Spring Break - return of the marking

It's a teacher's horror movie!

Although, to be honest, I haven't done any marking yet. I've gone to the library, and I've dropped off my taxes, and now I'm worrying. It's odd that I would worry about my taxes - I'm a law-abiding person, except for that one stop-sign incident with the cute Mountie, but I'm always convinced that the Canadian version of Big Brother is just waiting for me to make a mistake so he can pounce. Is there a word for that feeling, when you've done nothing wrong but you still feel guilty?

In other news, my riding helmet broke, and IRH is replacing it, no muss, no fuss. There are no words for how much I love good customer service.

AND, today the boy-child rode his bike to school. First time ever. Completely alone and unsupervised. I want to cry, and I'm so proud.

Back with a poem

Advice to the Young
Miriam Waddington

1
Keep bees and
grow asparagus,
watch the tides
and listen to the
wind instead of
the politicians
make up your own
stories and believe
them if you want to
live the good life.

2
All rituals
are instincts
never fully
trust them but
study to im-
prove biology
with reason.

3
Digging trenches
for asparagus
is good for the
muscles and
waiting for the
plants to settle
teaches patience
to those who are
usually in too
much of a hurry.

4
There is morality
in bee-keeping
it teaches how
not to be afraid
of the bee swarm
it teaches how
not to be afraid of
finding new places
and building in them
all over again.

Also, you should not look one in the mouth.

Gift Horses

BY JACK GILBERT

He lives in the barrens, in dying neighborhoods   

and negligible countries. None with an address.   

But still the Devil finds him. Kills the wife   

or spoils the marriage. Publishes each place   

and makes it popular, makes it better, makes it   

unusable. Brings news of friends, all defeated,   

most sick or sad without reasons. Shows him   

photographs of the beautiful women in old movies   

whose luminous faces sixteen feet tall looked out   

at the boy in the dark where he grew his heart.   

Brings pictures of what they look like now.

Says how lively they are, and brave despite their age.   

Taking away everything. For the Devil is commissioned   

to harm, to keelhaul us with loss, with knowledge   

of how all things splendid are disfigured by small   

and small. Yet he allows us to eat roast goat   

on the mountain above Parakia. Lets us stumble   

for the first time, unprepared, onto the buildings   

of Palladio in moonlight. Maybe because he is not   

good at his job. I believe he loves us against   

his will. Because of the women and how the men   

struggle to hear inside them. Because we construe   

something important from trees and locomotives,

smell weeds on a hot July afternoon and are augmented.