Best Laid Plans

To paraphrase Robert Burns*, The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.  Ain't that the truth.  For instance, I made plans for this week and I was all gung ho about them on Sunday.  Unfortunately, yesterday was a bad day.  Not bad-bad in the scheme of things, but just bad enough that it derailed me.  I woke up early from a weird and depressing dream, and it kind of got the whole day off to a wrong start.  I didn't walk.  I didn't read.  I didn't edit. The only thing that got checked off of my to-do list was dishes, and I have to do those or we'll have nothing to eat off of or with**.

I had great plans for this year.  Well, obviously, those got obliterated by the 'rona and the chaos surrounding it. 

Actually, I should say I let my plans for the year get derailed by the chaos.  It was all mental.  Nothing truly stopped me from going ahead with anything, except my brain.

Anyway, sometimes plans go awry.  I could spend this time kicking myself.  Lord knows, it's a popular pastime.  But I'm going to try to go another way.  I mean, kicking myself is useful from time to time, but today doesn't seem like one of those times.  So, I'm going to forgive myself.  I get a pass for yesterday.  As long as I don't let it continue into today.  I have work that needs to be done, regardless of what might be going on in my life or in my head.  I have promises to keep.  And if you'll forgive a foray into another poem, I have miles to go before I sleep.

*The original poem in its original Old English. Which I think is kind of neat.
**For times of extreme laziness, illness, or water outage, I have backup dishes and silverware, but I hate to break those out of storage.

A Poem for Us All

Borrowed from Famous Poets and Poems dot com...

Hail! Childish Slave Of Social Rules by Robert Louis Stevenson

HAIL! Childish slaves of social rules
You had yourselves a hand in making!
How I could shake your faith, ye fools,
If but I thought it worth the shaking.
I see, and pity you; and then
Go, casting off the idle pity,
In search of better, braver men,
My own way freely through the city.

My own way freely, and not yours;
And, careless of a town's abusing,
Seek real friendship that endures
Among the friends of my own choosing.
I'll choose my friends myself, do you hear?
And won't let Mrs. Grundy do it,
Tho' all I honour and hold dear
And all I hope should move me to it.

I take my old coat from the shelf -
I am a man of little breeding.
And only dress to please myself -
I own, a very strange proceeding.
I smoke a pipe abroad, because
To all cigars I much prefer it,
And as I scorn your social laws
My choice has nothing to deter it.

Gladly I trudge the footpath way,
While you and yours roll by in coaches
In all the pride of fine array,
Through all the city's thronged approaches.
O fine religious, decent folk,
In Virtue's flaunting gold and scarlet,
I sneer between two puffs of smoke, -
Give me the publican and harlot.

Ye dainty-spoken, stiff, severe
Seed of the migrated Philistian,
One whispered question in your ear -
Pray, what was Christ, if you be Christian?
If Christ were only here just now,
Among the city's wynds and gables
Teaching the life he taught us, how
Would he be welcome to your tables?

I go and leave your logic-straws,
Your former-friends with face averted,
Your petty ways and narrow laws,
Your Grundy and your God, deserted.
From your frail ark of lies, I flee
I know not where, like Noah's raven.
Full to the broad, unsounded sea
I swim from your dishonest haven.

Alone on that unsounded deep,
Poor waif, it may be I shall perish,
Far from the course I thought to keep,
Far from the friends I hoped to cherish.
It may be that I shall sink, and yet
Hear, thro' all taunt and scornful laughter,
Through all defeat and all regret,
The stronger swimmers coming after

The Best Laid Plans

I've been hip deep in cat lately.  Okay, so that's pretty obvious based on my last post (and several of the posts before that).  Yesterday I really had plans to work on my book.  Really.  No really, I did.  Then my back went out and I ended up laying on the couch all day.  And wouldn't you know it, the cable went out Wednesday night and it's still not back.  This of course meant yesterday was spent reading and watching videos.

In honor of this day of doing practically nothing from my list of things to do, I thought I'd share the poem from which we get the phrase, 'the best laid plans of mice and men'...  (Sorry, but it's in an old language - Gaelic or Old English I think.)

To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough
by Robert Burns

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.

That 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!

If you go to the site where I got this, it has definitions for all the strange words. For instance 'gang aft agley' - strictly interpreted - means 'go oft awry'. 

Anyway, my best laid schemes got shot into pieces yesterday.  How did your plans for the day go?