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It was a nice, relaxing Sunday. Helena had the kids all day, so I got a bit of writing done in the morning, watered the plants, and went for a lovely walk along the river.
It’s spring, no doubt about it, we’ve entered that lovely time of year when every day you can see changes in the wildlife, the buds are a little more open, a greater variety of the trees have them, daisy’s have started to poke through the lawn. However, two steps forward, one back. There were a couple of days this week when the sun was actually shining and it felt like spring. Come the weekend, cloudyand gray again. And cold.
Got a poem written on the walk, well, started anyway. Started writing it down, it was inspired by a facebook post of a street musician, and the guy was totally brilliant but people just kept walking by, and I compared it to how we walk at night under stars but seldom stop to look up and say ‘Wow, how amazing, how literally brilliant’ because it’s so mundane, it’s a sight we see every day, and awesome is not enough to get people to look because people are kind of dull that way. Pearls before swine, in other words.
Got home, mostly had it worked out, but the ending wasn’t quite coming so I took a nap and woke up with it about 45 minutes later.
When concentration isn’t working, relax. When relaxing isn’t working, concentrate.

Having a real computer problem with WordPress. Up until a couple of days ago, writing my blog was a piece of cake, at least technically. The problems of choosing a topic and finding something both worthwhile and original to say about it, and getting it down in a coherent, persuasive fashion are another matter. That goes with the territory, that’s a writer’s mission.
But you should be able to trust the technology. The fact that it worked for so long and now doesn’t shows that there is some skullduggery with the site – either, as popular sites always seem to do, they are trying to find some way to ‘improve the experience,’ and they’ve screwed everything up, or there’s some problem with Google Chrome. I’ve tried Firefox and Internet Explorer, though, and nothing made any difference. (Internet Explorer, though, just said my account had expired, so update or tough shit.
For tonight, I’m just trying to type it up in Microsoft Word and paste it in.
In comments on other news items: Tough talk doesn’t mean shit. Obama has had some stern words for Netanyahu, but that doesn’t mean anything. Obama is a great speechmaker, but unless he is willing to actually cut off U.S. support for Israel (and he’s probably not, and Netanyahu is probably counting on him not), it doesn’t mean anything.
Archaelogists think they have discovered the remains of Miguel de Cervantes. I don’t see how they could ever know. What they actually found is the bones of about 16 individuals, one of whom is probably Cervantes because the dates add up and he was supposedly buried in that convent. I suppose if they can determine age and gender and there is only one old man among them (which seems unlikely), then that must be him.
I also don’t see how it matters. He’s not going to write any more books

First of all, I would like to apologize for last night’s truncated, barely coherent, typo ridden abomination of a blog post.  To say it was written in my sleep is barely an exaggeration but that’s what I get for smoking too much too late at night.

On the bright side, I did get that poem finished today, so here it is:

Her fur is soft, her face is cute, her nose and whiskers twitch

Her eyes are bright, and innocent as pie
but little rabbit Fifi is an evil little witch

Listen to me now, I’ll tell you why

she pisses in the corner, she nibbles at my socks

Her teeth are strong, sometimes she even bites

She’s persistent, and she’s learned to tip her litter box

And you know that that behavior just ain’t right

She hides beneath the cupboard, she doesn’t like to play

She’s quite an anti-social little jerk

But if the door is open for a second, she’s away

And to get her back is quite a bit of work

She chews through all the cables; it has cost us quite a bit

It really is the nastiest of habits

She chews at books and boxes, and then she throws a fit

When we try to stop her; nasty, little rabbit

She chews up all the furniture, she scratches at the walls

We follow her around with brush and scoop

She leaves a trail around the house; it looks like Choco-balls

But of course, you know, it’s really rabbit poop

She is passively aggressive; she’s a demon straight from hell

She’s a cross between a badger and a rat

We do our best to cope but we’re not doing very well

It’s rough to have a rabbit in the flat

 

 Tonight is an entirely different matter.  My mother-in-law and sister-in-law are visiting, with my SIL’s 3 kids, and lights are already out and we’re trying to get them to sleep so I’d better keep this short, as well.

Her fur is soft, her face is cute, her nose and whiskers twitch
but the evil rabbit Fifi is a stone cold bitch
she pisses in the corner, she nibbles at my socks
you might think she’s just a rodent, but she’s clever as a fox
We like our eclectric cables, we’d really hate to lose ’em
But the evil Rabbit Fifi always finds ’em and she chews ’em

I’m still working on that.

It was a busy day, Thursdays are when I have all my class. The German kindergarten in especially draining. Then Jack Pazzo (his name in the book) came over and we talke aoubt what I got wrong in the first draft.
I’m half asleep. Screw it. Short blog tonight.

I recall one scene in a cheesy American sitcom from the 70s or 80s, (I think it might have been Benson, which just got cheesier and cheesier with every season until it was almost embarrassing to watch) where two minor political aides, one Russian, one American, were trapped in a stalled elevator for a couple of hours and while they were in there, with nothing to do but talk to each other, they managed to resolve all conflicts and come up with a foolproof plan for world peace. Then, as rescue was imminent, they looked at each other and said “Do you think they’ll buy it?” and both said “Naaah” and they ripped up the papers.

Even a bad show can have one great scene of significant import. Problems have solutions, just like feet have shoes. Hungry? The answer is food. Thirsty? The answer is water. Poor? The answer is money. And so on.

One of my big fantasies about the internet, which hasn’t come true yet but I think it could some day, is that there will be one internet conversation where the right people with the right ideas will get down to a serious exchange of information, a positive debate, a threadd that is a brain storming session, and out of that conversation will come a blueprint for the future, a plan to provide fresh drinking water and nice homes for everybody in the world, a plan to clean up the air and the water and sustain all the world’s industry with clean, renewable power sources, a plan to give everybody a good standard of living.

Last week I had a discussion with some of my students about how to solve the world’s major problems and was shocked at how many of them, to how many different questions, just said “Well, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Of course we can do something about it.