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

The sky is still crying.

Sunday, Oct. 16, 2005
7:00 p.m.
My alarm went off at 6:15 a.m., as planned, and I arose without hesitation, dressed, emptied the dishwasher, ate, and was picked up 6:55 by P and E and driven (in the rain) to Montreal, where we arrived at the McGill music building for our 9:00 a.m. rehearsal. It went better than I expected. We pared down some of the French text, which helps, and there are a few sections I have to work out on my own with the recording P gave me. Then the other musicians continued to rehearse and I worked on my Latin translation.

At noon P�s clarinet teacher arrived and we played Hubby�s piece for him. I narrate in this one, as well as bang on a tambourine and jiggle wind chimes. The teacher was very helpful, mostly telling P to back off all the time, to play with a more unfocused sound, because she was covering me when I was speaking, and he felt that the text was paramount. She found it much easier to play as well using that kind of technique, so it was a successful session.

We drove home through the rain (I slept for some of it) and took the backroads route to avoid the out-of-commission bridge, the route that encompasses a kilometre or two of dirt road, the surface of which was like Swiss cheese. E did not slow down to avoid the pot holes, but just plowed right through, probably seriously damaging his suspension in the process.

When we ended up back on Route 108, we were greeted by a river so high that it had flooded that section where the ice gets pushed up every spring, just a couple of feet away from the asphalt. The rain has not let up at all, and the river could soon spill out onto the road. The Massawippi has already overflowed its banks in several places. The forecast is for more rain until at least Wednesday. This could be serious.

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