Take a deep breath, Harry

I’ve made the cranberry sauce for tomorrow, whew! At least something’s been done. Yesterday afternoon I was so overcome by adrenaline after seeing that nonsense on KBJR that I was too worked up to begin the slog reading through the Rice Report a second time. That’s really one of the most important things I have to do before Dec 2nd rolls around and losing one of my limited afternoons between now and then to shoddy reporting has done little for my peace of mind. The failure to get all the things done between now and then are the difference between a graceful landing of a goat on a mountainous ledge or a 5,000 foot plunge. The Goat in this case is the Duluth School Board. The 5,000 plunge is ten months of hell that could put the last six months to shame. This my anxiety.

I haven’t entered a thorough Harry’s Diary entry for a while so I’ll do that as my “deep breath.” I’ve got an hour and a half to attend to it then I’ll be picking up my grandsons from their schools for the night. Unless I use the hours after the ten O’clock news for blogging my poor readers will just have to wait for me to get around to chronicling all the silliness I alluded to in the last frenzied post.

But first me.

After putting Tuesday’s lone post on the hounds of hell to bed I went to our school board meeting at 4:30 that was closed due to the content – ongoing contract negotiations and potential property sales. We had a good and illuminating discussion behind the scenes which demonstrated that the seven of us (six – Bill Westholm couldn’t make it) can be rational when not clouded by distemper.

I mentioned that I had to head off right after we reconvened to an ecumenical Thanksgiving worship service because my church choir was one of about eight that would be singing. Judy Seliga-Punyko piped up to say that she was going to and asked which of the churches we were meeting at. Half an hour later we both got up to rehearse a Pete Seager song To My Old Brown Earth I’d never heard it before our own choir rehearsed it last Wednesday. I heard one fellow say he hated the Seager solo but the massed choirs that packed Pilgrim Congregational’s nave to the gills were wonderful. Ours was much more sonorous than this version I found on youtube.

I hadn’t seen Claudia all day because she was down in the Cities at the United Theological Seminary. She had mentioned that if she got back in time she might stop by to listen but I didn’t see her in the pews. But she was there. I found her as I filed out after the service and she said the music had been great including our rather reduced Glen Avon Prez choir which led off the singing. She was however hungry by eight, as was I, so we hurried up to Tavern on the Hill to answer that complaint.

When we got home there was a car in our driveway and I had to maneuver carefully to get past it and park in our garage. A couple of LSC fellows had been driving it till it pooped out by our alley as it chugged up 21st Ave. I was in a pretty God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman mood so I offered to give them a jump with my other car. (The one I parked was a hybrid and they are not meant for jumping) Nada. Their car had nothing so I invited them in to let my big Chevy pour electrons into their battery. I fixed them hot chocolate to bide our time before going out to see if their battery had enough oomph. A hours putzing around proved that the battery was not the problem and they called Triple A. Their ill luck held and the tow truck discovered it was broken when it tried to pick up their car. They had to wait another half hour before a replacement tow truck showed up.

That all led me to today to get some work done but that didn’t work out so well. We had turkey day shopping to do and some other miscellany to attend to. As I said, I got the cranberry sauce made and Claudia is working on the pumpkin bread now. In forty minutes we pick up the grand kids.

One more day to attend to Art’s persecution has just about gone down the drain. Oh well, Now its on to do that last post justice.

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