Busy day yesterday

Dear friends and family,

I had a very active day yesterday in the kitchen, standing a lot, moving from sink to counter to fridge, etc. Now I am paying the penalty: starting yesterday evening I had quite a lot of pain, then through the night and this morning as well. I don't think I damaged anything. I just have to go easier today. One factor is the change of pills, from a higher dose with Tylenol that I took every 8 hours to a lower dose without Tylenol that I can take every 6 hours or less, if I need it. Without the Tylenol, I don't have to worry about a Tylenol overdose.

We had a bit of a comedy of errors last night in the kitchen: twice, not once, I dropped a full container of little white pills on the floor. Of course, I could not bend to pick them up, so Merwin, with his stiff back, had to roll around seated on a stool to get the little white pills scattered on the white tiles. Once one set of pills was all off the floor and safely in its jar again, I dropped another. I could do very little but stand there leaning on the walker; I couldn't move lest I roll or step on a pill. Merwin took it all very well, though he had loads to do. When I “Black-Sammed” him, he only gave me a look (which from long experience I understood immediately). Black Sam was Merwin's large, Italian boss for the short time he worked on particular types of labor gang jobs at a Buffalo steel plant. Black Sam would stand watching the men picking up, say, heavy bricks randomly tossed in a pile, and he would point imperiously to a specific one and say in his growly, nasty voice (or perhaps just indicate) "That one!” Of course ALL had to be picked up, so picking up any particular one was just nonsense. Since then, Black-Samming has entered our family vocabulary. A look from Merwin is enough to tell me that I am doing it. We all hate being Black-Sammed! Fortunately for Merwin he soon moved from the Labor Gang to the railroad crew, a much easier and better job altogether. This is how he supported us (we had married during our Freshman year) for most of the college years. It was the sort of work that disappeared from Buffalo and from the country not long after as the steel plants were closed one by one, along with all the other mills and factories. It had been a way for relatively uneducated men to make a good living. The pay had been better at the steel plant than it was at Merwin's first job as an engineer after graduation from the University of Buffalo in 1954.

Working more on Gunthio yesterday, I found some intriguing mysteries. One mystery is with Google Books. A search for Gunthio found quite a lot of material, including a full-length book that mentioned him on one page. Wow, I thought, I can download this whole book. While I was debating about printing (the only way to copy it that the page allowed) such a long book (a New Variorum ed. of R2), I turned to other entries: some can be printed, some not. It's strange. Later in the day, when I tried to get back to the R2 book, I could no longer access the whole book. Does anyone reading this understand the mysteries of Google Books? I have noticed this before: a search for exactly the same thing on two occasions gets a different result each time.

The other mystery is with Gunthio himself. He makes a statement about Q1 Hamlet that is false. Why? What does it mean? I like pondering these things. Gunthio is a pseudonym for, I believe, John Payne Collier, and this is one of the false trails he leaves. Or a mistake he makes accidentally because he is working from memory?

I hope to feel better as I proceed through the day. I know that thinking of you, enjoying the music and my work, finishing up the Passover details for tonight, I will have a full day. I predict it will be a happy one.

Love to all,
Bernice