I haven't been able to get on my blog Tuesday or Thursday. Blogger wouldn't let me on Tuesday and nothing worked Thursday at the time I tried.

This week I'm rehearsing with thirteen to seventeen year olds for the Bemidji State Choral and Vocal Music Camp. They are fun. This gives me a dose of the age I love to work with. Final rehearsal tonight; concert tomorrow afternoon.

My China trip approaches. I need to get all summer stuff done in the next week and then get prepped for fall classes before I leave, as the trip goes right through Fall Semester start-up. I am definitely ready. I've been ready to start back to work full time for a month now--or more.

My office is incredible.

I have spent six hours working to just to sort paper so I can fulfill obligations to students or former students. Some need papers read, responded to, and returned; some need recommendations written and mailed. Some of the recommendations need to be on forms that came in the mail and were tossed into the general pile when my office furniture was replaced. The volume is staggering. To all of you out there who need something from me, I promise I'll try to get it found and get it done.

After I get through that, I'll start working on the course materials for fall, which I need to do early because I'll be in China when everybody else is doing that kind of work.

My current life is one of mess, but at least it's interesting mess.

Orlando was a blast. Blast furnace.

I did learn of a new program the Elks are doing that I'm interested in, and that is to distribute dictionaries to third grade classrooms. That will be my next project.

I got back to Minnesota to 98 degree heat during the Shriners parade in Detroit Lakes. Two guys collapsed.

It felt wonderful compared to Orlando.

Yesterday I went in to the office to find the furniture guys replacing my ancient stuff with new. This means that today I've spent house/officekeeping. Most of the piles are off the floor now.

I'm going to go catch up on blogs next.

Today I entertain Mom's friends. Tomorrow I'm in a wedding. Early Sunday morning I leave for Orlando, where I will be trapped in a large hall with thousands of other people listening to the goings on at the national convention of Elks. A few moments of these things are rewarding; the rest is tedium.

Orlando in July. Wizard planning. I loathe hot weather.

Sometimes I wonder why I consent to do this stuff. The good parts, the service, are balanced against the bad parts, the boredom. Generally the good parts win.

But Orlando, in July.

Of course, I'm also going to southern China in August. That I'm doing willingly. I guess I must be willing to face the heat.

No posts next week.

I am in another paroxysm of lawn-building. Something about the soil around my house does not love a lawn. I have just trucked in five loads of black dirt, spread it, leveled it, and seeded it. I am watering obsessively. I am tracking black dirt into the house, as is Mollie the Collie, who leaves many little black paw prints if I don't catch her and clean her feet before she has bounded into the kitchen in search of treats. She gets the treats anyway.

I am succeeding in raising some fine weeds and some wisps of grass while turning my lawn and my carpet into mudpies.

I have to go home now to move the sprinkler.

By the way, thanks to those of you who have sent comments or e-mails. I don't often mention it, but I appreciate that.