A Distraction at the Bus Stop

https://getyourwordsout.dreamwidth.org/856782.html?thread=10687182#cmt10687182

Title: Pernickety Poisoner
Fandom: Original
Poetic form: Abecedarian
Rating: Gen
No. of lines: 28
Prompt: Persnickety
Summary: An abecedarian about how nothing in the persnickety's poisoner's cabinet is of any use! So vexing!

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For Earth Day on Tuesday.

Today we are looking at two stories.

"The Adventure of the Stockbroker's Clerk" was published in The Strand in March 1893.

The plot of this story is very near to that of "The Red-Headed League."

A person is lured from their designated place in order to further a financial crime. The poor victim is named...Hall Pycroft! He's lured from a new job so that someone else can take his place and rob his new employer and blame him.

"The Adventure of the Resident Patient" appeared in The Strand in August 1893.

Here we get a struggling doctor Percy Trevelyan who accepts a patient (a patient who lives with him in the practice offices) with A Past and two curious characters show up and take revenge on their former associate. This is very similar to the story of Victor Trevor's father and (in a way) to Mary Morstan's father.

I can't say either story is remarkable in my mind.

I found I had a horse sticker, so I did a collage of Silver Blaze.

What I am appreciating most about the poem-a-day is the little blurb after the poem about the poem. The first poem was inspired by the second.

alameda point by David Maduli

—after lucille clifton

the estuary opens to the bay
and the bay stretches into the pacific and so on
therefore and such-and-such,
none of them empty or full
in the way no frame can minimize nor contain horizon—
yet the ocean can be it, even when sky
and sea are the same late summer gray
they blend together erasing, making
each other. the humpback whale
breaching the slate screen is the only
one who knows the tension between.
here arrive two children winding bikes
on the path to the point passing succulents
and ground squirrels, and three pelicans
follow in spinning dives to slash
down on this estuary guarded
by gurgling sea lions. the children
collecting rocks and examining mussel shells,
millennia in their hands, nod to each other and laugh
racing childhood to the pier’s edge.

the mississippi river empties into the gulf by Lucille Clifton

and the gulf enters the sea and so forth,
none of them emptying anything,
all of them carrying yesterday
forever on their white tipped backs,
all of them dragging forward tomorrow
. it is the great circulation
of the earth's body, like the blood
of the gods, this river in which the past
is always flowing. every water
is the same water coming round.
everyday someone is standing on the edge
of this river, staring into time,
whispering mistakenly:
only here. only now.

1. It's Spring Break! The boys go back Tuesday.

2. The boys' father traveled yesterday to Seattle for meetings with the Gates Foundation. He is supposed to be back on Thursday.

3. Today was a day of running errands. As the last step of Minisculus' calorie reduction is to get 60 minutes of movement a day. So this morning I took the boys to the YMCA so he could get that.

Then we went to a store for Minor to get a new hoodie and a gift for a birthday party Minisculus was invited to new week. We used up the last of the gift card my sister gave me for Xmas.

I also stopped by Michaels and picked up 1 package of stickers. I fell in love with these Easter eggs in nests and if you buy the stickers online and pick up at the store, you get a 30% discount. They were the only Easter stickers I've seen that I liked, and I really liked them.

Then we went to the library. Then we went to Wal-Mart and I got Minor a new phone. This is going to be a source of controversy because the boys' father was against an upgrade for Minor. But what Minor had was an old-school flip phone and this is a proper phone (not on our plan). I will have to deal with the fallout from that with his father. It's a mess because I snapped on Sunday about Minor rotting his brain with his phone (and yelled at him harshly) and he proceeded to get 2 PRs (Personal Records) at the track meet and to clean my nasty, years-encrusted tea kettle with steel wool (without being asked) just to show me that his brain isn't rotted. Point to Minor.

Then we went the Mall and Minor went to the barber. Minor got a low taper fade. Whatever that is. It's not as shorn as the last time.

Then we were starving and got McDonald's and went home. Tomorrow is shopping and I have to get my state emissions test on the car and Minor has track practice. Soccer practices were cancelled but track is still going through spring break.

4. I finished Seafire last night, the girls' own Mad Max Fury at sea fantasy. It was good. I also finished Ada Limon's book of poetry The Hurting Kind, also good.

5. I wrote two poems, then lost my groove. I need to get back. Spring renewal is going well.

ASMR of the WEEK: This channel is building miniature rooms from kits.

And a poem!

Dressing the Body by Brittany Rogers

We—Detroit girls, Daughters of Motown—
knew before we saw the bronze casket

that Aretha would be dressed down;
some—Non-believers, Outsiders—

called it frivolous: two-day
viewing; eight-hour long service;

four outfit changes, each dress
more elaborate than the last.

Beautiful, beautiful gowns—accessorized
from jewels to pointed heels. I half-

expect her to break out a side eye
belt out a hymn to remind us

who the Queen is. There is,
of course, no such performance,

though we all huddle like crows,
waiting to see if she still looks

like herself. There is a protocol to this,
a right way to send

someone back to the lap of God.
Wearing their Sunday best.

So fancy they can be
mistaken for a bride.