Transitioning

(Gerunds are such clunky but vital things, aren't they?)

Yesterday I hosted what, for lack of any better term, I call the Ladies With Babies: four of my friends who have all had new babies within the last four months. Excepting one woman, whose cute little son was her first, everyone has other children, as well.

But I was the only one without a brand new baby, hence my transitioning from Young Married to Young Matron; maybe even just Matron. Ugh. Labeled just like the poor woman in an Edith Wharton story. My husband pointed out that we have four children; it isn't as though we haven't any. Yes, but I don't have a baby baby, you see. And that's okay for now. I enjoyed giving my friends lunch and having their lovely company and lovely little bundles. Still... who would have ever thought fecundity could be such a threat or source of sorrow?

Coming Soon...

...an annotated list of my favorite Led Zeppelin songs from their first four albums. When I say annotated, I mean it will have my own highly unscientific, highly personal reasons for liking particular songs. I am certainly no music expert or even scholar. But, for instance, a few of their songs have given me such a strong sensation of swimming, that I've realized that I often experience music the same way that I do water, if that makes any sense. Like I said, it's coming soon.

Crow Food

We have crows living near us. Not sure exactly where they roost--I think a few blocks away, near open fields. I have been interested in them since the day two wrestled over a frosted toaster pastry in my front yard. It had been dropped by one of the kids, and was soon discovered by birds. The crows showed up and smaller birds flew off.

Curiously, they did not care for the frosting, but instead turned it over and pecked at the plain side. Then, with about a third of it left, one tried to fly with it. It took three attempts, but he finally managed to get in the air, taking the pastry remnant to a nearby tree, remaining there until rain dissolved it later in the day.

Now I leave all sorts of food scraps for them, just for the fun of watching them interact with it. They love dry dog food and cat food, and these, from what I've read, are nutritionally appropriate for them. More so than french fries anyway. Hardboiled eggs, in the shell, are another big hit--they will either rip off the shell with their claws and devour the insides, or else poke a small hole and carry it off in their beak. I've also watched one or two merely roll the egg around, play with it and not eat it.

Baby, If You've Ever Wondered...

Courtesy of Classic TV Database: WKRP In Cincinnati theme song lyrics!

I loved that show, in the way a child loves watching their parents' tv shows, trying to figure out why everyone is laughing. I remember thinking the theme song sad and lonely, and taking it literally. That of course probably added to the sadness.

WKRP In Cincinnati

Baby, if you've ever wondered,
Wondered, whatever became of me,
I'm living on the air in Cincinnati,
Cincinnati, WKRP.

Got tired of packing and unpacking,
town to town and up and down the dial.
Maybe you and me were never meant to be,
but baby, think of me once in a while:
I'm at WKRP in Cincinnati.

Etymological Wonder

From Chambers Dictionary Of Etymology:

Stevedore: n. person who loads and unloads ships. 1828 (in 1788 stowadore), American English; borrowed from Spanish estibador, one who loads cargo, from estibar, to stow cargo, from Latin stipare pack down, press; see STIFF-v. 1862, American English, to load and unload a ship; from the noun.

I wonder where we get 'stiff', as in 'a bunch of working stiffs.' Is it from this word, or is it from the 'stiff' sense used for corpses? The dictionary doesn't say.

I love the word stevedore. Had to look it up in high school, reading something in English class that I can't remember now, which is a pity. Maybe it was Herman Melville.

Ten Minutes Of Tech

Just returned from a conference for librarians: How To Grow Your Library, or something. The speaker works at an enormous public high school in a state where librarian/media specialist positions are continually threatened by budget cuts. Therefore she is always looking for ways to make herself not only relevant, but vital to her school. Hence the 'Ten Minutes Of Tech'. Once a month, at staff meetings, she demonstrates how students can use ipods to cheat, cellphones to plagarize, how to use a digital camera, etc.

On a tangent, it made me wonder in what ways all of us try to get our ten minutes with others, though not necessarily to tell them about new technology. How much of our action comes from a desire to be (or at any rate, seem) relevant, vital, to others? Personally I am trying to calculate what portion of my own such efforts are superficial and wasted, and what part actually carry real value.

The Hokey Pokey Of Death

...Perhaps that is being a little dramatic, but I can blame it on all my recent illness. I was sick pretty much the entire month of February, first with bronchitis, then a sinus infection. I lost ten pounds and gained one cracked rib. I still have the sinus infection and am on three different prescriptions. Someone yesterday asked me if I had one foot in this world and the other in the next, and I could not decide. Later concluded that it is more akin to that staple of elementary music programs everywhere:

You put your right foot in,
You take your right foot out,
You put your right foot in
and you shake it all about--
You do the hokey pokey
and you turn yourself around--

that's what it's all about. Really.