Squirreled away in my attic room, I'm desperately trying to finish my Great Gatsby unit plan. It's due Tuesday. Lollygagging is not good for deadlines, but even so the lolly will be gagged... if only for just a moment. I'm enjoying a fast connection from home, and finding that if I had this a week ago even, I wouldve been much farther along with this unit plan than I am.

OK. Enough of that. On to more sober topics like this poet, from the 1920s who was rather fond of his Martinis. Apparently he and his wife sometimes took their Martinis in a cemetery, and there's a great story here about when they ran out of ice. It's somewhat reminescent of the day after Curt's bachelor party: We awoke late Sunday morning after Curt's bachelor party, and after negotiating the operational mechanics of an odd contraption called 'the Big Ragu' (formerly called 'the fishbowl' ), we headed into the outside world for some brunch at Tom's Diner. It was late July, and the noon time sun shone brilliantly. Blindingly. Dazzlingly. I squinted and my eyes still hurt. As we walked out my front door and down the sidewalk I could only look at the sidewalk, wishing that I knew where my sunglasses were. Everybody else had theirs on.
"I really wish I had a pair of sunglasses," I said aloud, when squinting at the sidewalk, was a pair of sunglasses! I blinked, and blinked again. Bent over and picked up the shades, put them on my face and turned to my firends. "Look, I found a pair of sunglasses! I was just saying, i really wish i had a pair of sunglasses, and POW! there's a pair on the sidewalk right in front of me!" what really amazed me was how UN-impressed my companions were. Sorta like I had jsut seen a cloud in the sky, found it remarkable, and said so. "yup . . . " was the only resposnes I got, but there they were. Sometimes it's just like that.