Doorbells

I spent about an hour at work this morning installing five wireless doorbells in our classrooms and office. The chime part plugs in and the buttons will go outside so kids can ring the right classroom when they want to come into the school. Homeland security, you know. The hard part, which really wasn't so hard, was programming them so they don't all ring when you push one button. It just required keeping them all straight, buttons and chimes, and remembering which wire I clipped on which set. I was kind of proud of myself and announced that I had done it at the principal's meeting...right before the high school principal announced that he had been chosen as principal of the year in Minnesota. I guess it doesn't rank with that, but what the hell. It's a goat's life.

Poem: "The Virtue of Trusting One's Mind" by Marcia Slatkin, from A Woman Milking: Barnyard Poems. © Word Press.

The Virtue of Trusting One's Mind

When goats don't want to move,
they don't make sounds.

They fold legs at bald knees,
bend rough necks to earth,
and just sink down.

They never

rant, rail,
protest, declaim,
debate, explain, and then,
head bowed, plod meekly
forward anyway,

as I did
as a child—
and still do now.