Dec. 13

Today’s tea was a Jade Tieguanyin Oolong. It’s a lovely, creamy oolong. But again – and we say this every other day lately – you have to watch the steeping time religiously. We could tell it was strong from the smell, so only used a pinch, and after last night’s disastrous ms-timing, poured out early. The result was a gorgeous oolong. But we could see how if you left it much longer, it could be bitter.

Today’s been full of family stuff. Can I skip Christmas Mass (no). Cost of train tickets on Boxing Day (don’t look!), and a surprise saga involving family ashes that is so convoluted we couldn’t make it up if we wanted to. It has all the constituent parts of a best-selling novel, except no one would think it was plausible. We’d go into it, but figure family would object.

Instead, have a poem about families. Who’d have them, eh?

This Be The Verse
Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   
They may not mean to, but they do.   
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,   
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

We first encountered this poem in A Series of Unfortunate Events, where the villain quotes it. In retrospect, that whole last book is built around the third stanza. Crucial, because this being a kids’ series (albeit an absurdist, gothic, often dark-ish one), the publisher couldn’t print the first two verses, because of the swearing!