Come again another day..

It began to rain sometime in the night and has pretty much kept it up all day. Sometimes light, some times a bit heavier, but steadily. It made for a dreary drive to work, and this afternoon when I went to run errands at 3:00 p.m. it was a wet 54 degrees.

I dropped off a book I just read at the Dells library -- very interesting book by Bart Ehrman on how the Bible came down to us through generations of copyists, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. Because it was so rainy out, I stayed and read a short story by James Joyce -- "The Dead", last in his collection called The Dubliners. I attended a play based on it several years ago in Chicago and was unexpectedly moved to tears. Joe is reading it for his literature class, so I thought I would refresh my memory. The play was clearly only "inspired by" the short story. The bits of the play that stick most firmly in my memory are not found in the story at all. I checked out the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius for bedtime reading. I am trying to finish reading a mystery for my book club meeting next week, but I am not enjoying it much. The theme this time is detectives who are also psychologists, and none of the suggested books looked appealing. But I don't have to like the book to talk about it.

Driving back through Wisconsin Dells on this rainy school-in-session weekday was like riding through a ghost town. During the summer, it may take more than one change of the traffic light to get through an intersection, blocked as they often are by pedestrians and vehicles trying to make a turn. Today I saw less than half a dozen people on the sidewalks and there were no cars in sight when I made my left turn onto Broadway, the main drag.

This weekend , if the weather cooperates, it should be full of people for Wo Zha Wa Days. Wo zha wa -- at least so it is alleged -- is Ho-Chunk for "Let's have fun", sort of like New Orleans says Laissez-faire les bons temps rouler: Let the good times roll. Wo Zha Wa serves as the traditional end-of-season, all-items-must-go trinket sale, fall festival, whatever roundup in the Dells. My favorite part is that the library will have its fall book sale.