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Well, it didn’t stick, but I’ll bet outside of Prague it did.

When I left the flat this morning, still  before the dawn, I  noticed that  it  was a rather damp day.  Had rained overnight, apparently. When I got out of the metro, not a half an hour later, there was snow covering the ground.  Now, I know that  that much  didn’t  fall that fast.  It’s just an example of  how localized weather systems can be.
Prague is in a river valley, and we live close enough to the river that, during the flood of 2002, our building was actually IN the river.  It’s fairly common that you’ll  be enjoying a nice, normal winter without any snow and then you decide to go out of the city for the weekend.  Pretty much  as soon as you’re past Černy Most all of the fields  are covered in  that soft, white blanket.
Well, the neighborhood where I  was this morning is not actually out of the city at all, but it’s a bit away from the center, and so  there was snow.  After that class, I went for breakfast at the McDonald’s at Nadraži Holešovice, and this time it was actually snowing, big, puffy, white flakes being whipped around by the wind, so while  it was falling, some of it was rising.  Very pretty.  Wrote this poem:
Raindrops fall, upon the old tin roof,

a sharp, staccato sound

there is not a drop of mercy

as they plummet to the ground

Snowflakes, though, are plump and fluffy

and the wind whips them around

They know how to make an entrance

Waltzing in as if to say

“Now I’m here, the party’s started”

Winter is the time to play

Truth be told, I am not a fan of snow and could quite happily spend a winter without it, but I’m not going to be cynical on first day.

The weekend is over and I should get this written and get to bed because I’ve got a full schedule of classes tomorrow, followed by a poetry reading for which I  am rather unprepared.  On the one hand, I can just read the stuff I read at the last poetry reading, it’s not at all the same group of people but, nonetheless, that would not be achieving my personal goal, which is always to have something new for each of the three readings I regularly attend.

I do have sort of an idea, which came to me on a walk the other day, about the two  different kinds of people, those who look  into the windows of cafes and wander what the people inside are thinking, or those who walk through the day minding their own business and not dreaming much, how many people are dreamers and how many people  are worker bees, getting through life without all the drama, and is one kind happier or more enlightened than  the other, and the tagline will be something about how the left brain and the right brain need to co-exist.

I kind of have the sound in my head, a four syllable per line with staggered rhymes kind of thing, that will click along at speed and so be a longish  poem that can be read in a short period of time, slam style or , at least, slam style  as I  imagine it.  I’ll just have to  write it tomorrow, on the metro, between classes or, worst case scenario at ACT before the  event begins.  It’s a risk, but I’ve done  it before, and there’s nothing like the pressure of a deadline to force the writing.

It may not be obvious to anybody who’s seen me in real, physical space at any point in the last year or so, but I’m actually trying to lose weight.

My plan is simply to eat less.  I don’t keep a food diary or anything like that, and I  haven’t sworn to cut any foods out of my diet, although I pretty  much just decided I  don’t like potato chips that much a couple  of years ago, but still can’t say no to  McDonald’s fries.  So, my plan is only to eat when  I’m hungry, and then just enough to satisfy the hunger.
Also, I know the recommended formula is to  eat less and get more exercise, but exercise takes time, which has to be deducted from one of your other activities, such as social media, watching TV, or smoking pot, and that’s a greater level of sacrifice than I’m willing to make.

Anyway, today we were invited to a 1 year old’s birthday party.  Oh, we knew there would be a lot o food there.  We know this family, and the mother is an excellent cook.  Also, they are Ukrainian, so that means that before things even start, the table is absolutely covered with food.  I guess it’s supposed to be appetizers, but for most normal people, it would have been a more than adequate meal.  There were cold cuts, including rolled bacon and meatballs, beets, potato salad, pickled mushrooms (they were great), caviar, and what looked like a cake, but was actually several layers of liver  paste separated by some kind of stiffened cream sauce.  Once I  got passed  the  disappointment of it not  being a sweet thing, it was quite good.
Then came the soup.
Then came the first main course, which was fish (stuffed with  mushrooms, and breaded – as the only mushroom lover in my family – ditto caviar – I got a few extras), with small potatoes glazed with a light herb sauce.
Then cake, a couple of kinds.
Then coffee, and I thought that would  be an end on  it and, as much as I  appreciate a good meal, I was damn glad it was over.  It was not over.

She brought out some stuffed peppers.  I  would  have passed, but  proud grandpa was sitting right  next to me, saying ‘Oh, you have to try  these,’ and shoveling three of them onto my plate.  He was right, they were exquisite.
Then, a second main course, this  time lamb chops with green  beans.  Really, really fat lamb chops.  With over a dozen people around the table, the thought went through my mind that they’d spent rather a large amount of money for a birthday party that the birthday boy will never remember, and I felt guilty about not being able to finish the meat, but I noticed I was not the only one.  Other people were starting to flag at that point as well.

Not surprising.  While my family  were the tee-totallers, the host was, at very frequent intervals, filling up the shot glasses: vodka for the men, Metaxa for the ladies.  Not quite as sexist as it sounds, some of  the ladies were drinking vodka, too.
Then, finally, the birthday cake.

Then fruit.

Sam said “This is not  ‘all you can eat.’  This is ‘more than you can eat'”.  I  thought that summed it up pretty well.

Well, maybe it’s the start of something bigger.  A lot of people sure seem to think so, that  seems to be at least the direction things are moving (distance  is harder to gauge), and it’s sure what I’d  like to see happen.

It was bad enough a monster like George W. Bush didn’t get impeached.  If Trump is allowed to finish his term, then can there ever be an impeachment?
So, who knows.  Flynn has pleaded guilty to lying  to the FBI, when he said he never arranged any meetings between Trump and ‘the Russians.’  The reason I’ve put that in quotes  is because it is of interest just which Russians he was meeting with, and why.  Was he looking for dirt on Hillary, or just looking to launder  some Russian money with some more hotels.  Would he have been  conducting personal  business  in the middle of a presidential campaign?  Sure.  He’s still conducting personal business.  It’s like he  doesn’t care about being president, and perhaps never did.   I’m not  convinced he was even trying to win.

The immediate question, though, is just  how  much he will  give up in return for  an easier (or no) prison time.  If he’s actually going to implicate Trump, as I have heard  plenty of people crowing about, but I suspect that’s political wishful thinking.
On the other hand, the slow march is pleasing to  watch, too, and may even be more satisfying in the end.  I would love to see  Kushner behind bars.

I just saw  this  comment  on Facebook: “Nobody writes  any more.  They just blog.”  There was a bit more stuff around it, the boilerplate blather about these  darned  kids these days and their darned lolspeak, literacy is doomed and so forth, but that line jumped out at me.
Nobody writes any more.  They just blog.  It’s something Yogi Berra  might have said.  Of course blogging is writing.  It is words (although I’ve seen some blogs that were mostly pictures) intended to convey information. (although I’ve seen some blogs which were trying to just be  funny, or artistic, or to peddle a product, so sometimes it’s only information if the definition of information is ‘anything that’s in a blog)

But, you can’t say blogging is a bad thing just because there are a lot of crappy blogs outs there.  Blogging’s a great thing.  I’ve been doing it for many years now and, although few people (probably  nobody) will ever read all  of it, the grand total still amounts to an amazing number of words.  If they were all collected together, it would be longer than Lord of  the Rings or The Bible.
One depressing thing about it is that when I started blogging, I considered  it a writing  exercise and thought that my  writing would  improve from the experience.  However, as I read  back  through  them (I occasionally take a glance  back), it is clear to me how consistent the writing is.  Seldom is there  a  shining pearl of a blog which makes all the others like like ordinary, everyday, unmagical words, but neither do I find any so bad that  I  think ‘what the hell  was I thinking that day?’

But, my point is, blogging is writing.  It’s not as if I’ve been doing anything  else all this time.