must not scratch

Something of a buggy nature has bitten me on my left forearm and I now have a red circle there. Must not scratch. Must not scratch.

Really must work out when in the next month or so I'm going to visit home, so that I can book annual leave. Must also see about booking plane ticket to America for October.

Would like to stop down to the post office package depot before work tomorrow to pick up a package, but the forecasts of rain has me watching the skies. I can't help thinking that if it's going to be pouring with rain, I don't want to be walking twice the usual distance in it.

Also mildly irked to find that a yarn I had thought was machine-washable is in fact not machine-washable. The shawl I knitted with it is now smaller and thicker, though the colour remains pleasant. Oh well, I suppose this means I will just have to knit another shawl. Things could be worse.

---

O Captain! My Captain!

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up -- for you the flag is flung -- for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths -- for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

-- Walt Whitman