My Week So Far

July 20

Do I start with Sunday or Monday? I think Monday, although Monday's adventure really started on Sunday as you will see. At 7 A.M. there was a meeting at the prestigious Marietta Johnson School of Organic Education in Fairhope of civic and school leaders who came to hear Medard Gabel, protègé or colleague of Buckminster Fuller talk about how to plan to improve the city and the school. The day before I had picked Mr. Gabel up at the airport in Pensacola -- about an hour's drive -- and taken him to dinner.

This auspicious event, and dinner as well, was paid for as a donation to the school from an anonymous benefactor who wants to see the school take a forward-thinking direction for the future. I'm all for that.

I hit it off well with Medard Gabel, and must say he handled the meeting well, pulling together a presentation with not much pre-information and only a few hours to prepare. Over 25 people participated, and we served coffee, pastry and fruit. The city people, including the mayor, have all expressed admiration and thanks for a productive morning. It was good public relations for the school and some specifics may come from it as we position ourselves as the school for a "global community," a point on which Buckminster Fuller's and Marietta Johnson's philosophies merge.

At 4 P.M. I had to drive Mr. Gabel back to the airport, and the difficult part was staying awake on the return trip. It's a dull, straight shot back on the Interstate, and I was sleep deprived, as sleep is never easy for me these days, especially when there's a little adrenaline in the system from the culmination of a series of events being planned, plans being changed, etc. The night before a big day is about to arrive I'm pretty much high as a kite. And not necessarily in a good way. Be that as it may -- and don't you love people who say "be that as it may"? -- you may have noticed that I survived the ride home and lived to blog another day.

Tuesday was fallout from Monday, with a little more sleep to get me through. Picking up pieces and working out where to take the new energy we all got from Mr. Gabel. One place I took it was shopping, which in Fairhope is an adventure. I have blogged about being the emissary from Old Fairhope, who would have picked up a pair of jeans at Wilkins, to the new Fairhope, who strolls into the chic little boutique for rich women who wear large sizes. They are having a sale now, but the items I want are not marked down. I bought a handbag. (I don't want you to get the impression that I'm a large size woman; I wear the smallest of the large sizes. Sometimes the clothes I buy are on the Petite rack, marked XL. Figure that one out.)

Yesterday I wrote a blog post that pulled a few lurkers out of the shadows, but all but one had posted comments before. One I had picked up from Justin's blog when I tried to make a play on words from the old actor's quote. As he lay dying, someone said to the old guy, "I know this is hard..." and he said, "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard." Bert Bananas commented one day on Justin's blog with a pun, and, trying to create a quip, I said, "Puns are easy; irony is hard," not thinking that the reference did not make up for the rudeness in this post-Algonquin world. Bert took offense and has been showing up here ever since, trying to get my goat and usually succeeding. But it's nice to have the traffic. This is the world of cyberspace -- I wonder if Bucky Fuller would approve.

Tonight will be a meeting of the board of managers of the school, so today will be occupied with preparations for that. As for now I'll go back to bed and start over. This melatonin regimen is not working, and I think I know why. Will write more about that when I get it worked out. But at the moment, almost everything else is working out.