old books, blackberries, and basketball

Now Playing: (how did you know?) "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" soundtrack by Harry Gregson-Williams. Track 1, "The Blitz, 1940". Yes, I do listen to other music--lots of other music! Yesterday it was all three LOTR soundtracks and Beethoven's 3rd symphony.

My mother seems to think I'm getting bored with this blog. I'm not. It's just been a dreadfully busy week. Midterms are coming up, so I've got lots of studying to do, papers to write, etc.

Yesterday I ate breakfast with Rachel. She's been reading a book written by an economist who thinks that private property began in tribal societies with wars over women: one tribe would steal the other tribe's women, and so on, and whoever had the most women was the most courageous. Gradually it became not only the women but also the things they made. She and I both thought this was rather ridiculous. Her economics professor believes that people should stop working to let technology do the job, and that there should be a redistribution of wealth--another rather peculiar proposition, as it leaves out a great deal of understanding of human nature (our desire to work as being a good thing; our greed).

This morning in MBW we went on a "field trip" to the top of the library to visit Special Collections. The Special Collections head is a plump, sleepy man who has pale blue eyes behind thick glasses, and a stringy salt-and-pepper ponytail. He briefly walked us through the collections on display in the reading room. He asked us if we had any questions, sighing noisily when we didn't. I finally plucked up courage to ask about finding the book-of-hours I'd seen last semester in MBW when Dr. S brought us up here. I could feel the other five students (out of a class of 22, only 6 people showed up!) groaning with impatience as the little man walked me through the computer system--it was actually quite helpful for finding rare books for which I don't remember the titles. He asked me if I wanted to see it. I just grinned and blushed sheepishly. "You sure?" he asked, blinking like a hedgehog behind his glasses.

In archaeology, the professor marched in with his textbook in hand. "Do you all want a quiz?" he asked the class. "No!" everyone said. "Ok! We won't have one! See, this is a democratic class," he replied, and everyone laughed.

After archaeology, I hurried back to my dorm, packed up, and dashed down to meet my mother who came to pick me up just after eleven o'clock. On the way home we passed some horrible burned places where the black was like sickening leprosy under scorched grass. As we pulled into the driveway at home, Brother2 was shooting baskets. He grinned at me as I made faces at him through the car window. We were home in time for lunch.

After lunch, Daisy and my mother went to their Irish dance class. I stayed home to finish writing journal entries and to work on the Honors project. Daisy left directly after dance class to drive down to Oklahoma City for a basketball game. She rode with a family on the team. The rest of us waited to go down to the game until my father finished his committee meeting, which ran until five thirty. We made our suppers, then picked him up on campus. As we drove out of town, I saw half-a-dozen deer grazing on the edge of a field, like puffs of goldenrod pollen caught in blue evening shadow.

We listened to the "Two Towers" soundtrack on the drive as we ate our supper in the car. I munched a chewy bagel, spread thickly with crunch-sweet blackberry jam. We arrived at the gym in time for the second half of the girls' basketball game. My father sat next to me and excitedly watched the game, sometimes shouting directions to the girls. He winced when Meri took a long jump shot, but she made it. Our girls' team won, 37-33.

After the girls' game, Meri sat beside me on the bleachers. We talked all through the boys' game about our small affairs: the car wreck Meri was in this week, our school, professors, "Cinderella Man", Charles Dickens, Dorothy Sayers. Meri described giving blood today, and I told her about the time when Danielle tried to give blood but got horribly bruised because for some reason they couldn't get anything out of her though she tried desperately. Meri said that her English composition teacher told their class not to read poetry because "it will turn your brain to mush". I laughed at that. "If you read the sort of poetry he's probably thinking of, it would!" and I complained about the Romantics.

We watched the game, cheering Josh and David and Brother1 on. Brother1 grabbed a steal and made a great lay-up. Meri squealed, "Yay! He's my brother!" then looked at me, and we both giggled. Our boys' team won, 57-34.

On the drive home, we listened to one of the new "Father Gilbert" mysteries. All of us except Brother1 showered and went to bed. Brother1 managed to convince my father to let him go out and work on a robot that he's preparing for a competition. He was gone till about one o'clock in the morning.