March 22, 2006
Spring Break
We Beehive people are taking a little Spring Break from the blogosphere. Enjoy our archives if you like, and we'll be back to blogging away -- for our own amusement and maybe even yours -- before you even have a chance to miss us too much.
March 19, 2006
In Which We Give the Beehive Faithful a Taste of Life at the Beehive, Especially That Part of it Which Transpires Late at Night
Fa and The Shieldmaiden
We like to stay up late. Sadly. In fact, we have a whole litany of things we like to do while staying up late, but one of our favoritest of favoritey favorites is reading Ogden Nash aloud by flashlight. Last night we were doing this, and we decided it was just too much fun not to share, so we blogged it. And here you are.
We like to stay up late. Sadly. In fact, we have a whole litany of things we like to do while staying up late, but one of our favoritest of favoritey favorites is reading Ogden Nash aloud by flashlight. Last night we were doing this, and we decided it was just too much fun not to share, so we blogged it. And here you are.
First, me (Fa)--
It's Always Apple Blossom Time, Unfortunately
And now, the Queen of Ogden Nash by Flashlight, Claire. She's genius at it. This is one is specially hers- I'm not allowed to read it.
The Man with Two New Suits
March 17, 2006
We died laughing. No, we really did.
Last weekend, the Beehive was transformed
for one magical evening into The Four Deuces,
a swanky 1920's speakeasy packed with
gangsters, flappers and feuding singing stars.
[click photos to enlarge]
Don "Big Jim" Ravioli (badder than he looks, trust us) arrives with his sweet (or is she?) young wife Carrie Crooner-Ravioli. Winners of two awards, the coveted Best Couple Award, even though they were both dead for most of their marriage (Big Jim demanded the award, and since he would have killed us had we not given it to them, well...) and also Al Capone's special Most Enduring Couple Award (we found Al dead behind the sofa shortly after that little wisecrack, but hey, that sort of thing is all in a day's work for a guy like Big Jim).
(We ::cough:: include this bonus shot of the Raviolis for our own personal safety... because Big Jim demanded we take more pictures of him and his lovely wife than we took of the other guests, and because we are very, very afraid.)
Guests mingle amiably... for a little while anyway...
The dashing Don Wannabe and his luscious wife MeMe, the famous matchmaker, hosts and owners of The Four Deuces...
Vanessa Crooner, winner of the auspicious Best Actor Award, grieving the murder of her beloved daughter and protege Carrie.
US Congressman Darrin Toosteal on the campaign trail... again...
Rebecca Ravioli, winner of the Best Costume Award AND The Murderess (gasp!), and Sly Sleeze, horse race bookie extraordinaire, who was just... well, THE BEST, period. (We are The Sly Sleeze Fan Club headquarters, oh yeah. Which means we always win big at the races.)
And other guests too gorgeous for words... Vicki Ravioli, Donna Wannabe, big bad Al Capone himself, and Capo "Toto" Tequila...
The Inspector Nutella Neville escorts the incomparable Baroness Ravioli
Chicago Mayor Nick Charleston and his mysterious socialite wife Nora, doting patron of...
...the brilliant rising star, Roxie Ravioli
Who invited the Blues Brothers?
And finally, a trip to Starbucks afterward, in costume... yeah, people stared at us. More fun than is legal in most states.
A quote
"Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way."
Jane Austen, Emma
Jane Austen, Emma
March 16, 2006
Taran-tara, taran-tara!!
aaaaaa policeman's lot is not a happy one!
Ruth, plain? nnooo!! There's the remains of a fine woman about Ruth!
But is she...beautiful?
Ruth is very.....wellllll.......yes! Very well.
Ruth, plain? nnooo!! There's the remains of a fine woman about Ruth!
But is she...beautiful?
Ruth is very.....wellllll.......yes! Very well.
March 15, 2006
2050 Years Ago Today...
...some stuff happened that gave the Bard fodder for one of the finer plays ever penned. "Beware the ides of March."
--From Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
(Act I, scene ii)
March 8, 2006
March 7, 2006
Happy Anniversary
Great Scot
Nineteen years ago today, the Queen graced my life by becoming my wife. I can honestly say that I am a much better and happier person because of her. I love you and honor you on this day.
We went to Aspen for our honeymoon. This is picture of us in Aspen on a street corner in a heavy snow storm which had enormous snowflakes. I have always liked the way the flash captured the snowflakes in this picture.
Prior to our honeymoon, the Queen had never been skiing, and, unfortunately, I cannot say that she took to it like a duck to water. Her first day out, she was in tears at lunch from frustration, and I was busily calculating in my head how I could get us to Hawaii from there!
It all worked out well in the end, she finally got the hang of skiing and we had a fine time. My only remaining problem during that trip was convincing her that when you are on a ski trip, you SKI. Shopping, lingering breakfasts, sleeping in are all fine and good, but these things can be done in Dallas, skiing can't.
Happy Anniversary, my love. 'til the sun don't shine.
Nineteen years ago today, the Queen graced my life by becoming my wife. I can honestly say that I am a much better and happier person because of her. I love you and honor you on this day.
We went to Aspen for our honeymoon. This is picture of us in Aspen on a street corner in a heavy snow storm which had enormous snowflakes. I have always liked the way the flash captured the snowflakes in this picture.
Prior to our honeymoon, the Queen had never been skiing, and, unfortunately, I cannot say that she took to it like a duck to water. Her first day out, she was in tears at lunch from frustration, and I was busily calculating in my head how I could get us to Hawaii from there!
It all worked out well in the end, she finally got the hang of skiing and we had a fine time. My only remaining problem during that trip was convincing her that when you are on a ski trip, you SKI. Shopping, lingering breakfasts, sleeping in are all fine and good, but these things can be done in Dallas, skiing can't.
Happy Anniversary, my love. 'til the sun don't shine.
March 3, 2006
The Lines, Invisible
Q. Shenaynay
Our family has a history of making up stories in tandem -- we did this a lot when the girls were small, particularly in situations that involved lots of waiting. One of us would start the story and then we would each take a turn adding the next bit. It was super for honing listening skills, not to mention a mighty impressive exercise in creativity. Besides that, it was usually ripping silly fun.
Later, when we found ourselves sitting through hours and hours of Suzuki recitals (I'm talking 4 hour long, mind-numbing shindigs), we began writing stories in tandem in a notebook that we would pass down the row. Now these were just beyond bizarre. Maybe I will post one sometime.
But now Fa and I have taken it into the techno realm: we have come into a little habit of writing tandem poetry using Instant Messenger. I send her a line, with no comment about what it might mean, and she writes the next line or two, and so on. Okay, maybe we're a little odd, but this is how we get our kicks. Besides, we like odd.
Here's one:
The Lines
I face the lines and turn;
ducks rise before my face.
I covet their ascent, their fleeing
grey souls rise to the yellow void.
In their boundlessness I feel my bounds,
grey bounds, like all that binds.
Yellow is free, yellow is flight --
but mired I am, in clay and weeds,
all brown and binding.
Mired I am here
gazing up at gold.
Here's another, from a couple of months ago:
Invisible
Invisibility, said he
and his eyes went opaque
like shades of a closing store;
and musing on crystal balls
he smirks at finding
a glass doorknob in his hand
and feels the heavy tumble
of the lock.
My kingdom for the key, said she,
remembering other doors
left swinging in the wind;
she had the skeleton for those --
but the seventh rib is missing,
which this door requires.
Invisibility, says he
and his eyes go opaque.
He wraps his thoughts in a blanket
and wonders that he is alone.
This is a surprisingly serendipitous thing to do -- waiting for the next line to come back to you is sort of like a little dose of that big thrill of getting a letter in the mail. And since you only have to come up with one line at a time, it's all a matter of light-hearted intrigue with no big creative pressure.
We might just have to take this show on the road, so to speak. So if you ever get an email or and IM message from one of us with one strange line of something that might be poetry, you shall know how to proceed. We'll be waiting!
(I'm coming after you next, Shieldmaiden!)
Our family has a history of making up stories in tandem -- we did this a lot when the girls were small, particularly in situations that involved lots of waiting. One of us would start the story and then we would each take a turn adding the next bit. It was super for honing listening skills, not to mention a mighty impressive exercise in creativity. Besides that, it was usually ripping silly fun.
Later, when we found ourselves sitting through hours and hours of Suzuki recitals (I'm talking 4 hour long, mind-numbing shindigs), we began writing stories in tandem in a notebook that we would pass down the row. Now these were just beyond bizarre. Maybe I will post one sometime.
But now Fa and I have taken it into the techno realm: we have come into a little habit of writing tandem poetry using Instant Messenger. I send her a line, with no comment about what it might mean, and she writes the next line or two, and so on. Okay, maybe we're a little odd, but this is how we get our kicks. Besides, we like odd.
Here's one:
The Lines
I face the lines and turn;
ducks rise before my face.
I covet their ascent, their fleeing
grey souls rise to the yellow void.
In their boundlessness I feel my bounds,
grey bounds, like all that binds.
Yellow is free, yellow is flight --
but mired I am, in clay and weeds,
all brown and binding.
Mired I am here
gazing up at gold.
Here's another, from a couple of months ago:
Invisible
Invisibility, said he
and his eyes went opaque
like shades of a closing store;
and musing on crystal balls
he smirks at finding
a glass doorknob in his hand
and feels the heavy tumble
of the lock.
My kingdom for the key, said she,
remembering other doors
left swinging in the wind;
she had the skeleton for those --
but the seventh rib is missing,
which this door requires.
Invisibility, says he
and his eyes go opaque.
He wraps his thoughts in a blanket
and wonders that he is alone.
This is a surprisingly serendipitous thing to do -- waiting for the next line to come back to you is sort of like a little dose of that big thrill of getting a letter in the mail. And since you only have to come up with one line at a time, it's all a matter of light-hearted intrigue with no big creative pressure.
We might just have to take this show on the road, so to speak. So if you ever get an email or and IM message from one of us with one strange line of something that might be poetry, you shall know how to proceed. We'll be waiting!
(I'm coming after you next, Shieldmaiden!)
March 2, 2006
In Memory of Missey Gray
Q. Shenaynay
Please say a prayer for the family of Missey Gray, a lovely young mother who died during childbirth yesterday afternoon. She leaves behind her husband Tom and their five children, ranging in age from 11 to the newborn daughter.
Missey was an active member of the Ambleside Online support lists, and had a real heart for helping fellow homeschoolers. She spent untold hours freely offering her experience and support to others. In fact, she was posting to homeschool listservers just yesterday morning, before leaving for the hospital.
Missey's family has expressed comfort in knowing that other Christians and homeschoolers are praying for them in this difficult time.
This post from Missey's blog says what I could never find the words to say. Please read it, and hug your loved ones longer and harder today. Missey's passing reminds me once again that there are no guarantees for tomorrow for any of us.
I'm thankful to have met Missey and her beautiful family, and I'm thankful to have witnessed her generous spirit. May God bless her family and loved ones.
Please say a prayer for the family of Missey Gray, a lovely young mother who died during childbirth yesterday afternoon. She leaves behind her husband Tom and their five children, ranging in age from 11 to the newborn daughter.
Missey was an active member of the Ambleside Online support lists, and had a real heart for helping fellow homeschoolers. She spent untold hours freely offering her experience and support to others. In fact, she was posting to homeschool listservers just yesterday morning, before leaving for the hospital.
Missey's family has expressed comfort in knowing that other Christians and homeschoolers are praying for them in this difficult time.
This post from Missey's blog says what I could never find the words to say. Please read it, and hug your loved ones longer and harder today. Missey's passing reminds me once again that there are no guarantees for tomorrow for any of us.
I'm thankful to have met Missey and her beautiful family, and I'm thankful to have witnessed her generous spirit. May God bless her family and loved ones.
The best kind of mush
Fa-so-la-la
Well, I'm a big ol' sucker for love songs, which should surprise no one. I firmly believe that there is no such thing as a favorite love song, because love goes on and on and on in so many variations that the sheer quantity of good love songs out there would make having a favorite impossible. And then you bring the feel or mood of the song into it-- there's different kinds, from unhappy to devoted to light-hearted to my-baby-left-me to over-the-top-romantic, etc. You get my point. So having qualified and qualified this statement, I will now introduce you what would probably be my favorite love song if it were possible to have a favorite. Which it isn't. But again, you get the point. I really really like this song. Really. To tell the truth, I've never even heard it, and I don't know who sings it-- I learned it at the Green's house, so the only version I've ever heard is the Caitlin-Eleanor-Molly version. But like I said, I really really like it.
The Rest Of Your Life
What are you doing the rest of your life?
North and South and East and West of your life
I have only one request of your life
That you spend it all with me.
All the seasons and the times of your days,
All the nickels and the dimes of your days,
Let the reasons and the rhymes of your days
All begin and end with me.
I want to see your face in every kind of light
In the fields of dawn and the forests of the night
And when you stand before the candles on a cake
Oh, let me be the one to hear the silent wish you make
Those tomorrows waiting deep in your eyes,
In the world of love that you keep in your eyes,
I'll awaken what's asleep in your eyes.
It may take a kiss or two.
Through all of my life,
Summer, Winter, Spring, and Fall of my life,
All I ever will recall of my life
Is all of my life with you.
And now having shared this song I'm thinking of dozens and dozens of others that could also approach being a favorite. Oh dear. Beehive Faithful, y'all are in for it. Once I start in on love songs it may take me a while to stop. Bwahahahaha.
Well, I'm a big ol' sucker for love songs, which should surprise no one. I firmly believe that there is no such thing as a favorite love song, because love goes on and on and on in so many variations that the sheer quantity of good love songs out there would make having a favorite impossible. And then you bring the feel or mood of the song into it-- there's different kinds, from unhappy to devoted to light-hearted to my-baby-left-me to over-the-top-romantic, etc. You get my point. So having qualified and qualified this statement, I will now introduce you what would probably be my favorite love song if it were possible to have a favorite. Which it isn't. But again, you get the point. I really really like this song. Really. To tell the truth, I've never even heard it, and I don't know who sings it-- I learned it at the Green's house, so the only version I've ever heard is the Caitlin-Eleanor-Molly version. But like I said, I really really like it.
The Rest Of Your Life
What are you doing the rest of your life?
North and South and East and West of your life
I have only one request of your life
That you spend it all with me.
All the seasons and the times of your days,
All the nickels and the dimes of your days,
Let the reasons and the rhymes of your days
All begin and end with me.
I want to see your face in every kind of light
In the fields of dawn and the forests of the night
And when you stand before the candles on a cake
Oh, let me be the one to hear the silent wish you make
Those tomorrows waiting deep in your eyes,
In the world of love that you keep in your eyes,
I'll awaken what's asleep in your eyes.
It may take a kiss or two.
Through all of my life,
Summer, Winter, Spring, and Fall of my life,
All I ever will recall of my life
Is all of my life with you.
And now having shared this song I'm thinking of dozens and dozens of others that could also approach being a favorite. Oh dear. Beehive Faithful, y'all are in for it. Once I start in on love songs it may take me a while to stop. Bwahahahaha.
March 1, 2006
So I was feeling a little silly this morning during composition...
Fa-so-la-la
---------
Oh! Season of mists and mellow frui--
An Ode to March, Occasioned by the Sight of my New Flip-flops, and Composed Whilst Sitting in the Red Chair by the Window, after a Repast of Cold Ovaltine
---------
Oh! Season of mists and mellow frui--
(Wait! Wait! Wrong season. ahem. Sorry. Here we go--)
Bright star, would I were steadfa--
(Oh botheration! That's not it either... do, do excuse me...)
Thou foster-child of silence and slo--
(Confound it all! That was about a hunk of pottery! Oh drats.
I give up. March will just have to go ode itself. So there.)
will flop and voice winter in rain music
Q. Shenaynay
Late Friday night, when it finally rained so hard that the skylight once again sounded like some sort of cosmic percussion instrument, we decided to seize the moment in case the drought returned as soon as the storm passed.
We turned off all the lights and fired up the fireplace and the stereo and lit all the candles. Didn't talk much. We just listened to all of it. Fa and I silently messed around with all the little word strips in the magnetic poetry tray on the coffee table, marvelling over how wowzy one can get whilst composing verses under the influence of some truly great jazz singers, candlelight, and the rumble of thunder beside a sizzling fire. For example, this hot little number:
It started raining even harder. The Shieldmaiden and Spuddy drifted in and forgot to leave. We put on some Puccini arias, nabbed our blankies, and chatted quietly off and on until the candles extinguished themselves. Fa and Spuddy curled up together and drifted off to La Boheme, never to return. It was sublime.
And so this one I can only blame on myself and Madame Butterfly:
Quite appropriate for March, the month of St. Patrick's Day, no? (Say, I may have invented a new way to accomplish the wearin' o' the green!)
oh, ps. The title of this post? That was Spuddy's magnetic poem. He was definitely flopped on the sofa. I rather like it.
Late Friday night, when it finally rained so hard that the skylight once again sounded like some sort of cosmic percussion instrument, we decided to seize the moment in case the drought returned as soon as the storm passed.
We turned off all the lights and fired up the fireplace and the stereo and lit all the candles. Didn't talk much. We just listened to all of it. Fa and I silently messed around with all the little word strips in the magnetic poetry tray on the coffee table, marvelling over how wowzy one can get whilst composing verses under the influence of some truly great jazz singers, candlelight, and the rumble of thunder beside a sizzling fire. For example, this hot little number:
we could
be in love
under every full moon
stagger with me
through this brilliant dance
dizzy I sing
to myself
It started raining even harder. The Shieldmaiden and Spuddy drifted in and forgot to leave. We put on some Puccini arias, nabbed our blankies, and chatted quietly off and on until the candles extinguished themselves. Fa and Spuddy curled up together and drifted off to La Boheme, never to return. It was sublime.
And so this one I can only blame on myself and Madame Butterfly:
Oh give thou me
a popsicle
and perchance
I shall give thee
a delicious green kiss
Quite appropriate for March, the month of St. Patrick's Day, no? (Say, I may have invented a new way to accomplish the wearin' o' the green!)
oh, ps. The title of this post? That was Spuddy's magnetic poem. He was definitely flopped on the sofa. I rather like it.
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