Lilacs: In the Style of William Carlos Williams

Believe me when I say
I've only stolen something once:
A silk pin
When I was six.

But when I passed your
Lilac bushes
Sticky sweet
with blossoms,

I had to
take one with me
to fill my house
with spring.

Zoo Tales

I like the Woodland Park Zoo penguins...as you can see by the fact that I have two photos with them in the span of a couple weeks.

Last weekend, my former boss had her wedding reception at the zoo, which goes a little something like, "turn right at the penguins and go past the dinosaurs. When you see the jaguars you've gone too far."

Before that, my cousin Adriane and I used up some Groupons I'd had that were expiring. I got to feed the budgies, which was a lot more exciting than you'd think.I've always been so jealous about a program my parents got to do in the 70s at Sea World. My dad had a season pass and would go so often that the dolphins knew him and would come swimming over to say hi. I love the image of a bunch of tourists crowded around the dolphin pool with those little red and white checkered french fry trays filled with the anchovies you can buy to entice the dolphins. They're frantically trying to keep the seagulls away as they try in vain to get a dolphin to come within petting distance, slapping the water and throwing fish that the seagulls swoop down to grab. Then my dad strides up and puts his hand in the water and the dolphins come over to him like friendly dogs wanting to be petted.

Eventually he befriended an oceanographer who asked if he and my mom would like to help out with the new penguin exhibit. They had just gone down to Antarctica and kidnapped some penguins to bring back to breed in captivity (!). They needed volunteers to help care for the first generation of baby chicks. For a few months, my parents came in to blend fish, feed the little grey puff balls, and weigh them

The poor little guys were sweltering in the San Diego heat, and would lie on their stomaches so they could let off heat through their feet.

That One Really Good Book...What is It Called...?

This book is amazing and you have to read it. I am convinced I will be able to increase my memory at least 50% when I'm through with it.
Joshua Foer might even be more of a genius than his brother. He's also the one who founded Atlas Obscura. Moonwalking with Einstein is a book about the memory and how it works, strung together by Foer's experience as a journalist who gets roped into a memory championship as part of a story he's researching.

Six Good Eggs

I have half a dozen beautiful organic brown eggs in my refrigerator from Nettie, the Head of Pedagogy at the school where I've been working in the afternoons. I'm going to miss working there now that Sas has offered me a full-time job.

Nettie went home to feed her four "chicks" and came back with a split dozen eggs for me and our office manager. I can't say I've ever had an egg that didn't come from the grocery store (especially considering that I've only come to eat eggs about three years ago), so I'm interested to try a "homegrown" egg. Nettie said store-bought eggs taste fishy because the chickens are fed fish food, but hers only eat organic grain, grass, and worms. Fancy an omelette?

Would you climb a hill, wear a daffodil...

Can I show you guys something cool? I always buy bunches of the $1.29 daffodils at Trader Joe's this time of year. The cheerful yellow and wonderful smell is especially crucial here now when every day seems colder and greyer than the last. The last batch I bought seemed normal at first... Then I realized one blossom was a lot...poofier than the others. You know the usual way daffodils look: six petals with a cup in the middle and stamens and a pistil inside that? Upon examination, it turned out this particular one had formed small petals and cups around each stamen. It's really interesting.

Normal daffodil:

Deformed daffodil:

Last March I started writing down all the books I read. A year later, with a few pages squeezed in here and there on noisy bus rides and late nights in bed, I've finished 32 books and read a total of about 8,000 pages (thanks, Goodreads statistics!).

Some of my favorites:

At Home: A Short History of Private Life, Bill Bryson
The Fossil Hunter: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World, Shelley Emling
Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson
Thunderstruck, Erik Larson
East of Eden, John Steinbeck

Speaking of favorites, today I just started The Gardner Heist for book club, and it is fast shaping up to be an amazing book. I've already learned (among many other things) that there is a painting that makes people vomit just by looking at it. I'm tempted to look it up online, but I hate throwing up.

My little canunda is in Rome; living with a young family and their bidet!

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