Journal of a Sabbatical

August 19, 1999

i'm back

Today's Starting Pitcher: Pedro Martinez

Today's Reading: Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin

Well, the weather has cooled off a lot since I left but I gather the drought is still going on. Couldn't prove it by my lawn, though. The crab grass has grown to about 6 inches high and overwhelmed everything in my pitiful excuse for a yard. But it's home sweet home.

Wilbur met me at the door and meowed nonstop for half an hour. I'm sure he told me everything that happened while I was gone: how many times the pet sitter played with him, how many times he saved the house from the little white dog next door, what birds he saw out the window... He won't let me out of his sight.

I dropped off 6 rolls of film for processing and copied 4 floppies worth of digital pictures onto my computer. Now to go through those and determine the ones worthy of the web.

Naturally I stopped off at Starbucks and ran into Tom and QI who wanted to know all about the eclipse and incidentally the rest of the trip :-) I hadn't seen QI since I'd started reading Before the Dawn so I was eager to talk with him about it (he collects Japanese literature). Turns out he has it in his collection but hasn't read it because it's so long and daunting. He was surprised I had stuck with it.

This reminds me of a funny thing that happened on the flight home yesterday. I was reading Eugene Onegin, which I love. The woman in the seat next to me leaned over and asked "is that Eugene Onegin?" I answered yes and she responded "You're very brave." Pause. Brave? Does Pushkin cause some hitherto unknown disease or injury? I just look at her, puzzled. She continues, "My husband is really into poetry. He keeps trying to read that to me and I just don't get it. What do you like about it?" I actually made the mistake of trying to explain, then just pointed out that perhaps it was just the particular translation her husband chose. So, like, is Eugene Onegin one of those things everybody is afraid of because it's been labeled a "great work of literature" and therefore must be deadly dull? I had no idea.

So, anyway, Tom had to go teach and QI and I hung out awhile talking about Japanese history, total eclipses, Hungarian food, and future travel plans.

My body is definitely still on Budapest time.