Surprises

When we moved into this house almost a year ago (July 25 will mark our anniversary here), there was this ugly, brown climbing plant dying on a trellis in the front of the house.

We pulled what remained of the climber and thought it was gone for good, so much so that my husband took the iron trellis away and stored it.

Little did we know that the plant was not only not dead at all but was a gorgeous Clematis, which has now flourished and bloomed and is twining itself happily onto the restored trellis.

Of such simple surprises is joy made of.

On its way

"Knee high by the 4th of July," is the saying around here about corn.

Today, my husband and I took our first motorcycle ride of the early summer and one of the main sights we saw where the corn fields, one after another, boasting plants beginning to shoot out toward the sun.

A few fields had hay bales, too, which is another staple view in these parts.

I may be from the Caribbean, and I do hate the winter, but I also really appreciate the change of the seasons, especially from winter to spring and spring to summer because of all the explosions of life around us.

Summer heat

I feel to absolutely blessed that I can sit and read for long periods of time (something that during this semester I almost forgot I could actually do), especially when I can do so outside, with a view to everything that is greening and blooming and chirping and flitting around me.

I also feel positively giddy when the heat becomes almost tropical (today we went into the high 80s) and I begin to sweat and I get red-cheeked with any amount of exertion outside. I totally loved the time today that I was able to spend in the backyard weeding (can you believe it?!).

In the rush and push to finish this past semester, I had actually forgotten (maybe it was a defense mechanism?) how much simple, unalloyed joy there can be in a series of days that demand little more from you than to be alive and present and aware.

Days of dogs and flowers

Last night, I finally finished with the last of the final papers and posted grades for the last class that was pending so I'm officially done with the Semester from Hell.

Although I'm still smarting from the semester's low points,I am fully loving the feeling of being done with the college work and able to devote myself to my scholarship and to enjoying my free time.

As I have pledged to myself, I will spend more time looking for and at the beauties of late spring and early summer, and my husband, ever willing to oblige, has captured some of the most beautiful of the May flowers around our house.




I'm also taking hints from Lizzy, whose devotion to fun, especially when her best friend, Pepper, comes to visit, is worthy of emulation. As my husband said, while the dog days aren't here yet, they are soon to come. And it was a dog day here, indeed, today, when Lizzy and Pepper were left with tongues hanging after a day of chasing each other around the yard in 85 degrees.



Once Pepper was gone, Lizzy was pooped but I know that, in a similar manner to myself, she'll be ready for another go around tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is, always, another day.

In the sun

These days we're settling into an early summer routine that is well portrayed by Magellan, who loves to bask in the sun (good Puerto Rican cat that she is) any chance she gets to be outside.

Now that both mami and papi are here, and that I'm finally done with the teaching and the meetings (well, except for one more meeting this week), and Commencement obligations, and there's only 11 more final papers to grade, time is moving a lot slower around here and I'm deeply grateful for that.

I have pledged never to have a repeat performance of this most awful of semesters when, I roughly calculate, I read thousands of pages of student papers so that I had hundreds of papers to grade almost every week. It's true that my students, almost all of them, became much better writers by the end of the semester, mostly thanks to that effort. But at what cost to my own time and energy and felicity? That's the question that I cannot ignore in the future.

While I am committed to being the best teacher I can be, and I just can't drop the ball in that court, I do have to remember to balance my commitment to helping my students become better writers and readers with my own need and desire to write and read for my own purposes, and to have a personal life that is more important than my work. I have to realize that I owe myself to myself, first and foremost. The students eventually move on but my life remains with me. That balance between my vocation for teaching and my love of living is the one I will be striving to reach this year, and I will be seeking new pedagogical strategies to apply the next time I walk into the classroom.

That is, I am going to slow down and smell the roses on the way (or, in this case, the lovely peonies in my backyard).



Most of all, I don't ever want to place my blessing of a husband in a constant "wait until I'm done with grading" mode. It should be the other way around. My job should be the one placed on hold so that I can tend, and love, and appreciate the one person who's stuck with me through thickest and thinnest, though bounty and dearth, and who, even as we speak, is nearly heroic in all the support that he is willing to give me and my family in these difficult and so sad times.

And he's also a great source of fun and laughter, as he proved yesterday when he arrived from the city, after purchasing a pair of speakers to connect to his old stereo so he can have music in the garage. He found the speakers for $20 in Craig's List but when he showed up to pick them up from the seller, the speakers were too big to put inside his motorcycle transport bag. To get the speakers here, he had to tape them with masking tape to his motorcycle, as the photo below shows. As he says jokingly, quoting his good friend SF: "You can take the boy out of West Virginia, but you can't take the West Virginia out of the boy."

Personally, I think it's very smart, worked well, and showed his ingenuity and ability not just to think on his feet but on two wheels, too.

Separated at birth?

No, you're not seeing double.

At left is Hugh, one of the four cats of the author of Simon's Cat, one of our favorite animated cartoons on the web. The animator, Simon Tofield, is British, and his short films on cats are spot on and hilarious.

At right, is Hamlet, our cat, who has absolutely no claim to fame other than being a royal p-i-t-a around here.

Today, the Simon's Cat author posted Hugh's picture on his Facebook page, as a "behind-the-scenes" look at the raw material for his inspiration.

I showed it to my husband who did this collage and who thinks Hamlet is "better looking" than Hugh. I think I'd have a hard time telling them apart!

Goodbye Oscar!

He started off as Kitty, and then Zorba, and then we settled on Oscar. He will be Garcia in his new home.

Today, a really nice person from my small college on the hill came and took the fourth cat who'd been living with us since my husband found him abandoned in the nearby trails last week.

It's a really good day for him, but a very sad one for me (he was such a wonderful kitty!), even when I can hardly keep up with three cats and a dog.

Goodbye, Oscar! Even though you weren't here long, you'll be sorely missed.