Welcome to the Cauldron, @geegot and @MaxDeRoxas!

In My Head: I hope I get home enough before the weather to get a run in today…

In the Cup: Yuban with a splash of Almond Milk

Currently Playing: Mumford and Sons, Sigh No More

Daily Run: Depends on the weather. (This is not the response a “real runner” would give. A “real runner” would run anyway. But having recently suffered through a bout of the flu and currently nursing a cold, I don’t have the luxury of being a “real runner” right now because it could really wreak havoc on my Mommy/Grad Student/Wife persona. I like to think of this kind of thinking as a sign I am getting wiser, not just older…)

On the Desk: Merrin Born; presentation notes for next week

On the DVR: Grey’s Anatomy, Glee, and Downton Abbey

On the Nightstand: The Faerie Queene, Book Two; The Wayfarer Redemption; Excellence Without a Soul

BPal of the Day: Blood Kiss

Lab Description:

Blood Kiss Bewitching Brews Lush, creamy vanilla and the honey of the sweetest kiss smeared with the vital throb of husky clove, swollen red cherries, but darkened with the vampiric sensuality of vetiver, soporific poppy and blood red wine, and a skin-light pulse of feral musk.

Happy Robbie Burns Day!

I’ve written about Robbie Burns before, but I honestly can’t remember when I did it last, so here’s a very brief summary: known as the “Ploughman’s Poet” Robbie Burns was a popular Scottish poet of the early 19th century who wrote in Scots dialect, breaking the “rules” of poetry as an elevated art form and bringing it to the common folk. He’s celebrated each year on his birthday (January 25) with a Robbie Burns Supper, where folks gather to read his poems aloud, eat haggis (a sort of pudding sausage made of sheep’s intestines. It’s an acquired taste), to which he famously wrote an ode, and drink Scottish whiskey. Being married to a fellow of Scots descent, I am inordinately fond of the culture, so today here’s my own ode to those who celebrate the late, great Robbie Burns:

Wee, sleekit, timrin’ beasties,

don’t forget to ha’ your pasties,

and a drop o’ whiskey on th’ side!

 

For today, we toast th’ Ploughman’s Poet,

’tis his birthday, don’t ye know it?

an’ here’s a poem to toast your Scotsmen’s pride!

Here’s Robbie Burns’s own “To a Haggis”:

Address To A Haggis


1786
Type: Address

Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o’ the pudding-race!
Aboon them a’ yet tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o’a grace
As lang’s my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin was help to mend a mill
In time o’need,
While thro’ your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An’ cut you up wi’ ready sleight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like ony ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin’, rich!

Then, horn for horn, they stretch an’ strive:
Deil tak the hindmost! on they drive,
Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
Bethankit! hums.

Is there that owre his French ragout
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad make her spew
Wi’ perfect sconner,
Looks down wi’ sneering, scornfu’ view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckles as wither’d rash,
His spindle shank, a guid whip-lash;
His nieve a nit;
Thro’ blody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread.
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He’ll mak it whissle;
An’ legs an’ arms, an’ hands will sned,
Like taps o’ trissle.

Ye Pow’rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o’ fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu’ prayer
Gie her a haggis!

(From: http://www.robertburns.org/works/147.shtml)

Happy Robbie Burns Day, Everyone!