SOL 2024: So Much Fun!

 I've participated in quite a few March SOLs but this year has been the most fun! There were so many great ideas to try - top three lists, guess the year I was born, various poem formats, book spine poems, and Villain Origin stories. It was very inspirational. Thank you all!

I also tried some new prompts from the book "642 Things to Write About." It is aimed at young writers, but with some adaptations, they work for adults, too. 

I felt freer to try new things in my blogging, inspired by other bloggers here. This is such a great group.

I feel like I can make a go of a regular writing habit, something I have struggled with. Writing has become fun this month. Before it felt important, but more like tooth brushing than a creative time for trying different, sometimes quirky, types  of writing.

I hope to see some of you on Tuesdays. Also next year! SOL 2025!!

On Reading in the Middle of the Night

 Like many people, I have some trouble sleeping. Years ago a doctor told me that if I can't sleep in the middle of the night, I should get up and read a really boring book. 

Most of the time I can fall asleep. My main problem is waking up in the middle of the night unable to get back to sleep. I don't know why this happens. When I was still teaching, I would wake up and start to worry about school. I would make lesson plans in my head, which I would of course forget by morning. 

Now I'm retired and usually don't have much to worry about. I don't know why I'm awake. So I do get up, go downstairs (so as not to wake my husband), and read a novel. The book can't be too exciting and usually I have read it before. Reading takes my mind off not being able to sleep, so then I can go back to sleep.

I do see a sleep doctor, a neurologist who specializes in sleep. I take time-release melatonin and L-theanine. The time release is supposed to help me stay asleep.

In the past, before electricity, people generally went to bed when it got dark. In the winter when the nights were long, people often woke up in the middle of their long sleep and used that time to have a snack, interact with their bed partner, and finally go back to sleep for the rest of the night. Thinking about that, I wonder how much of our modern problem with sleep is caused by artificial light. There's no going back from that.

Anyway, my solution is to read downstairs, in the middle of the night, nothing too exciting. It works for me.

Mary Poppins meets Samwise Gamgee

 Yesterday's conversation between Lord Peter Whimsey and Winnie-the-Pooh was so much fun to write that today I'm imagining another conversation.

Mary Poppins: Well, hello. You must be my new charge. I can't say I've ever nannied a child who looks like you.

Samwise Gamgee: I'm not a child! I'm a hobbit.

Mary: A hobbit? Let me think. Not a habit? No, that makes no sense. 

Samwise: No! A HOB-bit. We are a race of beings, shorter than humans, with furry feet. We live mostly in underground homes.

Mary: Hmm. Do you need a nanny? Or possibly a somewhat magical nanny?

Samwise: I am not a child!! Hobbits are just shorter than humans like you. If you don't believe me, you can look us up in Wikipedia! I'll even give you the link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobbit

Mary: Do you have a child, perhaps? I need children in order to fulfill my purpose. 

Samwise (suspiciously): What do you need children for? What do you do with them?

Mary: I introduce magic into their lives. But I do it while acting the cross nanny and denying any magical happenings. I am NOT the Disney Mary Poppins! That saccharine creature is a travesty of, of, I can't think of a fitting word. But, children grow up too fast, especially now. They need magic. They will grow up and perhaps forget, but something of magic will always stay with them.

Samwise: My story has magic in it, too. But it is a darker, more dangerous magic. And it left a mark on every being who touched the Ring. 

Mary: I am sorry to hear that. You have escaped from its clutches?

Samwise: Yes. It was a very near thing, though, for my friend Frodo. And some darkness stayed with him.

Mary: You don't need a nanny, magical or not. What do you need?

Samwise: I need nothing. I came home and married my sweetheart Rosie and we have 13 children. That is all I ever wanted in life.

Mary: I will leave you then. I need to find children who need me. I can see that your children have everything they need with you and Rosie.

Samwise: Farewell. It was interesting meeting you.

Mary: Likewise. 

[Mary Poppins opens her umbrella and sails away into the sky.]

Samwise: Time to go home. I am a most fortunate creature. 

A fanciful conversation

 My prompt today: "Two of your favorite characters from two different books meet. Write a conversation between them. How do they appear and what are they talking about?"

I'm going to choose interesting characters that will have an entertaining conversation (I hope), not necessarily my most favorite characters. 

Lord Peter Whimsey: "Hallo, hallo, hallo, what's all this then?"

Winnie-the-Pooh: "Oh, hello. This  is the Hundred Acre Wood. Would you like some honey?"

Lord Peter: "Err, no. Thank you. [looking around] I have no idea how I came here."

Pooh: "Do you know Christopher Robin?" 

Lord Peter: "Err, no. Should I?"

Pooh: "He is my boy. He is the one who knows the way out of the Hundred Acre Wood. Where did you come from?"

Lord Peter: "I was at my home, playing Bach on my piano. There was a knock on the door, so I got up to answer it. Everything went foggy and here I am. I would like to return to my home."

Pooh: "Ah. The Hundred Acre Wood is a magical place. You should have noticed that you're talking to a bear."

Lord Peter: "Well, yes. That is rather odd. Perhaps it was something I ate. Or drank."

Pooh: "Now you're thinking of Alice. That's a different story altogether."

Lord Peter: "Since I am a detective, I should be able to solve this mystery! Where would I be able to find this Christopher Robin?"

Pooh: "He comes and goes. He is in two worlds, but he knows the way between them. Would you like some honey while we wait for him?"

Lord Peter: "That is very kind of you, but no. You don't happen to have tea, do you?"

Pooh: "No, I don't believe I do."

Silence falls. 

As this conversation progressed, it became obvious that these two particular characters have nothing in common. They might as well be waiting for Godot along with Vladimir and Estragon. We will leave them in the Hundred Acre Wood and hope that Christopher Robin comes soon. 

Top Three Lists

Today's post is inspired by Tammy Evans (https://writertammye.wordpress.com/2024/03/26/top-three-lists-solc24-day26/) who wrote about creating Top Three lists.

Museums

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Louvre

MOMA

Desserts

carrot cake

chocolate mousse

pecan pie

Beaches

Todd's Point (also known as Greenwich Point), Connecticut

Cannon Beach, Oregon

Santa Monica, California

Places to read

Living room sofa

Train

Coffee Shop

Animals

Cats

Penguins

Lions

Cookbooks (current favorites)

Moosewood Cooks at Home

Isa Does It

The Minimalist Baker's Everyday Cooking

Children's Books

The Return of the Twelves

From the Mixed Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

A Wrinkle in Time

Television Shows

Star Trek, the Original Series

Start Trek, The Next Generation

The West Wing

What do my lists say about me? One thing pops out - I seem to be a vegetarian. (I do eat fish though.) And I really like Star Trek. I was not able to list my top three adult books -- there are just too many that I love.

 

The Coming Cicada Apocalypse

You've probably heard the news that this summer two different batches of cicadas will be hatching. One is the the every 13 year brood and the other is every 17 years. The 13-year bunch is called Brood XIX and the 17-year cicadas are Brood XIII. Not every part of the United States will be visited by these critters, but Illinois, where I live, is getting both. 

I remember the last big cicada summer. My neighborhood was not much affected because the subdivision had been built between hatching and construction had destroyed many of the hibernating (?) insects. But other areas were really affected. We like to visit Ravinia, a summer music venue north of Chicago, near Lake Michigan. (Chicagoans just call it the Lake.) Ravinia is a lovely wooded venue. That summer cicadas were falling out of the trees. Very creepy. I'm not sure which brood that was.

We do have lesser amounts cicadas every summer. I recall my cat (no longer with us) bringing live cicadas to the back door. She wanted to bring his new pet inside to play with. (FYI, she was not an outdoor cat, but she was extremely smart and clever and often snuck out the back door when someone was going in or out.)

I don't think my neighborhood will escape the cicada influx this summer. I'm hoping our local wildlife will find them tasty. Though we are in a suburb about 30 miles from Chicago, we have raccoons, coyotes, possums, and of course squirrels and birds living alongside us. 

I'm not much of a hat wearer, but I think I will be wearing hats a lot more this summer.

Music, Noise, and Hearing

 I have been playing in bands and orchestras since junior high school. Along the way I have often sat behind the trumpet section, or next to the percussion section. I have been exposed to a lot of high volume sound. So no surprise, I now have hearing aids, though my ENT calls it a minor hearing loss.

Nowadays there is greater awareness of the importance of protecting one's hearing. There are plugs to put in your ears that take the volume down. Some music groups use plexiglass shields placed between the percussion and the musicians in front of them, or between the trumpets and the players in front of them.

I have never been to a rock concert, so I can't make comparisons, but I would guess that those musicians also have hearing issues if they perform for long enough. And probably the audience members as well.

The problem with using the noise protection ear plugs is that then you can't hear people speaking. This is a problem in rehearsals where the conductor expects that you will hear what he says and then do that, whatever it is. 

If I could go back in time, would I do anything differently? I would probably use ear protection in at least some concerts, but not rehearsals. Would it save my hearing? Probably not. I am fortunate that modern hearing aids are really good. My hearing aids are connected to my iPhone, so I can adjust the volume and setting using the phone. They have different settings for normal environments (whatever that means!) and loud environments, not only to help protect your ears but to help you hear better in, say, a noisy restaurant. Many hearing aids now are rechargeable, so no tiny batteries!

I remember my father-in-law's much larger, clumsy hearing aids, and feel grateful for modern technology. 

I'm also grateful for all the music I've gotten to play and hear over many years. No regrets.

Summertime Thoughts

 Once again today I turned to 642 Things to Write About since I couldn't even think of one. I randomly turned to this prompt: "What are your favorite things to  do during summer?"

Living in Chicago, it seems like winter lasts for years and summer lasts a couple of weeks. That's not the case in actuality, but it always does seem like summer goes too fast. What do I like to do in the summer?

• Sit in my backyard enjoying the sun.
• Take walks outside, wearing shorts!
• Go to concerts at Ravinia. Ravinia is the summer home of the Chicago Symphony and also hosts many other concerts of lots of music genres. It's a beautiful place, peaceful, with lots of trees, and good musick, of course.
• Cook on our Weber grill using real charcoal.
• Go to the beach. This is something I haven't done in years. I used to take our kids to a beach on Lake Michigan at least once a summer. I love just sitting in the sun (with a lot of sunblock), watching the waves, and walking in the water.
• Clean out the garage. Okay, that one's not so much fun, but it will feel good to accomplish that and we can't really do that in the winter. 
• Read a lot of books. Yes, I do that all year, but there's something special about reading novels in the summer. It reminds of the summer reading programs my mother signed us up for every summer at our library.

What are your favorite summer things?

First words. Where do they lead?

 I am again turning to by helpful book, 642 Things to Write About. Today I picked "Go to a bookshelf and pick out a book that has a red spine. Flip to page 42. What's the first word? That's your first words, too. Go!"

First I have to digress and note that 42 was the mysterious number in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Coincidence?

Following the directions the first thing I realized was the first word on page 42 in many books is a boring word like "but," "what," or "their." I kept looking and assembled a list of first words from 14 books with red spines. So I'm going to make a sentence or two with those words. With a some extra words to create complete sentences that make some sense.

"Sunday, Dottie required a kerch. What had their books done to the younger royal daughter? Had books begun to affect her? But, this is a case for the inquisitive librarian." 

I think this is the beginning of a light-hearted story for children. Perhaps Princess Dottie wants to sneak out of the castle in disguise (the kerch) after reading an adventure novel, perhaps The Prince and the Pauper? What adventures might she have? 

Adventures would be determined by what time period we're in, as well as where the story takes place. If this is a children's story we don't want the adventure to be too scary. If the castle is in the country, she could go in the woods and maybe find a magical adventure to another place. If the castle is in the city, she could run away to a museum or a park. Hmm, The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. 

She also needs to find a friend or partner along the way. Maybe a young boy who has a very different life. Maybe a talking fox. 

At some point she needs to have a purpose more than, "I want to see the world outside the castle." A magical quest? A rescue mission? 

The possibilities are fun to think about! Maybe I should actually give it a try.

Graphic novels and me

I have a LOT of books. I have favorites that I reread, books on music and history I keep for reference,  children's books from my own and my children's past, and more. I also have some books that I have not read though they've been on my shelves for quite a while. So I set a goal of reading some of them, maybe eventually all of  them. 

I started with "Kill Shakespeare," a graphic novel. The intriguing premise is a truly fictional world inhabited by characters from Shakespeare's plays. Hamlet is the main character, who has to determine which of two warring sides is the "good side," while dealing with his father's ghost who wants to come back to life. 

I struggle with graphic novels. I think they are a wonderful idea. I had students who hated to read, but would devour graphic novels. And I have people in my life with reading struggles who happily read graphic novels. But I have several personal issues with this genre. They go so slow because you have to look at the illustration to figure out what's going on besides reading the words. I find it hard to tell the characters apart from the illustrations. I like having "said Hamlet," and "King Richard glared at Iago," etc. I also like the written explanations of the action. 

I did get to the end of the book where I discovered "to be continued." Grrr.

My next TBR is a normal novel. Though, come to think of it, it is part of a series. Oh well.

The Art of Coffee Making

 My son is a manager at Starbucks. I don't take advantage of that, however. He does sometimes gift us with something from his store, recently it was a new, large coffee mug. 

I make coffee in a press pot, also known as a French press. I first had coffee made in this kind of pot years ago in a Minnesota restaurant. It was the best coffee I had ever had - so smooth, no bitterness. And such a low-tech method. Grind the beans, boil the water, let it brew for 4 minutes or so and you've tasty, full-bodied coffee. 

I have a coffee grinder and so I grind beans every morning. You use a coarse grind for the press. A finer grind might seep into the coffee through the mesh in the press pot.

While my coffee is brewing for 4 minutes, I heat up some oat milk in the microwave and use my little battery-operated frother to create some foam. Press and pour the coffee into a mug, add the frothed milk, and a tiny amount of caramel syrup, and it's ready to drink.

And I'm ready to start the day.

This post was inspired by Leah Koch's post about making coffee!

The Magic Flute

 Yesterday evening we went downtown (Chicago) to see "The Matchbox Magic Flute." Mozart's The Magic Flute is one of my absolute favorite operas (tied with Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro). I told my husband I will always go see the Magic Flute.

Operas, like plays, are not always the same. The staging can make a huge difference in how the audience perceives the story and message. The productions of the Magic Flute that we have seen range from the exquisitely magical to awful, in my opinion. My favorite production was at Indiana University. We went because  our daughter was playing in the orchestra. The staging was beautiful and playful. The main stage piece was a tall, wise wooden structure with doors that opened, swinging out like windows showing a singer from the shoulders up. At several times "Mozart" himself appeared in a window. The Magical Flute should be magical and this one was.

We've also seen this opera a few times at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. One staging put the story in the backyard of a young boy who was directing the opera. Some of the costumes were bedsheets! But once the story started, we were only aware of the setting from time to time. We were immersed in the story.

The last time we saw it at Lyric, I hated the staging. It was very high tech, with quite a lot of filmed bits. Like, the Queen of the Night, who first appears as a bereaved mother asking the hero (Tamino) to save her daughter (Pamina) from the wicked Sarastro. Later we come to see that she was deceiving Tamino. This particular production gave away her evilness in the first time we saw her. The high tech projection gave her a set of spider legs and tried to trap Tamino even as she is trying to convince him to save Pamina. Not cool, in my opinion.

The Matchbox Magic Flute was a whole different thing from any Magic Flute I had seen. It was at Chicago's Goodman Theater, in a tiny theatre space. The singer-actors were mostly not opera singers. They sounded more like musical theater singers. It was in English (not German) with a much smaller cast. There was quite a lot of modern humor, and it was much shorter than the original. Very clever staging in a small space with minimal props. 

Just one more Magic Flute I have to include, and that is Ingmar Bergman's version. It is also wonderful, in a different way. It takes place in a theater, and he shows us audience members watching the opera now and then. He also shows the singer-actors backstage, taking naps, etc. It is delightful.

What's in a name?

 My dad's name was Waldo, and even before Where's Waldo? he hated it. When my brother was born, my mom suggested naming him after my dad. He said absolutely not. They named him John.

My dad's older brother was Donald and his younger brother was Fremont. My dad accused his mother of starting to read romance novels after Donald was born. He thought she must have gotten the idea for these more unusual names from her reading. He always went by Wally, which was more acceptable to him.

When my dad joined the U.S. Navy during World War II, he discovered that his parents had misspelled his name on his birth certificate. It was down as Waldow. Actually my grandparents thought Waldow was the correct spelling and then a few years alter decided it should be Waldo and just started spelling it that way. The Navy was not so flexible and so Waldo had to go to court to legally change the spelling of his name.

My mother didn't particularly like her name either, which was Corinne, pronounced Core-reen. Many people said core-rin even after being corrected. I think the bother of always correcting people and hearing it said wrong was a big part of her dislike.

It's interesting that many "old fashioned" names are coming back and also that parents don't use nicknames as much for their children. When I was in school there were lots of Billys, Jimmys, Bobbys, etc. Now kids seem to go by William, James, and Robert. 

What's in a name? How does a name affect a person? How many people want to change their names? Or go by a nickname? 

A memory of practical problem solving

 Once again I turned to my book, "642 Things to Write About," looking for a blog idea. The book  is intended for young writers, so I generally adapt the ideas. Today's prompt is "What would you do if your parents forget to pick you up after school?"

I was in high school, but not yet driving. My town had two unconnected libraries, the large Greenwich Public Library, and the small Perrot Library. Neither was very close to our house. My mom had dropped me off at the Perrot Library. I don't remember why I needed to go there. Someone was supposed to come pick me up at a designated time. But no one came. 

This was way, way before cell phones. I waited and waited. I don't really know why I didn't ask the librarians to use the phone. I don't think it even occurred to me to ask. Or maybe the library had closed by then. It was way after the time I was supposed to be picked up - maybe 45 minutes or so. So I decided I had better just walk home. It was not particularly close to our house. In fact, I just now used Google Maps to find out -- it would take about an hour to walk from the library to our address. I knew it was far, but I couldn't think of another option. And I did know the way. 

So I began walking. I had walked maybe half a mile when I saw our family car. My dad was driving. I was able to get his attention. He stopped and picked me up and we drove home. I don't remember my parents' reaction. It's a rather fuzzy memory at this point. I do remember thinking that I needed to figure it out myself and not rely on others. What I nervous? I don't remember. But then, I did know I could get home on my own.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

 It's St. Patrick's Day. I'm not Irish, but you can't ignore St. Patrick's Day in Chicago. We were in the Loop last night to go to a concert. (The Loop is the downtown area of Chicago. The El train makes a loop around the area, hence the name.) There was a lot of green being worn and a lot of happy people. 

We ate in a restaurant on Michigan Avenue, a major street in the downtown area, right across from Millennium Park. The park is always full of people; it's where the "Bean," a silvery metal sculpture shaped like a kidney bean, is. Last night the park was full of happy, noisy people wearing green, as was the sidewalk on Michigan Avenue. 

Part of the Chicago River gets dyed green for St. Pat's. We didn't see it this year, but I have seen it other years. It's very green. There is green beer available, too. 

I did 23andMe some years ago. I am basically 100% Scandinavian, but 23andMe continually does something with the DNA and sometimes comes up with different results. For a brief time some years ago, I was a little bit Irish. Now I'm not. Oh well.

Do other cities and towns celebrate St. Patrick's Day so exuberantly?

The Year I was born

 I enjoyed reading arjeha's post with hints of the year he was born, so I have decided to use that as my inspiration today. So--

The year I was born-

• Queen Elizabeth II was crowned.
• Dwight Eisenhower became the 34th president of the U.S.
• The Korean War ended.
• The first Corvette was built!
• Jonas Salk creates the polio vaccine.
• Elvis Presley graduates high school
• Ernie Banks joins the Chicago Cubs, becoming the team's first Black player.
• Fahrenheit 451 is published

And a lot of other things happened! What year was it?

Recess Choices

 I was stuck today for what to write, so I turned again to the book, "642 Things to Write About." My chosen prompt is "Write about the most fun recess you've ever had." (The book is aimed at kids, but I like it, too.)

Taking the prompt as a stating point, I am remembering recesses when I was in 4th grade at Wilson School in Neenah, Wisconsin. Neenah is a small paper mill town between Appleton and Oshkosh, on the shores of Lake Winnebago. At recess the girls jump-roped and the boys played football or some other game with a ball. For some reason I had never learned to jump rope. What I usually did at recess was play on the equipment -- climbing structures and swings is what I remember. In 4th grade though there was no climbing structure, and the split between boy and girl recess activities grew strong, maybe because we were on the side of the school building without the swings and climbing things? 

I had two friends, two boys who were not athletic and so didn't play football, etc. We played imaginary games, make-believe. I remember in the winter when there were a lot of snow piles, we would climb them as part of our make-believe. As far as I know no one commented on the three of us making this unconventional choice to make up our own games. 

The school redistricted the following school year and I went to a new school. I never saw those two boys again.

Do kids who play make-believe grow to be different than kids who only played sports? When I first got my teaching position, I taught kindergarten. This was in the 1990s. Kindergartners played a lot of make believe at that time. I remember solving the problem of three girls wanting to "Parent Trap," but there are only two girls in that movie. "This time they are triplets," I said. They were a little disgruntled, but made it work. Another time one little cutie staged a wedding between herself and a boy who looked completely bewildered, especially when another kindergarten girl shouted, "You're stealing all his love from me!" 

I think perhaps the little ones are still making believe in their play. I hope so. 

A question I hate to be asked

 Well, really, I'm going to share a question I hated to be asked as a high school senior.

The summer after I graduated high school my family went to western Minnesota, where both my parents were from, to visit relatives. A LOT of relatives. I had been accepted to a wonderful music college and my father was VERY proud of me. I was an awkward teenager and very shy. Also somewhat snarky, but I generally kept that to myself and my interior dialogue.

So, every time we met yet another relative, my father would announce that I was going to this wonderful music school. And every single time the response was, "Oh, you like music?"

I was polite and just nodded or said yes, but inside I was thinking, "I'm going to a music conservatory! Of course I like music! Why are you even asking?!"

Being much older now, I look back on this with more kindness. My father was really proud of my achievement, and maybe somewhat relieved since I had been a very mediocre student except for music. These relatives didn't know me at all, really. We didn't live near any of them and half the time I had no idea who they were. They were trying to be kind. In fact, they were kind. 

Well, you grow up and your perspective changes.

A trip to Chicago to see Aida

 It's 9:50 am and we are getting ready to take the train downtown, to Chicago, to see the opera Aida at the Lyric Opera. 

I have never seen this famous opera. I went to music school and so ended up playing in the pit for a few operas, but opera was never part of my regular concert-going until a few years ago. Dean and I decided we ought to expand our musical horizons and subscribe to the Lyric Opera. 

Conclusions so far: Mozart's operas are wonderful! He was a musical genius, but he also understand drama and people. The melodies are wonderful and the stories heartfelt. Wagner was also a genius, but of a different sort. His stories are epics, like the ancient myths, and the music lush.

Besides those two composers, I have noticed recurring themes in many operas: Love stories. Gypsies. Two brothers who don't realize they are brothers (sometimes because one of  them has been raised by gypsies) until one of them kills the other (usually over a woman). The main characters, or at least one of them, dies at the end.

Aida, by Giuseppe Verdi, is a love story and the two lovers die at the end. But before that there is a lot of wonderful music. 

First sentence of my autobiography.

 I am inspired today by a post from a few days ago from litbitsandpieces.com.

Well, I could just start my life story with, "I was born in Seattle in 1953." That's not very interesting though.

How about,"Music has been an important part of my life since before I could talk." Better. That implies that my autobiography will be focused on music in my life, that music is maybe the most important thing in my life. That would not be entirely false. Music is very important to me and has been part of my life since before I can remember. In fact, my parents told me that as a baby I would sing in my crib in the morning instead  of crying like a normal child.

But music isn't the only thing in my life. Hmm.

"As soon as I learned to read, stories filled my life." My mother would scold me for reading without sufficient light, telling me I would ruin my eyes. She might have been correct: I began wearing glasses in 4th grade. I was also one of those students who read in class, oblivious to what else was going on. 

Checking out famous first lines:

"It was a dark and stormy night." Probably not, I was born in August in Seattle in the afternoon.

"Where now? Who now? When now?" (Samuel Beckett) Intriguing, might work.

"All this happened, more or less." (Slaughterhouse-Five) I like this one. I think that's perfect for an autobiography, since memory is so unreliable. I wrote a post about memory earlier in this challenge: https://sherlockesque.blogspot.com/2024/03/fond-thoughts-about-smells-and-memories.html

"I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens, each time each time it was a different story." (Ethan Frome) Again about memory, and it is true that what you know about your earliest years comes from other people's memories.

Last one:

"A story has no beginning or end; arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead." (The End of the Affair, Graham Greene) I like this quote, though I don't think that it works for a life story. 

I'm not going to steal someone else's first line, but it's been fun looking at them. I think I'll go back to my music statement.

A Last Visit to my Dentist

 I went for my last six-month visit/teeth cleaning with my dentist this morning. He is retiring. I have been going to him for over 30 years. He lives near us. Our sons were on the same park district soccer team in elementary school. We see him at High Holidays at our synagogue.

Our relationship is not friendship, but it's more than doctor-patient. I'm happy for him that he gets to do retirement things (like I am already doing)--traveling, visiting children and grandchildren. When he said good-bye to me he seemed, not sad, but possibly a little wistful. I imagine he is having these patient good-byes multiple times every day. 

When I retired from teaching three years ago, there were many things I was looking forward to. Traveling, sleeping late, no more parent-teacher conferences. But also many things I knew I would miss - working with my teaching partner, seeing my teacher friends, planning new lessons, outdoor ed. And teaching! I loved teaching social studies, math, writing, reading. I go back to sub, but it's not the same.

I'm not sorry to be retired. And I'm sure my dentist will also enjoy his retirement. But there are things you lose when your life changes that much.

Villain Origin Story

 I read the Villain Origin Story in thedirigibleplum.com a few days ago and decided to give it a try. The idea is to list the things that turn you into a super villain. I'm really quite a laid-back and accepting person, but there are a few things....

Toilet seats in public bathrooms. Sometimes they are a bit wet. Ugh.

People who conduct along with the music in a live concert. Don't they know how distracting this is for everyone around them? Apparently not.

Teachers who are mean to children. It is rare, but I have encountered this a few times, adults belittling or making fun of students. I really don't understand that. However annoying some children can be, the teacher affects each child with her/his words and actions, for good or bad. Go complain to your friend or your spouse about those kids, out of hearing of children.

Everything else I can think of is just a minor annoyance. What would be the opposite of the Villain Origin Story? What would you call the things that remind you of the good in the world?

Book Spine Poetry

 I am inspired by several other bloggers who posted book spine poems yesterday. 

Here's my first:

Ignore Everybody

In the Land of Invented Languages

The Well of Lost Plots

Lies Sleeping

In the Mind's Eye

[Very mysterious, I think. I couldn't decide whether to punctuate after after the line or the first two lines]

Through the door

The slippery slope

Where memories lie.

A quartet in autumn;

A devil to play.

I tried briefly to see if I could make a poem with the spines of children's books. The ones we have don't seem to lend themselves to poetry however.

Tooth Fairy Tales

 When I was a child, the tooth fairy would come silently in the night and leave a quarter, taking the tooth. A simple transaction. When my own children began losing their baby teeth, the tooth fairy started visiting our house. My daughter had a lot of questions about the tooth fairy, so I suggested she write the tooth fairy a letter and leave it under her pillow with the tooth.

"Dear toth fary

where do you Live. 

What is your addres

Love

Jamie"

The tooth fairy did answer. I don't remember what she said (Jamie kept the letter. Who knows what happened to it.) A later letter to the fairy (she had asked the fairy's name):

"Dear Evangeline,

What forest? What do you do with my teeth

Love

Jamie"

Evangeline must have told Jamie she lived in a forest, maybe an enchanted forest. Meanwhile, my son, Ben, who is three years older than Jamie, decided to write to his tooth fairy. He found out her name was Esmerelda. He must have thought this fairy was too girly because he complained. So Esmerelda passed him off to Edgar, another tooth fairy. Edgar was all, "Dude, where's the tooth?" Which rather shocked Ben, who expressed a wish that the girly fairy would come back.

The tooth fairy correspondence had a rather short run, as eventually all the teeth that are going to fall out, have fallen out. I kept the kids' letters, but they kept most of the letters from the fairies.

It was great fun. I'll have to ask Ben and Jamie if they remember the tooth fairies' letters.

Bees, an observation

 I really didn't want to write any more about car accidents and I think I need a break from writing about music, so I browsed through a book of writing prompts (642 Things to Write About). I picked this one:

"Track the path of the next bug you meet. What is it up to? Where is it going? What do you think it is thinking?"

Quite a few years ago I attended a teacher workshop at the Chicago Botanic Garden (https://www.chicagobotanic.org/). The idea was incorporating nature into the classroom curriculum. I probably still have the handouts and notes from that somewhere. The Botanic Garden is wonderful - if you visit Chicago you should definitely try to visit. It's located in Glencoe, a north suburb. 

The part of the workshop that I remember most clearly was the assignment the leader gave us to choose a bee and observe it for 10 minutes or so. We were in one of the flower gardens, maybe the rose garden. It was a beautiful, sunny day, not too hot. I found two bees hanging out in a flower. Most of the bees were gathering nectar and pollen. After watching for a bit, I decided that one of the bees was injured or sick. It didn't move much and stayed farther back in the flower than the healthy bee. They were not going anywhere, just staying in the flower. Sometimes another bee would land on the flower, but the healthy bee would drive it away. It was fascinating and I still don't know if that is normal bee behavior.

I don't know much about bees and most of what I know is from the Outlander book series. Main character Clare has bees and there is some discussion amongst the characters about bee behavior and how to keep them happy. 

To return to the questions- one of my bees was a caretaker, the other was maybe injured, maybe in pain. They weren't going anywhere. I hope there was some resolution before night. 

What could they be thinking? Do bees make friends? Is it normal to guard a fallen comrade like this? 

It's an unsolved mystery.

Musical Mishaps

 Every musician has stories of concert disasters, from minor happenings to full-blown catastrophes. There are wrong cues from the conductor, music blowing away in outdoor concerts, musicians falling off risers... 

Years ago I was playing in a community orchestra and the big finale of this particular concert was the 1812 Overture. It's the one with canon at the end. It's often played on the 4th of July, though the victory it celebrates is the Russians beating the French in 1812. 

One of the viola players offered to supply canons for the concert. We did not rehearse with the canons, they just came for the concert. I actually don't know how many of then there were - they were in the wings on the side of the stage that was furthest from the horn section.

You might guess where this is going.

Everything was going great. We got the section near the end of the piece where the canons fire. They began going off with satisfying booms. But, they also created smoke. Quite a lot of smoke as the piece continued. And the smoke drifted onstage. It was thick smoke and soon it began to shroud the stage, obscuring the conductor and most of the orchestra. 

We kept playing. I think the smoke was thickest at the rear of the orchestra, where I was sitting. We managed to finish the piece and everyone pretty much acted like it was nothing out of the ordinary while we were taking our bows. 

I think that might be the last time I played the 1812. 

Fond thoughts about smells and memories

 I read somewhere that people cannot remember smells in the same way we remember visual and aural memories. But we do remember them. And a good thing too, as burning dinners and forgotten candles need to be identified. But it's harder to describe the memory of a smell unless you can relate to something else, I  think.

One of my childhood memories is walking into my great-uncle Alvin's store in a tiny town in western Minnesota. We would visit relatives in that area every other summer. The store was mostly a clothing store, with men's on one side and either women's or children's on the other, I can't remember. I think there was a second floor, too. And another great-uncle had a jewelry counter in one corner. It was in an older wooden building and every time we walked in, the familiar, pleasant smell of the place would flood my memory. I would guess the smell came from a combination of the wood and the clothing.

It's been years since my Uncle Al passed away. (He  was confident and somewhat reckless. He fell off his roof while trying to fix something.) I'm sure the building the store was in is gone.

But, I was curious about smell and memory. So I googled it.

I learned that "smells have a stronger link to memory and emotion than any of the other senses." (Google)   I also read that: Olfactory memory is more difficult to study than visual or auditory memory. Due to limitations of human olfaction, memory for odors has generally been tested with recognition tests, not with recall tests (see Herz and Engen, 1996, for a review). Olfactory memories seem to differ in some ways from other forms of memory, such as a tendency of smells to be particularly evocative of emotional memories." (Sciencedirect.com) 

And: "Odors take a direct route to the limbic system, including the amygdala and the hippocampus, the regions related to emotion and memory." (harvard.edu/gazette)

It's interesting to me that smell is such a strong sense, but it is so difficult to describe in the absence of the particular smell. I know we describe things as smelling burnt, sweet, sickly, and so on, but how to describe my uncle's store? I would know it anywhere, but I can't explain it enough that anyone else could recognize it.

The Joy of Re-Reading

 I believe that favorite books are designed for re-reading. As many times as you want. My husband chuckles at this and occasionally asks me how many times I've read such-and-such book. Rereading is sometimes like visiting with favorite friends. Sometimes its because I've forgotten large chunks of the story (or information if it's nonfiction). Sometimes it's the comfort of the familiar.

I have a friend from childhood who as a teenager went to see the movie "To Sir With Love," multiple times. I don't even know how many times, but it was more than a few. In those days once you had bought your movie ticket you could stay in the theater as long as you wanted, so it was easy to watch more than once. (And there was ONE screen in ONE theater, so only one movie at time was showing.) I brought this up over the dinner table with my family one night. My father's response was, "She is in a rut." My mother relied, "But it's such an interesting rut."

So what do I reread? Favorite series including Laurie R. King novels, Diana Gabaldon novels, Jane Austen novels, Deborah Crombie mysteries, Dorothy Sayers, Josephine Tey, Jacqueline Winspear, Ben Aaronovitch... I also read books I have not read before! 

I also read books that are completely new to me. My daughter recommended "The 7-1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle." It is a very intriguing, complicated story. I will probably have to reread that to get all the ins and outs of the plot and characters straight.

Whatever you read, I wish you happy hours of reading!

The learning curve of a new car

 My lovely 2014 Honda Accord was totaled a couple weeks ago. I was not injured but the car was a mess. I wrote about that earlier, on February 26. 

We found a slightly used (or "pre-owned" as they say now) Honda Accord at a Honda dealer and went to see it. After many, many hours in the dealership we became the new owners of this car, a gray 2022 Accord. It's lovely, definitely a step up from my previous Honda. But it's also much, much higher tech. It's a bit like having a benevolent HAL in the inner workings.

It tells me to check the back seat when I park. It tells me when it thinks I'm drifting into another lane. I think I'll find that there are more helpful comments as I continue to drive the car.

As far as driving, my son was in a much worse accident about five years ago. His car was totaled, but more important, he was seriously injured. He told me that he still has flashbacks to the accident sometimes when driving. I was nervous to drive again, but I am okay with it. Maybe a little more cautious than before.

Introduction, a day late

 Yesterday (March 1) I saw that quite a few people used their first posts to introduce themselves, so I thought I would do that today.

I'm not sure how many years I've done this challenge. There were some years I decided not to try for various reasons. I'm glad to be back though.

I'm a retired teacher - 6 years in kindergarten followed by 16 years in 4th grade. I taught at an independent school for gifted children. I loved teaching there, though gifted children are usually a challenge. Some of my former students are now my friends on Facebook.

Before I was a teacher I had several other careers. I majored in music in college. I play the (French) horn. Still. I had wonderful musical experiences, but eventually decided to stay in Chicago, changing direction. My husband was a high school band director until he retired. I was an editor at a music magazine for a couple of years.

We have two adult children. Our daughter is also a (French) horn player, in Houston. She plays and teaches horn for a living. Our son is a manager at a Starbucks and a fairly new father. Grandchildren are awesome.

Besides playing the horn, which actually takes quite a bit of my time as I play in three groups and sometimes help out with other groups, I read a lot, am dabbling in learning Scots Gaelic, and try to do healthy things. 

Though I have lived in the Chicago area longer than anywhere else, I was born in Seattle, lived for 5-1/2 years in Wisconsin, followed by 6 years in Connecticut before going off to college in upstate New York.

As another blogger said, if you have questions, I'll answer them if I can.

Tornado!

 Tuesday evening is my band rehearsal night most weeks. We are preparing for a concert in less that two weeks and as a community group, we only rehearse once a week at a local high school. It's a good band; the members care about playing well, and we have two excellent conductors.

This past Tuesday our rehearsal was interrupted by tornado sirens. This is Illinois, we do have tornado warnings now and then, though mostly in the summer. Seeing as we were at the high school, we were all told to go down to the basement until the storm passed. 

When I later talked with my family members they all had a tense time. My husband was at our house, in the small windowless bathroom on our lower level. My son, daughter-in-law and 19-month-old grandson were in their small bathroom in their apartment. The little one was annoyed at first, but they put him in the bathtub (with no water) with some toys, and he played there happily.

On the other hand, it was a party in the basement of the high school. No food or beverages, but everyone was having animated conversations. No one was too concerned about the tornado - after all, there was nothing we could do about anything outside. So we all chatted in small groups. People joked that if we had had beer it could have been a real party.

Eventually the storm passed and the all clear came. We went back up to the stage. With our concert so soon, it was not at all good that we lost about 45 minutes of our two-hour rehearsal. Our conductors focused on parts of pieces and exuded tension. One more rehearsal. 

And most fortunately, the passing storm did not do any major damage.