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.

Adventures with Cars

So, last week, on Monday evening I was driving to yet another rehearsal, this one an orchestra that asked me to fill in for an ailing horn player. I had only gone a few miles and was making a left turn from one street to another, when a car going the opposite direction crashed into mine.

I know my car moved. My foot came off the pedals. I pulled to the side of the road and looked across at the passenger side of my car. All the air bags on that side had gone off. The window was broken. The police came shortly and I loved my car (still drivable!) into a nearby parking lot. I called my husband, who arrived shortly. We stood around for awhile. People asked me repeatedly if I was okay (I couldn't tell), if I needed an ambulance (no, thank you). The very nice policewoman told me that while the accident wasn't my fault, in Illinois when a collision happens and one party was turning left, that party is said to be at fault and gets the ticket. So I have to go to court next month.

I wasn't injured, only shaken up, and literally shaking for awhile.

The car was towed away. The insurance people came several days later and declared it totaled. We will get some insurance money. 

My car was a 2013 red Honda Accord. I had wanted a red Honda and my lovely husband tracked one down for me. This time I said I wanted a Honda Accord again, any color but black (too hard to see it at night). My awesome husband took to the internet to find Honda Accords, preferably "pre-owned" as they call it now. He found several and we went to see one of them. We drove it and also a brand-new Honda Accord.

Buying a car takes forever. We were at the dealer for hours, but we came home with a slightly used gray Accord. Cars have changed a lot since 2013! It's almost like HAL or C3PO is in charge of the car. (Actually my loaner car, a Genesis, was even more bossy, reminding me verbally to check the back seat, etc.) It will take me some time to figure everything out, but it drives the same as my three previous Honda Accords. I really like Honda Accords.

So I missed my rehearsal, obviously. But we had the concert on Sunday this week and it not only went well but was quite exciting! 

Decluttering

 We've lived in our house for 44 years and in that time we have accumulated a lot more stuff. So have our two children, who left an awful lot of their stuff here when they left home. Clothing, toys, video games, books (lots of books) - it's all here, sitting undisturbed for the the most part. And my husband and I have lots more books, records (the kind you play on a turntable), and paper - lots of paper.

So I am on a mission to declutter. It's a part time mission, but I'm keeping at it. Most recently I've been culling cookbooks. I like to cook and try new recipes and over the years I have acquired quite a few cookbooks. I've been paging through them and noting on sticky notes the recipes that I have made (and that we actually liked). It's interesting to see how our (my husband and my) tastes have changed over the years. I also rediscovered recipes that we liked but somehow fell off the radar. 

I realized after I started writing this post that I wrote about my cookbooks in an earlier post. Oh well.

I also have a closet full of stuff from my teaching career. I thought when I retired that I might use some of it for teaching at summer school or after school programs. I retired three years ago and haven't touched it. Maybe that's something I'm not going to do.

Then there's the craft supplies - sigh. I stopped doing most sewing type projects when I couldn't see well enough to do cross stitch, etc. But now I've had cataract surgery and can see really well. Will I take it up again? 

My mother did a fantastic job of decluttering her life. Everything was in order when she passed away. The  only things to take care of were her belongings in her apartment. In addition, my brother, sister, me, and all our assorted children all get along, so there was no fighting about who gets what. 

I'm planning to emulate my mother. the decluttering continues!

Falling

 Apparently when you turn 70 every doctor you visit wants to know if you have fallen in the last 6 months. I'm not a fall risk - I do some yoga every day, including the tree pose, standing on one foot. I also do physical therapy at home, strengthening my core and stretching out muscles. However, I did fall a few months ago, but it wasn't a old person-type fall.

My husband and I were coming home on the train from downtown Chicago late after a concert. (I love that we can take the train instead of driving!) We got off along with a lot of other people at our stop. There was another train, pointed inbound to Chicago just sitting at the station and everyone was crossing (at the official crossing) in front of it. We were towards the back of the crowd and apparently the engineer had gotten tired of waiting for the stream of travelers to finish walking in front of his train. As my husband and I were walking directly in front of that train, the engineer blasted the horn and started to move! I panicked and started to run. I promptly tripped and fell on the asphalt, dragging my poor husband partly down. 

I was rather stunned, though not badly hurt. I hit my knee and the side of my left hand. There happened to be a policewoman in a police car waiting at the train gates. She popped out and asked if I was okay, did I want to go to the emergency room. No, I did not -  I just wanted to go home. We did go home and I put ice on hand and knee. I also took Tylenol. (My husband was fine.)

My fingers are still a little stiff - I probably should have seen a doctor. (My family is famous for not going to the doctor with injuries. "It's just a scratch." [Monty Python]) My knee is fine but has a mark on it that is seemingly like it's permanent.

I've told the story to two doctors so far, but I know I'll be repeating it again. I don't plan to fall again though.