a lovely weekend here, cold notwithstanding.  the yard full of birds enjoying the feeders and the open water in the birdbath.  nothing out of the ordinary: american goldfinches, cardinals, house finches, bluejays, mockingbirds, mixed sparrows, mourning doves and a gang of ruffian blackbirds that kept spashing all the water out of the bath.  i think we filled it back up four times saturday.  not the birds i want to invite, but they're creatures too.

on Sunday we went in to DC to take my sister (with husband and daughter) out to lunch for her birthday.  a surprising amount of frozen water along both shorelines of the Chesapeake to be seen from the Bay Bridge.  a large flock of Canada geese coming in to land on the ice on the near shore.  this is the first time we've seen it frozen in the five years we've lived here.  all the rivers we crossed on the way were mostly frozen too.  today and tomorrow will bring a warmup, temps above freezing, but the worst of the cold is yet to come later in the week. i'm hoping for snow to come with it, insulation for the roots of things.  a kind covering for the stony frozen ground.

and now, i'm off for the first day of the new semester.  at least today i'll be teaching classes i have taught before.  though for me teaching is a constant proof that you never step into the same river twice.  every class is always different, because each group of students creates a new dynamic, and for me that dynamic shapes the class, directs what i emphasize, the pace, and even, to some extent, the content.  i don't even have class lists yet (well, i didn't even know what i'd be teaching til Friday afternoon! class lists?  don't be silly.) so today will be an adventure. 

and, yes, the Eagles beat the Packers (thanks to fdtate for keeping me abreast of important news).  my ESL students won't care about this, but everyone else will.  the ESL students universally follow world soccer, and i stay far more aware of what's happening in that form of futbol than in the American version.