gang agley
Cleared but had rained during my three hour nap, 2 to 5 Thursday afternoon. Quarter to seven, caught a cloud from Hampton Inn room window as we headed out to meet Walt & family for supper. Walt and his four children with beautiful, much-loved families. Walt’s daughters Leslie and Donna closely resemble each other. I’d post photo but that it’d violate the personal privacy that is one of my highest values in life. But they do. Sisters indeed.
Twelve of us for supper at Don’s, where we had enjoyed supper more than once when we were here in January. Folks had a range of things, I a dozen grilled oysters no cheese, shared with Linda a bowl of crawfish bisque, my main dish a bowl of crawfish etouffee, saved half for this morning’s breakfast. Oysters I love and would eat every meal, but in Louisiana it would be nuts to miss enjoying delicacies that aren’t available in PC. In my next life I’m living here during mealtimes.
Thursday morning, Betty’s funeral went well as she and her family would have wanted it. I enjoyed meeting Doris, her older sister, for the first time, and she rode with us in the church’s 8-seat electric golf cart from the front door of the church around the graveled drive to the church cemetery; and after the interment to the family life center for lunch.
This morning Linda and I will graze the hot breakfast bar in the lobby downstairs, soon check out and be on our way. Octogenarial road trips are fatiguing both physically and especially mentally, which wearies physically even more, so we may RON a bit more than halfway to PC, to arrive 7H Saturday.
What might one learn from 2017 September as it has thus far confronted and dealt with us and ours? Gang aft agley.
Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!
I'm truly sorry man's dominion,
Has broken nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!
I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
'S a sma' request;
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
An' never miss't!
Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's winds ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell-
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.
Thy wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld!
But, Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!
Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my e'e.
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!
Robert Burns, ”To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest With the Plough, November, 1785"