When in doubt, I check out some Haruki Murakami. At the library yesterday, I checked out South of the Border, West of the Sun. This morning I finished this short book. I certainly like the stylistic writing of Murakami, although I can't put my finger on just what makes it different than western writers'. This one had a more confusing ending than other ones, so perhaps I'll chose it for a book club sometime.
The wall between the kitchen and dining room is now gone, and the bathroom gained a few square feet. Already the space feels much bigger, and Hal and I are convinced that we are doing the right thing.
This morning I went out and took stock of my growing vegetable garden. Snap peas are thriving, tomatoes are slowing growing and have some flowers, green beans just popped up, lettuce doing well. After I finished reading this important book, I peeled a tangelo from our tree and ate it with the juice running down my face. This is what is real food, and what Michael Pollan writes about in his In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. 
While talking to Claire yesterday, we found out that she had been on Italian TV last week! One of her teachers recruited some of the dancers to go to the local cable tv studio and perform on a talent show. You can see it on YouTube here. Claire is in the back row on the left, and about 2:53 minutes in there is a close-up head shot of her. Also at the very end, the host asks the dancers where they are from, and you can hear Claire say, "California."
In honor of Earth Day this coming Wednesday, we thought about the interconnectedness of life on earth during church this morning. One of the biggest consumers of electricity in most homes in the clothes dryer. Each family emits a ton of carbon dioxide a year into the air using enough electricity to run their dryer. So, like the Italians, I am going to start pre-drying my clothes. Starting yesterday. I put my towels outside to dry, and then ran them for 10 minutes in the dryer to get that fluffy feeling, thus saving a good 60 minutes of drying time.
Besides raking up all the leaves and twigs and branches that littered the yard from Wednesday's wild wind, our yard work today consisted of a trip to Garrison Foothill Nursery to buy more plants for the shade now that our fence panels are in place. Hal is at HMC this afternoon wooing accepted students, so the planting will have to wait until tomorrow.
No, I didn't just read this whole book today. During Lent at church we have had a book discussion on Thursday nights. This year we read Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith by Diana Butler Bass. Tonight, though it is no longer Lent, is our final discussion of this book since it took a little longer to read than our prescribed four weeks.
On Sunday our book club will discuss People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. I finished it today, a few days early since it has been recalled by the library. Parts of the book I skimmed, since I needed to finish it, so some of the plot is a little fuzzy for me. My impressions - I enjoyed various segments of the book, and I really like the idea of finding out the mysteries of the haggadah through forensic research. However, I felt as though the book as a whole needed some one unifying factor which was either absent, or I didn't find it. The two story lines could have been more linked, in my opinion. Again, we'll see what others in the book club have to say, and maybe I'll change my opinion, or maybe understand the book better.
Looking into the kitchen through the bedroom and dining room. All the upper parts of the walls are gone, allowing for new wiring to go in. Hal thinks that the west part of the house was original and that the east part was added later, now that he can see through the walls.
Happy Easter from a 70-degree and sunny Claremont. Everything seems to be in bloom, and the allergies attest to it!
On this overcast day, a ray of sunshine was the noon concert at Scripps today. On the playlist was the ballet suite of Copland's Appalachian Spring, not to be confused with the orchestral concert version. The ballet suite uses 13 instruments and is 10 minutes longer than its orchestral counterpart. The small Balch Hall was nearly full, and the performance was great.
So, I'm sure my readers are wondering how last night's chickpea patties were, and what I made for dinner tonight. I will tell you. The chickpea patties didn't hold together very well. They needed more moisture, so I'm not sure if I needed to food process them more or less. It would have helped to use more olive oil while frying them, too.
Even though I don't teach until noon on a regular day, I have certainly enjoyed my first morning of spring break. Little things like working out at 8:15 rather than 7:15, putting on jeans and a t-shirt, and finishing the book for book club this week. Reading a novel in the morning always feels like a guilty pleasure.
I have volunteered to make fresh lemonade for next month's confirmation luncheon at church. Since I had a little time today, I picked all the myers lemons from our little tree behind the garage, squeezed them and put the juice in the freezer. I will add more when more lemons from our other tree are ripe. I used this very terrific citrus squeezer that my friend, Janean, sent to me. It is fast and efficient, and it extracts more juice than the electric one does.
From the trailers we saw of this movie, I thought it might be funnier than it was. When I described it as "touching," Hal agreed. I thought the acting was great and the premise, too. I believe this was produced by the same people as Little Miss Sunshine with a few overlapping connections - New Mexico, Alan Arkin, a little offbeat, and Sunshine in the title.
Last night Netflix delivered Vicky Cristina Barcelona. At first it didn't seem very Woody Allen. The look, the music, the actors - so different. I loved the European colors and Spanish scenery. I also really liked Penelope Cruz, as usual, as well as the other actors. As the movie kept going, however, the dialogue started sounded more like typical Allen, and then it seemed to become too much of his typical navel-gazing. 
The cottage tenants of eight years finished moving out last night. They found a place close by and took advantage of it before June, when we originally thought about renovating the cottage.
