Tuesday, August 16, 2022

The Various Diners of Whatcom County 17: Mount Bakery (Fairhaven)

 


1217 Harris Avenue, Bellingham, WA (Fairhaven Location)

Well, let's head over to Fairhaven where the fancy people live!  And let's see what delightful things they get to eat for breakfast!  Bennies, of course!  The best ones, apparently!  That gauntlet has been thrown!

Monday, August 15, 2022

Larkin and the Animal Shelter

 Talking In Bed


Talking in bed ought to be easiest,

Lying together there goes back so far,

An emblem of two people being honest.


Yet more and more time passes silently.

Outside, the wind's incomplete unrest

Builds and disperses clouds in the sky,


And dark towns heap up on the horizon.

None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why

At this unique distance from isolation


It becomes still more difficult to find

Words at once true and kind,

Or not untrue and not unkind.


-- Philip Larkin


I like to get to work a little early and read some poetry before I go in, at least when it isn't 90 degrees outside.  Call it my "centering" practice.  So it was nice to spend some time with one of my favorite, delightfully grim poets over the past few months with a used copy of his Collected Poems.  (A prolific poet he was not, which I also count as a bonus.  Take him or leave him.  No sticky editorial issues.  It's all there in about 200 pages.  Was he a horrible racist?  Yes, probably.)

Working at the animal shelter since last fall, maybe the choice was subconscious.  Some of Larkin's best and most famous poems are, in fact, about animals -- "The Mower" (about killing a hedgehog accidentally), "Myxomatosis" (about killing a rabbit on purpose), "Toads" (about people, really).

I'll always tell people, if they ask, my favorite poem remains "This Be The Verse."  But I was less familiar with "Talking In Bed," and I'd have to say it's my favorite utterly unromantic love poem of all time.  Which is to say, it's beautiful and true.  A response to Sonnet #130, I think.

Saturday, August 13, 2022

Viking Style

Rooting for Man City is a bit too much like rooting for The Yankees for my taste, but damn if Erling Haland doesn't look like Thor who plays football instead of fighting evil.

I hope he scores 70 goals this season and then retires to Asgard.

Wednesday, August 3, 2022

Victory

Orioles at 54-51 in August is pretty much a World Series victory as far as I'm concerned.