I spent the first years of my childhood in a small Arkansas town, then we moved to one much smaller. My world shrank in all kinds of ways. As I would discover, my older sibs had received a much better education in terms of literature. Before we moved, I used to look through their old textbooks out of boredom as much as anything else. When I found the lit books, I fell into a completely different universe.

At least five members of my extended family used these books, and on some pages, you can barely make out the text, given the bored doodles, underlinings, the circlings of important phrases. Not one picture of a poet or writer has been left alone. All manner of black eyes, dark blue lips, inked eyebrows, furrows on the brows, crossed eyes, extra hair and eyeglasses embellish the portraits. For some reason, they left the drawing of Gunga Din alone. The illustration of The Lady of Shalott is unadorned. Maybe they just didn’t get that far.

Therefore, not too long after I learned to read, I was exposed to the world of Lilliput, Gray’s country churchyard, Kubla Khan, and the use of ‘Childe’ as a first name. I wondered why Lord Byron had two names. This new universe had a completely different language. I had questions, but no one was around to answer. Being the youngest in a family has its advantages, but I felt the disadvantages far outweighed any perks.

Later on, I found Keats’ The Eve of St. Agnes’ . When you say the words ‘The silver snarling trumpets ‘gan to chide’ in my part of the deep South, you will be speaking the new language, which was frowned upon or laughed at, so I kept silent. But it bounced around in my head, like many of the phrases both underlined and not.

Was literature taught in my schools? We got a brand new graduate from the university one year, and she taught us Macbeth. I think we spent the entire year on it. We memorized some lines, the farm kids complaining loudly the while. Not once during all those years did I hear the name ‘Keats’ or ‘Coleridge’ or even ‘Nathaniel Hawthorne’. Poe maybe, maybe not.

After seeing Bright Star last night, the lines from Keats came back. (The movie is great, btw, but be prepared to get misted up toward the end.) I was too sad to sit through the end credits, and hear the recitation of ‘Ode to a Nightingale’.

But I went to the bookshelf today, and took down one of those old lit books. Thumbing through it, I landed straight in the middle of my early childhood, when I was lucky enough not to have a faculty decide what I should or should not read, or could relate to, or comprehend.

Some old favorites on Bon Appetit’s list, via the NYT. Not only are they excellent foodies, but they’ve got the scrumptious photography skills as well.

Lately, they seem to take it personally when I am less than pleased to hear from them. Is this a new ploy? One fellow defended himself by saying he was only trying to make a living.

Hmmm. Maybe I am too, and don’t like all these interruptions. Especially when I am digging pyrex pieces out of the burners. The woman calling for the bank was taken aback when I was curt, and gave me a second or two of silence before she cheerfully went on.

To their credit, the insurance company bombarding me finally stopped, but only after I pleaded with them. There were more than 10 calls in one week, and I appealed to the human in the last caller. He admitted to a possible mistake in their system.

Now, back to re-melting the chocolate. I’m losing the good light.

Yesterday after lunch the pumpkin (on my work table) that was outfitted with mini-motion sensing lights kept coming on by itself. A family member had tried to deactivate the blinking aspect of these lights, but was unable to do so Sunday night. I thought perhaps the vibration from my loud music was somehow triggering it. It stopped after a bit. When I tried pounding on the table to start it up, it didn’t work. But after a time, it would begin flashing again.

I spent part of the late afternoon at another house caring for a disabled relative. The dog next door, normally quiet, never stopped barking. The relative, usually napping in a chair, was extremely restless and fidgety, unable to keep still the whole two hours. I was somewhat irritated, because I usually try to get some work done on the laptop, but found it hard to focus for those reasons.

When I got ready to leave, I asked the returning family member if rain was forecast since it seemed so gloomy out. He told me it was clear.

Well, it was and it wasn’t. Six o’clock, a darkish cloud or fog maybe over the foothills. A strange stillness.

The official word (USGS) is that there is no such thing as ‘earthquake weather’.

No less than Aristotle believed that winds in the deepest underground caves were the cause of earthquakes. Which brings to mind this poem by Matthew Arnold, where he mentions ‘Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep. . .’

From Discover magazine, an interesting read.

I had a 10 a.m. appointment this morning with the woman who’s been doing my taxes for about five years now. I only see her at this time of year. Earlier, I had explained that I didn’t work as much at my various paying chores last year due to the worsening condition of my mom.

When she learned that Mom had died, she said she lost her mother two years ago. And then it was as if a door opened out of the tax office and into another world. A world where grown children lose their mothers at holiday time (hers right after Thanksgiving, mine soon after Christmas).

Her desk has been moved to the back, so the manager wasn’t a constant presence as in past years. For almost half an hour, she talked about how she still hasn’t gotten over her loss. I told her I wasn’t sure I was up to visiting my mom’s grave at Easter. It is too soon.

I’ve never wept while having my taxes worked on, but it was a close one today. What a sight that would have been for a taxpaying citizen to walk in on - the tax preparer and a client both awash in tears.

My taxes? Ah, they’re fine. I’m getting a refund.

As if that weren’t bad enough, I was in there with a staff member. If you’ve ever been in a mortuary, you know what these guys can be like.

I wanted a table of some sort for the iMac during the slide show that was going to be the last half of the funeral service for my mom. While the iMac has a small footprint, the monitor is 19″. The flimsy fake columns wouldn’t work, the podium was slanted, the chapel tables too low.

The guy took me into room after room, preceding each entrance with a flourish, promising that I would not have to bring a big speaker or some such tall device from home. Each door shut automatically.

At the last room, I held the door open as a reflex, but as he took me deeper into the room, I let go. The door closed with a hiss. We found a suitable table. But when he saw the door, he said, ‘Uh-oh.’

He began pounding on it. It was cold in there. No one came. The chapel was the other way down the hall where my family was having the visitation. He pounded louder.

Luckily, his female companion in the lobby heard, and rescued us.

My mom is beginning to slip away from us. She rallied at first, and just as the doctors were going to release her, has developed breathing problems. Time after critical time, in the past, she would brighten when my boys would show up, but today she slept through it all. The nurses are lowering their voices and the words “morphine” and “hospice” are being mentioned, although she is not in pain.

Both my sons travel to SF via Caltrans. Of late, this route has been fraught with delays due to abandoned cars and citizens who view the rails as a fail-safe end to their lives. Yesterday’s fatality was visible to all riders of mid-morning trains if they cared to look, according to the eyewitness account.

Therefore, the morning routine now includes a scanning of possible calamities.

You walked right past the ‘no soliciting’ sign, opened my gate, then knocked loudly on the front door, disturbing me at work. I don’t like being interrupted even on a good work day, and yesterday was a particularly bad one.

The only reason I answered the door was that you bore some resemblance to a candidate that I may or may not vote for in the upcoming primary.

Obviously you can read, which is more than I can say for some who ignore the sign. But you were rude, and I sure don’t like that.

The doctor steps into the shop for flowers, and leaves with insight.

From Ross Murray at McSweeney’s.

Starting with ‘cranium’.

An obsessive need to write. Seen in those with temporal lobe epilepsy, manic depression, or bipolar disorder.

Writers suspected of having hypergraphia include Dostoyevsky, Dante, Byron, Tennyson, and Poe.

However, many with the condition do not wish to be cured.

She had a big house on the West Coast where prices were skyrocketing. They, the newlyweds, wanted a brownstone in NY where prices were out of sight. She was 89 and fragile. Could they get her to sell, and move to the East Coast where they could live together?

Maybe, but she had one wish (more like procreative real estate).

A climber recounts his hair-raising experiences with mountains that are collapsing.

It is not enough that they are out there persistently ringing the bell. When the ‘no soliciting’ sign is pointed out, they will stand there and argue the finer points of just what constitutes ’soliciting’. Religious people will counter that they are not selling anything. Really? Young candy sellers from far away neighborhoods will pretend they can’t read. Maybe they can’t. Those who are selling subscriptions want to discuss their prize-winning vacation plans. Earnest young women selling educational software will protest that they are out to stimulate my children. Tree removers will express annoyance when I once again turn them away. And now there is a fresh onslaught of political types.

Martin Walls captures the essence of an amazing insect.

During the last session of a day-long orientation for parents at Cal, the student leader for our group read an account of a family’s long drive to deliver their student to Berkeley. Happy and excited at the outset, they were enthusiastic and full of jokes and affectionate teasing.

As they got closer, the mood changed. It got quieter. As they pulled up to the dorm, they were silent. Separation loomed very close, and it was awful.

Most of the moms in the room cried. Even the ones who were veterans at this kind of thing.

You’re so very proud they got in. You’re so heartbroken that they got in, and are leaving you.

From Saveur magazine, on precisely why it is so pleasing.

Dan Barber recalls a night in David Bouley’s chaotic kitchen.

Very comprehensive, illustrated with examples of falconry in art.

An irreverant notice slips by the editor, and entertains readers.

Those in the business of waxing poetic about wines can indeed be carried away.

A poem .

By Jane Oliver .

Michelle Feynman’s book, Don’t You Have Time to Think, will be out in June. After an introduction, here are a sampling of letters to his mom, a former student, and his wife, Arline.

He tells his mother what he experiences upon seeing the first A-bomb detonation in the desert. The message to Arline was written two years after her death, and is as poignant a love letter as was ever written.

Article from the Guardian.

‘Our eyes blink stars’

Proof that the IRS really cares about you and your deep-down, innermost feelings. From Smithsonian magazine.

Refrigerator, 1957, a poem.

If we were experiencing lightning, we most probably would not have power by now.

From the New England Review.

Fingal’s Cave inspired Mendelssohn to write his ‘Hebrides Overture’, also known as ‘Die Fingalshole’. Keats, Tennyson, and Wordsworth wrote of it. Turner painted the cave in 1832.

Pink Floyd produced the track Fingal’s Cave for the film Zabriskie Point (not used). And in this poem, W.S. Merwin writes of Mendelssohn and birds.