By the Waters of Babylon

My friend Tinks sent me a link the other day and asked “What song is this?” I first heard it on Don MacLean’s American Pie album, where it is simply called Babylon. Or scroll down this link to the Royal Albert Hall.

This is one of those songs that reaches down into my soul and stirs up feelings that are woven into my DNA. I cannot explain it.

Here is another version, done on a layering machine. [I wonder if that is one of the tools that Enya uses?] I didn’t care much for his voice at first, but after he applies layer after layer it becomes a wonderful gift. Be sure to check out his ikat shirt and all the lovely handwoven textiles in the background!

Yes, I’m the one at the movies who ignores major plot points to exclaim, “Look at that quilt! Girls, do you see that quilt? Isn’t that gorgeous?!!” [Forest? What forest? Check out this tree.]

In other breaking news, did you know that if the freezing compartment of your fridge is overstuffed, when you open the door to take out a package of refrigerator pie crusts to thaw to make a quiche for dinner, and one individual serving of frozen trees-and-cheese leaps to its doom, the concussion will separate the plastic film from the container and frozen bits of broccoli will scatter all over the kitchen like Ms. Ravelled running a pool table? The bright side is that the ratio of cheese-to-trees is vastly improved. [This also explains why I was eating trees-and-cheese at 3:42 on Saturday morning, when any sensible insomniac would have been OD’ing on Ben and Jerry’s.]

The quiche turned out OK. Not brilliant, but OK. I thought I had wrung every last drop of water out of the cooked spinach before combining everything, but apparently I hadn’t. So instead of serving up nice triangular presentations, I scooped set parts from the perimeter into bowls, and we ate it with spoons.

The conversation, however, was brilliant. Wide-ranging and comforting in the way that only time with a dear friend can be. We laughed. We cried maybe a little. We ate quiche, with a side of cherry pie filling, and I nuked some fish fillets with the lemon/dill sauce while we waited for the quiche to stop sloshing. [I had baked it for 45 minutes, and then for another 15; I think the mushy parts will be just fine if I scoop them into a bowl and nuke them for a couple of minutes.] We used my good stemware, and in a nod to frugality, the “happy graduation 1998” napkins that the ex-boyfriend gave me in 2000 or 2001 when the local chapter of Parents Without Partners lost their lease and/or their oomph and closed down. I am finally making a dent in them! [The napkins, not the other single parents.]

So what else happened yesterday? I got a much-needed haircut. I picked up the daylilies, which are resting inelegantly in a huge plastic bag on the porch. I spent fifteen minutes or so, just before bedtime, doing research on how to transplant them. I nipped over to the laundromat and did a load of whites. I’ll go back Monday or Wednesday and do the rest of the laundry. And I worked about half of the gusset increases on Anastasia.

What happens today? Church, of course, and a brief meeting about visiting teaching, and then dinner with the Bitties and their parents. I am looking forward to hearing about Secondborn’s adventures at her new job. But for now there will be leftovers for breakfast and then a whole lot of lovely [and unargumentative?] knitting.