In the immortal words of Socrates, "...I drank what?"

I'm with H in London and it is wonderful to see her! She is copying recipes from her great-grandmother's notebook (grandmother's school notebook that great-grandmother appropriated for recipes) and it is just so cool to see these recipes in this old book in her great-grandmother's handwriting. I lived with my great-grandmother, but I can barely remember her. She wasn't the type to keep a recipe book, though, I don't think. Someday I may tell you a little about our interesting family history. Anyway, family recipe book = neato.

I'm still having trouble thinking of English words and phrases - I keep starting sentences in English that I intended to use in a French way. This morning, for example, I was putting jam back in the fridge and I said "This can go ..." and was stuck cause I was thinking "n'importe où", which means "no matter where"/"doesn't matter where" and I was just stuck standing there for a moment cause I couldn't figure out what to put there in English, and I ended up just pointing at the door. Now, I guess, thinking about it I could have said "anywhere", "this can go anywhere?" but it still sounds a little odd. Goodness. I keep having to stop myself from using French words, like agacer/agaçant, or empêcher, or whatever. This is going to be interesting. I'm glad I'll be teaching French next year.

Lastly but not leastly, here is a poem I got from a book review from a Goodreads friend. A Goodreads acquaintance? It's from a collection of Robert Graves poetry. Robert Graves is apparently not terribly exciting or revolutionary, but I liked the poetry example they picked out, so I am going to post it before I forget about it.

WARNING TO CHILDREN
(Robert Graves)

Children, if you are to think
Of the greatness, rareness, muchness,
Fewness of this precious only
Endless world in which you say
You live, you think of things like this:
Blocks of slate enclosing dappled
Red and green, enclosing tawny
Yellow nets, enclosing white
And black acres of dominoes,
Where a neat brown paper parcel
Tempts you to unite the string,
In the parcel a small island,
On the island a large tree,
On the tree a husky fruit.
Strip the husk and cut the rind off:
In the center you will see
Blocks of slate enclosed by dappled
Red and green, enclosed by tawny
Yellow nets, enclosed by white
And black acres of dominoes,
Where the same brown paper parcel--
Children, leave the string untied!
For who dares undo the parcel
Finds himself at once inside it,
On the island, in the fruit,
Blocks of slate about his head,
Finds himself enclosed by dappled
Green and red, enclosed by yellow
Tawny nets, enclosed by black
And white acres of dominoes,
But the same brown paper parcel
Still untied upon his knee.
And, if he then should dare to think
Of the fewness, muchness, rareness,
Greatness of this endless only
Precious world in which he says
He lives -- he then unties the string.



I like it. But I am not sure I understand what he is trying to say.