March 1: Calm Before the Calm, Pizza, Charlotte's Lullaby, New Cartoon

It's been a very peaceful day.  I've done nothing important since I woke up this morning.  I shoveled my driveway before going to McDonald's with my family for breakfast.  I sat by the window at McDonald's and watched the sun climb into the sky, making all the snow and ice shine like marble.  It's still cold as the North Pole outside.  And I mean that literally.  I saw on the local news that the temperature at the North Pole was -31 degrees Fahrenheit.  That's just about where we were yesterday morning.  All we're missing is the penguins.

Still, my car started this morning.  No dead battery.  Maybe things are looking up.  There's hardly any wind today, and Winter Storm Titan is staying south of the Upper Peninsula.  The only thing we have to deal with for the next couple of days is the damn cold.  On Monday, we're supposed to get up to almost 11 degrees.  So, basically, it's the calm before the calm today.

In a little while, I'll be heading to church for the Saturday night mass.  Then, it's pizza.  I don't have any lesson planning to do this weekend.  Spring break.  I plan on reading Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch this week.  My big worry for the next seven days:  getting the brakes on my wife's car fixed.  It will happen.  I have faith.  Too bad I can't pay the mechanic with prayer.

I have a poem for you this afternoon from Charlotte's Web.  It's the lullaby that Charlotte sings to Wilbur one evening.  It's a beautiful little poem.  E. B. White was even a good poet.

Saint Marty hates him.

"Sleep, sleep, my love, my only,
Deep, deep, in the dung and the dark;
Be not afraid and be not lonely!
This is the hour when frogs and thrushes
Praise the world from the woods and the rushes.
Rest from care, my one and only,
Deep in the dung and the dark!"

 Confessions of Saint Marty