It's a good thing I don't have a new grandbaby every weekend, because how would I keep track of all those birthdays? I had a fabulous time helping the grandkids brush their teeth, pitch a tent in the basement, hunt for colorful plastic eggs, tell stories about Daddy driving a big truck that goes honk, use the potty, race around the house like maniacs, and welcome their new sibling into the family, but if I had to do that every weekend, I'd never show up for my Monday morning classes.
I drove home exhausted yesterday and flopped right into bed but woke up at 3:00 this morning certain that I'd forgotten something important, like planning today's classes. I was dead wrong, but it's not easy to recover from that kind of early-morning panic, with the result that I was so tired this morning that I drove off without bothering to scrape the snow off my car's back windshield. (What, you thought spring had arrived? April fool!)
My students weren't much more alert than I was this morning, with the exception of the American Lit students, who seemed perky enough as they took their exam. (I'm not grading today. It would not be good for me or my students if I tried to grade exams on so little sleep.) I introduced my Florida Lit students to Marjorie Stoneman Douglas's River of Grass and then talked about characteristics of southern Gothic literature (in preparation for starting Swamplandia on Wednesday), and then I handed my Lit Theory students a pile of old cookbooks and challenged them to sort them into groups using their own criteria and then identify some underlying principles structuring the books and speculate about what they suggest about culture. This was an excellent activity because it allowed me to sit and eavesdrop and toss in an occasional guiding question, which was just my speed.
Now my speed is decelerating toward full stop. Time to refuel. Better head home before I fall asleep at my desk.
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