Memories (No, not Cats)

 I was stuck for what to write about today. So I finally took out my metaphor dice and played around until I got "memory is a back-handed mirror." According to one online dictionary "back-handed" means "indirect, ambiguous or insincere." I think that is quite astute of my dice.

My husband and I often compare our memories of things that happened to the two of us. Our versions are never the same. One example: when our first child, Ben, was still a baby, we were invited to go sailing on friends' sailboat. Somehow there were donuts, I don't remember where they came from. We were attempting to get on the boat carrying Ben. In my version, I am holding Ben and a donut. I was going to hand Ben to my husband. The donut was accidentally placed really close to his mouth; he took advantage and took a bite. At that point in his life he was eating only baby food, no chunks. He didn't choke (thank goodness) and smiled like it was the best thing ever in his short life.

My husband's version is almost identical except that he is holding Ben and the donut. 

I read somewhere that every time you revisit a memory - take it out of your memory bank and look at it -- you change it. I wondered why, so I did a search. According to an article about a Northwestern University study, "Every time you remember an event from the past, your brain networks change in ways that can alter the later recall of the event. Thus, the next time you remember it, you might recall not the original event but what you remembered the previous time." (https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2012/09/your-memory-is-like-the-telephone-game/#:~:text=Every%20time%20you%20remember%20an,you%20remembered%20the%20previous%20time.)

Then I think that things like math facts and vocabulary must be stored in another part of the brain since they don't get altered (generally). And that's good thing. 

The mind throws a gentle curveball to our pleasant memories.

Happiness is a Bootleg Drum. What?

 A couple months ago I ordered the Metaphor Dice. I'm pretty sure I learned about them here, on blogging Tuesday with Two Writing Teachers. Today I finally gave them a real try.

The truth is as silent as a brand new toy. Hmm, no, unless it's an ironic metaphor.

Happiness is a bootleg drum. My husband told our children when they were young that they could play any musical instrument except percussion. And for good reasons - besides the sound of practicing, if your offspring gets serious about percussion, you will never be done buying instruments, and your home will be littered with drums, marimba, cymbals, etc. etc. I suppose a closet drummer might appreciate this metaphor.

The reluctant wonder of the past. I like it. I love history but I know that history hides many secrets. Maybe this metaphor should be the wonder of the reluctant past.

Beauty is a bright side show. Maybe it is.

Time is a rugged blessing. One of the definitions of rugged is "(of a face) wrinkled or furrowed, as by experience or the endurance of hardship." So yes, it's a blessing to have a long life filled with family, friends, experiences. But a long life also often includes physical challenges, and other adversities.

The truth threw an impossible curveball. His verbal curveball revealed an impossible truth. Definite possibilities there.

The sad trophy of my heart. There's a line for a heroine of a romance novel before she discovers that the hero is madly in love with her but is hiding that fact to keep her safe because...

Menu Plannning - Keeping things interesting

 We need groceries, so before I go to the store, I need to make a plan for the week. It's a flexible plan, but I need a plan. A week of dinner plans.

I have gotten more organized over the years. On my weekly plan I note the name of the main course recipe, where to find the recipe, and what ingredients I need. 

But, we both get bored with some repeated recipes, so this week I went searching for either new recipes or dishes I hadn't made in a while. At the same time, I decided to pare down my cookbook collection. I have quite a few cookbooks; some I use all the time, others infrequently, and some in which I have not tried any recipes. I like cookbooks and tend to keep accumulating them!

I am now a pescatarian (fish and plants), but I am also lactose-intolerant. My husband cannot eat spicy food without a trip to the emergency room. So, many recipes are out for us. And I now turn to the internet more and more when I'm looking for recipe ideas. 

But, cookbooks have charm. I have a few historic cookbooks from the 18th and 19th centuries, some reprints and a few originals. Some spiral bound cookbooks published by organizations - churches, symphonies. Cookbooks from places I have visited - Colonial Williamsburg, Door County, the Pacific Northwest. One cookbook in French that I bought in France many years ago. Quite a few Chinese cookbooks! And some Italian as well. A lot of vegetarian and vegan cookbooks. I will keep all the cookbooks that I actually cook from and all the cookbooks with sentimental or historic meaning. Also my favorite cookbook authors - the Moosewood Collective, Mollie Katzen, Mark Bittman, Chloe Coscarelli, Isa Moskowitz...

What's your favorite cookbook? Or do you use the internet instead?

Harold and Hector (and a bit of Harriet)

 One of the local community orchestras, the Waukegan Symphony, was a short a (French) horn and asked if I would come and play 1st horn. I rarely play 1st horn and I had played a concert with them a few years ago and really liked the conductor. And I have friends in the group.  So I was happy to be able to do so!

The program was two unusual pieces. The first was Respighi "Ancient Airs and Dances," a charming short piece. Respighi's best known piece is "The Pines of Rome."

The second half was "Harold in Italy," by Hector Berlioz. Berlioz was French, he lived from 1803 to 1869. His most famous work is Symphony Fantastique in which Berlioz tells the story of his fictional love for a real actress, Harriet Smithson. It involves opium dreams and witches. It's a very exciting piece and is played regularly by orchestras. [Harriet Smithson came to performance and somehow realized that the piece was about her. She married Berlioz, but it was a very unhappy marriage.]

On the other hand, "Harold in Italy" is rarely performed. I learned the story behind this piece when our conductor introduced it to the orchestra. Nicolo Paganini, the famous violin virtuoso who lived from 1782 to 1840, had, according to our conductor, gotten bored with the violin and looking for a new challenge, took up the viola. Paganini asked Berlioz to write a viola concerto (a solo with orchestra) for him and Berlioz agreed. What Berlioz actually wrote, Harold in Italy, is an orchestra piece with small bits of viola solo. Paganini refused to play it or pay the commission fee. Berlioz found some other violist to premiere the piece. Paganini was at the concert and was so impressed that he apologized and paid the commission.

I can't think of any piece by Berlioz that is not programmatic. The story this piece is a young man, Harold, of course, who travels to Italy. The first movement depicts Harold in the mountains of Italy. In the second, he meets a group of pilgrims. The third movement is a serenade in the mountains, with some lovely parts for the horns! The fourth movement is "Orgy of the Brigands," though it comes across more as an energetic recap of the music that came before.

However, even to this day it is not a piece that violists choose when they (rarely) get asked to solo with an orchestra. The viola is a lovely instrument, but it is overshadowed by the violins and cellos. And pretty much every other instrument in the orchestra.

RSV Woes

 We went to visit our grandson (and son and daughter-in-law) last Wednesday. He's an adorable 16-month-old with a big smile and a mischievous glint in his eye. 

The next day our son called to tell us that the baby had RSV. Jumping ahead to Saturday morning, I woke up with a nose running like a faucet. I did not bother getting tested, I have RSV now too. It's like a bad cold - at least it is for me. I have gotten the latest shot for covid and flu but I was spacing them out in case I had a reaction - I wanted to know what I was reacting to and also to avoid double reactions - I don't know if that's a thing but I want to avoid it. So neither of us had gotten the RSV shot. 

So I moved into our daughter's bedroom - she's in Texas. I haven't been cooking and I wear disposable gloves when it seems necessary. Mostly I have a runny nose and fatigue, and the nose is letting up. 

Though I am retired I have commitments, mostly to music groups. It's not so terrible to miss a rehearsal here and there, but I have a concert coming up on Sunday. I'm missing rehearsal tonight but hopefully will be able to go to the dress rehearsal on Saturday. I'm not a regular member of this community orchestra; I'm the guest principal horn. I have parts that will be missed if I'm not there. 

I am feeling better and I think I must practice starting tomorrow. Playing a brass instrument has some things in common with athletics, in particular, if you don't play regularly you get  out of shape. I have put it off first, because I was exhausted, and then because I will have to wash the horn out after playing it. Bad stuff can hang out in the tubing - it can make you sick again. Blowing my germs into it will definitely require a prompt cleaning.

You clean it in the bathtub with a special long flexible brush. I will send a bit of listerene in as well. Years ago I read a hilarious blog post by a British horn player. He had repeated respiratory illnesses and finally realized he needed to clean his horn. The hilarious part was his reaction to what came out of the horn and then slipping on his wet floor. Fortunately he and the horn were fine, but the description of what could be hanging out in the tubing was an impetus to regular cleaning!

If you aren't up to date on your vaccines, I highly recommend getting those shots!

NaNoWriMo

 This month is the annual National Novel Writing Month (https://nanowrimo.org/). The original goal of NaNoWriMo was to write the entire draft of a novel, or 50,000 words. It has evolved since its beginnings and participants can set their own word count goals. 

I first tried NaNoWri Mo two or three years ago. I had an idea for a novel about a time-traveling musician. I read advice about plotting, and had my plot in mind. What I learned that first year was I didn't have enough plot. I realized later I was missing some other important aspects, like character development. I skipped the next couple of years. But I decided this year to try again.

Some people do NaNo as a step toward publishing their novel: I do not. I just want to write. Maybe there's a bit of sibling rivalry as well: my sister wrote a novel, unpublished, and my brother has written several nonfiction books, all published. (He writes mostly about religion and film, which is his area of expertise. If you are interested you can google him: John C. Lyden.)

Anyway, I am writing again this year. My word-count goal is so modest that once I started writing I realized I would need to revise it. I had thought a lot about why I had problems before, including not only lack of plot but insufficient character development. Thinking about those issues I decided to take a page (lol) from one of my favorite authors, Diana Gabaldon. She writes scenes as they occur to her, not linearly. Though obviously she has a story arch in mind.

I have been writing scenes of characters interacting. They may or may not be part of the story, but they really do help me know the characters better. That sounds strange, since the characters are only in my head so of course I should know them, but I don't yet. When I was writing in the first NaNo challenge I was startled to find the characters having conversations in my head when I wasn't even thinking about them. I checked with some other NaNo writers and they all agreed that this happens. And if possible, I should write down the conversations in case I want to include any of them in the novel.

It makes the writing more fun as well as productive. And fun is what I'm going for here.

Halloween Memories: A Hilarious Wrong Turn

 On Halloween I always think of the Halloweens of the past when my kids were young. I often made their costumes, we went trick or treating in our neighborhood, and put up a few decorations at our house. A couple of Halloweens stand out though.

When my daughter Jamie was 4 or 5 and my son Ben was 7 or 8, we went to the Chicago Botanic Garden for their Halloween festival. The Chicago Botanic Gardens is a wonderful place north of Chicago. We go there often to walk, for art and flower exhibits, a yearly quilt show, and so on. 

The Halloween event included a hay ride, apple cider and donuts, and a choice of two walks: a friendly walk and a scary walk. The friendly walk had adults dressed up a Care Bears, Winnie the Pooh, and so on. The scary walk had typical scary Halloween beings.  Since we had younger children, especially Jamie, we choice the friendly walk. Only we took a wrong turn. And didn't realize it at first.

We walked up the steps (outdoors) to the area with the man-made lily ponds. As we walked by the first pond, the Creature from the Black Lagoon lunged out of the water and grabbed Jamie's ankle. She of course started screaming. 

We got her away from the Creature (my husband and I laughing quietly) though she isn't over her fright yet and who comes down the path but Frankenstein! Jamie completely loses it begins shrieking. Frankenstein sees what's happening (and probably wonders what's wrong with these parents to bring little kids on the scary walk!). He break character, kneels down close to her and says softly, "I'm not really a monster. I'm just a man in a costume." 

When I remember this day, that's what stands out -- that he saw a child in distress and took immediate action. 

Here's to a not too scary Halloween! 

A Reading Life

 I love reading and spend a lot of time every day reading - novels, newspapers, magazines, blog posts...

I can remember a time before reading. I started kindergarten in 1958, when Dick and Jane, point and say, were the big thing in education. I don't remember actually learning to read, but I do remember the reading groups in first grade and that despite the bird names - bluebird, robin, etc. -  I knew very well that I was not in the top group. 

I did learn to read and reading became a passion. In later elementary school, I would read novels in our living room, neglecting to turn on the lamp when it started getting dark. My mother repeatedly said I would ruin my eyes reading in the dark. I did end up with glasses but I think that was more due to genetics than reading in the dark. 

My reading passion for quite a few years was dog books. I read all the Albert Payson Terhune books, beginning with Lad: A Dog. I read all the Big Red books by Jim Kjelgaard after Disney made a film based on the first book (though in Disney fashion, nothing like the book). I gave oral book reports on each of the three Big Red books; my 6th grade teacher suggested that I should read something else for a change. I think there were other dog books but I'm not remembering them now. 

I also read all the Bobbsey Twin books, all of Nancy Drew, all of the Freddy the pig books, and lots more. If you haven't heard of Freddie and his friends, you can read about the series here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddy_the_Pig

I don't remember reading much in college except for textbooks of course. Somewhere along the way I found mysteries other than Nancy Drew, starting with Peter Whimsy, because of the PBS series. British mysteries! Agatha Christie! Dorothy Sayers! Margery Allingham! And of course, Sherlock Holmes!

I still enjoy rereading my old favorites as well as finding new series. My husband jokes that I never go anywhere without a book. Not entirely true, but I do stuff one in my purse when we're going to take the train into Chicago. 

Reading - an education, an vacation from real life, sometimes calming, sometimes the opposite. 

Food Memories and Menu Planning

 Growing up in the 60s in small town Wisconsin, we ate whatever our mother made. I do  not recall anyone ever complaining about any meal. Our diet was very Midwest, even after we moved to Connecticut. Roast beef, hamburgers, fried chicken, pot roast, meat loaf, and hot dish - a casserole of hamburger, noodles, some kind of vegetables and sauce. It never occurred to any of us to complain about not liking something. We ate it anyway. When we were on vacation in Minnesota, we caught perch and sunfish every day and ate fried fish every day for a week.

Some how we all survived with our arteries fairly intact.

As time passed I discovered other cuisines. I distinctly remember being at the Seattle World's Fair in 1962 and seeing pizza for the first time, though I didn't eat any. After we moved to Connecticut in 1965, friends took our family to eat in a Chinese restaurant. That was the first time I had eaten Chinese food, and maybe the first time my parents had too! I liked it, a  lot.

Now my world is filled with all kind of foods, and at the same time, I have eliminated many foods. I'm now lactose intolerant (this after living in Wisconsin for 5 1/2 years and drinking milk three times a day!) and have become a pescatarian, eating seafood and vegetables. My husband cannot eat spicy food and watches his cholesterol. And frankly, he's sort of a picky eater. So menu planning has become just slightly stressful. We want variety, healthy foods, and I don't want to spend all my time in the kitchen.

So now I have lists -- fast dinners, slower dinners, fish dinners, veggie dinners. The plan this week is:

Monday- Asian Salad

Tuesday- BLTs (I have a rehearsal to get to!)

Wednesday- BBQ Pineapple Pizza

Thursday- Mongolian "Beef"

Fish- Fish, type TBD

Saturday - Tropical Island Kebabs on the grill

Sunday- We're going out!

I'd love to hear about other people's dinner strategies.

Books and the Unexpected

 I recently discovered that an acquaintance/former colleague/friend of mine has written and published a novel! I had not seen him in years until this past June when a group of former colleagues went to see a musical that he had written about ancient Aztecs. 

He's obviously a very creative guy. I first met him when a small theater I was working at produced a musical that he had written the music for. We were actually in college at the same time, but he was a grad student and I was an undergrad, and even though the school was very small, we never met. We did not stay in touch, but encountered each other again when we  both ended up working at a music magazine for band directors. We both moved on from there years ago and have gone in different directions career and creative-wise.

I discovered the news about the novel while reading the alumni magazine. (I always look for people I knew. Finding them happens less and less as we grow older.) I ordered the book immediately. The title is Music's Guiding Hand and is about Guido D'Arezzo, who was a real person born around 990 in Italy. Every music student learns about him in music history. His claim to fame is Guido's Hand, a mnemonic device he created to assist sight-singing, that is singing written music that you don't already know. If you want to know more, here is a video: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1042331942769547

I just got the book and haven't started reading yet. However, I claim a very small contribution to Guido's fame. When I was working as an editor at the music magazine, I was editing a humor article. I don't remember what the main idea of the article was, but the author has made a joking reference to some music thing that had been done "since the time of Guido D'Arezzo." My wandering thoughts led me to add an extra humorous touch, creating "Guido 'The Hand' D'Arezzo." Referencing, obviously, the Italian criminal organization and its many nicknames. The editor in charge loved it, and it stayed in. 

I suspect that novel is more serious, but I'll find out.

The Clever Mouse

 The Clever Mouse -- it sounds like the title of a children's book, doesn't it? In this case, it's not. This mouse is tiny and possibly even cute, but since it has been nibbling the fruits and vegetables in our kitchen, it' s a pest.

The cleverness has become apparent as it has foiled several attempts to catch it in a humane trap, so I can take it down the street and release it. There is a natural area there, left as a place to soak up water so our basements in this subdivision don't flood. (We also have sump pumps.) I have captured mice before with this type of device without problems. This mouse though...

A few times it just ignored the delicious peanut butter bait. I saw that it really liked tomatoes, so I decided to bait the trap with a tiny tomato slice. The way these traps work (if you've never had to use one, lucky you) is you stick the peanut butter at the innermost part of the tube. The opening is at the other end. When the mouse enters and scampers toward the bait, its weight causes the tube to shift and closes the door at the entrance. 

On the first tomato try, the tomato unbalanced the trap so I tried to compensate by adding some weight on top. I used two wrapped candies. It didn't work, the mouse got the tomato and peanut butter and escaped the way it came. One of the candies also disappeared.

The next try, I used a smaller bit of tomato and tried to stick it into the peanut butter, being mindful of the weight and balance problem. In the morning the opening was still open, the bait was gone and the "back door" where the bait has been, was lying on the counter, tomato and peanut butter gone. 

I don't want to use poison - I imagine finding the dead mouse somewhere, eww. When we had cats mice were not a problem. The cats were more than willing to catch and torment them. We no longer have any pets due to several family members having allergies. We'd rather have them visit than have cats, or dogs.

So it's a cliffhanger - who will win this contest of persistence? 

On becoming decrepit

 I have had back trouble since I was a teenager. Back then it was pulled muscles -- very painful, but manageable. Thangs got more serious in my 40s, with a wonky disc sending me to the hospital for a number of days -- they gave me some strong narcotic for the pain, but I was still in pain, just really dopey.

I recovered from that with a steroid shot in my spine and went along for the next couple of decades without much problem. Now though, I have new back problems! I thought it was the same thing - a protruding disc that was hitting a nerve -- but no, my new orthopedic doctor (my previous and much trusted doctor having retired) sent me for tests and found it was shrinking discs, spinal stenosis, and sciatica. Sigh. Turn 70 and everything goes to pot.

So I'm going to physical therapy -- what a blessing. I'm doing the exercises faithfully at home between appointments and I feel much better. I expect I will have to keep doing the exercises forever, but that's a small thing compared to managing pain without drugs. 

We want to take a few trips via airplane- visiting my husband's oldest friend who has moved to New Mexico, going to LA and San Francisco to attend concerts by their orchestras. I'm not at the point yet where I can sit for 3 or 4 hours without standing and walking, but I'll get there. Decrepit but determined!

A "Round" Birthday

 In Europe there is, or maybe was, a custom to call birthdays ending in a zero "round birthdays." They are a cause for celebration. From https://www.howtoliveindenmark.com/podcasts/danish-birthday-traditions/: "But if your friend is turning 30 or 40 or 50, that’s a whole different ballgame. That’s a round birthday. It’s a big deal." It's celebrated with big parties, or a trip. 

Five days ago I turned 70. Nothing momentous happened on my birthday -- cards, flowers from family, greetings on Facebook. It was very nice to be remembered. Being very much the introvert I definitely didn't want a big party. It's been on my mind though -- a new decade.

Do I feel different entering a new decade? I have more aches and pains and more medical appointments. But, I am basically very healthy and feel lucky to still be here and able to do so many things that I love and see the people that I love. 

It's sort of an artificial border. But people tend to perceive time-related events as significant. So I can think of this new decade as a time for more adventures, time with friends, books to read, concerts to attend, music to play... maybe new adventures?

Umbrellas, Stories, and Car Rides

 Summer in Chicago means concerts at Ravinia. For my husband and me it means Chicago Symphony concerts, outdoors, in a lovely park on the North Shore. I have been going to concerts there since I came to Chicago in 1975. Dean has been going even longer since he is a native Chicagoan. There are other concerts there besides the CSO -- recitals, popular singers, children's concerts... We mostly go for the CSO.

A week or so ago we were driving to Ravinia and I was working on trying to get an umbrella to close properly. It was one of those umbrellas that fold up quite small but one of the metal pieces was bent or something and it didn't fold properly. The umbrella made me think of Carl Sandberg's story, "Three Boys with Jugs of Molasses and Secret Ambitions," from Rootabaga Stories. My sister had the book when we were kids, given to her by our uncle who loved books and always gifted us with interesting selections. Later I became a Junior Great Books leader and this story was one of the selections - it made for interesting discussions.

The basic plot of this story is three boys whose mothers send them to get jugs of molasses but on their way home one jug breaks and the boys step into the spilled molasses and shrink, entering a world existing in the grass. They have adventures, including a visit to a parasol store, where the clerk informs them that they cannot buy an umbrella because you will inevitably lose it--

“They always come back. These are the famous twisted-nose parasols made from the famous pink grass. You will lose them all, all three. Then they will all walk back to me here in this store on main street. I can not sell you something I know you will surely lose. Neither can I ask you to pay, for something you will forget, somewhere sometime, and when you forget it, it will walk back here to me again."

I told Dean about the parasol store in the story and since he didn't know the story I looked it up on my phone and asked if he wanted to hear it. So I read the whole story to him as we drove toward Lake Michigan. He's not a fiction reader generally, but he listened intently to the whole story. It was lovely, getting to share a favorite of mine with him.

Shopping Spree

 Last week I wrote about our dryer woes. This week I'm wishing we had a clothesline in the backyard.

However, my husband and I went on what turned out to be a shopping spree at Abt, the local appliance mega-store. It is mega in the sense that the store is huge, but it's a local Chicago store, not a national chain. There is only the one store. I hadn't been there in quite a while and it has grown into a mall Besides shopping for all kinds of appliances and computer-related things, the store has become a sort of mall. There's an Apple store, a candy store, a luggage store... 

So we purchased a new washer and dryer which will be delivered on Friday. If I knew that the dryer would break down, I would have washed everything in sight. However, we getting along with what clean things we have. 

While at Abt, my husband also bought a computer thing to improve wifi reception in our house. We have dead spots that go in and out. In fact, I'm writing this from an on and off dead spot. That thingy was just delivered and installed this morning. 

Then, since there is an Apple store and I had been talking for months about replacing my Fitbit with an Apple watch, we bought an Apple watch. It had to be set up and linked with my Apple phone (do you see a pattern? I'm typing this on my Apple Mac) so the friendly tech guys gave us water bottles and sent us to the atrium to wait. The atrium has a fountain, an amazing sculpture thing with balls that drop through a vertical maze, and reclining arm chairs. If I had brought a book it would have been perfect.

All in all, quite a productive shopping spree. Then we went out to dinner to celebrate and recover.

Appliance Woes

 Our dryer developed a very odd problem. I was taking clothes out of the dryer and say that a sock seemed to be stuck near the top of the dryer, at the front. I pulled and it didn't come loose. I pulled harder and finally got it off, ripped to shreds and in two pieces. Poking around, I discovered something sharp sticking out that the sock had caught on. I pulled but it didn't budge. I got big pliers out and pulled -- nothing.

So we needed a service call. Naturally our appliance repair guy had disappeared -- most likely retired -- so I turned to online reviews to find a new person.I did find a new guy (are there no women out there repairing appliances?) and he came out yesterday. 

He had told me on the phone that he had never heard a problem like mine. But, when he looked into the dryer he almost immediately knew what was wrong. He said it better than me, but basically the whole inside mechanism had given up the ghost. He took it apart to show me. It would be about $400 to fix it. I said, well, we want a new washing machine, so we can just get a dryer to go with it. Nevertheless, he looked up parts and found that several important parts are no longer made. A new dryer for sure.

So we will be shopping tomorrow at the big appliance store. Today we are going to see Oppenheimer. 

Remembering a summer past sans electricity

The summer I am remembering was maybe 15 years ago. We lost electricity for several days. Fortunately the temperatures were reasonable. We bought a lot of ice and used our big cooler to keep perishables. We mostly cooked on our charcoal grill. And best of all, we spent time with each other, mostly talking.

Our daughter must have been away taking summer classes at college, but our adult son was still living at home. My husband and I were both teachers at the time, so we had the summer off. We have a small fire pit, the kind that has legs and looks a bit like a charcoal grill. We used it more those electricity-free days than at any other time. The three of us sat around the fire and talked. We talked and listened a lot. Our son had a habit of hibernating in his room, but those several days he sat with us and talked. 

The mother of one of my 4th grade students and I were talking about the days without power much later. She had taken her two daughters and checked into a hotel with a pool until power was restored. That was also a practical solution, but she was practically dumbstruck when I explained how we coped at home. 

It was pleasant, low-key. No television, no computer, just conversation and books if it was light enough to read. We were lucky it was summer when the backyard became an important "room." 

When the power came back on we drifted back to normal, less conversation, more electronics. More convenient for sure.

But when I think about those days I miss sitting around together outside and talking just to talk.

Motivation v. Discipline

 I play French horn, which horn players around the rest of the world just call the horn. I play because I love the instrument, I enjoy playing in various groups, and it's a discipline that I began back in high school.

The thing is, it's summer and most of my regular groups all take a break for the summer. My horn choir still meets every other week, but to read music, not rehearse for a performance. And I have had to miss quite a few of these rehearsals for other reasons. When I have rehearsals and concerts coming up, I practice. I need to learn the music and stay in shape. It's like any physical activity - if you don't play, your muscles lose their strength. And it's not like I don't like playing - I do.

So I haven't been playing much and I feel bad about that. Obviously I need to set some goals, or maybe challenges, like learning some new music. Or setting a challenge goal of how many days in a row I can practice. 

I have been using Duolingo for over a year to learn a language. It is motivating, keeping up my streak - I do at least a little language learning every day. (I could write another post about how irritating Duolingo can be, but not today!)

As I write this I am deciding that I will pick something new to challenge me and something I already know and love to brush up on. Will I need more motivation than that? We'll see!

A Visit from a Daughter

Our daughter came to visit for 10 days!  She lives in Houston where she plays French horn in the Houston Ballet Orchestra and teaches horn lessons. We go down to visit her several times a year and she usually visits us at least once. This is the longest visit since she graduated college.

It's always wonderful to see her. She always brings a measure of chaos with her. Our kitchen gets taken over by gluten-free items. She is also very into healthy eating -- lots of fruit, veggies, smoothies containing fruit, veggies, and assorted powders -- so the refrigerator is filled to bursting with kale, berries, spinach, fruit juices, etc. 

She moves back into her old bedroom which then looks like the closet exploded all over the room. 

And she talks. We hear all about her life, her friends, the people who drive her crazy, the students she is so proud of. And music - lots of talk about music and musicians.

We miss her when she leaves. But now that we have a grandson and she has a nephew... well,, she's coming back in August!

Summer Reading Challenge

 When I was a kid, in elementary school, every summer the public library had a Summer Reading Challenge. I think libraries still have something like that. My clearest memory of the summer reading challenge is one summer when I was maybe 9 or 10, in about 1963, maybe.

My mother, sister, brother and I had gone to the library to sign up. My brother was too young to be reading yet and my sister was also younger than me. The friendly librarian signed us up and got us started on our first book. I don't remember exactly how she convinced me, but my memory is getting pushed into choosing Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling. She definitely talked the book up; maybe it was a favorite from her own childhood.

I spent the entire summer reading that book and I don't remember a darned thing about it. And I was a fanatic reader - I would read for hours. My mother would tell me to turn on a light, I was going to ruin my eyes reading in the dimming light. Puck of Pook's Hill was not an enjoyable read for me. It was a slog.

Fast forward to the present- the lovely and brilliant ladies at Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic (https://carterhaughschool.com/) have presented an unorthodox summer reading challenge. Their passion is for folklore, fairy tales, and all that goes along with those things. Their summer reading challenge is quirky, intriguing, but not limited to folklore and fairy tale related books.

One item on the list is "finish a book that you started and like but somehow keep drifting away from and never finish." For me this was Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. I'm a big fan of Neil Gaiman but when I first tried reading Good Omens it gave me weird dreams. I began it again and really got into it this time - no dreams. 

Other suggestions on their list include "read a book in translation," "read a book with a blue cover," "puzzle through a book that challenges you," and "read your best friend's favorite book." I'm about to begin "read a book you own but have never read" - I Am Murdered, by Bruce Chadwick It's about George Wythe, who was Thomas Jefferson's teacher and who was indeed murdered. It also has a blue cover!

I certainly won't be able to complete the whole list, but that's not the point, of course. Wishing you all happy reading!

A Babysitting Adventure

 Last week I wrote about buying baby equipment. Yesterday we got to use it; we babysat him for about 9 hours! You forget how all-encompassing taking care of a baby is. And exhausting.

Also how confusing baby equipment is to put together!

He is a happy guy, but was still quite distressed when his parents left to go attend a wedding in Milwaukee, over an hour away (though he didn't know that). He did calm down and we had a good time reading books (sturdy board books - who knew that Jimmy Fallon wrote children's books!), playing ball (just rolling it, no playing catch yet!) and sitting in the backyard looking at things.

We were quite exhausted by his bedtime at 7:00. Both of us (my husband and I) learned a lot. Or maybe remembered a lot.

But the absolute best part of the day was that he smiles at me when he looks at me. He is happy to see me!

And today is a day to recuperate.

Baby Equipment

 Our grandson is 10 months old now and walking. He is, of course, adorable, but between walking and rapid crawling, very mobile.

We will be babysitting next Monday while the young parents attend a wedding, and so we have had to buy some additional equipment, namely a playpen, gates, and a car seat. If you haven't shopped for baby equipment lately, you would be amazed at how complicated it has become. There are so many choices! And there are so many reviews to "help" in decision-making. 

The reviews did actually help in picking out the playpen, which unlike in the distant past, is no longer a small, easy to fold up item. You can still get those, but our kids wanted us to get what looks like a fence, plastic panels that snap together. That was fine. Then you find a few on Amazon or wherever and start to read the parent reviews - yikes! Pens arriving with broken pieces, toddlers using the design of the pen to climb out of it, missing parts, and so on. We did finally pick one and it now sits in our living room waiting for us to put it together.

Gates are also much fancier that when our kids were small. Some open, like a door. Some are designed especially for stairs with bannisters. Unfortunately our stairs has a wall on one side and bannister on the other and none of the gates are able to accommodate for that - not wide enough. 

We haven't even begun looking at car seats - again so much easier when our kids were babies. The kids have a fancy one with a base that stays in the car and the seat lifts out. We need a simpler one that is just one piece and not too difficult to buckle in as we don't need it in the car all the time. And sometimes we need to backseat for friends.

However, getting to spend time with the little guy is so worth it! 

Memories of Greek food

This past weekend we went to one of the few remaining Greek restaurants in Chicago's Greek Town. It used to be you could walk down Halsted Street west of the Loop and pass one Greek restaurant after another. Now most of them are gone. I'm not sure why, possibly a change in the neighborhood. There are a lot of new buildings.

Our dinner was very good, but I really want to reminisce about a restaurant in my hometown.

I lived the last part of my childhood in Connecticut, in Cos Cob, which is part of the larger town of Greenwich. My family loved the Colonial Inn, in Old Greenwich, which was owned by a husband and wife -- one of them was Greek and the other Italian. An so the Colonial Inn was a Greek-Italian restaurant. It was on the small side and cozy. White tablecloths. It's no longer there, but I heard from high school classmates that the children of the owners have opened a restaurant in a neighboring town. I should say that my family is not Greek (or Italian).

I have two standout memories of the Colonial Inn. One was when my sister's college boyfriend came to visit and our parents gave us some money and said, go out to eat. My sister, brother, the boyfriend, and I went to the Colonial Inn. Us three siblings all ordered Greek food, from appetizer to dessert. The boyfriend (I have forgotten his name!) ordered a ham steak followed by cheesecake for dessert. My brother and I knew then that the relationship wouldn't last. And it didn't.

My other memory is of an evening with my parents and brother and sister. My dad wanted to order wine and was asking what a particular wine was like. The waiter paused. A Catholic priest was eating by himself at a nearby table, but he had gone to the men's room. The waiter remarked, "The Father won't mind," and poured a small glass from the priest's bottle of wine for my dad to try! 

When we got to dessert, the waiter informed us that the galaktoboureko had just come out of the oven. Galaktoboureko is not as well known as baklava, but once you have it, you won't forget it. Usually it is served chilled, but that night we had it warm from the oven. Oh my, in 40 years I have not forgotten the sensation of eating that delicious dessert. Here is a description from the web:

Galaktoboureko is a traditional Greek dessert made with layers of golden brown crispy phyllo, sprinkled with melted butter, filled with the most creamy custard and bathed in scented syrup.. Simply amazing!

I didn't have any dessert this past weekend; I was stuffed from my seafood, rice, and bread. But sometimes memories are better than the real thing.

My Dad and World War II

 My brother and sister-in-law were in town yesterday on their way to New York to visit their new grandson. We had a great visit and in chatting my brother mentioned that he has been looking into the role of sub chasers in World War II. Our dad was the captain of one of these.

My father would never talk about what he did in the Navy in WWII. In my very limited experience, WWII veterans fall into two camps - those who want to get together and reminisce, and those who don't want to talk about it. My dad was clearly the second type.

I know my dad's sub chaser was off the coast of France on D Day. 

I don't know as much about sub chasers as my brother now knows, but he has gotten me interested. The sub chasers were smaller boats, made of wood. The poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti was in command of one of these boats. They maneuvered easily and were difficult for the German subs to detect. On D-Day, the sub chasers rescued men in the water among other duties.

It's family history. My parents, especially my mom, were very interested in genealogy. I inherited several boxes of family genealogy. The family trees and where people were born, etc. is interesting, but it's the stories of what people did, what happened to them, that makes family history come alive for me. 

Performance Anxiety Strikes

 I do love to play my horn. And performance opportunities are great - a chance to play for people, motivation to practice and delve deeper in the music... but also the possibility of stage fright, so to speak.

The concert band that I am a member of had a concert on Sunday. The last piece on the program was a medley from Wicked and "Defying Gravity" was a horn solo. It wasn't incredibly hard, but it wasn't easy either. And I haven't seen Wicked. (I know, I'm perhaps the only person in the country who hasn't seen Wicked. I haven't seen Phantom either.) So I looked the song up on youtube and listened several times. 

Problem number two: I am a classically trained musician. The style of pop music is very different than classical music, say Mozart, Brahms, Strauss, etc. Pop music, like Wicked, has certain rhythms and phrasing that you have to both read carefully and feel, or you don't stay with the rest of the group.

At the first rehearsal I bombed it all over the place. I went home and not only practiced it, but listened to it on youtube, and had my band director husband coach me (which he was delighted to do!). It was much better at the next rehearsal and I continued working on it with my husband at home.

Nevertheless, I was very nervous. And it was the last piece on the program, which for a brass player means tired lips. I carefully paced myself and the rest of the horn section supportively covered for me when I laid back in pieces before Wicked.

In the end, though I was nervous, I was able to relax and enjoy playing the solo. It's making music that is so rewarding and I think that I was able to do that. 

Whew!

Yo-Yo Ma!

 We saw Yo-Yo Ma last night!

Yo-Yo Ma has to be one of the best known and popular classical musicians. He is an amazing cellist, but has not limited  himself to classical music. He has played Appalachian music with Mark O'Connor and Edgar Meyer. He initiated the Silk Road global musical journey. He is a wonderful, dedicated educator, not limited to teaching music students but encompassing everyone. 

About 15 years ago, Mr. Ma was in Chicago and giving a free master class downtown. We went -- my husband, teenage daughter, her friend, and me. This was during the Silk Road experience. I don't remember many specifics any more, but I do remember Mr. Ma involving all of us in rhythm experiences using our hands to clap, etc. What I do remember is how inclusive and inspiring he was, along with being unconventional for a classical musician. 

He could have spent his career like most top soloists - soloing with orchestras all over the world, focusing on classical music, playing chamber music with other top musicians. Instead, he has continually looked to expanding his musical interests and reaching out to all people. He has said: "As musicians, we transcend technique in order to seek out the truths in our world in a way that gives meaning and sustenance to individuals and communities. That's art for life's sake."

Mr. Ma was here yesterday! He soloed with the Chicago Symphony in a special concert, playing the cello concerto by English composer Edward Elgar, a lovely 20th century piece. Orchestra was packed with a very enthusiastic audience. After the applause, he spoke to the audience briefly and was given a bouquet of roses by a young woman in the audience. He immediately used the bouquet to give roses to many of the women in the orchestra. 

After the concert my husband and I went to a nearby restaurant and had sorbet. The maitre-d asked if we had been to the Yo-Yo Ma concert. "How was it? Everyone at dinner (before the concert) was talking about it -- getting to see Yo-Yo Ma tonight."

He's touring the country right now, big cities and small towns. If you can, go see and hear him!

Spring sunshine

It snowed here in Chicagoland last night. Not a lot, but noticeable. Now that it is April and springtime, I have started again to sit outside for 20 minutes or so in the morning. I have a sleep problem. Last summer I watched a video from my health insurance company about sleep, both its importance and how get better sleep. The bottom line was five recommendations:

1. Pick a wake-up time and stick with it.

2. Stop caffeine by 2 pm.

3. Limit alcohol 3 hours before bed and drink one glass of water for each alcoholic drink.

4. Limit exercise 4 hours before bed.

5. Get 15 minutes of sun every day, preferably in the morning.

I have no problem with numbers 2, 3, and 4. I have not tried #1 because I hesitate to give up any sleep I can get, whether it's in the morning or night. 

Number 5, 15 minutes of sun, is very pleasant. I take my coffee (well before 2 pm!) and sit in the backyard. But this is Chicago, so sitting in the sun for much of the year is just not practical. So I am delighted that April is here, snow or no snow. I had to clear ice and snow off the patio furniture and put down towels to soak up the wetness, but I sat for at least 15 minutes. I watched a squirrel find something to eat. I did the New York Times crossword. And I had peace.

Salvador Dalí

 Yesterday we took the train into Chicago and visited the Art Institute with friends. We went to see the Salvador Dalí exhibit in particular, though the Art Institute has so much wonderful art, you don't need a particular reason to visit.

The title of the exhibition is Salvador Dalí: The Image Disappears. It was a relatively small exhibit, fitting in three rooms, but with an interesting assortment of art, most of which I had not seen before. Some of the paintings were like those pictures that you can look at two ways and see different images. Like this:

There were a lot of music references, which surprised me. Richard Wagner was in one of the paintings! I can't say I saw what the notes said was happening in all of the works, or why Dalí created some of these works, but it was certainly interesting. 

Concert Time!

 Last night was a late night for me - I'm not used to staying up so late. But, the community orchestra that I play in had a concert -- a special concert in Orchestra Hall (Chicago), the home of the Chicago Symphony. 

I have played on that stage before, both with this same community orchestra (the Symphony of Oak Park and River Forest) but also decades ago with the Chicago Civic Orchestra, a training orchestra for your musicians in their 20s. The Hall has had a major renovation since I played their in the 1970s. The downstairs, where the dressing rooms and offices are located, is amazing. First of all, there is an actual women's dressing room! In the 1970s the women were put in a room not designed as a dressing room - there weren't that many women in the orchestra (or any professional orchestra!) at that time. There are also "quiet rooms," a ping pong table, showers, and lots of space! 

Leaving the downstairs and proceeding to the actual concert - we played the premiere of a symphony by one of the members of the SOPRF and parts of the Te Deum by Hector Berlioz. The Te Deum includes a large choir and children's choir. The audience was enthusiastic - it was mostly friends and relatives, but still... 

So we all finished the concert in a glow of happy accomplishment. Here is my section (I am next to the tall young man):

The end of SOLSC, beginning of NaNoWriMo

 So many fellow bloggers here have written about the challenge of writing something (hopeful good!) every day this month. Here we on the final day. Whew!

So I have decided to take on another month-long writing challenge! I question my judgment, but I think it will be a good thing.

NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is a yearly challenge in November to write 50,000 words of a novel. I know two people who have done this. My sister wrote a Nordic epic and my friend Kevin wrote a fantasy novel. My sister let our mom read her novel. (I should ask her if I can read it. I don't know why I haven't.) Kevin asked me to be a beta reader for his novel. I was happy to oblige and gave him my opinionated feedback. After revising, he asked me to read it again - wow, it was good! He has published the novel, it's on Amazon. You can find it by searching for Wellspring, by Kevin Sutherland. (Irrelevant aside: Kevin and I met because we both play French horn. We played together for awhile in a horn choir.)

Two years ago I decided to take the NaNoWriMo challenge. I had an idea for a historical/fantasy novel with music (horn playing) and time travel. I did not meet the 50,000 word challenge, but I learned a lot about writing and what I need to learn in order to be successful in finishing the story. 

NaNoWriMo has grown and now offers a variety of writing challenges throughout the year. April is Camp NaNoWriMo, where you set your own goal, whether it's writing, revising, or something else. There is a lot of support available if one wants it -- master classes, forums, regional writing groups, and so on. It's a very positive space. People cheer you on.

So my goals right now are to improve my plot (it's too thin), fill out my characters (including the bad guys!), and do some historical research that will help with the action, food, clothing, how music worked in the small kingdoms in what is now Austria, and so on. It will be challenging, but I hope it will also be fun. 

Reading to little ones

 Reading is very important to me - novels, nonfiction, newspapers. So when we had children, I wanted to start reading to them as soon as possible. I don't remember exactly how old our son was when I started reading to him before bed. It was before he cared about stories, for sure. I would hold the book and read aloud and he would usually climb all over me.

Eventually, of course, he was able to follow the pictures and stories and started to have favorites. One of his absolute favorites was a Richard Scarry picture book. I'm pretty sure it was Cars and Trucks and Things That Go. We read it about a million times.

When he got a bit older and could read for himself, we still had read-aloud time before bed. He was reluctant to read on his own. I loved reading with him (and we continued until he 11) but also wanted him to read on his own. We were reading the first Time Warp Trio book by John Scieszka, Knights of the Kitchen Table. We came to the end of a chapter where the three main characters are about to be devoured by an ogre. I said, "Okay, that's it for tonight." 

"Give me that book!" he said, grabbing for it.

And that was the start of his independent reading journey. He has read hundreds of books since then. 

Lately other activities have pushed reading actual books aside, including an infant son, but hopefully he will rediscover the joys of book reading again. And the baby already has quite a library for when he stops putting everything in his mouth. 

Coffee Drinking Journey

 Inspired by https://horizon51.blogspot.com/2023/03/solsc-23-day-27-coffee-evolution.html?sc=1679933732168#c4098539422588800953

I first drank coffee in high school. I was in a lot of music groups and one summer my friends and I would go to IHOP after rehearsal. Thinking back, it's amazing how much food high school students can eat. Some of my friends were drinking coffee, so I started drinking it too. I took it black because my parents always did.

Fast forward past college to grad school. I had a friend would would add a single drop of cream to his coffee. He said it took the edge off the bitterness. I started doing the same, only my "drop" got bigger and bigger until it was really coffee with cream. 

Side note: Back in the olden days, like the 60s, when you ordered coffee in New York City you got it with cream in it unless you specified black.

Another fast forward to the 1990s. Now I'm married with two children who I signed up for art classes on Saturday mornings. While they were making art, I would go across the street to a coffee shop and have a latte and read. It was such a nice, relaxing way to spend Saturday morning that my husband decided to join me, even though we didn't need two parents driving the kids to art class. 

Then came Starbucks. A Starbucks opened about a block away from "our" coffee shop. Eventually the charming coffee shop closed. I know this was happening everywhere. And yes, I did get coffee, lots of it, from Starbucks.

However, I also started making coffee at home. It didn't take any more time to make a cup at home than it did to stop at Starbucks on the way to work. I started buying coffee beans and used a press pot to make my morning cup. I highly recommend the press pot - it makes a nice, smooth cup of coffee. I bought a coffee grinder and good whole beans from the grocery store. Somewhere along the way I had become lactose intolerant, so I switched to almond milk. I don't like sweet coffee, but I like a hint of sweetness so I add a tiny bit of caramel syrup.

Also along the way my son became a barrista, first at Caribou, then at Starbucks. 

We recently took a Caribbean cruise that had a stop in Jamaica. My son the Coffee Master asked us to buy some coffee beans in Jamaica (He was babysitting his infant son at the time.). So we brought back two bags of coffee beans, one for us and one for him. We have almost finished our bag. 

The end of my post, though not the end of my coffee drinking!

The New York Times Crossword

 Some years ago I decided I wanted to be able to do the New York Times crossword. It's hard. So I bought a book, "How to Conquer the New York Times Crossword Puzzle," and I learned all kinds of interesting things. Some puzzles have themes, others have puzzles within the crossword puzzle. 

Monday and Tuesday are the easiest, and most straightforward, so that's where I started. I just did those two days each week. The puzzles get harder each day, peaking on Saturday. Thursday is sometimes called "Gimmick Day," because Thursday crosswords sometimes feature the unexpected. One crossword near Halloween required you to figure out that you needed to draw little ghosts in some of the squares. Sometimes an entire syllable needs to go in a square and is part of two words that cross each other. 

Now I generally solve the Monday Tuesday, and Wednesday puzzles. I give Thursday a try most weeks. Nowadays it's easy to look up the answers on the internet. There are multiple sites that give the answers to the clues. Though I might look up something I truly don't know, like names of athletes or TV stars, it obviously is more of an accomplishment if you can figure it out without looking it up!

I really like words and word games. I will probably never "conquer" the New York Times crossword, but I'm enjoying the journey.

Salvadore Dali and band directors

 The Art Institute of Chicago has a special exhibit on the surrealist Salvador Dali right now. We wanted to go because he is an interesting artist and the Art Institute always has great shows. We invited a couple with whom we are friends to go with us. They used to be our neighbors here in the suburbs but after retiring they moved into a condo in Chicago. They were enthusiastic and so we made plans to meet at the Art Institute tomorrow right when it opens, tomorrow, Tuesday.

My husband is a retired high school band director. Band directors are true masters of planning and coordination. (Sometimes it drives me a little crazy. But I love him. And it is helpful in the end.) So he was looking at train schedules, restaurants, and also the Art Institute website. Where he discovered that the Art Institute is closed on Tuesdays! 

He shot off an email to our friends, who replied that they had a similar experience with another Chicago-area museum, but only discovered that it was closed after they had driven about 45 minutes to get to the museum. So they were pleased to reschedule for Dali. We are now going, with our friends, but in April. So I won't be writing about the trip in the March SOLSC. 

Memories of Chinese food and special people

 I came to Chicago in 1975 to study with the principal (French) horn player of the Chicago Symphony. He was the best of the best and I was so lucky to study with him for three years. Though my life (and my choices) ended up taking me away from earning my living playing my horn, a twist of fate brought me back into my teacher's orbit.

My daughter chose the horn in 5th grade and developed into a talented player. As a high school student she joined a youth symphony that the son of my former teacher was also a member of. And he was also a horn player. They became friends and coincidentally chose the same university to attend. And they began dating.

Where does Chinese food come into this Slice, you are asking. On a break from college, our daughter invited us along on a trip to Chinatown to eat lunch with her boyfriend and his parents (and maybe a few other people - another student or friend). So we went. We ate excellent Chinese food (if you are in the Chicago area and want to try it, it's Lao Szechuan. They have several locations now). We had a great conversation. (And we got a ticket because we were unfamiliar with the new meter system - of well.) And we still eat at Lao Szechuan when we have a chance.

That was how we reconnected. We were fortunate to spend time with all of them - the boyfriend and his parents - special people, all of them.

My teacher and his wife have sadly both passed away. And our daughter and their son eventually broke up. But I cherish the memories.

John Williams in Concert!

 Last night we went to the Chicago Symphony to hear a program of John Williams movie music conducted by John Williams. It was amazing - for several reasons.

John Williams' music features the brass a lot, and the Chicago Symphony has one of the best brass sections among symphonies. Even more exciting, John Williams was conducting this concert. He is 91 years old! We have seen several older conductors lately who need some assistance walking and who sit to conduct. Not Mr. Williams - he walked on by himself and stood for the whole concert. He also talked to the audience between pieces.

And the music! We had Star Wars, E.T., Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park and things I had never heard. The orchestra was wonderful. And after the program they played 30 minutes of encore pieces. It was definitely a concert to remember.

What we've been watching (on TV)

 On TV, incase you thought we might be spying on our neighbors. 

After reading another post today with show recommendations, I thought I'd chime in. (Thank you to Ryan Barba: https://birdsbaseballbarba.wordpress.com/2023/03/24/day-24-good-content/)

My husband and I have been watching Korean television show lately. We started with Crash Landing on You, recommended by my brother, a big film buff. (He has gotten to go to the Sundance film festival as a reviewer!) We loved this show. It's about a South Korean business woman who accidentally ends up in North Korea, rescued by a handsome army officer. Many complications ensue, in both Koreas.

Next we watched Extraordinary Attorney Woo, about an autistic woman who is an amazing attorney, but who struggles with people skills. this was also recommended by my brother.

Then we found Kim's Convenience, a Canadian sitcom about a Korean family who own a convenience store. Lots of interesting characters and many unlikely situations, it's very entertaining.

My husband and I both found that we enjoy the shows no matter what, but we prefer hearing them with the original Korean dialogue and reading the subtitles. I should note that we turn on subtitles for all the shows we watch no matter what language they're in.

Anyone care share recommendations? 

Food: delicious and complicated

 My husband has a very unusual dietary issue: he can't eat hot spices. no spicy peppers including jalapeños, cayenne, chipotle, chile powder, cumin, etc. Accidental ingestion has sent us to the emergency room more than once. The United States as a whole has embraced spicy foods. When I was growing up in Wisconsin (heartland of bland cooking) there were no spicy foods. Now they're everywhere.

I am lactose intolerant. I just get a stomach ache if I accidentally eat dairy products. But I am also a pescatarian - I eat seafood and plants. This means that sometimes there is maybe one item on a menu that I can eat. Many times I can ask for the kitchen to omit the cheese though.

Together we are a challenge to feed. I feel bad when people invite us for dinner and there are so many things that are automatically off the menu. People are nice about it though. They generally serve fish. I think making a vegetarian meal is intimidating to many people. So many unusual ingredients, and where's the protein?

Saturday we are invited to dinner with friends. I predict fish. I'm bringing cookies.

The not-so-little tasks that add up.

 I came home yesterday and the garage door wouldn't close. It's an electric door and this is not the first time (recently!) that it has refused to close. So the garage door stayed up all night and now the repair guy is here fixing it. 

Our house is 40-some years old so it's not surprising that things don't always work. Besides the garage door at the end of the day, I had been trying to schedule a dryer vent cleaning and a handyman to do a looong list of fix-it issues. I think once the handyman comes he'll be here for days.

Sometimes it's just a chore to get things working again. But sometimes it's an exciting upgrade. A couple months ago we decided to get a new television. Ours was a 200-pound old-style TV - the guys who installed our new flat screen were not happy about having to take the old one away. The new TV is awesome, though I haven't learned how to work it yet! My husband mostly knows how, though sometimes we get lost in the maze of streaming.

I grew up with three television channels. And the stations all shut down, maybe around midnight, the Star Spangled Banner played, and then you had a test signal until sometime in the morning. 

Another item for the to-do list: learning to work the TV (and joining the 21st century).

To-do list

 I make a little to-do list almost every day. I write it with a pencil in a small date book. Very old school, but it works for me. Some things appear every day: yoga, practice horn, do a Gaelic lesson, blog. Other items are not so regular. Today I need to go to the post office to drop off packages of returns for my husband. I plan to go to a particular grocery store that carries the most Passover items (I want to get some chocolate-covered macaroons before they're all gone!). And I wrote down Firness Center. 

I dropped the Fitness Center visits during COVID because of the danger of infection, but I haven't gotten back in the habit. It's so easy to think of other things that need to be done. However, it is an important part of staying healthy, so today I WILL go.

Wish me luck!

History Fair Judging

 A former colleague, still a friend, asked me to be a judge at our school's history fair last month. I had been a judge many years ago at a science fair in Chicago, but never for a history fair. I thought it would be an interesting experience and said yes.

It was an interesting experience. The students have a choice of how to present their projects: papers, documentaries, live performance, or website. The these this was "Crossing a frontier." My friend asked if I would be a paper judge. The four papers that my partner and I were assigned were on a variety of topics: the Boston Tea Party, Amazon (the company), the founding of Jamestown, and the Roman army. We had read the papers in advance and then met the students individually to discuss and give feedback. 

I know quite a lot about the Boston Tea Party and the history of Jamestown so I was prepared with relevant comments and questions. The other two topics I felt less prepared for, but learned as we went along with the meetings. My partner was very well-prepared and we complimented each other well, as she is a math teacher and didn't know American history as well as I do. 

Three of the four students attentively listened to our comments (perhaps with slightly stunned expressions at times - my partner talked fast!). The fourth student, who had researched Amazon - an interesting choice, but definitely involving frontier crossing - was inclined to try negotiation and justification in response to our observations. I had met him before while subbing in middle school and so was not surprised.

I need to contact my friend in charge of the history fair to see who advanced to State. Whether or not they advance, it's clear that everyone learned a lot from the experience. 

"How did you two meet?"

 Once again finding inspiration in another slicer's post! Thank you Carol Ann Clark (I think) at https://bloggedbutunspoken.wordpress.com/2023/03/18/meet-cute/comment-page-1/#comment-518.

People do ask us, "how did you two meet?" Appropriately, we met at a band rehearsal. It was a summer band in a suburb of Chicago. A friend asked me to fill in for her for two weeks while she went on a family vacation. He had been invited to play by another band member. I play (French) horn, he plays tuba, so he sat behind me in rehearsal.

I did not notice him until the break, when he came up to me and asked, "What kind of horn do you play?" Meaning the maker, not that it was a French horn. At that time I was playing an Alexander, which is a German-made horn. "I play an Alexander, too," he answered. Was it that coincidence that sealed our fate?

However, after my two weeks in the band, I did not see him again until December. It was (again, appropriately) at a reception at Orchestra Hall (downtown Chicago) after a brass concert. He came up to me and started a conversation. He asked if I gave horn lessons and I said yes. It turned out he was a school band director in the suburbs. He asked for my phone number so he could call and discuss my coming out to his school to give lessons (hmmmm). 

I was not surprised when he called a few days later and asked me out for coffee. The rest is history, still being written. Forty-three years, two kids, one grandson, and many, many rehearsals later we are still making music. 

Underrated Joys

 Lynne Dorfman wrote about underrated joys (https://lynnedorfmanblog.wordpress.com/2023/03/16/underrated-joy/), and I decided to list my own.

1. Sleeping late in the morning, or just lolling in bed for awhile

2. Rereading a favorite book

3. Reading to a child with the child sitting on your lap. (It's been awhile for me, but now I have a grandson! I get to do this again!)

4. Clean sheets on the bed

5. Sunshine in the morning

6. Colorful sunsets

7. Playing music with delightful people

8. Seeing a rare appearance of the chipmunk who lives in my backyard

9. Watching the ocean waves

10. Spending time with my children

11. Really good coffee in the morning

12. Watching television with my husband

Thank you, Lynne!

Chicago: The Loop

 A quick post this morning because we are going downtown for a concert! The Chicago Symphony has Friday afternoon concerts occasionally. We usually go to the Symphony either Friday or Saturday night, but we have another event tomorrow night, so here we are about to take the train to the Loop.

For those not familiar with Chicago, the Loop is the central downtown area. The El train makes a loop around this area, hence the name. Symphony Center, the opera house, and many theaters are all in the Loop area. It's also pretty close to the Lake, the lake being Lake Michigan.

So we will ride the Metra train from the northwest suburbs to its last stop and then walk east toward the Lake. We will enjoy a wonderful concert. It is Carmina Burana, by the German composer Carl Orff. Today is St. Patrick's Day, a big occasion in Chicago, but the official celebration was last Saturday so hopefully it won't be crazy downtown.

Then back to the train for the ride home. 

My daughter's bedroom

 I am sitting in my daughter's bedroom writing this post. She doesn't live her anymore, being an independent adult. I have taken over parts of the room to use as an office/music practice space. However, there's still a lot of her in this room.

I think she was in middle school when we decided to repaint the room. It was a boring color, tan maybe. Purple was her favorite color, so purple it was. An entire deep purple room seemed pretty intense, so she agreed to use purple and lavender. We also decided to be a little fancy and use the sponge painting technique on two walls. 

Carrying the purple theme even further, she got a purple comforter, lavender curtains, and some extra purple throw pillows. I don't think it would suit everyone, but it works in our house.

Practice makes?

There's an article in today's New York Times about violinist Hilary Hahn. She is a well-known concert violinist who is very interested in music education. She is an amazing violinist. I have heard her in concert several times. She is also interested in de-mystifying how she got that way and showing how deliberate practice is essential. She is posting bits of her violin practice time, #100daysofpractice, on Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok. She's deliberately choosing bits that are not technically impressive and are not perfect.

She says her initial idea was to show how deliberate, regular practice makes progress. Because she is highlighting playing that needs practice, that is not "perfect," she has inspired others to accept less than perfection as okay, sort of a zen of practice. 

Deliberate practice here means thinking in advance of what you want to accomplish and how you will get there. It seems obvious but there are many who practice without a goal. 

This all reminded me of a book that was popular some years ago, The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle. Coyle analyzes the things needed to be successful in pretty much any area. The three things are deep, focused practice, passion, and a master teacher. One of my acquaintances told me about listening to a college-age violinist practice. She played the same passage over and over, but when she finished and left the practice room the passage wasn't any better than when she started.

Hilary Hahn inspired me today to join Instagram to find her!

Disney movies and my children

 When my children were little Disney movies were a noticeable part of our lives. We went to an actual movie theater to see The Lion King, Pocahontas, and probably some other Disney flics. We also watched many Disney movies at home on our VCR (remember those?)

Until my daughter Jamie (the younger sibling) was about 5 years old, she say in my lap at the movie theater. This was not something we decided on or discussed, she just always plopped down in my lap. She's very tall - as an adult she is about 5'10" - and even as a preschooler she was always the tallest in her class. So when she say in my lap her head leaned on my chin and her hair was in my mouth. It was not the most comfortable way to watch a movie.

One thing about many Disney movies is that parents seem to die. A lot. So there many tears from both my daughter and son - when Mufasa was killed, when Bambi's mother didn't come back, two sobbing children, one on each arm in the movie theater. Also when John Smith sailed back to England. 

On the other hand, The Little Mermaid terrified my son when he was 4 or 5. First it was Ariel's father destroying her treasures in a rage. Once we got past that part, it was Ursula. 

Then one day we went to the the movie theater and Jamie sat down in the seat next to me. Ever after that, she say in her own seat. I found, all the inconveniences aside, I missed it.

Life's Little Challenges

 Most Saturday mornings I leave my house around 8 am and drive 45 minutes to play music with other (French) horn players. It's a collegial group open to any adult who plays horn. This past Saturday when I hopped in my car to back out of the driveway and go, however, the car did not start. Not a single sound came from the engine. Dead as a doornail (whatever a doornail is).

Lucky for me we have second car so, leaving a note for my husband, I went off to rehearsal. 

We have a wonderful car repair place within walking distance, but it's closed on Saturday, so today we were going to jump the car and drive it to the repair shop. Jumping did not work. The dashboard lights flashed, but not a sound from the engine. So, we called the shop for a tow. Just our luck, their tow truck was broken! So now we are waiting for a tow service to come and tow the car to the shop. 

My car is a 10-year-old Honda and has been so reliable over the years. Fingers crossed that our repair guys can bring it back to life.

Favorite Teachers

 I see several slicers posting about favorite teachers. That got me thinking about my own favorite teachers and why they are favorites.

Music was always very important to me, and I majored in music in college, so most of my favorite teachers were music teachers. Today I am thinking of Mr. Princiotti.

Salvatore Princiotti was the string teacher at my high school in Connecticut. I didn't play a string instrument, I am a brass player, but he heard about me from the band/orchestra teacher at the high school (also a favorite teacher!). Mr. Princiotti was also the director of a local youth orchestra that included kids from several towns. He asked me to join this orchestra. I was a sophomore and had been playing (French) horn for about a year and a half, having switched from trumpet. 

I played in his orchestra for three years, until I left for college. While a member, I saw first-hand what kind of teacher he was -- encouraging, kind, seeing each player as an individual and appreciating each student's uniqueness and gifts.

Mr. Princiotti gave me my first opportunity to play a solo with an orchestra. (Actually my only time soloing until a few years ago when my daughter and I played a two-horn concerto with a local band.) 

But mostly I remember him for his unflagging patience and kindness toward all his students, no matter their level of music talent. When I nominated some years ago for a Golden Apple award, I had to write an essay about a teacher who impacted my life. I chose Mr. Princiotti to write about.  

Bookshelf poems

Inspired by Arjeha (https://arjeha.wordpress.com/2023/03/10/bookshelf-poetry/comment-page-1/#comment-13767) I tried my hand at creating bookshelf poems. It's quite entertaining to see what you can come up with!

My uncle the bookworm

 Today my post is inspired by another SOLSC post, https://pencilonmybackporch.home.blog/2023/03/10/grandpas-gifts/comment-page-1/#comment-3769. Thank you Fran!

My immediate family of origin is pretty small. Growing up I had two uncles, one aunt, and two first cousins. One of my uncles, Fremont, never married. He was a university professor in Seattle and he LOVED books. And so every birthday I got a book from him. They were always age-appropriate, but also they were great! Among the books he gifted me were the first two Mary Poppins books by P.L. Travers (so different from the movie; if you've never read them I highly recommend them), A first edition of The Outsiders (which my sister lost!), and The Return of the Twelves by British author Pauline Clarke. My sister was also the recipient of books from him. One of the best was Friday's Tunnel by John Verney. 

When I got older I wondered how a man with no children of his own could pick such wonderful books for young readers. I think he probably went to a bookstore and told the clerk that he wanted a book for a girl such-and-such years old. It was very thoughtful of him. 

As far as books, his house was filled with them. He lived with his parents, my grandparents, until they passed away, and then stayed in the house on his own. Without my grandmother keeping some control over the space, the books took over more and more of the house. When he passed away my parents and my other uncle struggled with finding new homes for the thousands of books he left. 

Uncle Fremont also wrote books, all in his academic fields of political science and public policy. He was curious about many things. He also had a beautiful singing voice and was a popular wedding soloist in Seattle. He was a quiet man who didn't force himself on people. When my husband and I visited the family in Seattle, my other uncle made quite a lot of plans for us, but Fremont did not. I had ask him if he would give us a tour of the University of Washington where he taught. We had a lovely time with him that day.

Are Trekkies Crazy? Fandom Thoughts

 Full disclosure, I watched the original Star Trek when it first aired. Now it's known as TOS, The Original Series (NOT The Old Series, though of course it is). 

Yes, I am a fan. I have seen all the movies, watched all of TNG (The Next Generation) several times, some of Voyager, some of Deep Space Nine, Picard, and Strange New Worlds. Yes, there are more series to explore, but I do watch other things as well AND I have other things in my life.

I had a friend who was a big fan as well. She once dressed as a Klingon to go to a Star Trek convention. Some years later she met the man who she would marry. She did not tell him about her foray as a Klingon and as far as I know she never has. They have teenage children now, to provide perspective on the passage of time.

I have never been to a Star Trek gathering. I did make my son a Captain Picard uniform when he was about 5 years old. He enjoyed it and later my daughter also wore it.

When my daughter was about 3 years old, we were watching TNG. She looked at the screen, where Lieutenant Worf (the Klingon, for you non-Trekkies) was doing something on the bridge. She pointed to the screen and said, "who's the chocolate-headed guy?"

Why all the love for Star Trek? I think it's because of the positive messages it sends. In the 1960s, a Black woman on the bridge of a star ship, as well as an Asian. The first inter-racial kiss on television. A sometimes heavy-handed, but well-intentioned messages of hope, that different types of beings can get along (though there always have to be some bad guys or the stories get boring) have been a significant part of the series all along.

We're taking a bit of a break from Star Trek at the moment, watching some excellent Korean television. But that's another story.

The Substitute

 I am subbing at my old school today. I retired in June 2021 after 20+ years teaching kindergarten and 4th grade. Now I sub occasionally, only at this school. Today I am doing middle school language arts/social studies.

Middle  schoolers are incredibly social! The first period sub plans say "they are not to be too talkative and should be on task." From my perspective they are very talkative, but they are on task and very passionate about the assignment, which involves setting up a mock United Nations with the goal of preventing World War I. Though they are verging on loud, they are all engaged and interacting positively. This reminds me why I love this school!

Later today 6th grade will be making predictions and then reading chapters in a novel titled Outrun the Moon, and 7th grade will read and discuss Act IV of The Comedy of Errors. 

My past life as a writer

 Yes, I do still write, but my past life is the writing I did as a kid. I liked writing. We lived in Wisconsin when I was in elementary school and my 6th grade class always listened to "Let's Write" on the Wisconsin School of the Air on the classroom radio. Thinking of that now, I guess you could say the Wisconsin School of the Air was the precursor of online learning. [We also had Let's Sing, where we sang along to whatever was on the show that week.]

I actually don't remember what I wrote in response to that show, but I do remember two stories I wrote in 6th grade. I remember them because of my teacher's response to them. One of them was a pretty funny fantasy, though I have forgotten the details. The other was a story about a girl character saving up money to buy a fishing rod. It was a very straight forward, fill-in-the-blanks stock story. I had read stories like that and so I wrote one. I HATED it, so of course that was the story my teacher asked me to read in front of the class. 

I couldn't say no, so what I did was read as fast as possible and also mumble. After I finished my speed-read, my fellow students all went, "What??" as I slunk back to my seat. 

My teacher never asked me to read again. 

Happy ending- that didn't stop me from writing what I wanted to write. After 6th grade, my family moved to Connecticut and I made new friends. I wrote a very silly story about my new group of friends, which they loved. I wrote a play set in ancient Greece or Rome, I can't remember which. That was in response to my World History class in high school.

Good and bad, these experiences helped me be a better writing teacher.

And as you see, I still write today!

Cruising the Caribbean

 My husband and I had never been on a cruise, unless you count a two hour cruise on Lake Michigan. But our son and daughter-in-law had been on a cruise shortly before they got married and were enthusiastic about going again. My daughter-in-law's parents, sister, and brother-in-law were also going on the same cruise. Also our 6-month-old grandson! So we decided to take the plunge and join them.

It was a Carnival cruise, the ship was the Horizon - I learned that the particular ship matters as some are different sizes. We got a nice cabin in the center of the ship (less bouncing in the waves) and with a balcony. 

Well, we had a lovely time. We loved sitting on the balcony watching the waves, the islands we passed by, the sunsets. Sometimes other people were also on their balconies, and we gave friendly waves back and forth. My husband states that the balcony was the best part of the trip - I don't disagree.

What else? We swam with dolphins on Grand Cayman. We were going to try paddle boarding and snorkeling on Cozumel, but with high wind and waves that day we were switched to a beach day - we both have bad backs. We babysat our grandson one morning so his parents could have an excursion day, which was also a lot of fun. 

Would I do it again? Probably. The kids are already signing up for their next cruise in two years. It's a nice way to spend some time with family without all the aspects of daily life. But we both also want to have some other adventures and are discussing a trip to Europe in the near future!

NaNoWriMo

 NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, which takes place every year in November. The challenge is to write a 50,000 word first draft of a novel. My sister did this some years ago, writing a novel based in Scandinavian legends. I have not read it because she didn't share it with me -- I should ask. 

I also have a friend who successfully wrote a fantasy novel during NaNoWritMo a few years ago. I did read this one because he asked friends if they would be willing to read his draft and give him feedback. It was a very interesting experience. I liked a lot of things about his story and characters. He took the feedback he got and really rewrote most of the story. He asked me to read it again -- wow! He took readers' feedback and transformed an interesting story into an engaging novel with characters that were alive. 

So, two years ago I signed up for NaNoWriMo. I had an idea for a story. The NaNoWriMo site has lots of resources to help writers from planning tools to groups and forums one can join. It's a very upbeat and nurturing organization.

So I began my novel on November 1. This is what I learned that month: 

• Novels are very long and need lots of plot and character development.
• I need to work on descriptions -- places, people, music (a major part of my plot).
• Because my story takes place in the past and mostly in Europe, I need to do research about life in the late 18th century. It would be so helpful if I knew German, but I don't.
• Writing 50,000 words in a month, or 1,667 words a day is a challenge. You are not supposed to stop and edit your work either. 

So I have let my novel marinate for some months, though I think about it from time to time. I still like my basic idea and I have modest goals for this novel-in-waiting. NaNoWriMo has "camps" in April and July where you set your own goal for writing. I think I will give that a try. And then tackle the November challenge.

Learning to Read; Continuing to Read

I am inspired to write about reading today after reading Fran McVeigh's post yesterday (https://franmcveigh.wordpress.com/2023/03/03/solsc23-reader-ness/comment-page-1/#comment-18605)

I learned to read with Dick and Jane. The "point and say" method.  As a retired teacher who taught quite a few kindergartners to read, point and say doesn't make sense because it doesn't teach decoding. But I did learn and, in spite of never being in the top reading group (whatever bird it was named after) I did become an avid reader. I was very fortunate to have an uncle who gave me a book for every birthday. He was a confirmed bachelor so in retrospect, I think he must have visited a good bookstore and asked for recommendations. Among the books he gave me are the first two Mary Poppins books, the Outsiders, and The Return of the Twelves, a little-known but absolutely wonderful novel about a young boy who finds the set of wooden soldiers that belonged to the Bronte children. That novel sent me to read Charlotte Bronte's novels. 

I still read a lot today. I take a book almost everywhere I go. As an introvert I once caught myself wondering if I should bring a book to a party I was about to go to. (I didn't.) I have an eReader, but mostly read physical books. 

I read to both my children when they were young. My son learned to read in kindergarten. He had a wonderful kindergarten teacher. He also loved me to read to him, but I also wanted to encourage him to read on his own. We were reading one of Jon Scieszka's hilarious short novels, which he wrote with boys in mind. We got to the end of a chapter with a cliff hanger and I said, "Okay, that's it for tonight." He said, "Give me that book!" And that was the start of his reading adventure, though we kept reading together as well.

My daughter learned to read in first grade, though she did not develop a love for reading on her own. In fact, I started to notice that she avoided reading whenever possible, though her teachers kept assuring me that she was reading above grade level. While at a teacher conference at a session on hidden disabilities, I realized the presenter was describing my daughter: reads above grade level but tries to avoid reading, falls asleep while reading, has trouble retaining information from reading. The presenter said there were optometrists who specialized in treating convergence insufficiency. Once we found help, she was able, with a lot of work, to overcome the insufficiency. Today she is an adult and not only reads, but reads very challenging texts. My son, on the other hand, has pretty much stopped reading.

We now have a new grandson and I am so looking forward to reading to him when he is just a little older.