52/102: Fails
May. 4th, 2025 06:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rejectomorphA tiresome, tiring Sunday. My Idernet connection failed again Saturday evening, and I had to fiddle with the phone battery again to get it back. The battery took two hours to go from a 40% charge to a 51% charge, and then most of the night to get up to 100%. It is clearly on its last legs. I only hope it isn't the phone that's acting up. The battery is four years old, and has lasted twice as long as the one that came with the phone, so it most likely is the battery, though the phone itself is six years old. The scroll wheel on my computer mouse is also failing. All my technology is failing, just like me, but I have apparently not failed fast enough to avoid replacing some or all of my gadgets. Too bad.
While tech does its best to screw me, the weather is plotting to join in its depredations. All but one day in the upcoming week will have a high in the nineties, with Wednesday at 97 nudging uncomfortably close to 100. Needless to say, this is not what May is supposed to be doing. There has also been more wind than usual for the time of year. The combination of hot, dry, and windy is something that does not make a Californian comfortable. The approach of summer fills me with trepidation.
Look, I used "depredations" and "trepidation" in one paragraph. I wonder what that means? Oh, right. Nothing. It means nothing.
Sunday Verse
by Rose Terry Cooke
I watch her in the corner there,
As, restless, bold, and unafraid,
She slips and floats along the air
Till all her subtile house is made.
Her home, her bed, her daily food
All from that hidden store she draws;
She fashions it and knows it good,
By instinct's strong and sacred laws.
No tenuous threads to weave her nest,
She seeks and gathers there or here;
But spins it from her faithful breast,
Renewing still, till leaves are sere.
Then, worn with toil, and tired of life,
In vain her shining traps are set.
Her frost hath hushed the insect strife
And gilded flies her charm forget.
But swinging in the snares she spun,
She sways to every winter wind:
Her joy, her toil, her errand done,
Her corse the sport of storms unkind.
Poor sister of the spinster clan!
I too from out my store within
My daily life and living plan,
My home, my rest, my pleasure spin.
I know thy heart when heartless hands
Sweep all that hard-earned web away:
Destroy its pearled and glittering bands,
And leave thee homeless by the way.
I know thy peace when all is done.
Each anchored thread, each tiny knot,
Soft shining in the autumn sun;
A sheltered, silent, tranquil lot.
I know what thou hast never known,
—Sad presage to a soul allowed;—
That not for life I spin, alone.
But day by day I spin my shroud.
While tech does its best to screw me, the weather is plotting to join in its depredations. All but one day in the upcoming week will have a high in the nineties, with Wednesday at 97 nudging uncomfortably close to 100. Needless to say, this is not what May is supposed to be doing. There has also been more wind than usual for the time of year. The combination of hot, dry, and windy is something that does not make a Californian comfortable. The approach of summer fills me with trepidation.
Look, I used "depredations" and "trepidation" in one paragraph. I wonder what that means? Oh, right. Nothing. It means nothing.
Sunday Verse
Arachne
by Rose Terry Cooke
I watch her in the corner there,
As, restless, bold, and unafraid,
She slips and floats along the air
Till all her subtile house is made.
Her home, her bed, her daily food
All from that hidden store she draws;
She fashions it and knows it good,
By instinct's strong and sacred laws.
No tenuous threads to weave her nest,
She seeks and gathers there or here;
But spins it from her faithful breast,
Renewing still, till leaves are sere.
Then, worn with toil, and tired of life,
In vain her shining traps are set.
Her frost hath hushed the insect strife
And gilded flies her charm forget.
But swinging in the snares she spun,
She sways to every winter wind:
Her joy, her toil, her errand done,
Her corse the sport of storms unkind.
Poor sister of the spinster clan!
I too from out my store within
My daily life and living plan,
My home, my rest, my pleasure spin.
I know thy heart when heartless hands
Sweep all that hard-earned web away:
Destroy its pearled and glittering bands,
And leave thee homeless by the way.
I know thy peace when all is done.
Each anchored thread, each tiny knot,
Soft shining in the autumn sun;
A sheltered, silent, tranquil lot.
I know what thou hast never known,
—Sad presage to a soul allowed;—
That not for life I spin, alone.
But day by day I spin my shroud.
