Poem for Tuesday and Puget Sound Orcas

Patience Taught by Nature
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“O Dreary life!” we cry, “O dreary life!”
And still the generations of the birds
Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds
Serenely live while we are keeping strife
With Heaven’s true purpose in us, as a knife
Against which we may struggle. Ocean girds
Unslackened the dry land: savannah-swards
Unweary sweep: hills watch, unworn; and rife
Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest-trees,
To show, above, the unwasted stars that pass
In their old glory. O thou God of old!
Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these;—
But so much patience, as a blade of grass
Grows by contended through the heat and cold.

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Tuesday was thankfully much quieter than Monday. Effie didn't seem any worse, but it's hard to tell if she's any better -- she never lost her appetite and she hasn't been lethargic, though Katniss has been hissing at her so she's been avoiding her sister. We walked to the beach in the mid-afternoon just as it started to rain, so I got back wet and chilly just in time to watch Voyager's terrible horrible "Barge of the Dead" with 3/5 of the regulars. 

After dinner and the end of the Orioles loss, we watched Ahsoka with Cheryl, whose birthday it was on Tuesday. Now we're watching Grantchester, which is all about justifying adultery this season so I'm not enjoying much of it (Sidney's a sanctimonious dope, but Geordie's a dick, and there are so many atrociously written women being ridiculous for love). Here are some of the orcas we saw on the whale watching tour last weekend: