Back to Reality

Back to work after a nice little 5-day respite -- hah. Oh well, at least I have electricity at home. Some of my colleagues still don't have power.

The little darlings had trouble settling back in today. I got a lot of excuses about why things which had been assigned weeks ago and were due yesterday weren't done. I'm sorry your power was out and your computers didn't work, children, but does that mean your hands and brains stopped working too? Of 25 seniors, only 11 turned in the essay which I assigned two weeks ago and which was supposed to be due yesterday. One of the girls had forgotten her book over the extended weekend, but had gone to the library and looked up the relevant passages in books there so she could get her essay done. But oh, the whining from the others when I told them the essays were late and would be marked down accordingly.

I was glad to have yesterday off, in truth. The weekend was not what you'd call relaxing what with the burial and the fight with the Avuncular One (Sis and I are still moderately peeved with him) on Saturday, and a memorial service on Sunday at the retirement home. According to Maman, she had to take action because the Son of the First Wife, having spent 40 years not speaking to his father, tried to take the portrait of Grandpapa which Maman had brought to the memorial service. How tacky is that?

I spent most of yesterday catching up on yard work. The dogwoods and maples in the neighbourhood are starting to colour, and it won't be long before the whole yard is a sea of leaves, so I thought I'd better rake up the windfalls from the storm and get those carted around back to the compost heap. I got a dozen 'Salome' daffodil bulbs planted, too, but I didn't get to the 'Blue Pearl' crocuses. The saffron crocuses from High Country Gardens arrived yesterday and I will have to get them into the ground soon. Maybe this afternoon -- the skies have cleared again and the afternoon looks like it will be pleasant.

I took a look at the saffron crocus bulbs when they arrived and some are already starting to sprout. It's remarkable how different the tunics on those bulbs are from the ones on the spring-blooming crocuses. The tunics on 'Blue Pearl' are tight and satiny, but the saffron crocuses have coarse, rather fibrous tunics.

There's the dismissal bell. Back to the classroom.

verso - recto