The Burrow

The world is conspiring against me.

TBG and I had 5 Guys for lunch and those jalapenos on the burger are announcing their presence with authority.  I used to have a cast iron stomach.  As 60 draws near, it feels more like corroded aluminum.
*****
Dr. Medine tried to make Ulysses accessible to a room filled with intelligent adults, all of whom had done the reading prior to class.  He'd read a page or two aloud, his accent shifting character by character, his voice lowering as Stephen's mind wanders, his delivery precise, his elocution superb.  At the end of passage he raised his head, said "Well..." and watched the room dissolve into laughter.

I know that James Joyce wrote Ulysses to be a puzzle, an encyclopedia, an ineluctable misery to the reader, but this is my fourth time through it and I'm still confused.
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Elizibeth is playing a basketball double header this afternoon.  Her school is on the way home from class and Amster was going to have all the Littles (the blended-family-kids-younger-than-Elizibeth) and The Firefighter there to cheer her on.  I was cordially invited to join them and, for a moment, I thrilled at the thought. 

Then, I felt my hip reminding me that I'd been sitting for 3 hours in class and 1 hour to drive home through traffic and that stadium seating requires clambering up bleachers and that cowboy boots might not be the most appropriate footwear for a perforated person to wear while attempting that feat and then there are those jalapeno's working their way through the lining of my tummy...... 

I hope she understands.
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The temperature is rising here in the desert, and I was looking forward to feeling just a little bit cold on my trip back East.  But, it was take-off-your-winter-coat weather in both Washington and Chicago and my sweater-lust was thwarted.  My nose never felt cold-tingly and my fingers and toes were toasty without boots or mittens.  The only up-side was that I'd forgotten my cute hat; I was sad that I'd have cold ears when I remembered on the out-bound plane that I'd left it at home.  As it turned out, I needn't have worried.  We had to drive out to the suburbs where Seret and Mr. Dreamy-Cakes' awaited us for dinner to see any accumulation of the white stuff.... and it was so old it was grey. 
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I have been trying since I got home to upload my zoo pictures but my camera refuses to turn on.  I've changed the batteries - twice - and shaken it and yelled at it and it still refuses to show me that little green light.  I was going to end this post with a shot of a cheetah stalking the zebras in the adjoining habitat, with an appropriately adorable yet cynical caption.  Alas.
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The world is conspiring against me.  All my problems are day-to-day, humdrum problems.  I don't really mind.  This kind of conspiracy I can handle.