Thursday, April 22

Up at 6:30, and at the school by 8 a.m., so I could load photo paper into oatmeal box pinhole cameras, and mix fresh chemicals.

Of course, I operate under the principle of Murphy's Law, which says that if anything can go wrong, it will. So at a deep sink, with a black hose wound around the facet fixtures, I turned the water on to fill a tray. Suddenly, the water gushed out and forcefully hit the side of the sink. I must have had a wimpy grasp of the hose, because like a balloon deflating, it whipped this way and that, first dousing me, then watering down the room.

Hubbie arrived just as I got the water turned off, shook his head, and began mopping up with paper towels. We got things dried (except for me) just in time for class to begin.

Other than that, things went smoothly. The third grade classes did pinhole photography, and the fifth grade classes made negative images from their sunprints in the darkroom. While some students were in the darkroom, Hubbie helped others construct large oatmeal box viewfinders. These are similar to pinhole cameras, except that no photo paper film is used. Instead, students look through a poster board tube to view scenes in reverse projected onto wax paper or plastic lid screens on the boxes.

Between the morning classes and the afternoon classes, I loaded the oatmeal boxes again for the second third-grade class. I was able to get this task done before lunch, thankfully.

Funny: one of the fifth-grade students, a boy, was in the darkroom to do a reverse print. After we'd used the enlarger, I handed his sunprint back to him.

"Wow," he said, "everything's backwards on it."

"No," I said, "that's not your reverse print. That's your sunprint. Your reverse print hasn't been developed yet."

"Oh, sorry." he said. "I was having another blond moment." He has blond hair.

Funny number two: as I was working in the darkroom, a girl handed me a note from the arts council director. "Nathan said to give this to the teacher. When I asked him which one, he said the old one." No doubt in her mind who that must be.

Things went well in the afternoon, and we finished up around 3:30. We stopped by the one-hour service to pick up snapshots before coming home. At home, I changed into my hospice volunteer t-shirt, and Mother and I went to town to pick up free gifts with coupons we got in the mail from the hospice coordinator. This is volunteer week, and businesses are giving gifts or discounts to volunteers.

We stopped by the Hallmark store and another, new, gift store. We were given candles at both. we'll try to use other coupons tomorrow.

At home, we had chicken noodle soup and oatmeal muffins for supper. Mother went home after that, and Hubbie ran errands while I went through the snapshots the students did. Tomorrow, we'll talk about the good things they did, and how they can improve.

Later, we watched TV...a couple of Hallmark Movie Channel features. We started with a movie called "Healing Hands," about a custodian at a school, who has an accident, and then afterward has the power to heal people.

The second movie was, "Uncorked." A female business executive is dating someone who is a distracted, cold fish. She is sent to wine country, where she meets a handsome widower.

Note: it appears Hubbie has developed a head cold. Drat.