{"id":553,"date":"2007-03-25T00:19:39","date_gmt":"2007-03-25T06:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=553"},"modified":"2007-03-25T00:20:35","modified_gmt":"2007-03-25T06:20:35","slug":"7-imps-7-kicks-3-formerly-known-as-seven-good-things-before-monday-roll-with-us-here-folks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=553","title":{"rendered":"7-Imp’s 7 Kicks #3 (formerly known as Seven Good Things Before Monday . . . Roll with us here, folks)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yes, we have to make an executive decision and go with “7-Imp’s 7 Kicks” as the title for the new weekend series, formerly and temporarily named Seven Good Things Before Breakfast. Both titles are good, we think, but Michele (at Scholar’s Blog<\/a><\/strong><\/em>) suggested “7-Imp’s 7 Kicks” (the “kick” coming from Kick-Ass Things That Happened to You During Your Week), and we just love it. For any new folks, the idea is that we simply share The Good in our lives this week.<\/p>\n

And how do you like the image? It’s Tenniel’s image of Lewis Carroll’s The White Queen with Alice (from Chapter Five, “Wool and Water,”<\/a><\/strong> from Through the Looking Glass<\/em>), here telling Alice that “{w}hy, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Later, she mumbles something to Alice about 7 Kicks before breakfast, too, but that part was deleted from Carroll’s text (Alice fans, don’t send hate mail. We only jest).<\/p>\n

Anyway, blah blah. Sorry. Here are our lists:<\/p>\n

Eisha’s list<\/strong>: As you probably know, I was out of town last week, and unable to participate in last Sunday’s Good Things. So I think I get to count two weeks’ worth of goodness.<\/p>\n

1) My family. I am really lucky to have so many great relatives. My mom is so strong and generous and funny; my Aunt Carolyn is sweet and quirky and just as generous, if not more so; my Aunt Sherry is exactly who you want to be sitting next to at a party; my sister is smart and funky and thoughtful and vivacious; my brother has a huge heart and always comes through when you least expect it; my sister-in-law is so together and beautiful and tolerant of all our weirdness… then there’s my cousins, uncles, etc., etc… oh, and don’t even get me started on my husband’s family…<\/p>\n

\"Mom2) My mom’s dog. She only got Bibi a few months ago, and I had met her for the first time at Christmas. She was too shy and freaked out by the general merriment going on to come out from under the table then, but last week when I was staying there Bibi and I became very good friends. She’s so adorable and affectionate. I wish she hadn’t eaten that petrified dog poo that last time I walked her, though. I really could have gone forever without seeing that.<\/p>\n

3) Jules. While I was home I got to call on her and Blaine, and they made me yummy pizza, and Miriam and I had an impromptu puppet hide-and-seek game, and Ada sang “Hush Little Baby” for me, and it was a perfect night. I really wish I could hang out with Jules & Co. more often.<\/p>\n

\"Ally\"4) Babies. Suddenly my world is crawling with babies. I got to spend time with Jules’s little toddlers, of course. But also my cousin’s baby Ally was at the visitation last week (this is the 6-month-old granddaughter of my aunt who passed away), and OH. MY. GOD. This is the sweetest baby I have ever seen. She was there for about 5 hours, and was just passed from person to person the whole time, and she never got fussy or anything, except once or twice when she got hungry. And she has the sweetest little angel head. Plus my brother’s wife is expecting their first baby any second now (I’m going to be an aunt!!!), plus my other cousin is expecting in June, and seriously, my ovaries were just screaming by the end of the week.<\/p>\n

5) Sleeping late on Saturdays. From Fall ’05 through January of this year, I was either working at my library school’s library or in class on Saturday mornings. Even after 2 months of freedom, I still get a delicious, decadent thrill every Friday night when I realize I don’t have to set my alarm clock.<\/p>\n

\"The6) Finally finished The Prestige<\/em><\/strong><\/a> by Christopher Priest today. My husband’s reading it too (we decided we wanted to read the book before we saw the movie<\/strong><\/a>). I can’t wait for him to finish it so we can talk about it. It’s pretty good – kind of Houdini-meets-Jekyll & Hyde<\/em>.<\/p>\n

7) My husband got some very good news career-wise. It’s too soon to share it, but it’s big, and it means a lot of changes are coming. We’re both very excited about it. I’ll tell you all about it as soon as I can. Actually, Jules’s husband got some good news too, and I’m just so thrilled for them.<\/p>\n

* * * * * * *<\/center><\/p>\n

Jules’ list<\/strong> (in no particular order):<\/p>\n

1>. Clean water, hot food, sunshine, and non-ashen gray snow (when we do actually get snow). Yup, I just finished reading Life As We Knew It<\/em> by Susan Beth Pfeffer, thanks to this review<\/a><\/strong> by Kristen at pixie stix kids pix<\/a><\/strong>. Granted, it fills me with a bit ‘o panic and makes me wish I owned a bomb shelter, chock full ‘o food and bottled water. But it still makes my list, since we currently are not surviving on canned soup alone — and the moon is where it’s supposed to be, thank you very much.<\/p>\n

2>. Visiting — albeit briefly — with my friend, Susannah, who has had entirely<\/em> too much loss in her life recently but is now all happy, shiny, gorgeously pregnant.<\/p>\n

3>. Betsy Bird at A Fuse #8 Production<\/a><\/strong> tagging me and Eisha<\/a><\/strong> as “thinking bloggers.” Honestly, I usually don’t pay attention to the “tag” stuff (don’t have an intense dislike for them either; I just read ’em, smile, and move on), and I guess we should be tagging forward and such. Uh, maybe Eisha and I will put our heads together one day soon and do that, but I’m just flattered that she considers us big thinkers and puts us in a category with J.L. Bell of Oz and Ends<\/a><\/strong>. Yeesh, do we deserve that? He’s devastatingly smart, and we say “dude” entirely too much.<\/p>\n

4>. Finally getting around to watching HBO’s Angels in America<\/strong><\/em><\/a> on DVD, complete with a wordless cameo by Maurice Sendak. There are some strong performances here (particularly Al Pacino’s chilling one as Roy Cohn<\/a><\/strong>), and the whole thing is ambitious (still, after all this time, this being a film adaptation of Tony Kushner’s<\/a><\/strong> stage script, which dominated Broadway back in the early ’90s) and impressive. See it, see it.<\/p>\n

5>. The Fats Waller<\/a><\/strong> CD I have from the library.<\/p>\n

6>. A friend sharing a great poem — “Two Moments with Strangers” by Charlotte Matthews — with me and Eisha. You can read and hear it here<\/a><\/strong>. Thanks, Shannon.<\/p>\n

7>. Solitude. I love My Girls, but they’re currently running around full-steam ahead in the park with their father, and I have some time alone, bringing to mind two favorite quotes: “I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls” — Henry David Thoreau<\/a><\/strong>; and “Solitude never hurt anyone. Emily Dickinson lived alone, and she wrote some of the most beautiful poetry the world has ever known . . . then went crazy as a loon” — Lisa Simpson<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

What are your Good Things?<\/p>\n

‘Til next week . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes, we have to make an executive decision and go with “7-Imp’s 7 Kicks” as the title for the new weekend series, formerly and temporarily named Seven Good Things Before Breakfast. Both titles are good, we think, but Michele (at Scholar’s Blog) suggested “7-Imp’s 7 Kicks” (the “kick” coming from Kick-Ass Things That Happened to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seven-good-things-before-monday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}