氷の入ったマルガリータをください!

Every year, within a day or two of my father’s birthday, my thoughts wander into a poem written by Rudyard Kipling. The poem—If— is said to have been among my father’s favorite poems.  I did not know my father very well, despite having spent more than half of what was then the first half of what was then my entire life in his presence. Being told he had a favorite poem, though, introduced me to a side of him that I had not known previously. The same thing happened when I was told he could play the piano. Who was this man with whom I had spent so much of my life? I should have known more about him…especially in light of the fact that he kept a copy of Kipling’s poem pinned to the wall above his desk. Two lines from that poem are forever etched into the corridors of my mind:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim…

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Just shy of an hour from now, three of us (mi novia, mi sobrina, y  yo) will leave the house in search of radiologists. The radiological team will direct magical rays at my chest in an effort to eliminate the cáncer. I wish them well in their endeavors.

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The evidence is clear; Phaedra spent time on my desktop. She left physical testimony that she wandered about my keyboard, depositando pelo de gato in her wake. I could use those depósitos de pelo de gato as proof of her actos criminales. Podríamos publicar fotos policiales de la gata descarriada en las oficinas de correos cercanas. La Oficina Federal de Detención de Gatos emitiría un Boletín de Puntos de Control para ella. Pronto, la pondrían encadenada. ¡Justicia!

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Dajcie mi waszych zmęczonych, waszych biednych,
Wasze stłoczone masy pragnące swobodnie oddychać,
Nędzne odpady z waszego rojnego brzegu.
Przyślijcie tych bezdomnych, miotanych burzą, do mnie,
Unoszę moją lampę obok złotych drzwi!

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氷の入ったマルガリータをください!