Spy Boy

Erin made Colm deliriously happy with a spy kit gift for birthday number 9. It like living with the Terminator. He likes his skateboard too.

Colm at 9

The theme of Colm's party was Harry Potter, again. This time we reenacted the three tasks of the Golden Goblet.
We warmed up Friday afternoon with a quidditch match in the back yard.

After that Beth and I impersonated dragons and we guarded our nest of eggs while the kids collaborated on stealing them from us.


That game turned out to be so much fun that we replayed it several times with different dragons.





You could really see the primal instinct for hunting in packs come to the fore; two dragons have no chance against seven wily kids.



Inside each egg was the drawing of a Harry Potter lego figure. Each kid got his own figure for the second task.






















We took a break for dinner and some balloon popping. These four lightweights couldn't break this balloon...they have other powers though.




The second task occurred after dinner at the public pool where everyone had to find his lego figure at the bottom of the pool tied to some ocean glass.



We hoped that an hour and a half in the pool would lead to tranquil evening.




Back home, we had ice cream and opened gifts. Then we watched the film of course. It was after midnight when the house finally got quiet.




Early in the morning, not early enough to beat the boys though, Beth and I arose and spun a labyrinth made of yarn in the back yard.



We fed them pancakes and then took them outside for the final task. When they first saw the maze of yellow and red yarn they were completely engaged.




Beth briefed them on the rules.
Each kid had to make his/her way to the center of the yard without touching any string.



Once there they had to select one string attached to a popsicle stick and wind it up following wherever it led them until they arrived at the location of the Goblet of Fire (iside the mailbox). First they made their own way to the center of the garden where they clustered tightly each holding the end of a red or yellow thread.


Then each kid began winding and walking, following the thread as it took him on his own winding path round the yard until finally converging with the other threads again at the mailbox.




Once the Goblet was retrieved, each kid got a turn at hurling magic globs of clay from the tip of a want toward the likeness of you-know-who.




It must be said that few of the globs went anywhere near the target and that it's a good thing our neighbors were still indoors at the time.

We sent every kid home with a quill pen, a couple of sheets of parchment and a small vial of ink.
Good time.
K

The Road We've Traveled

Nice to see Obama's record get some respect.

Afterlife - a poem

Afterlife
by Kevin Cahill
audio clip

All who are alive
live only in the afterlife
of all who are dead


The afterlife recurs
reset by each death
each conclusive moment
precluding after words

made forever moot
marked by mourning
sometimes and by
forgetting always

after some one’s death
another one always lives on
in that afterlife until
that afterlife when

the last man glimpses
an eternity of extinction
for none to inhabit
after this life.

3/05/12