There are many percs to my new job. Some of which, until the museum opens in November, I can't really even mention... confidentiality agreement and all... but there are some that are safe to talk about now.

One of the things that always refreshes me... brings my patience back from the brink when I'm frustrated, lifts my spirit if I'm blue, or gives me perspective when I'm stuck... is the forest. It's all around us there at CB:  120 acres of it.  Lichen-painted rocks and cold springwater bubbling out of the ground, great trees arching overhead, and the sweet hush of the woods.  Unfortunately, at this time, it's impossible to get away from the construction noise and dust, even though on the trails the sound is certainly muted. But the time will come when the caterpillar excavators will be gone, the ponds will be full of water, and the woods will fill with silence again.  I look forward to that.

For a couple of days last week the staff were all obliged to park at a church a few blocks away and take one of the trails in to the museum every morning.  The crew wass laying one last layer of asphalt on the museum's main drive. Though I feel for those for whom this is a physical hardship, for me it was a blessing.  It was like a benediction to walk through the cool, quiet woods to get to work. I wish it were a longer walk, rather than the 10 minutes or so it takes to follow the winding dogwood trail.

There are fewer butterflies now.  The butterflies were one of the first things I noticed on moving here.  They were numerous, large and colorful, floating like escaped bits of tissue paper everywhere.  The toads that have populated our neighborhood under the streetlights of an evening are dwindling in number as well.  Whether they're tucking in for the season, or being devoured by predators, I won't speculate.

Just this week the trees began to turn in earnest. It's such a wonderful time of year:  warm and bright most days, cool at night. This weekend I took Kobi to an area called Slaughter Pen Hollow-- it's a hiking and mountain bike trails area, nicely wooded, but not remote. We saw a group of about four deer and one enormous owl that peered down on us from above as if speculating as to its ability to carry off Kobi.  I guess it decided against it, because it flew away.

Today we have had rain again.  Rain is something Arkansas take seriously, as I may have mentioned before. It rains and rains. I've heard we can get up to two feet of snow here, as well.  That will make Grayson happy, at least.

Grayson called me from home today when he got off the bus. He was in tears, which is extremely rare these days. My heart about stopped in my chest. Kobi has been getting out of the yard every day and I was terrified that she had been hit by a car. But no, he called to tell me he'd been bullied.

All my Momma Bear instincts came roaring to the fore. "By Whom!?" I demanded to know.  He doesn't know. Some kid at school. Not someone he'd ever seen before. The kid was pulling on a stuff "Angry Bird" Grayson wears attached to his back pack, and he wouldn't stop.  I couldn't figure out at first why he was crying, but then I realized that the simple fact that G couldn't make this kid stop bothering him showed him how helpless he was against the kid. He was crying from frustration and a sense of being trapped.  He said he wanted to swear at the kid, or kick him, but he knew then he'd get in more trouble than his antagonist. And he was right.

The real problem for Grayson is that he's essentially a very good kid.  He's kind and considerate and well behaved. A rule follower.  Like his mother. It incenses us that someone would just disregard a reasonable request purely for the purpose of being annoying. What recourse do we have in a civilized world when people don't act civilized?

I said I gave him free reign to get in the kid's face and tell him to stop being a dork. To flip him off if he had to.  But what tools do we really have against someone like that, someone who just wants to get a response?  My grandfather used to say "If you don't want 'em to get your goat, don't tell 'em where you tied it up."  And I've translated that to Grayson as "If you don't want them to push your buttons, don't put up a big sign that says 'Don't Push.'" but the world pushes our buttons, anyway. What's a good kid to do?

Angry birds, indeed!