More Reading, More Writing

Even though there is hardly any snow left, Cruiser is still suspicious,


If I get up out of the comfy chair, Spit usually makes a beeline for the chair's now warm spot and takes over,


Yesterday she took over and would not share for the entire afternoon.

I received a comment from a coward that did not provide his name on my post including an opinion about S.B. 510, The Food Safety and Modernization Act. I responded as a comment under the post. The author told me I should spend more time reading and less time writing! Ha! I suppose the $825 billion needed for the bill is already appropriated, so it does not count as spending, which is government double-speak. As of November 30, 2010, this bill is a mere 242 pages, although it regularly refers to amending existing legislation, so good luck trying to pull together all the affected law in addition to the new law and trying to read it all.

While I was spending more time reading, I finished John Irving's The Fourth Hand. Irving's latest books have been in a different style, I think, and this one is short and back to the weirdness of The World According to Garp.

While I was spending too much time writing, I finished my Week One homework for the Artist's Way. Today I am treating myself to a trip to the only art store in Boise, Quality Art Supplies, that is if you do not count wanna-be art stores like Michael's and Aaron Brothers. I made some progress on the children's book and did a drawing for an illustration. I finally got through copying all the parts about my cats on my blog and pasting them in order to use as a framework for the book. I'm only using the parts until we got to Boise and got settled. Does that count as too much reading or too much writing? To me, it always comes out to not enough painting.

I am way behind on Wisdom of the Ages. The next topic is Laughter, with a poem called A Child's Laughter by Algernon Charles Swinburne,

All the bells of heaven may ring,
All the birds of heaven may sing,
All the wells on earth may spring,
All the winds on earth may bring
All sweet sounds together---
Sweeter far than all things heard,
Hand of harper, tone of bird,
Sound of woods at sundawn stirred,
Welling water's winsome word,
Wind in warm wan weather,

One thing yet there is, that none
Hearing ere its chime be done
Knows not well the sweetest one
Heard of man beneath the sun,
Hoped in heaven hereafter;
Soft and strong and loud and light,
Very sound of very light
Heard from morning's rosiest height,
When the soul of all delight
Fills a child's clear laughter.

Golden bells of welcome rolled
Never forth such notes, nor told
Hours so blithe in tones so bold,
As the radiant mouth of gold
Here that rings forth heaven.
If the golden-crested wren
Were a nightingale---why, then,
Something seen and heard of men
Might be half as sweet as when
Laughs a child of seven.

The author describes Swinburne as using "word-music" and that description seems accurate, but I'm not sure any poem can convey the spirit of listening to the child's laughter itself. When I need laughter and there are no children around, I just pull out one of those Johnny Carson DVDs. I do agree with Wisdom's author, laughter is great spiritual medicine.