All posts by johncohn

Saturday night – Collarbone

Leave a comment

Nice, slow day just when I needed a nice slow day. We spent a good part of it getting back and forth to Middlebury for Gabes lacross game. Very nice drive in all the new spring greenery. The rest of the day was peaceful: a run, a walk, some house chores and some more work on my talks for next week.   Really not much to report beyond that..

I did have one fixation today thats worth sharing. Gabe )and our) good friend Marchello M was hit pretty hard in a lacrosse game on Thursday. He ended up breaking his collar bone in 2 places. Yesterday he had surgery to screw him back together. He’s doing much better now… unfortunately.. he won’t be able to play lacrosse the rest of the season.

Anyway.. the word ‘collarbone’ kept getting stuck in my mind. I knew there was a Yeats poem abotu the ‘collar bone of a hare’ that I liked very much in college.. I had ot dig it up to remember what it was about…  I’m reading it now and I’m not quite sure..

The Collar-bone of a Hare by W. B. Yeats 1919

WOULD I could cast a sail on the water
Where many a king has gone
And many a king’s daughter,
And alight at the comely trees and the lawn,
The playing upon pipes and the dancing,
And learn that the best thing is
To change my loves while dancing
And pay but a kiss for a kiss.

I would find by the edge of that water
The collar-bone of a hare
Worn thin by the lapping of water,
And pierce it through with a gimlet and stare
At the old bitter world where they marry in churches,
And laugh over the untroubled water
At all who marry in churches,
Through the white thin bone of a hare.

There you have it.. the only poem I could remember with the word ‘collar bone’ in it..  Reading it banished the workd from my mind where it was spinning around in all day…. which was nice..

I do  like the poem..

We should all …: laugh over the untroubled water     At all who marry in churches,      Through the white thin bone of a hare.  ”

If you can’t find the white thin bone of a hair, then laugh at them through anything else you find…

nite all. nite sam

-me

 

 

Friday night – hanging on

1 Comment

After work today I went out to get the pool ready for filling. It's one of our change of season rituals here with lots of hoses to be tightened plugs to be screwed in and Crud to be cleaned. The first task at hand was siphoning off all the water that had gathered on the cover and vacuuming all the rest.

As we were pulling the cover off I heard the loudest croaking sound. I had this image of a huge bullfrog somehow caught in the Cover. I looked everywhere because I didn't want to hurt him (or her)

To my surprise, I found this little guy clinging for dear life halfway up the side of the pool. I have no idea how long he was there, but I know that he would not have lasted long. It would've been no way for him to get out from the covered pool. Come to think of it I may have heard him last night.

width=500

 

Diane ran and got a bucket and a nap while I administered psychotherapy. The frog was definitely's a little traumatized by fast but he sat there gracefully well I maneuvered him into the bucket and covered it. Diane and I then escorted the little guy to our neighbors frog pond. It would be like going from the Worst imaginable prison to the nicest possible hotel.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I don't know if he was scared or happy to see me. (My frog is a little rusty).. But I left our short relationship knowing that I was best thing that happened to that little guy all day. Nice to be satisfied by at least something like that everyday.

Moments later, Diane was rewarded by for our kindness by being stung by a wasp was hiding under the pool cover. There is no justice I say!

 

 

More tomorrowNight all, night Sam– Me

 

Thursday night – Fewer things

Leave a comment

Sort of epiphany today. Not a Big deal, but it came to me while I was trying to multitask as I was getting out of the house for an early meeting which I ended up not actually making it to. The Insight was this. I have crammed my mind so full of small things that I'm not making any time to think. It's like the old saw from the Stephen Covey books that if you try to fit big rocks into a jar that's already full of sand you can't do it but if you put the rocks in first then fill the Sand in and you can. … Only here Its with thinking.

I meditated on this again as I was supposed to be listening to phone calls and working on presentations. Yet another example of being permanently distracted. I know this might seem obvious to other people but I think I have been a major denial about the degree to which I seek out distraction. What's not to like about something new and exciting. It always is more appealing than the thing you really need to get done.

So, note to self. I'm going to try to do fewer things and do them better. I know that kind of resolution sometime sounds hollow, but I have a good track record of changing my life once I've committed to something like that. For example in January 2012 I committed, along with son Max, to build more things, and talk less about them until they are done. I redirected my energy and time around that idea I've been on a Very Productive making/building kick since. . In 2009 I committed myself to do in education outreach on a more international scale. Since that day I've been over 20 countries with a message of bringing more people to engineering and science.

So… Now I'm committing to trying to do fewer things and try to do them better. The nice thing about blogging like this, it's a great record of commitments I need to myself. Here's to me in the future looking back at keeping that pledge

Nite all, nite sam

-me