Savannah Saturday

We got out of Savannah today and concentrated on outdoors activities. This picture is from the Savannah-Ogeechee Canal. It no longer functions as a canal, as you can see by the lack of water, but it offers nice walking. We also took a hike at the Skidaway Island State Park where we saw lots of marshy land. The end of our journey was a drive to Tybee Island where we looked briefly at the Atlantic Ocean before returning to the hotel. Tomorrow we head home - tired, but happy after a relaxing time. I will post pictures then, when I have a faster internet connection.

Savannah

A few things about Savannah. It's got a very, very busy port. How busy? We're not exactly sure, but we know it's ranked right up there. Various people of the PRF group here took different taxis to the hotel, and each cab driver recounted a different statistic. Apparently cab drivers must tell their customers something of this port. So, either it's the second busiest port on the eastern seaboard, or the fourth, or the fifth in the U.S. or someone even said the busiest. Wikipedia wasn't much help, so I guess I should just keep looking on the internet.

Our hotel is right on the river, and when we are in the conference rooms, we can watch the container ships right outside the window.

Hal was free all afternoon, so we took a long stroll through downtown and saw the famous fountain, Flannery O'Connor's house, Juliet Low's house (she founded the Girl Scouts), some churches, lots of squares, the cemetery, various architecture and Starbucks. Tonight we go with the group to the Olde Pink House for dinner.

Pictures and more are forthcoming.

Red-Eye

I think I got around 3 hours of sleep last night between the two flights. Travel was smooth all the way around, though, and this afternoon Hal and I took a little walk through part of downtown Savannah. After a good night's sleep tonight, I will be up for more strolling tomorrow.

Georgia-Bound

This morning I dropped Hal off at the Metrolink station. He's on his way to a PRF meeting in Savannah, Georgia. I will take the red-eye tonight and meet him there tomorrow morning!

News from Claire

I had a nice email from Claire telling me about her first day in Arezzo, Italy. What a change from London! Here she is outside a town of 91,000 people, living in a villa built in the 1300s. In London she cooked for herself, and here she eats with everyone where someone else cooks and does dishes. These pictures are from the web, but I'm sure she'll have her own pictures up soon.

A Book and A Movie

Streaming from Netflix, Man on Wire is my ultimate horror film - watching someone walk between the twin towers in NYC. Actually, this documentary was riveting, especially near the end.


My book club will be discussing Gilead next month, but I finished it last night. I had been told that I would really like this book, and although the prose was beautiful, I think I needed more than that to seal the deal. Perhaps I will go through it again just before our discussion, and maybe I will learn why it's so good from the other people in the group.

Claire in Italy

Claire skyped me from her dorm room in Arezzo, Italy today. After taking 5 different buses and one airplane, she made it from London to Tuscany in one piece with her luggage!

The Ubiquitous Font

Hal was off at an umpiring clinic all day, the weather is threatening, so it's been a great day to cozy up inside. Hal's computer was hooked up to the tv, so I took advantage of it to stream a movie from Netflix that I don't think Hal wanted to watch. Helvetica is a documentary about the font of that name. Sound like a bore? Not really. As with many subjects, if examined, it can be interesting. Although this movie could have been edited a little more, I still very much enjoyed learning about design principles and how this font has become so ubiquitous, and what it says about our global visual culture.

New Family Member

My cousin Phil and his wife Zandra have added a new member to their family. This is baby Tatiana Luz being adored by her big sister Catia. Little Tatiana is Liesl and Claire's 30th second cousin on my side of the family!

On Poetry

A man was having electrical problems at his house. He would flip the
switch in the living room, and the kitchen light would come on. He
flipped the switch in the linen closet, and the bathroom fan came on.
He found a switch in the Garage that controlled the vanity in the
Master Bathroom, and a switch in the laundry room that turned on the
Garbage Disposal. Things were a mess.

He decided to hire someone to fix it. He listed the job on Craig's
List, and he waited.

The next day, two pieces of paper walked up to his door. Neatly
written on each was a bit of metered verse.

He answered the door. "Who are you?" he asked.

"We're poems. We saw your ad, and we're here to fix your wiring."

The man was excited. Soon his house would be back to normal! He had
some business in town, so he left the poems to their work and would
return later that night.

When the man returned, immediately he was concerned. When he pressed
the garage door opener, though the garage did open, the porch light
also came on. Warily, he unlocked the door and entered.

When he turned on the light switch, things went horribly wrong. The
light did not come on. The stereo did, however, as did the
floodlights on the lawn. The switch also triggered the lawn
sprinklers, which sprayed water full-force through the still-open
door.

Soaked, the man sat down on his couch and held his head in his hands.
When his wife got home and asked what was the matter, he explained the
situation.

"Poems?" she asked. "Well there's your problem."

He looked up.

"You should've hired prose!"

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Today is my dad's birthday, and since I highlighted my mom's book on Amazon, I would be remiss if I didn't write about my dad's book, also on Amazon. This is a fictionalized memoir of growing up in small town Idaho as well as one of our favorite family stories. Some of our ancestors trekked into Asia (to Tashkent) in search of the second coming in the late 1800s.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Make your own pop-up

I heard this story on NPR where you can make your own pop-up version of the inauguration. All you need is a color printer and white card stock, some scissors and tape. It looks pretty fun and easy. Check it out here.

I See London, I See France (and Italy, too)

Claire is spending her last week of vacation back in London after a lovely time in France and Italy with Kelsey. She has posted pictures to her site. I hadn't spoken with Claire since Christmas, so it was great to have an hour-long chat with her on Monday!

In this photo Claire and Kelsey are in front of the grocery store featured in the movie Amelie.

Historic Day

I was sitting in my living room watching it on tv this morning. That's how I'll remember this historic day in American and World History. The groundswell of hope among the ordinary citizens in the Mall was inspiring. Most of all, for me, though, was the music - especially the quartet of Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Anthony McGill, and Gabriela Montero playing Air and Simple Gifts by John Williams. You can relive the moment here, on youtube.

Check it out on Amazon

My mom has published her autobiography, Out of the Parsonage, with Createspace, and it is now listed here on Amazon. I designed the cover of the book with Photoshop Elements last summer, and it's fun to see that on the Amazon site that I look at so often!

Bulbs

When we bought our house nearly 15 years ago, the yard came with a variety of bulbs. This year I decided to dig up some of the bulbs and put them in pots. I think they are narcissus, and I will take them to school on Chinese New Year (Jan 26 this year). The ones still in the ground have blooms, and hopefully these ones will have some by next week.

Movies

Hal and I finally saw Slumdog Millionaire, after hearing such great things about it. It was quite intense and very good. I would give it four of five stars.

I particularly liked being able to walk to the theater to see it. Of course, we had to stop at Starbucks on the way home. Hal tried a Berry Chai Infusion, and it was excellent. That will be my next drink there!

Last night we saw an older Woody Allen film, Manhattan Murder Mystery. If you like Rear Window and good Woody Allen, you will probably enjoy this movie, too!

Upcoming Changes

I had my hair cut yesterday, and am in the process of growing out the front of my hair. I have also ordered my first pair of progressive lenses, so I'll have new glasses in about two weeks. Hal says he'll miss seeing me with my glasses perched on the end of my nose!

Being Grown-Ups

Hal and I have been planning to establish a trust ever since who knows when, and today we had our first meeting with the lawyer to get the ball rolling. We'll meet with him again in a week or so to sign papers and finalize the trust. I asked Hal if he would sleep better knowing we've taken care of this, and he said,"I haven't lost any sleep over it yet."

The continuing driveway story

It's not really a saga, but the cement guys finally came back today to pour the cement. I watched as they ran up and down the driveway with their wheelbarrows. It will be nice to park in the garage again, one of these days, and not get up early to move the car.

Tomorrow the plumbers come and put in a new water line to the cottage. Better to do that before Eric finishes the landscaping! It's not what we call "fun money", though. We won't be able to see what we've paid for....

And All I Got Was...

Hal was in D.C. for a few days doing business with the PRF (Petroleum Research Fund - a branch of the American Chemical Society), and this is the souvenir he brought back for me - a Metro ticket with money left on it!

Cement

Ever since we moved into this house, the cement in front of the garage door has been in terrible shape - cracked, uneven, loose chunks. Now that we're on a roll, we finally called the cement guys who arrived this morning by 7:15 and did all the prep work for a new patch of cement. I suppose it will be filled tomorrow. At least, I hope so! They hauled away a bunch of cement chunks from the backyard landscaping job, too.

Baby Celebration

Phil and Iona

Our associate pastor, Iona, is expecting a baby girl next month, so today was our church celebration. This included a potluck luncheon in the church basement and a whole table full of gifts - books.

Saturday Sweat Equity

Before

Now that Eric has spent a week on our yard, we have more motivation to work on gardening, by which I mean, tearing out old, dying and dead plants and trimming way back. The camellia in the back was a little out of control until Hal cut it back today. I tore out the plantings (half dead or too leggy) in the front boxes, and Hal also removed all the agapanthus from in front of the cottage. Now we have to wait until the green waste dumpster is emptied on Thursday before we tear any more stuff out.

Earthquake

Life in Claremont means that we sometimes feel earthquakes. Last night while watching the BCS football game, we felt one. Turns out it was about 25 miles east of here and a mere 4.5 temblor. The blue square on the map pinpoints the location in San Bernardino. No damage in this quake.

However, there was a 6.1 magnitude earthquake in Costa Rica yesterday causing much more havoc.

Weird Fruit

Claremont started out as a citrus town over 100 years ago. At our house we have an orange, tangerine, tangelo, and two lemon trees (in addition to the peach and plum and persimmon trees).

This morning while I was talking to Eric about the yard, I spotted this lovely lemon.

Back Home

Hal returned from the midwest today where he spent a week visiting his family. I did my best and ordered up some very warm weather today - nearly 70 degrees!

Hallelujah!

I might have to buy this book, Hallelujah Junction: Composing an American Life by John Adams, when it comes out in paperback. I just finished it, but there are at least 2-3 chapters that I will be happy to reread about the nature of composing and the place of composition in society, today and in days past.

I will write more about specific ideas in my music blog in the coming days.

Vacation Over

After two weeks off, it was back to work today. Hal has been in the midwest since Wednesday visiting his family, so I have been alone most of the time since then, not talking very much. I was surprised that during my first class today my voice started feeling tired. Now, at home after 5 hours, I'm tired and am thinking about an early bedtime!

Thinking about Italian

Hal and I are listening to podcasts to try to learn some basic traveling Italian. We plan to visit Claire in Tuscany in March, and it would be a good idea to learn such important phrases as, "Excuse me, please. Do you speak English?" and "Which way to the restroom?" I am pretty good at repeating the phrases, but I'm not sure how good I'll be at remembering them. Also, the podcasts don't tell you how to interpret the other end of the conversation!

First Book of the New Year

I believe After Dark is the most recent Murakami book to make it to English. This is a quick read, though not light. It takes place during one night. The style is definitely Murakami, hard for me to describe, but the substance is slightly different than the others I've read. The main character is a girl. I think Murakami does better with male characters, in general, although his characters are unlike characters in other novels I read - quite detached.

The New Year is off to a rockin' start!

Eric started working on the yard today! He tore up the sidewalk on the east side of the yard as well as the concrete in front of the garage and repositioned it all into low walls. Here is one picture, but there are more photos - before and today - on my picasa site. I am so excited to have a great yard for the first time!

I started a new blog - imagine that. It's called Motifs in Music, and it's a place for me to ramble about thoughts on composing and teaching music.

I am also a contributor to a new blog with one of my book clubs. Bill put up all the books the club has read over the past x years, and as a contributor, I can post books I am reading as well as comment on books.

Happy New Year!

To start the new year, today I walked to the Claremont Forum to see Dawn's show. Dawn paints houses on rocks, which is much more beautiful than that sounds. Check out her website at sketchedinstone.com. The show is open for another week, so if you're in Claremont, you should go see it!




Things I am looking forward to in 2009 (not resolutions....)

• a new backyard with the chance to grow vegetables and compost
• writing more music
• visiting Claire in Italy
• backpacking
• working on the house some more