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

Polonius: What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words.

Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2005
9:44 p.m.
Last night as I was playing online literati with my friend Sugar (not her real name), my husband called me to come out onto the deck and observe an incredible meteorological phenomenon. There were a couple of towering cumulus clouds, west and south, intermittently being lit up from the inside like giant light bulbs. It was very cool. Between turns I kept running out to the back to see them until the wind blew them out of sight.

This morning I carried my portable hard drive to Hubby�s office and printed out the woodwinds there. The Camp Musical is on, and the place was starting to fill up with very small children carrying violin cases (very small violin cases) and chattering in French in the lobby. I remember Little Princess going to this very camp starting at age 5, and how she didn�t understand a word of what was said to her. One day, towards the end of the two weeks, Hubby came to pick her up to bring her home for supper and he found her sitting on the ground in the quad surrounded by a group of kids who seemed to be fascinated by her. She was chattering away, complete with hand motions, in French-accented gibberish. It was hilarious. By the next summer she already had the basics and thereafter was well on her way to fluency, as we had enrolled her in St-Antoine; but to her five-year-old experience, it was everyone else who was speaking nonsense.

I also drove out to Costco where I spent the equivalent of the annual budget of Outer Slobovia. One of the samples proffered, and which I could not resist buying, was chocolate-covered blueberries from the Saguenay/Lac-St-Jean region, two boxes joined together with shrink wrap. They were fantastic. We made an appreciable dent in them after supper.

I also picked up a cartridge for one of the ink-jet printers (matte black) and paid the registration for the Volvo (which is sporting a sporty A VENDRE sign in its rear window), stopped at the international food store where I purchased an enormous bag of zaatar spice (a blend of sumac, thyme and other stuff which has an incredible aroma) and some feta cheese, and arrived home where Buddy Boy helped me unload the car and put groceries away. He was awaiting the arrival of a friend of his (who did not disappoint), and said friend stayed for supper, making four (Little Princess deigned to join us, for a change, and Hubby had gone off to play doubles tennis).

As you can see, I�m just raring to go here to get to work on those French horn parts (not). I must confess that since I got back into the habit during our week away, all I want to do is read. In two and-a-half weeks I have read four complete books and several of my sci-fi magazines, and all I want to do is have my nose buried in some literature to the excusion of the rest of the world. I suppose it�s better than robbing banks or smoking crack, but I have work to do, damn it!

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