Rushed home and started pulling together my fragmented notes. Wrote up a mediocre and much-too-long piece and sent it off via email for the K.'s to check for errors.
Changed and went to the open board meeting at 2:00. I usually don't attend, but I thought Jim N. might be pushing his Wounded Warrior campaign and I wanted to be the anti-voice. Turns out he didn't open his trap, but I stayed anyway.
"Our veterans" (not my veterans) had been asked to assemble after the meeting to have their picture taken for the May (Memorial Day, doncha know?) Breeze cover. I didn't, of course, bring up this odious--as well as trite--idea, nor did I approve it, but I didn't bother to protest when it was brought up last month.
Left to go buy oranges at Acme, then went back to attend a Breeze editorial meeting with my fellow staff. We discussed ideas, enjoyed coffee and homemade cookies, courtesy of Lee S., and had a good session.
It was close to 5:00 after and I was absolutely desperate for something to listen to in the car (for months, I had taken a tape recorder and rehearsed my lines for Hedda), so I drove up to the Stafford Library to get some DVDs.
Stopped first at B.J.'s for oranges and tofu, then searched out Aline at the library. She was working until 6:00 and I stayed to take her home in the steady rain.
I walked in close to 7:00, then had to listen to a lo-o-o-ng message--so long it was continued after the time on the machine ran out--from Maureen, who had all kinds of changes and corrections for the Breeze article.
I called her and was subjected to talkyedy-talk-talk, rapidly rapt, because after all, this was about her and there's nothing more important than her, even though she's a profoundly mundane, even boring, housewife in suburban New Jersey who never had an original thought in her head and thinks the sun rises and sets with Pope What-His-Name in the Vatican.
Well, that's mean, she's really not that bad, I guess, but I was frazzled, mostly because I had made the changes on Word and they didn't "save," although I had hit "enable editing." Just as I was crying with frustration--by this time, it was after 7:00 and I had had no dinner--my sainted son from Tokyo Skyped me to save the day. He not only retrieved the changes, but explained that I was "saving" all wrong and was just duplicating the article (I'm still not sure why).
He walked me through it and I wrote the instructions down and will henceforth follow them. Even beyond that, he allowed me to see and interact with the adorable little jumping jack, who will soon, I know, be crawling, then walking, then who knows what?
Finally sent off the corrected piece, made my popcorn, watched a few minutes of television--the cultural level of which was actually frightening-and finally fell into bed.
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