Well at least for the time being.
I sent the final edits of the 12th Joanne Kilbourn novel, “The Nesting Dolls” off to the publisher today. We had a very short turn-around time, so for the past four days I’ve been putting in the kind of hours I haven’t put in since graduate school. Anyway, “The Nesting Dolls” is now at the printers. By an act of cosmic synchronicity, Spring has finally decided to wrap her benevolent arms around Regina, so the sun in shining; the air is soft; the birds are singing and, except for a speech I have to give tomorrow night, I am without a deadline. Good times!
In fact, despite the looming manuscript, we had good times over the weekend. Thursday, dear friends and neighbours invited us for a lunch of (among other delicacies) pepperoni rolls – a rib-sticker known only to those who live in Fairmont, West Virginia, birthplace of our host. In addition to being really tasty, Pepperoni rolls have an intriguing history. Fairmont WV was an Italian-settled community, and pepperoni rolls were a favorite of miners who could carry them underground without fear of spoilage and eat them with little mess.
Saturday afternoon we went to the Met: Live in HD production of Hamlet. Simon Keenlyside (Hamlet) was amazing. The scene in which the players enact “the Murder of Gonzago” to prompt a confession from Claudius and Gertrude was brilliant. Act II ends with Hamlet pouring suspiciously blood-red wine over everything, including his hair and eyes. Good stuff! We went to the opera with an actor friend who told us that the knife the Met’s Ophelia uses to cut her breast and slit her wrists was designed for the first production of “Sweeney Todd”. Saturday night, more blood – we watched the 80’s teen revenge movie “Heathers” with our grand-daughters. We loved it. Our son and his girlfriend, Ellen, loved it, but the grand-daughters were not smitten. They did however, find the 80’s hairstyles and fashion hilarious – as indeed they were.
Sunday was Palm Sunday – one of my favourite Sundays in the church year. Our oldest grand-daughter, Madeleine, was born on Palm Sunday 12 years ago. Yesterday she was the crucifer at the 10:30 service. One of the junior servers manage to bring the taper too close to her lovely blonde hair – there was brief flare up, and the unmistakable smell of singed hair floated over the congregation. The junior server was fine. Our other grand-daughter loaned her a scrunchy to pull the rest of her lovely hair out of harm’s way and we all went back to waving palms and singing “Hosannah”. On occasion, there is real drama in being Anglican.