Elgan speaks
...and her words thunder across the land

Wednesday�s child is full of woe.

Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2004
11:16 p.m.
Wednesday is not only the longest day of the week, it is the busiest; and today it was busier and more fraught with adventure than usual. I arose at the usual time and inquired after Buddy Boy�s sore throat, which seemed to be worse than yesterday, and so it was determined that he would stay home from school. He has tomorrow and Friday off as well, so this was an extremely short week for him. I left early to get my brand-spanking-new contact lenses from the optometrist�s and, upon popping them into my myopic eyes, realized what I had been missing all these months. I have my eagle vision back, at last! Not only that, but suddenly they fit properly and I was able to wear them all day without any discomfort.

Immediately thereafter I proceeded to the grocery store where I bought (what else?) groceries which stayed in the trunk of the Subaru all day. No fear, winter is practically here. There was also a brief stop at the pharmacy for more contact-lens cleaning/soaking solution before arriving on campus, where I parked the car and headed into the library to find some French songs in a lower key for my baritone. I checked out the Faur� book (the D0ver edition) and something else (I can�t remember what now) and had to go through the business at the circulation desk of getting them put on my faculty as opposed to part-time student card. This has happened before and it�s absolutely maddening. There are other part-time profs who are also part-time students, but I seem to be the only one whose cards get mixed up in the library computer. Anyway, the librarian straightened that out, with many more apologies than were strictly necessary, and I had just enough time to get over to my office and the teaching studio and warm myself up before my 10:30 arrived. I gave him a copy of Aur0re by Faur� and Die ErIk�nig by Schubert. He was absolutely delighted by the latter, having only seen it in the high key before, and while I don�t think he�ll get to perform it this year, it will be something we can work on for fun and perhaps do in recital the following year.

I then taught three more lessons, with lunch somewhere in between, and an interruption where Hubby and I were photographed by the photographer for the local 16-page newspaper for Friday�s concert, followed by a brief practice of my own, a quick internet jaunt, and then home to cook supper for my poor starving children. Of course, I had to unload groceries, which I had totally forgotten about, and was wondering why Hubby never made it home for supper. Little Princess had to be at orchestra practice for 6:00 p.m. (which Hubby conducts) and I was just on my way out the door when he called, asking if I had been to the vernissage. I had totally forgotten about the vernissage, the opening at the campus art gallery of a show by the photography prof. So I dropped Little Princess off and spent approximately a half hour at the gallery, enjoyed the exhibit, chatted up people I knew, including the artist, then zoomed home to pick up my implements of deconstruction before heading out to writing group.

In the garage, I was rummaging around in my purse for my key to open the door to the mudroom when I heard the most amazing sound, as though something were shattering and being scattered far and wide. I looked up to see the spring from the far side of the automatic garage door collapsed and swinging. After 14 years, the metal loop caught in the hook had broken. I realized that if I couldn�t get the garage door open, I was screwed. After trying on my own to lift the door without the help of the spring (the handle is on the broken side), I called Buddy Boy, who had stayed home from karate because of his sore throat, to help me. Together we got the door open and I was able to drive to writing group. So here is yet another thing on my To Do list which needs doing: call the garage door guy to fix the garage door.

Writing group was good, except that we were a very small group. We wrote acrostic stories, where the first sentence starts with �Along the shore�� and each succeeding sentence begins with the next letter of the alphabet, for a total of 26 sentences. I like these highly constrained exercises. I find that I am more creative when I have fewer parameters to work with.

Now I am home, Hubby is practising guitar downstairs (I hope he stops soon) and I think I shall go to bed. I have not finished all my Latin homework for tomorrow, but I can get it done first thing before class. Even though my new contact lenses fit perfectly and correct my vision excellently, my eyes still have to get used to them, especially the left one, since the old one wasn�t fitting well and I had sort of adapted to that. So I am tired, physically and occularly. If that wasn�t an adverb before, it is now.

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