all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil

 We're having some intense weather right now, wind, rain, maybe turning to sleet, part of that stuff that went through Texas, and I imagine will probably hit Beaglesonia in a day or two.  Myself I would prefer a blizzard, prettier. 

Sorry to hear about your daughter's boyfriend.

Did NatGeo say which of those schools is more likely to be accurate, which has the smarter people or the better track record?  There are always several schools of thought on any subject, just listing the schools without evaluating them doesn't give much information.  Does any of the schools predict that Miami won't be underwater in fifty years?

I think I told you the story about running into a woman who had lived in my building, but had moved away years ago.  Why, I wondered, would anybody want to leave the magnificent towers.  Well, she said, she just wanted to see some trees.

Not many trees out my window i admit, if I look two blocks down there are some planted along both sides of the river, but mostly it's buildings and bridges, windows and cars.  As the poet (Gerard Manly Hopkins) sez:

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge |&| shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.


But for all that i find nature a little boring.  At first sight it is very nice, but after awhile it is just the same thing over and over again.  When Ruby Dew and I go on our Sullivan bank quests we drive through a lot of nature, and it's nice I suppose, but I find the little towns more interesting.  Well it's mostly farms, are farms nature?  They do have trees and plants and some animals.  Before the farms it was just weeds, or native plants if you prefer, grasses growing taller than a tall man's head, and I don't see how that would be restful.

So you wonder what qualifies as nature.  Animals, trees, mountains, oceans, fish, snowstorms, are blizzards restful?  I'm sure if you take urban office workers away from their desks and show them anything their stress levels will drop.

We started out in nature didn't we?  I think one definition of nature is anything that isn't man made, and before we made anything everything was nature.  Kind of remarkable that we ever did make all that stuff that we have considering how stress free, laid back, and napping we were back before we made anything. 

You know when I sit back in my LaZBoy and look out at all the buildings and bridges and all that man's smudge stuff, i drop right off into my nap. 

Saw a movie (71) about The Troubles Saturday night.  The English army raids a house to look for guns in the Catholic side and a mob forms around them and they retreat leaving one of their guys behind.  The IRA is after him to finish the job.  Well not all the IRA, the old established IRA wants to give him back to escape English retaliation, but the younger hot bloods (the provisionals) want him dead because it's a war isn't it?  Then there are the Ulster (the local prots) guys, who aren't all that crazy about the Brits, but are happy with help from anybody.  And the Brits are not just the army, but also the undercover guys who some are like spies, but others of them are constantly making deals with the establishment IRA, and the provisional IRA, and the Ulster men, which they don't want the army to know about.  And then there are power struggles within all these organizations, and maybe someone wanting to be the new boss might make a deal with the other side to knock off the old boss.

And eventually everybody is fighting everybody, and it kind of reminded me of the mideast, and maybe war in general.  More on that in the next post, unless I glimpse out my window and catch a little stretch of green and fall into a deep sleep.