Hot September Day

I.
We sure are thankful for our air conditioning. We don't have a great unit--it's mounted in the wall and doesn't really cool anything down except for the living room, but it is SO nice to have a cool room when you're up on the second floor on a 90 degree day. We never had air conditioning on Washington Street except in James' room.

This morning we've been camped out directly beneath the unit except for our hour of errand running, at which point we were all very thankful to have two cars with functional air conditioning. We had to go sign more papers at the mortgage broker's, and James met a 15 month old bulldog named Albert who was deeply curious of George. James and George still both smell like Albert. We dropped off books at the library, visited the bank, and then were back home in front of the a/c again before too long. It's a good day to read Go Dog Go and build train tracks while sipping fruit smoothies. (Or beer.)

II.
Currently reading The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise. (Susan is an editor for Books and Culture) It's always encouraging to find a book at the library, thumb to the bibliography, and see a list of books and articles that match exactly your opinion of the best sources of a subject. This book is a guide to homeschooling using a classical education curriculum. The book so far has passed the litmus tests of technology (no) and the purpose of Latin instruction (the grammar, not spoken fluency) with flying colors and is laying out a useful structure for the trivium. I think we'll probably end up buying our own copy of this book. (Not to mention lots of the resources listed inside...yikes, that could be expensive.)

Also working on Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money. I'm trying to stitch together some coherent narrative in the history of finance while keeping a dictionary of terms laid open on the end table. Currently reading about the Rothschild family. (I've only ever known the name as the butt of obscure jokes.)

III.
The Christ-hymn in Philippians 2 is on the lectionary for the end of the month, and I can't find any good choral anthems on the text. (Recommendations, anyone?) I think what I'm going to do is steal the 1st verse of the hymn May the Mind of Christ My Savior and then paraphrase the rest of the text into four verses. Here's what I have so far

1. May the mind of Christ my Savior
Live in me from day to day
By his love and power controlling
All I do and say

2. He in form divine considered
Pow'r not seizing, but obeyed,
And a servant, self he emptied
And was humble made

3. God him now has high exalted
Name above all names is giv'n
Every knee will bow before him
in God's world and heav'n

4. All the Lord will then confess him
To the father glory give
May we share Christ's mind together
As we serve and live

UPDATE
Apparently reading a pessimistic account of international finance which assumes your already too small personal worth is probably in serious danger while simultaneously reading about an imminent thirteen year-long project for which you've made no preparations which will likely take up massive amounts of your time and money causes you to walk around all day grinding your teeth and looking gloomy. Apologies to all parties involved. Probably some of it is the heat.