days, weeks, & months are flying by, no time to write seriously, little time to even blog (now it's 6 am)- i've given up on the national and international news, given up on the garage and am trying not to give up on the car, the laundry & summer plans. but it will be break soon, and i might be able to get one of the above three at least thought about. a bird has nested in a christmas wreath that we left a little too long on the front of our door, in a little porched alcove at the doorway there, and i shook out a rug there last night forgetting all about that mother bird & her eggs, and she got all aflutter worrying about them as rug dust filled up the alcove. it's what you'd call mowing season around here; it's rained a lot, and the grass is growing maybe six inches every three or four days, and every other vehicle on the road is towing some kind of lawn mower around the city doing one yard after another until it rains or the mower gets stuck in some muddy low spot and has to be hauled out with a tractor. around this time of year it goes from cool wet spring to hot, sticky, unpleasant summer, and sometimes it does this suddenly or at least when one is not thinking about it due to end-of-term busy-ness or some other such nonsense. my point is that, if i had a minute, i'd go, take this coffee out to the stoop, out of reach of the poor mother bird of course, and enjoy a little of the lush explosion of greenery and life all around me.

ran through the paper while things were still a little too busy around here, and saw a story about nepal that i would have read, had i had more than a minute, but didn't. i did, however, between finals that i was writing, around midnight, go into facebook, where some friend pointed out a supreme court case involving janet jackson, and another pointed out a jell-o wrestling fundraiser and burning man, both way out west, that i would never have known about if i hadn't checked in there. facebook gives me a closer look at an interesting collection of friends, quite a few of them, and to some degree knowing which ones are leaving town, and when, and who has broken up with their boyfriend, is more relevant than knowing about some heinous crime in west county (st. louis)- more useful too. but there's a certain tradeoff involved; the paper, we probably will stop, as it's gotten so shallow and i can no longer even read the comics, the print is so small. and do i have time to check the news on google or cnn? i doubt it.

a puppy and a kitty have made life a lot more lively around here; just now the puppy noticed that i was up at 6 am and couldn't contain herself any longer; she demanded some attention in a shrill voice that would wake up the dead, but not kids. lately i've taken to sleeping upstairs, in a cavernous unfinished addition, in which a hard bed is lifted up under an open window that is in the trees, so that the starry night, or the rain, whatever, is right above my head; this gives me a heavenly sleep although my wife, who has booted me out temporarily due to my snoring, is left downstairs with the animals and whoever wakes up suddenly. at about 5 am a hallelujiah chorus of birds erupt in the trees as if they want to welcome the new babies and encourage them to hatch out of their eggs, down in the alcove there; they clearly own the tops of the trees, and announce the new day to anyone who will listen. the streets are silent; one truck came by, perhaps to pick up yard refuse, but with a chorus of birds between me and him, i couldn't say that it exactly disturbed me. what i would say is that i could use this early morning time, from 5 to 6, to blog, or maybe do something else, if i were at least a slight bit organized. as it is, i find myself ruminating on the things of life that you'd like to think about, if you ever had time.

back on facebook i conquer siam and china from my grown children; playing risk is a good way to keep up with them and check in with them every day, though it's a little competitive, and of course i don't like being clobbered as i was in chess the other day by my seven-year-old. my father stopped playing chess when that happened to him (at the hands of my brother), but now i understand a little better how he felt, since it could happen to me now, on any given evening, and the seven-year-old has an insatiable appetite for winning the hard checkmate. i'm off to give an early final this morning, so i'm a little out of the usual routine, but ordinarily our evenings consist of him wanting to play a game and me trying to figure out how to squirm out of it, knowing that, even if i win, there is very little joy in watching a competitive young child get even more determined. at the door, the cat watches intently and threatens to spring out every time someone opens it; she knows there is a bird and her young directly outside; she can smell it, i'm sure. she's an indoor cat; she won't go out there, if we can help it; but if it were up to her, she'd be there in a heartbeat. the young boys wake up, wanting their breakfast; quickly, and with the sounds of life in a crescendo, the day begins.