In case you were wondering...

A Dyson vacuum cleaner pays for itself when it effectively removes fish food from your laptop.

Baklava

I sit here tonight, impatiently, waiting for my baklava to cool enough to eat. Did you know that most of the recipes tell you to bake and then wait 24 hours to eat? Who has that much self control? The whole house smells like butter; it's all I can do to not gnaw off my own arm waiting for it to cool enough to avoid serious burns.

But still I celebrate, because I have my computer hooked up now and once again have the ability to post pictures. Yipee! And with such abilities, you get to see the awesome job I did of boiling over the honey glaze.

There has been knitting lately, but none of it is really at that picture taking state yet so I should get to work. I leave you tonight with a photo of our Saturday sky:




Eta: This is the recipe I used for the baklava. Piece of cake, anyone can do it. The hard part is done for you by the lovely people at Athens, who use whatever arcane magic that creating phyllo dough takes. It probably is a lot more fun to cook with someone else in the kitchen with you, because the layering does take some time. If you are by yourself, I recomend a little Jimi Hendrix.

Second Annual Brigid in Cyberspace Poetry Reading

In celebration of the Second Annual Brigid in Cyberspace Poetry Reading, I present you with one of my favorite poems. Not the most bright and cheerful of poems, but the depth of emotion expressed is nearly tangible.

The Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827) is considered one of the 4 great Japanese poets. He was remarkably prolific, leaving more than 20,000 haiku in journals when he passed. He wrote this after the death of his daughter Sato. Dew is a common symbol for the Buddhist theme of the transience of all things. According to Buddhist teaching, life is as fleeting as the dew and we should eschew attachment to the things of this world. But he can't quite let go, his heart aches with the profound loss.

This world of dew
Is but a world of dew
And yet, and yet

Poetry, especially haiku, is difficult to translate (the above is the translation that best expresses the feel of the original Japanese, imo). This has also has been translated as:

this world
is a dewdrop world
yes... but...

And in Japanese for those of you who are picky about such things (like myself)

tsuyu no yo wa
tsuyu no yo nagara
sari nagara