Dr. Spina, … cited another benefit: “preparation for the cocktail-party circuit” by having to balance dishware and cutlery. “You eventually have to learn how to hold your hors d’oeuvre and cocktail in one hand while making animated conversation with the other,” he said, “so it’s a life lesson.”

You might ask – are there places you can go for buffet tactical training? Free idea there for you entrepreneur types!

No no – from the NYTimes, an article about schools which have gone trayless in one or more of their dining halls and the impact and feedback from diners. Schools like Skidmore and Cornell among those mentioned and the range of responses was amazing!

… that Robert Frost was writing about:

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

— Robert Frost

As I drove in this morning, the willows had suddenly added an embroidery of that unmistakable green-gold to the ever more green landscape. Against the dark ground and grey-blue clouds, they seemed individually lit up. So look up, enjoy the brief spring in upstate NY or whereever you are and enjoy the briefness of it as well. And enjoy the rest of National Poetry Month and, bonus!, Earth Day!

And speaking of fleeting moments, this year’s poster for National Poetry Month features these lines:

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?

from T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” – the total mix of things staying the same and changing constantly. So while you’re out enjoying the day, stir up some trouble (or dirt) too!

It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are. — E E Cummings

This refers to the box of randomly displayed quotes at the upper-right of the page, but also to the plain-jane, gray metal box I started years ago. It still holds a stack of quotes, one per card, that I acquired from books and other then-analog sources. Maybe I should take this to heart and realize that what I “really are” is a collector of quotes and things that can be stored in just the right box.