"Sure, the lion is king of the jungle, but airdrop him into Antarctica, and he's just a penguin's bitch."

I’ve always been a big Dorothy Parker fan. (And disturbingly for me, it turns out she looks a lot like a my-mom-when-she-was-young.) Go read some Parker right now, you owe it to yourself. She’s witty and funny and poignant. This is one of my favorite Parker poems, “Theory”:
Into love and out again,
Thus I went, and thus I go.
Spare your voice, and hold your pen –
Well and bitterly I know
All the songs were ever sung,
All the words were ever said;
Could it be, when I was young,
Some one dropped me on my head?

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Julie recommends the Moomintroll books, by Tove Janson (re: my mention of Summer Book). I think they look totally cool, and cannot wait to get my hands on them to read to Simon. I think he’ll love them. Thanks, Julie!

Speaking of books Si likes, I recently dug out my Shel Silverstein collection. I hate, hate HATE The Giving Tree, but otherwise Silverstein is ok. A bit contrived, and Raffi-ish for my taste, but ok. Simon really likes him, he thinks the poems are hilarious (and some of them are.) So he is enjoying greatly Where the Sidewalk Ends. It’s so much fun to watch him discover new books.

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I took the boys to the zoo yesterday. Who designs zoos? Why are there not shortcuts to places people want to go to quickly? We have a membership so, when we go, if the boys want to hang out in the aquarium or kids’ kingdom all morning, that’s fine by me. But to get the aquarium, or the bathrooms, or the trains, or whatever, you must trudge through the entire fucking zoo! Did someone think it was like the grocery store: “If we can just get them to walk past the Siberian tigers, maybe they’ll buy one and take it home!” And yesterday the big hit of the day was not, as you might expect, any of the animals; nooo, it was the large construction vehicles digging up what is left of the snake house (I HATE the snake house and am happy to see it leveled). We stood there and watched Scoop and Muck do their thing for half an hour. We’d still be standing there if we hadn’t nearly been run down by a zoo tram. Do we live in England? Why do the zoo trams drive on the left side of the road? The aquarium was fine, except for all the adults pushing strollers and their fat kids around without any inkling that littler children might be under foot (well, that and the penguin exhibit – when was the last time those poor penguins had their water cleaned? It’s murkier than my goldfish bowl! Isn’t it bad enough they had to live in a refrigerated trailer for six weeks?) . Jude got nailed by one grown man oblivious to his surroundings; the poor kid took a flying header and banged his head on the bottom of Nemo’s tank. That was when I began my deep breathing and finally snarled at poor Simon, “MAMA HAS TO GET OUT OF HERE NOW.” Ah, an idyllic morning at the zoo. I, unusually, bought the boys something - some little sea creature toys. Jude carried his tube o’ animals all over the zoo, and when he got home, laid them all out on the end of his bed before lying down for his nap. Whereupon Simon crept silently into his room and absconded with all of Jude’s animals, to augment *his* collection, to add to the miniature golf course. It sucks being the younger brother. (In a few short months, he’ll be the middle child, which is even worse.)

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I think the freakiest creation of JK Rowling’s, bar none, are the Inferi. Dementors are the scariest, but the Inferi make my skin crawl. My drive home from work takes me down a dimly-lit twisty road that is bordered by an enormous and very old cemetery. Thursday nights, when I work to ten, I drive home this way and wind up my windows while driving past the cemetery because, you know, Voldemort has it in for me and is going to set the Inferi on me. Zombies…bah! But the Inferi, with their clammy cold hands and dead eyes – creepy. Waaaaayyyy creepier than the dead people in Phillip Pullman’s Amber Spyglass.

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I just walked into the ladies’ room and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror (something I try to avoid even on my best days). I look like Violet Beauregarde, only fuchsia. I *hate* this horrible bright pink shirt but it was clean AND it fits my clothing criteria right now which is/are, I want my clothes to touch the least amount of skin possible. Of course, I normally am obliged to obey this bizarre compulsion, but it’s worse when I am huge with child.

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Snippets:

Simon and his dad were writing a song when I left for work this morning. The first line went something like this:
“In the back-ack of the gack-gack…” (Yes, they’re quite the lyricists.)
I can’t get the damn thing out of my head.

Somehow – I am not sure how – these two articles are related:
The Nude Museum and The Undie Thief.

Mmmmm-hmm. What’s he *really* doing to that penguin? I don’t care how lonely you are, leave the wildlife alone!

Now I want a digital camera. To record charming pictures of my lovely children? No. To show-and-tell my front porch, and various other blog fun.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is boring. I am not going any further with it. I did just check out of the library Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle and Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Bookshop. And I guess I’ll keep plugging away at Misfortune. Don’t know why but I feel compelled.

Dan is going to run sound for a friend’s band next Saturday night. I have been invited along. I don’t want to go. On any given night, I would much rather put my kids to bed, and then sit down and read or quilt. Am I hopelessly anti-social and bound to wind up some poor demented old lady who lives in a house stacked with books and inhabited by too many cats, who never goes anywhere because it’s just too much trouble? (Um, sorta just like my dear, departed mom?) I’m not sure there’s enough medication in the world to prevent this.