Summertime

When finals are over, it's summertime, right? Sure. And even though it snowed like crazy yesterday while I took my final, it still feels like summertime. You are interested to know that I did not fail. If you are not interested, what are you doing looking at my blog?

Today, while I have a nice sense of relief that my class is over, I also have a nice sense of shut the h#%! up. The kids are driving me nuts. I been nothing but nice to them today and they are bickering with each other and won't stop. I took them to the library: they were noisy, ran around, and took a million books off the shelves. I took them to the park: they ran away from me across the streets and only came back to interrupt while I talked to a neighbor. I fed them kibbles and bits: they complained while I was making it that they wanted something else and they wanted it faster and then they did not put their dishes into the sink when they were done. Ungrateful stinkers and blibbity blah blam.

So now they can just watch TV until their brains turn to mush while I blog. Why not?

Tonight is Anne of Green Gables night with my friends from the neighborhood. No kids. Ahhh... Here is an example of its charm.

Gilbert: "It'll be two years until I finish medical school, and even then there won't be diamond sunbursts or marble halls."

Anne: "I don't want sunbursts or marble halls; I just want you."

Come on! That is classic, good stuff. The proposal of the century, right? Of course, you have to watch four hours of video of a redhead getting into trouble with Marilla and snubbing Gilbert, but all in all, I think it is worth it.

Here's another excerpt from Lucy Maud Montgomery. This is how Anne and Gilbert meet:


"That's Gilbert Blythe sitting right across the aisle from you, Anne. Just look at him and see if you don't think he's handsome."

Anne looked accordingly. She had a good chance to do so, for the said Gilbert Blythe was absorbed in stealthily pinning the long yellow braid of Ruby Gillis, who sat in front of him, to the back of her seat. He was a tall boy, with curly brown hair, roguish hazel eyes, and a mouth twisted into a teasing smile. Presently Ruby Gillis started up to take a sum to the master; she fell back into her seat with a little shriek, believing that her hair was pulled out by the roots. Everybody looked at her and Mr. Phillips glared so sternly that Ruby began to cry. Gilbert had whisked the pin out of sight and was studying his history with the soberest face in the world; but when the commotion subsided he looked at Anne and winked with inexpressible drollery.

"I think your Gilbert Blythe is handsome," confided Anne to Diana, "but I think he's very bold. It isn't good manners to wink at a strange girl."

But it was not until the afternoon that things really began to happen.

Mr. Phillips was back in the corner explaining a problem in algebra to Prissy Andrews and the rest of the scholars were doing pretty much as they pleased eating green apples, whispering, drawing pictures on their slates, and driving crickets harnessed to strings, up and down aisle. Gilbert Blythe was trying to make Anne Shirley look at him and failing utterly, because Anne was at that moment totally oblivious not only to the very existence of Gilbert Blythe, but of every other scholar in Avonlea school itself. With her chin propped on her hands and her eyes fixed on the blue glimpse of the Lake of Shining Waters that the west window afforded, she was far away in a gorgeous dreamland hearing and seeing nothing save her own wonderful visions. Gilbert Blythe wasn't used to putting himself out to make a girl look at him and meeting with failure. She should look at him, that red-haired Shirley girl with the little pointed chin and the big eyes that weren't like the eyes of any other girl in Avonlea school.

Gilbert reached across the aisle, picked up the end of Anne's long red braid, held it out at arm's length and said in a piercing whisper: "Carrots! Carrots!"

Then Anne looked at him with a vengeance! She did more than look. She sprang to her feet, her bright fancies fallen into cureless ruin. She flashed one indignant glance at Gilbert from eyes whose angry sparkle was swiftly quenched in equally angry tears.

"You mean, hateful boy!" she exclaimed passionately. "How dare you!"

And then--thwack! Anne had brought her slate down on Gilbert's head and cracked it--slate not head--clear across.


I don't care who you are, cracking slates on boys' heads is funny.