I had a meeting with a student today who reminded me that I had hoped to talk more about women musicians and composers than I have actually done. I think I�ll be talking about that in class on Wednesday. The Beethoven class went well, I think. Still, it was good to be reminded that even when things are going well, there is more to be done. I caved on the syllabus�I freely admit it. It is much harder to include women than not to. There are few recordings and scores available. The information is harder to come by � there is nothing in the textbook of course. But of course that will not change if the courses don�t change. It�s a catch 22.

While I was working in my office during my office hours, someone was playing the Uillean pipes down the hall. I wished I�d had my fiddle. I�d have barged in and demanded a seisiun. Although I�m generally not fond of bagpipes in such close proximity to my office (unless I get to play along), it assisted greatly in the effort to remove Beethoven�s Fifth from autorepeat in my brain� no mean feat. I�m now trying to gear up to talk about program music. I�m not excited about it, but it�s the last lecture on stuff I don�t care much about. Next week we start the 20th century and my area of expertise. It will be nice to finish off the course with the field I know best.

AJ and my husband have taken to picking me up from the train. They meet me in front of the local butcher shop where they can wait on a bench under an awning without getting too close to the train (�I don�t like the locomotive. It�s too noisy.�) and out of the crazy after-work traffic. I always come around the train station and wave at AJ and he waves back. After I cross the street, he comes tearing down the sidewalk with a huge grin on his face until he barrels into my knees, arms wrapped tightly around my legs. It�s a pretty nice way to come home.

We sat down to dinner together when AJ spotted a rainbow in the sky and we all ran out on the deck to watch. It was perfect and bright, all the colors stretched across the sky in a ribbon. Now the sun has set and the frogs are singing in the dark. It feels like summer.

0 people said it like they meant it