Date night!

[redfox]

I had a wonderful date with my DH to hear Wendell Berry read tonight. It was great. When I saw tickets available 2 months ago, I mentioned it and he jumped on getting them. Such cultural events are things we now can enjoy every so often... since we're not feeding teens! <Happiness sigh>

[CathyA]

Sounds good redfox! Glad you had a good time!

[Florence]

How I wish I could have heard him!! I just finished reading The Gift of Good Land for about the 50th time.

[Kat]

Sounds lovely! I am a huge proponent of the date night! :-)

[Mrs-M]

Date nights are sooo good! So glad you had a wonderful time.

[Zoebird]

for us, date nights are tough, but now that we are moving next door and a few doors down from very good friends, we can do our favorite date of all: walking!

it was juts too crazy for us to pay a sitter $40 or $50 so that we could go for a walk (and perhaps have ice cream), when we really wanted to just go for a walk, come home, have some time togehter for adult activities, and then be with DS again.

so, now that we are moving near friends (who also have kids), we'll be able to swap kids during afternoons when DH and I can walk and walk and walk and walk as we like to do, and then go home and do those other things, and then get DS. Even 2-3 hrs of just walking and other activity would be great. OMG, i can't wait.

just so long as DH doesn't revert back to grocery-shopping-is-a-date, we should be fine.

[Charity]

My daughter got married this Saturday and that's what I gave them for a shower gift. Date Nights. I got gift cards to a bunch of nicer restaurants in their area and put them in a basket with bottles of wine, Cosmopolitan magazine and candles. I think it's important for couples to have that time to themselves once in a while. I wanted to get them in the habit of making it a priority.

[Mrs.B]

Redfox: I just discovered Wendell Berry, do you have suggested reading? I heard a poem he wrote and just felt I have to read more!

[redfox]

Redfox: I just discovered Wendell Berry, do you have suggested reading? I heard a poem he wrote and just felt I have to read more!

Oh my... http://www.wendellberrybooks.com/
The Unsettling of America.
The Mad Farmer poems.

Everything else! He's amazing.


Manifesto:
The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.



Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" from The Country of Marriage, copyright © 1973 by Wendell Berry, reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.