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

Home again, home again, jiggety jog.

Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2006
9:45 p.m.
I got the call from my boys quite late, past 11 p.m. in fact, as they were unable to get a signal on the cell phone for a long time. They got home just after midnight (I was pretending to be asleep, but of course couldn�t relax until I knew they had arrived safely) and, even if I had been fast asleep, the sounds of luggage thumping and doors slamming would have woken me anyway. Today I put in the first load of a mountain of laundry that they brought back with them. Gone six days, and they produced more laundry between the two of them than we four usually do in that length of time.

Their flight from Ft. Myers to Minnesota left late, and they had to run from gate B14 to B4 in about five minutes (their names were being called over the P.A. system) without knowing the fate of their luggage. As it happens, it arrived with them in Burlington (how did they do that?) so they didn�t have to wait for it very long, and they had no trouble at the border either, being one of the dinkiest crossings ever.

This morning when I went into Buddy Boy�s room to make sure he was awake and to drop off some clean laundry, I was just overcome with joy at seeing him safe and sound. I guess the feeling was mutual because he gave me a big hug. Geez I love my kids. I love my husband too. We had our Valentine�s celebration (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) this evening when he got home from orchestra rehearsal. That (plus the roses) made up for his absence yesterday.

I almost lost it with my annoying student today. I ask a lot of questions when I teach, questions that force the student to analyze the process: What do you feel when you do that? Where is the sound? Can you sense the difference? Questions like that. I also ask harder ones like: What am I trying to get you to do here? That was the one that nearly caused me to crack. It�s not like the answer was difficult. I told her at the beginning of the exercise what I wanted her to get out of it. I�m not cruel in expecting them to read my mind or anything. She was just so wrong, that I finally said, �What do I say to you every lesson? What have I repeated every goddamned week for the past umpteen weeks since you started studying with me?� and then I started repeating it, things like supporting the sound, opening the throat, raising the soft palate, dropping the jaw, all the stuff that I say about 50 times each lesson. If I didn�t see actual progress with this girl, I would swear that she is unteachable.

Okay, enough of that. Today�s weather was glorious. The sun shone, the temperature rose so that it truly felt like spring. My Latin buddy said that the maple sap will start running and his dad will probably be able to start boiling this weekend. Ah, maple syrup: tree sap reduced to nectar.

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