My organ was fixed yesterday by the time I arrived mid-morning. I practiced but not before nailing down a final list of choral pieces to learn and perform between now and Advent II (Dec 6).

Eileen took advantage of the cooler weather and made Sweet and Sour Pickles. We both love these. I regularly buy them at the grocery store. But there’s nothing like home made food. She was surprised to discover that we still had one jar from her canning last year.

You’ll notice the window is closed. It was cool yesterday and is still very cool this morning so we closed the windows.

I gave my student his piano lesson yesterday. I keep trying to disabuse him of his sheepishness about wanting to learn some Liszt. We figured out that he is four years younger than my Mom. Great guy. I stopped at the bank on the way home and cashed the check so Eileen could have cash for the Farmers Market if she goes today.

I am monitoring our bank account online daily. I wonder if I should cease mentioning our money problems since Sarah the daughter confessed that she has been using my Netflix logon and offered to buy her own subscription and share her logon with us. I demurred. Financial stuff between family is not a good idea unless absolutely necessary.

I carefully refrain from talking to Mom about our financial situation. I know she will tell me to take money out of her account to help us, but I’m dead set against doing stuff like that.

Eileen pointed out that she is in her second year of retirement and that we seem to have enough money if we can just manage it properly.

I share this sentiment. I have to force myself to think like a grown up since I think the whole idea of life as an economic venture has more false about it than true. At least for me.

I continue to spend copious amounts of time playing carefully through Schumann. For some reason this really works for me right now.

I finished Chapter Six of Finnegans Wake this morning. This is taking more time since I am reading larger chunks and then cross referring between the text and my resource books. It’s fun. I try to keep up reading books I have checked out of the library. I’m almost done with Hindmarsh’s book on Evangelical Conversion Narratives.

Hindmarsh account of narratives written in the 18th century about people struggling with their faith outside of the Anglican and other liturgical churches is fascinating. I’m toying with doing further reading about this topic. William James has a chapter on conversion in his Varieties of Religious Experience.

I’m also working on Give Us the Ballot by Ari Berman. This work about the recent struggle to make sure black people can vote is riveting. I’m up to the 90s now and still very engaged. I’ve renewed the book once and that’s all one can do at the public library. I’m hoping to finish it so I don’t have to return it and check it out a third time.

I’m also dipping into poetry books I checked out or interlibrary loaned. I’m enjoying Ron Padgett and Cynthia MacDonald’s work. Devin Johnston left me a bit cold, so I’ve stopped reading him. I finished The Lunatic by Charles Simic. It had some good poems in it.

I am also enjoying Essays at Eighty by Donald Hall. I mentioned it to my student, Rudy, yesterday and he was very interested and asked me to email him a link.

Lower Blood Pressure Guidelines Could Be ‘Lifesaving,’ Federal Study Says – NYT

You might’ve seen this news story. I find it tremendously discouraging since I’m trying to keep my own blood pressure below 140/90. It does sometimes fall down into the new low range. This morning it was 127/105 which I think is pretty good but is still above the new guidelines. I don’t know what to make of a high diastolic number like 105. My doctor doesn’t seem too worried about that number.

A Stolen Car Found, With the Help of Cold War Technology – The New York Times

Quick thinking policeman installs a phone app on his phone and finds a stolen car and phone. This article also gives some history of how GPS was developed. Cool beans.