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December 28, 2007

Ack! I leave in 4 days!

Christmas was great. I seem to have gotten over my early-life "O Holy Night" trauma finally (that was 9th grade, by the way). I do like the texts for the Mass of Christmas Day a lot. There was more loot than I'd asked for, but no dress shirts, which was an explicit request. With some luck I won't wear a button down shirt and tie in a classroom for some time, so I can cruise on the current backlog. The one tie I got (thanks, Patrick!) is interesting and, I think, wearable with the tweed jacket I'm taking to Rome. Of course, I intend to buy ties there!

Mother and I ran down to Birmingham to see the big show of stuff from Pompeii - bound for Houston, next. If you're in range you ought to go! It's great!

Of course, being the happy South and having two of the ingredients for the game satisfied (mid-South, college-educated) we had not one but two small-world incidents in the museum restaurant.* As we were finishing our meal one of my favorites of my father's former colleagues came in with his wife and mother. We went over to say howdy to them, and one of mother's first cousins walked over. Cousin Julius at least has the excuse of living in Birmingham, but we certainly hadn't planned to run into him Wednesday!

My current traumas?

1. Not all the students who are not taking the group flight have told us when they intend to arrive. Oh, well - it was made clear to them from the get go that if they can't meet us at the airport they are responsible for their own ground transfer to the first hotel. Still, in loco parentis and all, one worries.

2. Then, in the midst of corresponding with one of the ones who had until then not told us when she intended to arrive, I find out that there is a major disagreement between what the HANDBOOK gives as the arrival time and what everyone seems to think as the arrival time for the group flight. I'm confused. I'm sure it will work out, but one worries.

3. I'm still working on reconstructing a book of readings which I foolishly misremembered as being all neat and pretty .doc files ready to print. No such luck.

So - it'll get done, I'll get away, but it's not going to be pretty.

*some of my long-term readers may remember the Small World party game (though I used to play it in bars and hotel lobbies in the Atlanta of my youth). Name 3-4 characteristics, and if the crowd has them in common I will know someone or someone's college roommate or someone's sibling. Mine used to be Southern, private high school or college, Presbyterian or Episcopalian. That usually did it. Mr. Barrow isn't a Southerner, but he's lived in Chattanooga 35 years or so. Southern and the kind of people who go to museums worked Wednesday, and I bet if I'd asked around we would have found some more remote hits. What are your 3 or 4?

Posted by CrankyProfessor at December 28, 2007 1:31 PM