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

The wind and the rain�

Friday, Sept. 30, 2005
9:34 a.m.
I can�t believe it is already the end of September. I�m singing the Gorecki in two weeks (and a day) and I haven�t had a single rehearsal yet with the organists. I guess I�d better get on that soon.

I spent yesterday morning in bed, trying to get rid of this virus. I awoke at noon to an incredible storm, high winds, torrential downpour, and made my way to the university (thankfully the Volvo is working) for choir practice where I squeaked and squawked my way through Haydn�s Creation (or various bits of it anyway), followed by a rehearsal in the percussion room with our blues band. That was pretty bad too, except that I was at least warmed up, but I was singing into a microphone, so all my bad sounds were amplified along with any good ones that happened to come out. What a terrible time to get laryngitis.

As Hubby and I departed the university (in separate automobiles), the first indication that all was not right was the nonillumination of the traffic lights at the exit. It was 7:00 p.m., overcast, and pitch black. Driving up Moulton Hill I narrowly missed a kid walking (wearing only dark clothing) and another kid on a skateboard (at least he had fluorescent stripes on his garments). Without streetlights, I had to put the highbeams on. Once home, candles were lit, the kids had already ordered in their supper from the Grec, and Hubby and I made do with chickenless chicken burgers on the barbecue.

It�s amazing how dependent we are on electricity. He and I played a game of gin rummy by candlelight, then he lay down in the livingroom, immediately falling into a deep sleep, while I played a couple of different card games with Little Princess� BF. Little Princess did homework by candle power while we waited for the BF�s dad to come pick him up (his mom had called and instructed him not to bike home, as their part of town was also without power and it was extremely dark and dangerous for cyclists).

The power came back on around 10:00 p.m., five and-a-half hours after it went off. In the paper this morning there were photographs of huge trees downed by the storm, and on the radio I heard that there were parts of the province still without electricity.

I seem to have passed my illness on to Patsy, whom I telephoned regarding the missed Latin class. She handed out a passage from Livy on Wednesday, which they started translating in class and were instructed to work ahead on, and I fear that I will become terribly behind. She reassured me that it wouldn�t take that long to go over it, and we�ll get caught up before next Wednesday, which is when we do the reading. Mondays are devoted to grammar, and this one coming is devoted to a test on participles. We may use our dictionaries. Yee haw!

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