Wednesday

There's steady rain falling outside. That's a sound we didn't hear for many months. Philip's practicing his trumpet downstairs. And that's a sound we haven't heard enough of, considering we're paying for weekly lessons. The more fun that boy has, the less he plays his trumpet.

My try at grading only at school is going swimmingly thus far. A little light reading of very familiar literature in the evenings, and I'm done. Right now we're slogging through: essay writing, theses, outlines & works cited pages, early American short stories, and Sophocles. And sonnet format. I have one new student, frustrated and disruptive, who disturbs my first block class. Otherwise my teaching is going smoothly this semester.

I'm enjoying reading MFK Fisher again. She's one of my favorite modern writers. I could see her moving eventually into the ranks of the much-read, anthologized & dissected writers. She has a perfectly smooth, natural style. Her book of short stories (some autobiographical) called "Sister Age" is very nice. They are the kind of stories that haunt me long afterward. One, about a trip she and her daughters took to a remote French village high in the mountains, beckons me back to it every few years, and I cannot resist.

Choir practice tonight. Adam and I will take a much needed date on Friday evening. On Sunday I plan to visit my parents with Julia overnight, since I haven't been there since Christmas.