A "YAY!" for today:

I have always thought it was SO COOL that Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast has the 7-Imp's 7 Kicks posts. It's such a great thing to do, to drop everything on a Sunday and list seven Good Things that have happened during the week. Sometimes it's a bit of a scramble, but most of the time, the Good Things just flow, which is really nice.

I have something like that, let's call it a "YAY!" for today, and my "YAY!" is NOT that the Spice Girls are reuniting, although I'm sure that is cause for wild-eyed celebration in some quarters. No, this "YAY!" is a lot more cool than that. The Extended Day Girls are on TV!!! Alanah, Alicia, Allandra, Amanda S., Amanda D., Elaine, Jahatu, Samara, Shaianne, Tyla, and their teachers Ms. Shubitz and Ms. Rodriguez are the authors of DEAL WITH IT! Powerful Words from Smart, Young Women, and Ms. Shubitz kindly emailed us last night to let me know I can see the girls in action here on CBS News!

YAY!!!!

The Extended Day Girls rock the house!

The other "YAY!" is that it's Friday, and not only that, Poetry Friday. Hosted by the martini-riffic Bond-girl at Shaken & Stirred, today's poems run the gamut of themes - summertime heat, holidays, war, cats, salads and more. My contribution is just as eclectic -- a beautifully evocative poem of summertime... and the summertime of the past.

Ground Swell
by Mark Jarman

Is nothing real but when I was fifteen,
Going on sixteen, like a corny song?

Read the rest of this eloquent poem that speaks of writing and memory here.