Still ill.
10:09 p.m.
Unfortunately, my first lesson of the day was to a �difficult� student, shall we say, who is in her third year at Bushop�s and is taking voice as a second instrument. She switched from the other teacher (which I find hard to believe because Gail is the nicest, warmest, most generous singing teacher I know) and asked specifically for me. She is obnoxious to the max, says the first thing that pops into her head whether it�s appropriate or not, and has a difficult time understanding what I am explaining to her. When she repeats it back to me, she gets it wrong. She doesn�t wait for me to conclude an explanation or a demonstration before barging in with the exercise, and doesn�t get the point of an exercise, being distracted by something peripheral. It was especially hard for me to keep my cool when I was feeling like a half-chewed caramel.
What made her look even worse was the girl who came after her, also a third-year Bushop�s student taking voice as a second instrument. This one is smart, catches onto concepts quickly, and just �gets it� a lot more easily. I�m going to enjoy teaching this one. After a brief lunch of mulligatawny soup and more mint tisane, I taught my new major, a lovely girl with a beautiful voice who is going to be a pleasure to have in my studio. She was followed by my second-year major to whom I gave Schubert�s Fr�hlingssehnsucht, and the German will either kill her or make her a better person.
No choir for me today, oh no, I got to spend hours at the dentist�s, being the last one of the family to be seen. I look at these visits as necessary evils, uncomfortable, even mildly painful, but not lasting overly long and ultimately good for me. I was admonished for not flossing regularly, which accounts for the interdental plaque build-up, and was given a recipe consisting of a few drops water, a few drops hydrogen peroxide and enough baking soda to make a paste to use four or five times a week. This will (the dentist assures me) whiten my teeth, improve my breath, and most importantly kill the bacteria that cause gum recession. I am, if I may say so, becoming rather long in tooth.
I drove Little Princess home (the boys had taken the other car, which is now working) and found supper already prepared for us. Joy and rapture! We had 17 minutes to eat and then we were out of there, she to band practice, I to writing group, to which I would have been better not going. I was in serious pain the whole time, in my head, my sinuses, my throat, and not feeling as though I was really able to think. However, I did buy the right kind of Neo Citran, the kind that will actually knock me out for the night, and I have just taken a dose of that, and as soon as I have proofread and posted this missive, I will head upstairs and let blissful unconsciousness overtake me.
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