As a matter of fact, I do know it's Christmas...

Racing down to the wire now. It is, as elder daughter points out, Christmas Eve's Eve. I've written my "aunt" letters for our surviving elderly aunts who are also non-computerized and thus need updating the old-fashioned way.

Of course, I keep running into pleasant distractions. Here's a gem. Theatre companies of (mostly) musicals in London, New York, Sweden, and Germany tear the lid off the old Bandaid classic "Do They Know It's Christmas?" for Water Aid.

Among the famous faces is none other than David Tennant, clad in a tacky Christmas sweater coveted by elder daughter (where oh where did you get it, DT?), and backed by the trio that sings the beautiful music in the Royal Shakespeare Company's current production of Richard II (hence Mr Tennant's prodigious plait).

Now I must knuckle down to the remaining Christmas cards. They'll be late, but after all, there are twelve days of Christmas….

Lost in translation

I'm trying to remember the last time I had a really pleasant dream.  The only dreams I have these days are ones in which I'm failing to do something.  Failing to care for my children properly (they are usually much younger and I'm left them somewhere), or failing to prepare (I'm teaching without a lesson plan or have that old chestnut about trying to find the examination room for a course I've neglected to attend all year).

Then there's my real life where my dreams come true.  Not in Hollywood style. Younger daughter has summatives due.  For you non-Ontarians, those are the term end class projects and reports due at the end of the semester, in January and June.  Younger daughter being autistic with big-time memory issues, this means heavy parental involvement, mainly to understand what is required so we can help her get the task in manageable pieces.  And don't get me started on exams. I fail (there's that word again) to see how exams benefit anyone, much less someone who often can't quite remember what has happened during the day.

I dash out into the mildly muggy evening because there's yet another deadline I'm not meeting:  getting the Accent Snob out for his walk before the rain gets earnest.  It's still just spitting when I spot a lady in a beautiful tunic with a kind of paisley design down the centre.
"What a beautiful top!" I exclaim.
She shrugs helplessly. "I'm afraid I don't speak English.  Just French."
I rein the dog in, thinking, For Pete's sake, I should be able to manage this.  But the words seem to skid away like scraps of paper in a wind.  This is what younger daughter's life is every day.
"Uh, blouson?" I stammer.  She is kind enough to nod.  "C'est très belle..."
"Merci," she smiles, probably figuring I'll understand that much.

It's spitting a bit more now.  Chemise? I'm thinking.  And a "blouson" would be "beau" anyway, wouldn't it?

The Accent Snob finally accomplishes what we've set out for and my blouson/chemise is only slightly spotted with raindrops when we return.

The reason I've failed to get out earlier is that a) we're ploughing ahead with bite-sized piece of exam review while plotting how to approach the teacher diplomatically; and b)  I've been showing younger daughter some of what she missed of last night's Tonys, and re-showing the Resident Fan Boy the big opening number which was so big, so fast, and so breath-taking that it requires several re-viewings just to get all the jokes.

A solid girl like me

We're running into a week of hot days for Victoria. "Hot" in Victoria means high twenties (Celsius) which means upper to mid-thirties here in Saanich. I struggled to somehow get the large front yard and simply enormous backyard adequately watered, as we'll be out tomorrow evening watching The Taming of the Shrew on the Camosun College campus (where we'll probably be cold). Inside, younger daughter was delighting to the 1965 television version of Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella which features one of the best songs ever written about falling in love ("Ten Minutes Ago"); one of the truest songs about longing ("Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful") and one of the most painfully funny songs about how men unoriginally keep falling for the pretty girls ("Stepsisters' Lament"). With all that damn watering, I barely have enough time to post something before midnight PDT, so I'm posting the 1957 version of the last song with Alice Ghostly and Kaye Ballard: