Today is a my twelve month check up with my eye guy, the surgeon who performed the surgery to reattach my retina. It’s in Grand Rapids at 8:30 AM so I am planning to leave the house around 7:30 to get there.

So I got up early so I could still have my morning. I noticed that Edison was sitting in an odd place on my electric piano. Then I noticed there was a bat flying around the room. I decided to go ahead and make coffee and then deal with it. I put the water on, cleaned the coffee pot. Then I decided to try to usher the bat outside. The tricky part is not allowing my irrational fear of it to get the better of me. This morning I managed to do that.

Barb decided to spend the night so I quietly closed her door and began trying to cut off areas where the bat could fly. Finally I got him in the front closet area where I bravely (!) used the broom and dustpan to gently grab him and throw him outside.

This is satisfying to me because the janitor at church will simply wait for the bat to land then kills it with a hammer. I prefer not hurt it if i can.

I finished the first volume of Atwood’s trilogy, Oryx and Crake. I had forgotten enough of it that it was still engaging the second time as well noticing things that I might have missed the first time. Like Atwood’s wry sense of humor which is pretty subtle.

She describes Jimmy/Snowman as being comforted when he silently lists off words that have been forgotten. He is remembering them consciously since he thinks he might be the last homo sapiens sapiens alive.

Atwood herself uses words in her prose that I didn’t recognize. Like helot (Greek class of slaves that were half way between ordinary slaves and free citizens).

Atwood herself is pleasantly sometimes drunk with language. Jimmy’s lists of words are often related to the story she is telling even though he is supposedly savoring these words as a form of solitary comfort.

I started The Year of the Flood by Atwood which is volume 2. It too seems pretty familiar.

Yesterday was a pretty challenging music day at church. I have been assiduously preparing a piano piece and an organ piece by Mendelssohn to match the duet the singers asked if they could sing at Eucharist. Both keyboard pieces were a bit of a stretch for me. I won’t say that I “nailed” them a hundred per cent. But I did play them pretty well and as well as could be expected with a few weeks prep.

I have had two full music weekends in a row. Last weekend I rehearsed and performed with the Holland Symphony (plus church). This past weekend I had a huge funeral and a wedding (plus church). After my doctor appointment in Grand Rapids today I will probably try to take the rest of the day off.