2020-07-10

A serpent tread down

Perhaps, as God said, but this

Dragon? Let it be.

 The Nile Crocodile; 

  known for his smile

 He is not a handsome mess

 When he boats 

  he boats in style 

 His clients all confess;

 A V-I-P

  From sea to sea 

 Just watch the party move

 Works for free,

  Spontaneity,

 Is always in the groove;

 As he promotes,

  Those in boats

 Know his taste is fine:

 Everyone screams

  And sinks or floats--

 He loves to wine and dine.

 

I chose a crocodile for this sketch simply because I read from some heraldic writer or other that the original heraldic dragons were something like a crocodile with the wings of a bat. It was thought that the artists used something they had seen -- likely a Nile Crocodile - as the basis for that winged serpent. And when we look at the crocodile, he certainly is a reptile in the classic sense, 'repto' - I crawl on the ground. More than this, his scaly body is quite serpentine... without a doubt, there is a real sense in which crocodiles (and their cousin the Alligator) are river dragons. 

We continue with the process of acquiring a birth certificate - nothing threatening so far, but 100% of the bureaucrats have been women as well. It may simply be that the slowness of the bureaucracy here prevents it from being excessively inhuman; at the college I went to, while their parking enforcement was as capricious and draconian (to students, though not so to scofflaws) as any parking enforcement ever is, yet their appeals process was so slow that you could get an almost endless reprieve from paying by re-appealing your ticket. 

We taught the second daughter to ride the bike today, which means that all three of the older children can ride, and thus we can go biking together. In practice all of the bikes are different sizes and the littlest one gets tired more quickly, but it's a start. I found a method that is rather easy to teach someone to ride, so long as they are willing (mainly, they're not afraid.) 

I've quit drinking coffee. Once upon a time, I did this because I was learning piano performance in college, and the stress of performance combined with caffeine caused jitters that made it impossible to play with accuracy. So, I quit for a year or so. In this case, the stress of recent events has proved too much for me to sleep even many hours later, having drunk coffee. Some people find caffeine calming; usually it's not much of a problem for me-- I have no objection to coffee on principle. Yet, to each thing its time and season.