Memorial Day Eating

A relaxing day bookended by two restaurants we've never been to before:

Everest Restaurant: We pass this place on our way to Costco, and the sign offering a breakfast special of two eggs, hash browns and toast for $2.99 finally pulled us in. Hal had the two pancakes, two eggs, two sausage for $2.99. Not fabulous, but it's hard to mess up basic breakfast fare.

Kinya Sushi: It was hard to find an open restaurant tonight, but Kinya in the Village had its doors wide open. The sushi was pretty good, and I liked the atmosphere and service.

Vegan Fare

Since Claire has been home, she has treated us to two vegan dinners. On the left is tofu and pesto (made from our own basil) manicotti with Trader Joe's Arrabiata Sauce, on the right is bean chili. Delicious!

Summer Can Commence!

A year ago on this Saturday, Pat and I held a year-end recital for our private students, reported here in this blog. Today, with a group of different students, we had another successful recital. This ends the musical school year on a high note (with a major tonic chord!).

Claire, the Photographer

Claire came home with some boxes of b&w photos that she took and developed for her photography classes this year. I scanned the ones that fit on our scanning bed. Here is one of my favorites. You can see my other favorites at her Flickr site (link on the left).

Almost Last Concert of the Year

Last night the Vista Orchestra (4th-6th graders) and 3rd Grade recorder students performed an informal concert for friends and family in the MP room. It was short and sweet, and I was proud of the kids! For a video of the finale - Ode to Joy - click here.

Happy Anniversary

Happy 51st Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

Sightseeing on the East Coast

The day after Claire graduated happened to be Saturday, so we took advantage of the weekend to do a little sightseeing before we returned to normal life.

We started out with breakfast in Baltimore at Cafe Hon - amazingly good food with Bawlmer attitude (It's a Cafe, Hon). Claire's friend Lucie and her family joined us, and you can see the photo of us all with Elvis a few posts down.

After filling ourselves silly, we drove up to Lancaster, Co. PA and stopped off at the Farmer's Market and gift shop at Bird-in-Hand (yup, that's the name of the town). Here I am trying on a bonnet which really doesn't look like what the Amish wear. At least it's made in PA and not China.

Then a little car tour searching for covered bridges. I think this one's called Hunsecker's Mill Bridge.

In the late afternoon we needed a little pick-me-up, so Claire found the Cafe Chocolate in Lititz which had the best chocolate drinks I've ever had. Mine (on the left) was an iced mocha, Hal's was a chocolate strawberry lush.

For dinner, we met up with Liesl's friend (since 7th grade) Kavita at the Addisu Ethiopian Restaurant in Lancaster (picture in earlier post).

Memorial Labyrinth

During Claire's first semester at Goucher, her roommate, Jamie Deutsch, succumbed to bone cancer. This was, as you can imagine, quite traumatic for Claire and the Goucher community. This year a memorial labyrinth was installed in memory of Jamie, as well as another student, Dana Flax who died after being hit by a car her first year. The labyrinth turned out beautifully, and while Claire was finishing her packing, I spent a little time walking the path and taking photos. To see a short video and slideshow of the dedication of the labyrinth, click here.

About Claire's Graduation

Now that we are home, I can write a bit about Claire's graduation day. The weather was beautiful - upper 70s and sunny and not too terribly humid with puffy clouds in a blue sky. Three honorary degree recipients spoke - one from the class of '43 (when Goucher was all women) who took a secret course in cryptology, then went on to work for the WAVES division of the Navy to handle decoded communications intercepted from the German navy.

The main speaker and honorary degree recipient, Charles F. Bolden, Jr., is the first African-American to head up NASA. His speech was funny and relevant.

Claire received a bachelor's hood as part of her regalia, a surprise for us all since none of us got one at our graduations.

More pictures at the Picasa site.

A Few Pics from Today

with more info to follow in a future post....

With Claire's friend, Lucie and family

being Amish

with Liesl's friend, Kavita

Congratulations, Claire!

Hooray! Claire is a college graduate!

Seriously Odd Movie

So, I usually like Coen Brothers movies. Fargo is in my top 10. This latest movie, A Serious Man is quite odd to me, mostly in that I didn't quite understand it. I did watch the extras with Joel and Ethan Coen talking about the meaning of the movie, but it didn't quite help me. Rotten Tomatoes.com gave this movie an 88% which is pretty high.

In Preparation

Today we moved Hal's desk out of Claire's room in anticipation of her moving back in for the summer. We have a walk-in closet with windows where Hal can now look out at the backyard while he works. It's probably the coolest (temperature-wise) room in the house, so it will be perfect, once summer actually gets here.

CUSD Strings Concert

Last night, in the El Roble Gym, the Claremont USD Strings presented our final concert of the year. It went very smoothly, and the students sounded very good. Here are our 80 or so beginning strings who played before the District Orchestra and the El Roble Orchestra.

Google Docs

I have been working on assigning greeters to man the doors at church, just before the services. The traditional way was that one person would call a number of people to sign up for a 3-month term for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. Sunday. I have tried to make it easier by having three people do the recruiting. But how to coordinate? Easy! Google Docs! I put a simple spreadsheet online where we can not only read what slots have been filled and what need to be, but we can all edit at will. People can even self-schedule. Easy as pie!

Are you on board with this, yet, Rosemary?

Summer in May

The college kids have graduated in Claremont. The UHauls and storage boxes have appeared. My string students perform tomorrow. I can feel summer coming on!

Hooray!

The Claremont Colleges benefits sent out this email today which applies to us as Claire graduates from college next week:

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), commonly referred to as "health care reform," was signed into law on March 23, 2010. One of the provisions of this law requires health care plans to extend dependent care coverage to eligible individuals through age 26. The Claremont Colleges must comply with this provision effective January 1, 2011.

We are pleased to inform you that The Claremont Colleges are adopting this provision ahead of schedule and will automatically extend dependent coverage up to age 26 effective June 1, 2010.

State Testing

Today, instead of teaching music, I helped proctor the state test for one of our second grade classrooms. There must be a better way to ensure that our children are well educated. One boy, though, answered all questions but one correctly. I was glad to know that I would have gotten 100% on second grade math!

LA Co Public Library System

While surrounding towns (Pomona, Upland) have their own city libraries, Claremont has a branch of the Los Angeles County system. While the holdings may not be vast, it is easy to get onto the website and place a book on hold for it to be delivered to whichever site you wish. I ordered the latest No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency novel by Alexander McCall Smith about a month or so ago and was placed about 76th on the wait list. In no time at all, I was about 25th on the list, then 12th, and pretty soon I had an email saying I could pick it up. Either people read these books very quickly (like I do), or they ordered a whole bunch of them. Either way, I am happy with this service.

Glider

After we put in the new landscaping last year, we wanted to put in a glider in the little seating area, but we never found one. Until Saturday. We went into Costco for hummus and berries and came out with hummus, berries, and this great glider! Now we need the time to use it!

Carleton Day at JPL

On Saturday, Hal and I toured JPL with a group of Carleton alums. Out of 5,000 employees at JPL, four are Carls, and all four led the tour. We learned about the newest rover that will go to Mars, saw the clean room where it is being assembled, and learned more about the current rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) as well as other things that people at JPL are working on.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to my Wonderful Mother!

Compañía Nacional de Danza

Last night took Hal and me to the Orange County Performing Arts Center where we watched the Compañía Nacional de Danza. Claire had recommended this group to us, and we were not disappointed. Upon arriving, the person checking our tickets told us we had been upgraded to better seats, and we think it was to fill up the lower part of the auditorium. We didn't complain! Despite the unfilled house, the audience was very appreciative of the performance and applauded loudly.

The three pieces in performance were Gnawa, Castrati, and Arenal. You can see a short clip on youtube of Arenal here.

Hotel on the Corner

Up for discussion at next Wednesday's book club is Jamie Ford's Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet which is on the bestseller list. Set in Seattle during WWII and 1986, it's a sentimental story of Henry, a Chinese-American preteen and Keiko, a Japanese-American girl. Although I always enjoy learning about a time and place through fiction, the writing style of this book is flat and the characters never fully realized. For a story about the Japanese internment camps, I much preferred Snow Falling on Cedars.

What Kindergarteners Hear

I was hoping that the one of the kindergarteners would say or do something cute today so I could blog about it. Well, one did. We are learning the song "This Pretty Planet" by Tom Chapin. Some of the words are "you're a garden, you're a harbor" and as the first group of students walked out, one was singing, "you're a baker, you're a barber."

Chance

Today:

• I taught a class about chance music and art which included a discussion of Jackson Pollock.
• Hal took students on a field trip to the Getty to learn about art conservation and science where he took this photo of a display showing work on Jackson Pollock's art.
• We watched Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock on Netflix.

Dreaming of Summer

I love it when it's warm enough to wear sandals with no socks. Happy feet, happy me.

Auf Wiedersehen, Michael Lamkin

This fall Michael Lamkin announced that he would retire at the end of the year, and today was his final concert with The Claremont Concert Orchestra. We performed Strass's Emperor Waltzes, Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, and Brahms' First Symphony. We will miss his leadership very much, but we are glad that he will have the chance to enjoy his retirement.

May Day

May Day in Claremont. Folk Music Festival is ramping up. Alumni from the Colleges have converged. Claremont Concert Orchestra plays tonight and tomorrow.

This morning was gardening here. Here is the vegetable plot before. See how the broccoli has gone to flower.

Here is the garden after the broccoli was removed and new vegetables from Mt. Fuji Garden Center were planted: two tomato plants, one yellow squash, mild mesculun mix, and a red pepper plant.