I was right to be afraid.

Gojin Ishihara, Illustrated Book of Japanese Monsters (1972)

Those who love to tell stories about how I used to be afraid of the "Cat Monster," behold.

Fortunately, our cats do little more than yakk on the rug and claw apart old ratty furniture.  Oh, and sleep.

Brentopia

This is our one visit to middle Tennessee this summer. Lots of things to do here. I don't really have the gumption to do any of them, which is okay: I can be the hermit crab here at the house, and that suits me just fine.

*zzzzzzzzzz*


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rooby roo!

From Thomas the Tank Engine to Sesame Street to Super Why . . . and now it's Scooby Doo. 

We have watched so many Scooby Doo cartoons that I'm beginning to see them in my dreams.  Seriously, I think I had a Scooby mystery dream last night.

I also wonder:  after unmasking so many dudes in costumes, why don't they just immediately spring a trap and unmask the perp?  You could bag three or four bad guys in an episode that way.

"All manner of thing shall be well"

One year ago today, we confirmed that #3 was on the way.  


surrrrpriiiise!!


Also known as "gut-check" time.



While visiting a different church yesterday, I wondered what kind of tableau we presented, with our urchins and their associated baggage.





There are three conditions which often look alike
Yet differ completely, flourish in the same hedgerow:
Attachment to self and to things and to persons, detachment
From self and from things and from persons; and, growing between them, indifference
Which resembles the others as death resembles life,
Being between two lives--unflowering, between
The live and the dead nettle.  This is the use of memory:
For liberation--not less of love but expanding
Of love beyond desire, and so liberation
From the future as well as the past.

--Eliot,  from "Little Gidding" (1942)

Quote of the day

from a website with a funny name:

"Give up the bad fight, which is the one for a deserved pat on the back."

In which Piers reminds himself that he loves his job

...except perhaps for this part of it:

 Fall 2010 Administrative Retreat Participants,

Please note that the schedule for the 2010 UT Martin Administrative Retreat is being extended to allow us time to cover additional important topics.  The Retreat is still scheduled on Monday, August 16, 2010, in the Boling University Center.  We will now begin at 7:30 a.m. with a continental breakfast outside the Legislative Chamber.  Meetings will get underway by 8 a.m. and we should wrap-up the agenda around 2 p.m. Lunch will be provided.  Dress is business causal, but a sweater or light jacket is recommended!

If you have not already confirmed your plans to attend or if your plans to attend have changed, please let me know so that we may confirm the appropriate arrangements for lunch.  I look forward to participating with you at the 2010 UT Martin Administrative Retreat!

7:30??  really??  Folks, let's stop with the "Retreat" nonsense and just call it a day-long meeting.  kthx.

oh, and Piers is so very much over the idea that being on some body with the terms "executive" or "administrative" is a wonderful thing. 

joking. 

kinda.

Adventures in parenting, vol. 1

Today's topic:  having a preschooler making the transition into kindergarten.

the Big Brother has had some interesting days, and we've had a gut-check of a time watching him.  To wit:

a.  A couple of weeks ago, he comes home wearing a rubber band on his wrist, and informs us that it's a "Silly Band."  Yes, he has gotten wind of that fad, which apparently has taken his preschool class by storm.  He used his own money a few days later and bought a pack of Tennessee Titans licensed silly bands.  They have been breaking one by one, getting lost, etc., as they tend to do.  He came home the other day with this vague assurance that one of his pals from school was going to send him a bunch of them in the mail...I'm not sure they're ever going to arrive.


b.  He discovered my old Game Boy Advance, and a couple of games that he can sort-of play.  This saved my iPod Touch from constantly being played with, and it apparently has introduced him into a clique of boys who all bring "DS's" to school.  That refers, of course to the Nintendo DS, the current handheld model.  Still, it's close enough.

this brings our total of status symbols to "two."

c.  The shoes.  He's been asking & asking & asking for "Sketchers," because apparently that's the brand that makes you run really fast.  We did get him new shoes, but they're Sesame Street-themed New Balance shoes...which thankfully were well received in the classroom by his fellow boys. 

sigh.  And "real" school hasn't even started yet. 

nb.  We are in fact going to try to get him into a Tae Kwon Do class.  I think it'll do wonders for his confidence.  And maybe that way we can avoid little league baseball.

Time is always and only time

There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been.  We are only undeceived
Of that which, deceiving, could no longer harm.
In the middle, not only in the middle of the way
But all the way, in a dark wood, in a bramble,
On the edge of a grimpen, where is no secure foothold,
And menaced by monsters, fancy lights,
Risking enchantment.  Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility:  humility is endless.

T. S. Eliot, "East Coker" (1940)

_________________________

I have lots on my mind, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

measurement

One may say that true life begins where the tiny bit begins--where what seem to us minute and infinitely small alterations take place.

--L. Tolstoy, "why do men stupefy themselves?"

This past week, by the numbers

 

1:  number of trips to Dyersburg
12:  number of internet outages at this house
6:  number of calls to Charter technical support
3:  number of different routers tried
1.3:  seconds between my rising from my chair and Number One Kitty leaping up to occupy it
3:  hours spent studying
0:  hours spent exercising
2:  episodes in which we find that Little Red has "explored" his diaper "product."
1:  carpet steam cleaner purchased
1:  Peanut Buster Parfait eaten

It's hot.

The past couple of days have been rough, rough. 

About time for one of these...

In the meantime, I think I'm going to take a few days off from this. 

I'm not lazy. I'm not lazy. I'm not lazy.

Others may be more capable than I, because it doesn't seem to bother them--but I've decided that having three preschoolers in the house is about enough to wear me out.  I have just about given up on doing anything serious (i.e., exercise, reading, writing, "work") this summer; the children are going full tilt at 6:00 or earlier, and by the time they've all settled down at night (usually around 8:30), The Spouse and I are both completely tapped out.

My recent motto is, "expectations are everything," so perhaps if I can realize that this is the way it has to be, and adjust my plans accordingly, I won't feel like such a lazy jerk.  Really!  I'm not! 

n.b.:  children are sly.  They go to sleep, and while sleeping they look so innocent and sweet that they lull the unsuspecting parent into thinking, "awww, it's all worth it." 

Characteristic Faces

Yardening, 2010 Edition, Volume 5

...in which things get a bit ridiculous.  The above is a picture of what The Spouse pulled out of the garden after two days of not tending to it.  There are also four cucumbers and five green bell peppers sitting off to the left.  Understand:  we are utterly casual about this gardening business and claim no credit for the outcome.  Still:  that's a lot of vegetation.

Martinus Scriblerus

two items came in the mail yesterday.  The first was the stainless steel pen--it's a 1972 Pilot MYU/Murex.  The second was the black pen--it's a Lamy 2000.  Both could be considered collector's items, though the 2000 is available anywhere (it's mainly a collector's item because of its 1960's Bauhaus design).  The Pilot, on the other hand, is an e-bay only kind of item.  I got lucky.

These two, along with my Rotring 600 (got lucky with that one too), my Pelikan 215, and my Pilot Vanishing Point, are the really valuable pieces of my small collection.

Yes, I collect fountain pens.  What the heck do you expect?  I'm a nerdy english professor, and I like to write by hand when I can.

in which Piers finds three signage fails

 . . . and manages to get a shot of two of them:

any port in a storm, I guess . . . I can haz blue watr?

Now if that's not an appetizing looking breakfast, well . . . now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure it's not. 










The third one was by a restaurant down at Reelfoot lake.  Apparently they had a big sign advertising their CRAPPIE . . . to which they appended the sign advertising their new 21-st century "Wireless Internet."  I'll let you put the two together.

In which Piers confronts the girlfriend question for the first time

Yesterday, and again today, the Big Brother commented that boys can have girlfriends, and that he would like to have one, but he doesn't know which one to choose.  With a straight face, I asked him about it and we solemnly discussed it.  All the while, I was thinking of this--especially Baloo's comment:



Or, for that matter, this one: