One of our cookout guests brought us a stunning bouquet of sunflowers that just glowed in the afternoon light.

We spent the afternoon with a porch full of friends for a Stick A Fork In It cookout. Almost all of the food needed a fork, excepting the sangria.

Yeah, it was a very long semester.

And that’s it – we march them in, we march in, we listened to people ramble, then set off fireworks – the University of Georgia Class of 2018 is now on their way.

The reconstruction of the dean’s suite is almost done, another week and I suspect they’ll be moving into their new space, all glass and metal trim. Meantime, the dean holds meetings wherever he can and some of those places are … well … dated.

The campus is always in a state of visible flux during exams as colleges and grounds crews get ready for commencement, when tens of thousands come in to send off the graduates.

Took a few minutes to get out of the building, the onslaught of end-of-semester meetings, gatherings, exit interviews and grading sometimes keeps me strapped into the office chair. A lap around the building and I spotted one of my students writing notes.

Irony? A few hours later, I learned one of them was for me.

The staircase pattern drew me in first, then the brook and dustpan at the bottom … make a pattern, break a pattern.