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.