So I lost the previous version of this post, which I was writing when I had just gotten back from Bessie's in Connecticut--Glorious (which is what I said before too, cuz it's true), laid back, no rush, no schedule, outdoorsy, historical and quaint, but just perfect weather and a river that is much more pleasant where there is no danger of actually drowning, even if the twelve-year-old who saved your life last time too is still around to throw you a rope again if necessary. So floating in the river on an inflatable (inner tube), happily browning (like Elizabeth Barrett, only more so), and occasionally stretched out Christ-figure-like like Gatsby at three in the afternoon. Bessie is the ideal hostess, and I have a newfound appreciation for perfect gins-and-tonics (I love the idea of that pluralization, especially given how it should be "standersby" or "passersby"), though inebriation is dangerous (Someone: "Yeah, half of Yale is gay." me, unintentionally, talking literally about bodies, not other dichotomies: "Is that the top half or the bottom half?") when you are in a crowd of similarly educated fofolks where it's possible to end up in extended disputes over whether a marsupial pouch is actually an orifice (of course it's not: it's not internal).

So charades was great, even if classed. Abstract nouns/ideas ("integrity", "continuity") and crude sexual slang are very effective, as are sundry organelles. We actually devised a sign for "abstract noun/idea" which is wiggling your fingers on both hands above your head. It's also extremely frustrating to get as close to "Trinidad & Tobago" as "Trinity & Toboggan" and then run out of time. Ya can't win 'em all. And pancakes are delightfully acceptable carbs.

Ah, Bessie. Maybe I'm a little tipsy on slightly watered-down Maker's Mark, but she really is the "best girl in the world."

Oh, yes: I got a letter (which is pretty morbidifying in its own way) from the organ bank recently. So it turns out that if the teaching and leftism don't work out I can always be an eye-banker....