Costumes

Young Frank McCourt (being told that his baby brother was going to be christened Alphonsus): "That's a stupid name.  It isn't even Irish"--Angela's Ashes 

(He got slapped and missed out on the christening.)

This morning I went to the Bickford Centre and helped them unload the costumes for the opera. (I also tried on both my costumes.  Our male gypsy costumes for Carmen include a serape-type thing you drape over your shoulder--I wonder if it'll keep falling off unless you pin it or something.) I went to Beatrice and the other girls in the women's dressing room to tell her, "The male costumes are all hung," and couldn't resist adding "...and well hung too!" (That got a groan...)

Yesterday I attended John Snow's book club in his apartment building on Adelaide Street, where we discussed Anita Brookner's Hotel du Lac. (Years ago Moira called her Anita Droopner!) I didn't have much to add, however, since I didn't have time to read the book. Getting there in the snowy weather was an adventure in itself.

When John visited a week ago he spent half the visit trying to fix my new printer.  Then Donald visited yesterday and spent a lot of time on it too. It reminded me of a time about thirty years ago when Donald was visiting the family in Sackville, but our new Atari 2600 computer was on the blink and I had a college paper to print out, so he spent most of the visit working on our machine!

As it is, it looks like we'll have to return or exchange the machine.  This time Father and I will carry it back together!

Just read the part of Angela's Ashes where his father went off to work in the factories of wartime England but never sent any money home, so his mother had to go apply for relief to two officials who made the experience even more humiliating than it had to be. Limerick may be a city, but it definitely reminds me of a small town!

The cable signal finally came back so we're watching The Sopranos again. (I'm an episode ahead of the others.)