2008-09-12

It was incredibly humid today, but the promised rain did not materialize. After Morning Offering, Mick spent his early work hours at a customer’s house, coming closer to finishing a large gardening project there.

I worked a bit on the office back-up. Steve E, our B4 web guy, works at the Library of Congress, and he searched the Library to find our books. We were almost entirely unrepresented. So I wrote to Gary asking him to mount a project, when he has the time, of getting all our books catalogued by the LC. I believe it is a matter of filling out a long form for each of the books being presented for cataloguing and sending the forms in along with two copies of the books.

Since I had all of Dana Redfield’s materials out, looking for a good dedication for The Alphabet Mosaics in her style – she had not left me with that page filled in – I was able to write Elihu E, who had written some time ago to ask about her other unpublished manuscript. He ran across quotations from it as he included an article I wrote about Dana in his periodical, Both Sides Now. Dana had titled it All My Days are Shadows of Tomorrow: An Autobiography. It is a handsome, generous manuscript and I look forward to editing it and getting it out at least on the web some day. For now, I am focusing on The Alphabet Mosaics.

Then I settled down with the transcript from Aaron T of The Journey, one of Tommy Rueckert’s and my song and story tapes. However I could not remember the words to the songs I wrote so long ago, and wrote to Tommy to ask him for a song sheet. At one point he made sheets of all the lyrics. Later in the day he confirmed that he still had some and would send me a copy. This is great news!

I am glad to recover this “lost” creative work of mine. Unlike my other two song-and-story creations, Jenny and This is the Day, the recording that we have been selling has only the songs. This is due to the fact that the original tape was recorded in a church basement with only one take per song allowed because of a time shortage. It came out badly, both the guitar and the singing often hitting sour notes. So we re-recorded the songs only in a studio and that’s what people can buy on our site. Now the story together with the songs’ lyrics will be available in text version in our on-line library. IF I can get those lyrics!

I also asked Gary to bring a tape recorder up here along with the original tape so that I could have a listen and perhaps fill in some blanks in the lyrics.

Doris S, our trust officer at Glenview, wrote me with a request from her neighbor, who wants to have Mick do some yard work for her. I forwarded the request on to Mick along with a recommendation that he say yes! Dorita has been a great help to us for lo! these 24 years.

And lastly before lunch, I wrote to Ian agreeing with him that we probably could manage the change-over of three items from the archive site to the new B4 site, when it launches, without a telephone conference. I forwarded to him the admirably succinct and clear run-down I’d received from Gary on this subject and if it looks good to Ian, we’re all set.

Then I came downstairs for Mel’s birthday lunch, which we ordered in from The Cheddar Box Restaurant. We had homemade soup and sandwiches and tiny, delicious crab cakes. Then Melissa opened her presents. We had gotten practical things for her, since she is in need of them – jeans and tops, good boot socks and new steel-toed boots, rain gear and a straw cowgirl hat, plus a tool belt and some needed tools. She loved everything, thank heavens, and only one item did not fit – a pair of casual shoes to replace her moccasins, which are in shreds after long, hard use on the land.

Mel had brought a bunch of cherry tomatoes down from Avalon as well as a mess of cantaloupe. She spent her afternoon making cherry tomato soup and freezer-canning the cantaloupe. It will be good to be able to take out the sweet melon this winter and enjoy it, already cut up and ready to eat. And now we know what Avalon will grow with no irrigating or watering: cherry tomatoes and cantaloupe!

I spent the afternoon working on The Alphabet Mosaics. The work is going slowly, as Dana wrote in a style which varies on either side of the line of making linear sense and whole sentences. When I did not grasp what she was saying after the first three read-throughs of a sentence, I would stop and bring the sentence back into the folds of English usage – but, hopefully, with the least possible change wrought. I am probably close to half done with this introductory text of hers now.

Mick and I bathed and then had a lovely date before rejoining Mel and Gary, who had spent his day at the L/L Research helm, for dinner and the birthday cake. Mick offered the closing prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight.