1985-08 (August)

August 1st, 1985 Continued pre-Dante reading. Home all day; drowsy from prank phonecall at 12:40 by teenagers and wakefulness at 5:30 which got me up. Skipped walk; instead removed weeds from sidewalk cracks by way of exercise. In evening- 6 to 6:30 - watched a really good production of Don Giovanni on the Arts channel; Glynebourne(?). Well done - not simply a filming of the stage performance; a true TV showing, well worth recording on cassette if I only had one.

August 2nd, 1985 Checked on shelf for new Faulkner and Glascou(?) volumes in American XXXX series; unarrived. Continued Bergin's Dante. Walked 2 1/3; weather somewhat cooler, but by no means cool. Good night's sleep, after the XXXXXXX me the night before. Called Herb about conference on financial situation resulting from loss of Arkansas land. He'll talk with Nell and get back to me. Also called West Point , cd. Jack Capps, about Faulkner symposium there a year from now. He's on vacation; will call on his return, Aug, 7.

August 3rd, 1985 Slept till 7:30. Still no real word from Mary, who wasn't here at work for better than two weeks. Continued Dante till midmorning, when the mailman brought my dover order (Mozart quintets, Chopin Preludes and studies) minus the Chopin nocturnes and polonaises, which are back ordered. Note (invoice) from scholar's Book shelf says Watt is in the way but the 3-vol. Dante will be shipped by U. Cal. Press. Spent rest of the day XXXXXXX repeat marks in the Mozart, Transcribing from old pocket scores, a playing the first and second quintets for repeat indications. Morningside; visited with Tunkie, who tols me for the first time, "There's nothing the doctors can do for me." He is simply sitting there waiting while the cancer takes its course. A horror story, one faced by many all around the world.

August 4th, 1985 Lucy Fisher's for poolside lunch with Mary Ann and Bryan. Home by 3:30 (Gwyn had declined); went to planned conference with Herb and Nell for preliminary discussion of current financial crisis. Summation is that we care only about developments, both to find out what was lost and what was solved. There may also be attendant tax problems. Herb is going to have his business consultants (c.p-a-'s) meet with Jim's (Rhea and Ivy) to come up with some kind of financial statement as it applies to come up with some kind of financial statement as it applies to the two sisters seperately and collectively. We all four drank more than we should have done in the course of the four-hour meeting - with the result that Gwyn, refusing to be helped by me, fell on her face in the courtyard just as the foot of the steps. I helped her into the house and she went promptly to bed and to sleep.

August 5th, 1985 Gwyn woke up at 7:30 with a bad black eye and XXXXXXXXX on her XXXX and upper lip from last night's fall on the courtyard; looks as if she'd been a rud or two with Mohammad Ali. Ice pack may help some, but meantime she's homebound. I drove to Plaza Center for dogfood and an on-sale Penguin Polybius. Back home, looked it over. To my disappointment, I found it omits the SalaXXXX episode of the meraculious(?) war with Carthage. Walked my 2 1/2 miles in exactly 40 minutes - something I've been wanting to do for a long time. Gwyn spent most of the day using vasoline and witch hazel on her eye trying to reduce the swelling and discolorization. Not much luck.