My day was too prosaic to provide me with any account
with which I could do justice to your letter.
Besides, Konnarock is not Nantucket,
and the memories which it evokes are,
to put it mildly, more complex.

The morning began with a bit of sunshine,
but soon the haze became more dense,
the sun hid behind the clouds,
the humidity increased,
and the hours wore on with tropical monotony.

Last evening I had resolved to begin right away
to tackle the various maintenance projects
which I thought should be undertaken.
However I awoke preoccupied with some notions 
which I thought I should write down
before they lapsed from memory,
ideas to the effect that
one should try to identify patterns of emotional distress
quite analogous to patterns of physical distress.
One has toothaches and headaches,
cramps of muscles and vicera,
arthritic and neuralgic pains,
and one tolerates these with equanimity,
waits until they dissipate,
and lets them affect ones work as little as possible.
It occurred to me that there is no reason
why one should not similarly resist distress
which has no obvious physical cause or localization,
but which is also unavoidable,
like physical pain,
a concomitant of human morbidity.
That also is likely to be self-limited
and to dissipate in time.
The assumption that the distress could have, -
or should have been prevented,
is both unhelpful and untrue,
and likewise the claim that the distress
can be supressed or extirpated.
Whoever said, Wir muessen durch viel Truebsal
in das Reich Gottes eingehen,
hit the nail on the head.

You can see why these dour and ungainly cogitations
failed to enchant me,
and the preoccupation with them was readily
displaced by the awareness that the satellite computer here
has not functioned for a month,
and that I had better get started
discovering what was wrong
if it is to be working by the time we leave.
It did not take me long to demonstrate that the
old  1200 baud US Robotics Password modem
that I had been using was out of order,
presumably damaged by a power surge from lightning,
but the new modem with which I replaced it,
didn't work properly either.
I kept fiddling with the RS-232 cable, 
and with different initialization strings.
The new modem would shake hands
only while the satellite was powered down.
If power was applied to the satellite
AFTER the modem connection had been established,
the computer seemed to work normally.
However, if power was applied simultaneously to the
modem and the satellite,
as would be the case when power returned after an outage,
then the modem would only answer the phone,
but refuse to shake hands, and remain mute.
My first though was that I had given an inappropriate
initialization string to the modem,
but having left the manuals in Belmont, I couldn't be sure.
I fiddled with the cable, I tried this and I tried that;
the whole day went by in heat, humidity and failure;
it was supper time,
when I remembered my fathers dictum,
dass man FLoehe UND Laeuse haben kann,
and realized then that whatever lighning surge
damaged the modem might also have damaged the CPU board,
which I then replaced.
The last time I checked,
the machine was still working,
but since some of these faults are intermittent,
I am not overly confident that I have solved the problem.

Tomorrow morning I will begin by putting the shop in order.
Then I will check on the sensor at the kitchen door,
and possibly order a replacement from Abingdon.
I also have to get an oil burner nozzle from Abingdon,
unless I find one in the basement,
and I have to take the E-Bonds to the bank
to have them exchanged.
I have had a fan circulating air in the basement since we
frrived, and the basement floor is now almost dry.
I can't make up my mind
what, if anything, I should do
to try to prevent recurrent flooding. 
Sometime soon, I hope in the next few days,
I will be able to start writing again,
but first I need to get a bit manic,
and that does not seem to be in the offing just yet.

I forgot to mention, last week,
when I had the Minivan lubricated 
the rather inexperienced attendant told me with some urgency,
that the oil pan on the Voyager has a deep dent.
Presumably this occured when we hit the rock on White Top.
The mechanic implied that the oil pan should be replaced,
even though there has been no leakage of oil.
I asked, why?
He could give me no reason,
except that the dented spot
might perforate from rust,
which seems to me unlikely.
I infer that the proposed repair is cosmetic surgery
and that unrepaired, the car will run just as well,
just as long, and just as safely;
but I intend to inquire of MacKinnon's
when I get back, or you may, if you wish.

Appended is todays stock market report.
Not much is going on,
and I see no occasion for doing anything,
but I am open to suggestions.
Nathaniel and Rebekah will have to wait for their
letter for another day.

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