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

Brightly dawns Brumalia Eve.

Friday, Dec. 24, 2004
10:35 a.m.
It is Brumalia Eve. The FedEx lady arrived this morning with the computer and I offered her the clementine in my hand, as I was just about to peel it for my breakfast, but she declined. Soon I must venture outside and check for the mail delivery. Hopefully Buddy Boy�s T-shirts have arrived.

Little Princess� Festivus/Christmas party was a great success. Most of the members of her band plus a few came over; they played TriviaI Pursuit for a while, then retired to the basement to watch a Japanese movie that proved to be truly terrible. My buddy Chris from writing group who is now playing with the band was also here for a short while. He left soon after the movie began since he had to work today and it was a good excuse to stop watching it. The other Chris also gave up on it and holed himself up with our piano, making his own entertainment.

I eventually went to bed and fortunately fell asleep in fairly short order (which is tr�s unusual for me, especially considering there was a houseful of young adults not being too careful of their volume levels), so I totally missed them ordering in pizza and other fun stuff. Luckily, there was not that much of a mess to greet my eyes this morning, just a sticky kitchen table and lots of empty beer bottles, most of them already in the box they came in.

The music copying goes quickly when it�s just regular notes. However, the most recent page I�m working on has suspicious-looking squiggles in the string parts and, considering I started copying at the top with the winds, I have not yet attempted to concoct some sort of graphic for them. About halfway down the page, somewhere around the timpani, Hubby invited me downstairs for a glass of wine. Hmm, a choice between a glass of red wine or inventing a graphic for string squiggles, what will it be?

With the arrival of this new computer I must really do some soul searching and ask myself if I want to upgrade Finale and move over to a faster processor. The temptation is great, let me tell you, but the idea of change is anathema to me. I do not know what to do. I shall at least finish this current project on the Quadra. The problem with opening old files in new versions of Finale is that the formatting gets totally screwed up. I have had to reformat whole pieces when saving them as new files, a job that makes no sense, considering I spent so many hours getting it just right the first time around. I will have to give this matter more thought.

In the meantime, I have a lovely photograph which my daughter�s friend Sam took that day when it was -26�C of the mist rising from the river.



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