Should this all become a TV soap?

Yet another exhausting day. BUT! there were good bits, both yesterday and today. I went to my Italian class, having missed the first one last week.

We meet in a cafe, as the class at the community college was cancelled prematurely a couple of years ago, and some of the students wanted to continue with our excellent teacher Barbara. We made private arrangements with her. We found a cafe which was happy for us to meet there once a week, and we made sure we had a late breakfast there, so the cafe made money out of us. We have become quite close, in varying ways, and helped our teacher when she had a problem with getting her daughter's passport.

I had persuaded my friend Nora to join the class. She and I met on a jury, which lasted almost seven weeks before we were discharged because we could not agree on a verdict. (On the third trial the defendant was convicted of murder.) We, including her husband,  have become firm friends and they have come over to help with my occasional computer crises. Nora can always think of a topic to write about, whereas I agonise and always wind up doing it at the last minute.

I did not get to the first class, because of expecting Dr P to be moved to the respite care nursing home, but I got there yesterday. We are meeting at a new cafe, as the other one is in a building to be demolished shortly. There is a new class member, and as reasonably advanced students of Italian are not all that numerous, we get to know each other.

Naturally I had much debriefing to do, and it was good to have all their support and sympathy, especially when I spat bile about the WSDs.

This morning there was the other Italian class, and I was supposed to summarise and comment on Cantos 1 and 2 of Dante's Inferno.  Another friend offered to do these for me, but we compromised by my doing Canto 1 and with her doing Canto 2 (and 3 and 4). As all my activities are done intermittently and on the run, it took until late at night. I went to choir and left at supper time, thinking to get home early, but due to roadworks the trip took twice as long as usual. I managed to produce a piece I was pleased with, and my kind friend did wonders with her three Cantos - she was a professor of literature and totally erudite and wonderful, with the kindest of hearts. I love her.

I wrote my piece on my old computer, which has a CD-Rom of English and Italian loaded on it. I cannot get the new computer to accept this CD-Rom, and have not been able to start my computer classes at the Apple Store in the city. Every so often the old computer dies, and its logic board has been repaired twice. I thought it had died again the other night, but I think I must have switched it off.

When I returned to the new computer, the mouse/mice totally died, so there I was, unable to execute a single command. Oh horror! I switched the mouses/mice around, replaced the batteries, tried to reconnect, put all the plugs into different USB ports, all to no avail. Finally I resorted to the standby technique of switching the computer off and then back on, and an Apple mouse was finally recognised. Why does switching on and off work??? I do not understand.

The new and you-beaut Magic Mouse remains totally and resolutely useless. I was given to understand that if I switched it on (having been shown how to switch it on) and stroked and patted it a trifle All Would Be Well. After the Italian class I bought an ordinary wireless mouse and it works, praise be given! The stroked Magic Mouse remains totally frigid, and it is time I went and did some classes - which I have not been able to do, what with it being impossible to leave Dr P alone in the house).

After the art history lecture I caught the bus home, and then drove to the nursing home, where I found Dr P looking glum and lugubrious. I had an email from Vixen telling me to bring a radio for Dr P (there have been radios, with headphones, there all week which he has not wanted to use.) She also suggested the old TV be taken across to the home for him. This is a really stupid idea: it is large, too large for the room, it is a cathode ray tube TV, and it would not have digital channels.  I replied saying all of this, and that I had already obtained quotes and made delivery arrangements. She also suggested his old computer be brought to him so he could play his card games on it. It is about nine months since he stopped playing these games, as his mind cannot think them through any more. I could just imagine his rather small room cluttered up with large TV and very elderly computer.....Good one, Vixen!

He is still carrying on about how I just want to make changes for change's sake. I did my best to soothe him, saying if he did not want to move, he would not be made to do so. All the while a woman with dementia was screaming. He did not like the noise. Had he gone to the other nursing home, he would not have been in a secure dementia ward, and would have been mixing with people less seriously afflicted, but he is no longer capable of understanding this. He likes to play the blame game.

I told him he should have a TV in his room, and that I would buy one and have it delivered. Shortly afterwards Vixen arrived, and despite the email and my reply, brought with her a large ghetto blaster.

Some time after I arrived home another Vixen email appeared, copied to her sisters Jinx, Junx, and Kinx, saying the staff 'kept asking her' why he did not have a TV, and suggesting he have one forthwith. I replied that I had already told him I would get one, which was probably why he responded positively to the idea, but that evidently he had forgotten the conversation.

She makes my blood boil, makes me spit chips, infuriates me, drives me crazy, and I believe she is trying to make it appear that she is the one doing everything and that I need to be pushed and goaded into action. Funny that the staff have not been asking me why he does not have a TV! Who can you believe?

I must stay calm, and have another glass of wine. Tonight I made some pesto and actually had an evening meal. And it was good. Now I am listening to glorious Renaissance choral music, including a piece by Victoria, Ne timeas, Maria, which our choir will perform at our next concert.

Music has charms to soothe a savage breast.

I just looked this up, to make sure I got it right, and found out, inter alia, that the words for the song The Lost Chord, by Arthur Sullivan, were actually written by John Keats, in The Eve of St Agnes. I never knew that! You live and learn. It is never too late, and my savage breast is indeed becoming calmer and responding to the beauty and tranquillity of the music, and the glory of the singing. It heals and uplifts both body and soul.

This is one of the many reasons why I went back to choir as soon as I could. Choir is better than a TV soap, any day.