Mondays are long around here. We are often surprised at how tiring cerebral activities like going to class can be. But good.

Rainy and gray. Elisa and Ray walked out to the mailbox with an umbrella and met Skipper and Valley coming here. I was a little late and met Ray coming back, just enough walk to wake up a bit. Gave the dogs breakfast, quickly bathed and dressed, and we were off. Ray to his first class, I to mine. I get an hour before mine. I spend it in the break room in Dawson Hall, usually reading e-mail or articles for class.

Yesterday's HACE class finished with a short video of a modernist housing project in St. Louis, Pruitt-Igoe. It was fascinating. It was designed and built as an answer to the thousands of people living in terrible conditions. Something like 80 buildings 11 stories each, one after the other. Since there is never enough money allocated for public housing, they were constructed with poor workmanship and materials. They were never maintained--and were demolished in the 70s. The architect was the same as for the World Trade Center and the pictures of them coming down look eerily similar. The last footage was of the 57-acre site abandoned and with Nature reclaiming it. The most interesting and important lesson is that goodwill and good ideas will not always have the desired results. One of the valuable ideas is to ask the people who will be living there what they need.

After class, Molli picked me up and took me to EJC. I met with Linda Lloyd, the director, and Kalesha, a social work intern. I helped them edit a grant application. Molli hung out and then we went to lunch. Ray joined us. It was wonderful. I had the soup of the day, creamy potato-leek with ham and bacon, the flounder with grits, and a spinach salad with fruit.

Then it was time for my long class. We had a good discussion, even though it is a fairly large class. Ageism was one of the topics. The last half hour was a report on a chapter regarding my favorite topic, Green House homes.

We picked up Elisa and her friend Chyna at the high school. They had chorus. So far, it never actually gets over at 5. So it was 5:30 or so when we got home and started supper, Curried Chicken Stew, from Jane Fonda's book. Delicious with some brown rice. The usual pattern of falling asleep very early in front of the TV and going groggily to bed. I did manage to read a bit. My favorite part? I woke up at 4:30, but managed finally to fall back to sleep for another hour or so.