppy.

Yes! I have successfully uploaded a picture of the ivory-billed woodpecker! The Internets, they rule!

Requiescat in Pace, Astacus fluviatilis

Alas, poor crayfish. We sent it to its ancestral home in the winedark sea, whence to become part of the circle of life. I bought the replacement crayfish, which is a big@$$ mofo that looks like it could crawl out and do some damage. Primera will be thrilled, which is pretty much why I do most things.

Habemus crayfish. We now have crustaceans, fish, a reptile, and a mammal. I can hardly wait to see what other order Primera decides to collect. She loves the crayfish so sincerely that it's starting to rub off on me: over the phone yesterday she was crying about leaving the crayfish (Pincherina) b/c it was scared and she wanted to make sure it was okay. It has large black bulbous eyes like a Keane painting. We feed it canned corn. I am not disgusted, as I thought I would be. I am no longer making Cajun stew jokes; that would hurt Primera's feelings.

The ivorybill, it lives! From today's Times:

The evidence was so convincing - the characteristic nasal "kent" call and double raps on a tree - that Dr. Prum and Dr. Robbins withdrew their challenge.

"The thrilling new sound recordings provide clear and convincing evidence that the ivory-billed woodpecker is not extinct," Dr. Prum said in a statement.

I'm ridiculously happy about this.

For I will consider my dog Freckles.

What the hell, I love this poem:

Jubilate Agno

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his
way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant
quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon
his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the
beat.
For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and
glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he
suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit
without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the
spirit.
For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the
Children of Israel from Egypt.
For every family had one cat at least in the bag.
For the English Cats are the best in Europe.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.
For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him
exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence
perpetually -- Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in
music.
For he is docile and can learn certain things.
For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.
For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.
For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.
For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom.
For he can catch the cork and toss it again.
For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.
For the former is afraid of detection.
For the latter refuses the charge.
For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.
For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.
For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.
For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from
heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, tho' he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other
quadruped.
For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.
For he can swim for life.
For he can creep.

-- Christopher Smart

More Proof that High School Never Ends
I've been watching with interest and disgust the recent Board of Election follies in this district--makes Mean Girls look like Bible camp, not that I would know. Meanwhile, my friend MB's campaign is getting harassed by vandals. I'd be more blase about it if I hadn't seen the real damage this kind of meanspiritedness can do on a local level. Anyone who thinks we're more than a few evolutionary milliseconds away from snarling, slathering carnivores is delusional.

I'm watching with grim fascination NYC's third-grade retention policy unfold, and by "unfold" I mean "proceed on its horrible and inevitable collision course."

And now to take my dog to the vet. Had a lengthy discussion with Secundus about public health policy and the need for vaccination. Predictably, he became very interested (read: worried in a slightly obsessive way) in the spread of disease and the possibility of infection.

My, I'm chatty today. Must feed the demands of my vast public.