Really, sometimes the Times is so amusing, it's better than a paper with comics. Here's the little blurb that came in my email headlines today. (I must confess, I haven't read the whole article yet.):

Low Spending Is Taking Toll on Economy

By PETER S. GOODMAN

Beleaguered American consumers appear to have succumbed to the pressures of falling home prices and shrinking paychecks.

Don't you just love the language there? I get visions of millions of Americans, valiantly marching off to the mall with their VISA cards drawn like bayonets, dropping like flies in the parking lot as they "succumb", no longer able to fight the good fight. Or maybe people crawling weakly to the car dealership, whispering, "Must. Buy. Hummer." as their pulse fades and their breathing becomes shallow. Like the purpose of humans is to feed and nurture The Economy.

With language like that floating around, it's no wonder the economy is in trouble.

Ah, well. Spring has truly sprung in these parts, as the following picture attests:



That's the bush in front of our house. That picture was taken about a week ago, and since then the leaves have popped out on the trees around here. Some of the forsythia is almost done with its yellow - which is just wrong, imo - and the magnolias in the neighborhood have all bloomed.

I'm in the home stretch in terms of grading, and am looking forward to my first adventure: The combined Inkshed/Gettysburg trip, coming up in two short weeks . . . But today, I'm helping Em and David move her stuff down to the Deuce, which means that by hockey game time tonight, we will have a mostly-cleared garage and a reasonably cleared-out basement again. Yee, ha! Life marches on . . .