/m280

I had lunch with the Spoonmaster last month. He's had a number of other projects which have now completed, and he was talking about reviving the Spoonbill although, since he'll need to move it to a new server, I didn't get the impression it's imminent.

On ZP 213, I had a vague idea that we'd do four poems, one for each season, six stanzas long, each introducing the next (just because that's how the first one panned out) so I've continued it, but I'm happy to be overruled - at the present rate of contribution, it'll take a decade to cover a year anyway :-)

Well, gang, since the Spoonbill has been out of commission for so long, I decided to post a link to to the ZP on its QT. We'll see what happens.

I also looked around for other venues on the Internet that might be suitable to publicize the ZP, but I didn't immediately find much. So, I'm open to suggestions.

/m277 /m278 Thanks, guys! - I'll pass that on to Helen.

/m277 Hear, hear!

/m275 Thanks, Sam, and good luck with the new job.

One afternoon, I was in the backyard hanging the laundry when an old, tired-looking dog wandered into the yard. I could tell from his collar and well-fed belly that he had a home. But when I walked into the house, he followed me, sauntered down the hall and fell asleep in a corner. An hour later, he went to the door, and I let him out. The next day he was back. He resumed his position in the hallway and slept for an hour.
This continued for several weeks. Curious, I pinned a note to his collar: "Every afternoon your dog comes to my house for a nap. "
The next day he arrived with a different note pinned to his collar: "He lives in a home with ten children - he's trying to catch up on his sleep."
 
I cried from laughter
Sorry, if not left a message on Rules.

Thanks to all who helped on 209. (Good wrap-up, Francine!) As it turns out, 209 wasn't ready in time for my going-away lunch, but I didn't really find an opportunity at that for speechifying anyway.

I started my new job this past week, and it's going well. I've already managed to recruit a new personality there, Mr. Grant Mild. I hope Sam, Grant, and I can become more active again on the ZP soon.

Hey, remember the old days when I used to post favorite poems? Well, in honor of St. Paddy's Day, here's an Irish poem I think is quite lovely:

BROKEN VOWS (translated by Lady Gregory)
 
It is late last night the dog was speaking of you;
the snipe was speaking of you in her deep marsh.
It is you are the lonely bird through the woods;
and that you may be without a mate until you find me.

You promised me, and you said a lie to me,
that you would be before me where the sheep are flocked;
I gave a whistle and three hundred cries to you,
and I found nothing there but a bleating lamb.

You promised me a thing that was hard for you,
a ship of gold under a silver mast;
twelve towns with a market in all of them,
and a fine white court by the side of the sea.

You promised me a thing that is not possible,
that you would give me gloves of the skin of a fish;
that you would give me shoes of the skin of a bird,
and a suit of the dearest silk in Ireland.

It is early in the morning that I saw him coming,
going along the road on the back of a horse;
he did not come to me;
he made nothing of me;
and it is on my way home that I cried my fill.

When I go by myself to the Well of Loneliness,
I sit down and I go through my trouble;
when I see the world and do not see my boy,
he that has amber shade in his hair.

It was On that Sunday I gave my love to you;
the Sunday that is last before Easter Sunday.
And myself on my knees reading the Passion;
and my two eyes giving my love to you for ever.

My mother said to me not to be talking with you to-day,
or tomorrow, or on the Sunday;
it was a bad time she took for telling me that;
it was shutting the door after the house was robbed.

My heart is as black as the blackness of the sloe,
or the black coal that is on the smith's forge;
or as the sole of a shoe left in white halls;
it was you put that darkness into my life.

You have taken the east from me;
you have taken the west from me;
you have taken what is before me and what is behind me;
you have taken the moon,
you have taken the sun from me;
and my fear is great
that you have taken God from me!

/m271 You're welcome and thank <i>you</>. :-)

Francine, thank you for your line on 202 - I just couldn't come up with one I liked - yours is just what I was searching for :-)

Edited by author 03-13-2008 05:30 AM
/m269 Good Lord! If someone were to put that in a movie or novel, it would be considered implausible, to say the least.

Hey, how are all my Ziti friends doing these days? I haven't been checking in too much lately. Been busy.

I was on some other message boards recently where you can post images. I wonder if QT allows that? I'm gonna try. Here goes.

Well, that didn't work. Just gave the link instead of embedding the image.

Just when you think you've heard it all - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23595533/

/m267 I don't know either -- but I think I'm on the right track.

I'm not sure if Helen found a feeder on 205 or if she was just being...well, you know..."Helen".

/m265 I don't know if 206 allows consecutive contributions, but you've been getting such good results with feeder lines lately that I decided to try fishing for a certain triple rhyme on "Obama". That didn't work out, but I think Francine's line is even better than what I had in mind!

BTW, what are the odds that someone whose first name more-or-less rhymes with a country the U.S. recently went to war with, and whose last name rhymes with the name of the guy who likely made that war politically possible, could ever be a real contender (or "contendah", as Brando would say) for the Presidency? What's that old saw about truth being stranger than fiction?...