Saturday Morning Confusion

About five years ago I swore I would never do anything again that required a #2 pencil. But there I was, Saturday morning, taking yet another test to get more letters after my name. If I'm ever asked to give a commencement address, I'm going to tell the graduates to invest in #2 pencils. They're going to need them the rest of their lives.

And it was a day I would have enjoyed much more had I been outside. The temperatures continue to reach very un-January levels, which has only added to the floral confusion I spoke of before. Now the cherry trees are starting to show pink, which is a shame. Another hard frost will come, and nothing is sadder than cherry blossoms too soon in drifts on the ground.

Loveliest of Trees

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow

A. E. Housman