Valentines - or Sarcastic Wednesday

Valentine’s surprise

My life, a tragic-comedy of manners mostly, always delivers great surprises when things seem to not be going my way. Sunday, the same Sunday I posted about yesterday, I got home to a message from my sister that asked if I had received a package. I had no idea, I never check the mail – that is an upstairs job. I promised I would go look, but first I had to go to the gym. I came back from the gym and I find a box, and inside the box I find this:

The note was simple and lovely, instructing me that the bounty was not just for me but for the entire Klingelites … so I have to share. That was my valentine, and since I have lots of friends to send valentines too, I am posting one of my favourite poems. It is extremely cheesy I am warning you, but I have always liked it. Of course it is Kipling’s IF, and here it is:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

PS.

To the Scientist - no you do not know the cook

To the Will - Yay !!! can not wait, lets all go out Saturday