Yesterday was a horrible, no-good, very hard, tiring, difficult day, full of stones but with one sparkling diamond.

Diamond first: my older son dropped in with a couple of things I needed and stayed for coffee and talked. That was rare and delightful. (I looked up synonyms, but delightful is best, and accurate).

The rest of the day went downhill from there. But I talked to a number of people and that's always interesting. I love to know what people are reading, That's always good. The events of the day elicit interesting attitudes, also prejudices. I sat for some time, over an hour, needlessly. (I could have been put in a different category.) I noted, as usual, how patient and polite people are in - maybe especially in - flocks. I got lost, as usual, finding my way to a new destination, by subway. Only one person snarled at me for sitting beside her and I apologized. On the other hand, another one shared her seat (I like to go forward), and we talked about what she was reading (Cormac McCarthy, "The Road".) As usual, most people are very helpful. I'm glad most of us speak the same language so I can communicate my bewilderment and receive some useful information. And say thank you.

But I'm still tired.

I read that you use a different part of your brain when you learn a second (or third?) language later in life. I wish I could access that part. I know it's there. I just don't do enough homework. I want to learn Icelandic but I have other priorities, chief among them to "finish" my book. So I go to my Icelandic class and flounder and flail - and fail.

I did my homework yesterday, but I didn't learn much. We had been given a recent copy of an Icelandic newspaper and told to pick an item and report on it. We had to translate it, of course, but we could report in English. I made pönnukökur - pancakes - not that I haven't made pancakes before, but Icelandic pancakes are different: thin, like crèpes, and rolled or folded around brown sugar or preserves, eaten at kaffitíma (coffee time), not breakfast. I followed the recipe and had to learn the words for teaspoon, tablespoon, etc., and also to follow metric measurements for the flour and butter, etc. I am still an alien on this planet, have been ever since metric measurements were introduced in Canada. Egg, I'm happy to say, is egg. So I took pönnukökur to class. Frábært! (Great!) But I still can't speak or understand Icelandic and I can't speak or understand metric, either. There must be something I can do. I keep trying every day.