Grand Bridge Day in Everett at Greg Donoho's Today

Wherever the hell Everett is--that's why I've got the map up--Still can't find it.  No matter, I know how to get there...I'm meeting Mildred and Helen at the Ala Moana shopping center, oceanside, at 8:00, where we'll all take the E Bus; ETA 9:00 chez Greg.  

Listening to ¡Tunes meanwhile--1954 (von Karajan, Schwarzkopf, Merriman) recording of Così Fan Tutte--hideous, unlistenable monophony, sounds like it was recorded in a barrel, ceding to the Ax/Ma 'Arpeggione' sonata, which is, of course, as I have said on another occasion,  purely heavenly.  I almost wonder what Rostropovich made of this in his heretofore 'definitive' version, recorded with Britten in 1968:  "weightier, more brooding," 'tis said to've been.  I'm sure it was that....  

Continuing to read Orieux' La Fontaine, I'm finding treasures, seemingly invented just for me.  The description of our hero's pro-forma duel with his wife's admirer is highest comedy, beyond the reach even of Poquelin-- who could never have imagined, or sustained, La Fontaine's utter unjealousness.  It turns out, after all, that La Fontaine and wife were on much better terms than the simplistic legend allows; the letters he wrote to her from Limousin are as fine and friendly, and generous, as any letters from a husband to a wife ever were--making us miss all the more the more his half of his correspondence with Racine.  And speaking of miracles, there is nothing in all the history of the elective affinities of genius more dazzling than the perfect understanding between the nearly old La Fontaine and the youthful Racine--whose 'Songe de Vaux' and 'Nymphes de la Seine' run together in my head, and whose several authors would have said that, in effect, they're supposed to.

So to my toilet.  I've a long day ahead of me:  An hour's bus ride, then six solid hours of bridging, and an hour's bus ride back.  I must be fresh, alert, and tout à fait dispos.