Thanks to you all for your kind notes. I really appreciate your concern.
6:49 a.m.
The highschool play opened last night, The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier, about kids in a prep school badgered into selling chocolate to raise money for the school by one particular teacher who ends up enlisting the aid of the school bully gang to get the job done. The main character is a freshman who refuses to sell chocolates and ends up getting the tar kicked out of her for it at the end. The �theme� was that line from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot: �Do I dare disturb the universe?� After having done just that, the main character decides that it would have been better not to have. But the other characters decide from her example that maybe it is okay.
I can�t remember the name of the guy who adapted the novel for the stage. There were a plethora of girls, so the sexes of the characters got inverted. The male characters became female and vice versa. Buddy Boy had a small part, but did a really great job in it. The acting of most of the kids was really good. My one problem was with the scene changes, of which there were an inordinate number. Scenes were short, and then two stage managers came out and moved around black boxes for the next scene. Music appropriate to the mood played (really great selections) during these interludes, but it became a little much after a while. I found myself yawning and wishing it were soon over. We�re supposed to go again on closing night, Saturday, but I�m tempted not to.
I was the universal mom again. Just after posting yesterday�s entry, the garage called to say that the Subaru was ready, so I decided I would go there before noon and that would give them the extra time to work on the Volvo (it�s still at the garage this morning, so that�s another job to do today). On my way out the door the phone rang again. This time it was Little Princess� BF with an infected toe and no way to get to the walk-up clinic. So, I told him I would pick him up from where he was (a friend�s house) and take him to the clinic after I dropped off the Volvo and picked up the Subaru.
From the garage we retraced our steps across town to the clinic, only to find that the walk-up wasn�t open in the afternoon. So I put him back in the car and drove back the way we had just come to another clinic, where I left him, with a quarter, and told him to call me if he had trouble getting home or anything. He did have a bus token, so was able to get himself back to L�ville. But the doctor he saw prescribed an antibiotic cream, which he couldn�t afford to buy, so he didn�t.
I have never seen such poorly maintained feet on a kid as on this guy. I asked him between clinics to show me the toe, having had some experience with infections in the digits. His nails are sheet-rippingly long, and his feet were filthy, as well as being incredibly smelly. The odour nearly knocked me over.
This afternoon the part-time music tutors have a meeting over at the house of our representative on the search committee to discuss our concerns for the department and what we would like to see in a candidate for the tenure-track job. I jokingly suggested to Pauline that she have a fire-extinguisher handy, since things could get hot. The committee has already interviewed two applicants, the guy who�s been in the sessional position for two years and someone else, and there�s a third candidate coming on Monday. Several of us are concerned that the search committee is stacked, and the wife of one of the stackers will be at this meeting. Scary.
Well, my radio has just turned on, which means it�s time for me to get up. So I guess I will.
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