Writer's Block: Cover me

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I once heard Hogwood and the SPCO cover Beethoven's 7th Symphony--it was awesome, man, awesoooome!

Mother Nature

I always maintain to my students, especially when I've discussed naturalism in American literature, that we should never underestimate the power of nature. "Mother Nature can be very benevolent but also very destructive and indifferent. No matter what endeavors humans undertake, Nature is stronger and will win out in the end." This is an extremely condensed version of a much longer lecture and discussion, but the overall point is basically that.

Truer words were never spoken by me. After I learned I was pregnant with the Dolphin, Malkhos and I were a bit baffled by it because we thought the timing was all wrong for it to happen. We kept trying to blame each other when instead we should just have blamed nature and left each other out of it.

Last week, the mystery of the Dolphin was finally solved.

"I'm moving your due date up by a week," Dr. Dalla Riva said. "From the 25th to the 17th."

"Why?" I asked. "Maybe Flipper's just a big baby."

"No, that's not quite true at this point. All babies, within certain parameters, develop at approximately the same rate up until about weeks 20-22. After that, you see much more variation in length and weight. You have had four ultrasounds, and he has consistently measured one week ahead of his gestational age based on your last period."

"Well, that explains a lot," I said.

"How so?"

"I was absolutely sure the fallopian tube coast was clear," I said. "But what you're telling me is that when I thought I had a good four or five day safety zone, a little eggy-weggy was just sitting there waiting when it wasn't supposed to be."

"Exactly right," said the doctor.

So I told Malkhos that despite all my good sense and his fancy book learning, Mother Nature still beat us both in the end.