Wednesday, October 21, 2026
I woke up at 9:30. While I was about to shower, I saw a call come in from a South Carolina number. Since I have several important things in the air here, I picked up the call, and while naked, had a nice conversation with a lady from the electric company, who told me that the power to two of my mobile homes was about to be cut off because the bills were unpaid. I noted that I had to pay the bills as soon as I got back home, but I was already late for my singing lesson.
My singing coach, Brittany, is very nice. You would like her. I met her because sometimes she would be cantor at my church. Usually my lessons are in the afternoon, but yesterday she only had time in the morning. When I got there, I asked her, “Brittany, is it really possible for people to sing as early as 10:30 in the morning?”
She said, “Gene, people even sing at 8 am mass.”
I told her “Look, the church tells me to believe in the Trinity, the Resurrection of the dead, and Christ’s ascension in the heaven, and so I do. But it does not require that I believe in anything so ridiculous as a mass at 8 AM!”
She laughed. My lesson was pretty good, but I’m still struggling to be precise about what key I am in.
I came home and paid the electric bill for all four mobile homes. Then I wrote all my tenants, and sent them a picture of the bill, and asked them to send me the money when they could. One of them, Sarah, who I haven’t met, was upset because her bill was high, and because she couldn’t pay right away. She said she would borrow the money from her boss.
I told her, “No, Sarah, just pay me when you can.”
I think of all of the people who live in those homes as people I have to care for, and help through whatever difficulties they are having… Not as their personal therapist or anything! But as someone who is in charge of caring for their living arrangements.
I did work on my writing projects, watched a little bit of TV with Elen, and then I took a nap: after all, I had had to wake up at 9:30!
After an hour I got back up. I made sauce for Elen and Eamon’s dinner: tomato sauce with garlic, hot Italian sausage, and arugula.
Then I had to go pick up Mike for band practice: Mike is a good friend of mine. He’s half my age, and has seizures. He told me “Gene I have to leave practice by 9:30 so I can take my (seizure) medicine.”
I said, “Mike, why don’t you bring your medicine to practice so you can take it there?”
It had never occurred to him that he could do this!
We’re practicing for a party this Saturday. Practice was pretty good, except the senior musician in the group, Gordon, chided me for not having the rhythm down for my whistle part in one of our songs. (In this group, we are playing mostly R&B: The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Donna Summer, “Boogie Oogie Oogie,” “Under the Boardwalk,” etc.) The lady whose birthday party it is, is going to sing five songs with us. She’s very good. She hugs us all at practice and tells us, “Have a blessed day.”