Sunday, March 8, 2015

Once More Into the Breach


Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man,
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, conjure up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage:
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let it pry through the portage of the head,
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide;
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English,
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought,
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument.
Dishonour not your mothers: now attest,
That those whom you call’d fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture: let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot:
Follow your spirit; and upon this charge,
Cry ‘God for Harry! England! and Saint George!’

- Henry V, Act III, scene I


Again, again, again – looking at yet another tough week (day / month / hour) at work.  Getting really done with this.  The job started off fun, really fun, three-and-a-half years ago.  Now, like in any job, I suppose, additional responsibilities and duties and tasks have been assigned to me, adding up over the weeks months years, while less and less support and backup and general assistance were offered.  2015 has been the year of the Crisis of the Month of the Week (or day, or hour).  Some not my fault yet my responsibility, other stuff having nothing to do with me but still somehow my responsibility to get ’em fixed.  Some things genuinely my faults as one who juggles so many items at once while putting out fires will inevitably drop one.  

I’ve only slept eight hours the entire weekend, and all I could think about during those enjoyable, relaxing, tender moments with my little girls was how the hourglass was tick tick ticking down to zero hour Monday morning.  Oh, and my shoulder is absolutely killing me.  Has to be a pinched nerve or something.  Been bugging me off and on since the week before Christmas, and now it’s just a continuous painful ache.

In addition to Hell Week part Eleven at work, we get our taxes done Tuesday (fingers crossed for a moderate refund) and I get my new glasses on Thursday.  Yay!  I’ll be able to see at night.  There’s also a night basketball game for Little One somewhere in there.

Good news:  In preparing for tax day I cleaned off the writing desk.  Now I can actually write.  Also watched a couple of decent flicks this weekend, which I may blog about sometime this week.  Dunno.  I feel like I’m preparing to go a couple of rounds with Tyson, so if I’m still standing on my feet come Friday at 5 pm (my favorite part of the week, ’cuz I take the girls out for pizza), I’ll consider that a victory.


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