5/8: the first step

The spring semester is always more chaotic than the fall one, and this year especially I've let my share of the housework go by the wayside until the school year is over. Although it's not over yet, I thought that I'd make a small step in the direction of domestic order today: I de-labelled all our glass that had been piling up. The recycling station won't take glass if labels are on it, and the counter in our laundry room had become completely taken over with glass bottles waiting for my attention. Now all the bare glass is piled in a box ready to take away. This may seem like an odd "good thing," but it did feel good to make a bid for getting house jobs done.

5/7: preparations

I was a little unrealistic in thinking that I would be able to go out on the lake today. The weather is lovely, but I forgot that the kayaks would need some TLC after the winter. So I spent part of the afternoon scrubbing them down. They look lovely, and on another day they'll be ready to launch. Though I'm a little disappointed that we didn't take our kayaks out today, it was fun as I was cleaning them to think of all the upcoming summer hours I'll spend on the water.

5/6: good outlook

I managed to get a good number of tasks done in the course of the day, leaving me with a possible window of time for kayaking tomorrow. I'm excited at the prospect already: I haven't been on the lake since Labor Day weekend. The lake level is back to normal (it had been partly drained in the fall and winter), and the weather looks like it's going to be pleasant for an outing, too.

5/5: margaritas for maria

Today is Chris' mother's birthday. She passed away in 2005, and we miss her. We went out to lunch today and had margaritas in her honor. We laughed and shared memories and family stories, and though I wish like the dickens that she could have been there with us in person, I know that she'd approve of our celebration in her name.

Later in the day I had some disconcerting news from work. It threw me for a loop (alas), but then I remembered Maria's advice: "The best revenge is living well." I'll drink to that.

5/4: good afternoons

Classes have stopped meeting for the semester, but we're in exam period and for the past two days I've had a stream of afternoon appointments. They've been really good. I've spaced the appointments well so that I can be leisurely with each student who comes, and it's been great to have so many pleasant one-on-one interactions. What a nice way to wrap up a school year.

5/3: ready at the right time

Today was a day of clear sky and sun after a week of rain. Chris predicted that some bees would swarm, and when we returned home in the late afternoon, sure enough: there was a swarm hanging from a high branch of an oak tree. We tried to get it down to put it in a hive, but we didn't succeed. The queen must have been on the branch itself, and we couldn't shake her off, so the bees we could shake off just kept flying back to her. That's okay; that's nature.

All this is preamble to the good thing. Over the past few years we've noticed that a butterfly will often fly around in a bee swarm. It's a curious sight. Today a butterfly kept investigating the swarm on the branch. And I happened to have my camera ready for just this moment:

5/2: good moments

There were scattered good moments in a hectic day:

- A quick exchange with a colleague about one of his dear dogs.

- A student telling me that she didn't think she was a good student with good grades this semester, but that she also managed to learn a lot. I know this sounds paradoxical, but it was a really fair assessment of her situation and took clear-headedness on her part to put it that way.

- Another student describing our seminar class as a "think tank."

- My Homer independent study student saying that in the course of the semester he came to believe that Homer uses poetry in the Iliad as a means for doing critical thinking about issues which we now put under the umbrella of social/political philosophy. (Yes. This is something I also believe, and I don't think he now believes it just because I do. I think he sees it himself.)

5/1: like a gift

Our neighbor, who has lived on the ridge for decades, remembers a time when the woods here were filled with whippoorwills. We heard one last May and were amazed at its song. I thought it might be the only one I'd ever hear. Today I heard another one: Chris called to me as I was in my home office so that I could come listen at the window. Even amid the rain the bird was giving out its distinctive call. It seems so special to hear it, and I'm grateful to Chris for letting me know about it--if he hadn't told me, its wondrousness would still have been there, but I would have missed it.