Maya's Notebook

When I ran the library at Vista, sometimes kids would tell me that they didn't like a book because it was boring. That usually meant that it was too difficult for them and they didn't understand what what happening. They couldn't justify what was boring about it.

I could not finish Isabel Allende's newest book, Maya's Notebook, because it was boring. I expect great things from Allende since I love much of her writing. This one did not live up to her beautiful prose. The characters came across as flat, and I did not care what was happening in this story. The plot moved along at a snail's pace, despite the fact that it was not at all chronological (which was not difficult to follow). And then, it was due at the library and I had to return it.

Life is too short to finish books you don't enjoy.

Photographing Kansas

One of the things I was looking forward to on my Kansas sojourn was to take landscape photos. The forecast was for scattered showers, so I was hoping for some great clouds. I did not get any of the clouds that I imagined, but I did manage to find a few shots that I like. Here they are, in no particular order.

The wheat is about 1-2 feet high and still green.

This is the barn at my cousins' farm

Sunset at the farm

Sunset with mailboxes

Pawnee Rock Memorial - Read more about it here.

View from the top of the Pawnee Rock Memorial

Shot through the car window - several of many, many wind turbines seen along I-70

Bergthal Mennonite Church - Pawnee Rock, Kansas

The primary reason for my trip to Kansas over Memorial Day weekend was to attend the Memorial Celebration Sunday at Bergthal Mennonite Church in Pawnee Rock. In the 1950s, my maternal grandfather pastored this church, and my mother graduated from high school during this time. At its height, the congregation boasted about 250 members in this rural community, but today only about 15 people make up the church. Couple this with the fact that the building has a black mold problem that is cost prohibitive to take care of, and after several years and heart-breaking discussions, the congregation has decided to tear down the building later this summer. 

Street Sign Kitty-Corner to the Church

In preparation for this sad event, the people decided to hold one final big church service and invite people who have a connection to the church to return. My parents planned on going and asked if I wanted to attend with them. Since I had never seen the church (except as an infant), and I am interested in my mom's heritage, I jumped at the chance to visit Kansas in May. It seemed that I was not the only one who wanted to come. The sanctuary was overflowing with about 350 people, including descendants of the founding families and a handful who had never even been to the church, but had some kind of reason to travel there.

We were in for an entire day of activities starting with breakfast. After the worship service and the noon potluck we had the chance to bid on a silent auction of various items from the church building. People shared memories of their time at the church during an afternoon service and the official day ended with more food - dessert and coffee.

On the dedication day of the church building (the third building for this congregation), people stood outside in front of the church for a group photo. (You can see this photo on a blog post about Bergthal on another blog post here.) On Sunday we all came outside for a final group photo with the photographer on the top of a tall, tall ladder on the other side of the street with four people holding the legs so it would not blow over in the wind.

Table decoration in the basement

Breakfast buffet

Gathering for church

Rules for the silent auction

Offering Plate up for auction

Taking a group photo can be dangerous

But this is the end result!

Faith Alive

Last night I returned home from a whirlwind weekend trip to Kansas (with literal winds out on the prairie and thankfully no tornadoes) for a family-intensive visit.

On Saturday my sister spoke to a group of our relatives about her recently-published book Faith Alive: Stories of Hope and Healing From an African Doctor and His Hospital. Lately I have been thinking about how important stories are for us, as human beings. (Excuse the quick detour here.) One of my guilty pleasures is watching Project Runway, and this season when I saw one of the final episodes where we take a peek into the lives of the finalists where Tim Gunn visits each person in their home and meets their families, my attitude about each designer changes. Their stories make them real and complete, three-dimensional. They are no longer just a designer under heaps of pressure to produce an outfit, but a person with a past and hopes and dreams.

Faith Alive is a collection of connected stories of many people who come together in the Faith Alive Hospital in Jos, Nigeria. These people are courageous, fallible, funny, kind, and, in short, human. I finished the book before I landed in California, and I would recommend it to you if 1) you like to be inspired 2) you have a connection with HIV/AIDS 3) you like to read.

You can order the book on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. As the photo indicated, all proceeds from the sale of the book benefit the hospital. You can also visit the website here.

Angel at Pilgrim Place

On one of our evening constitutionals, we wandered through Pilgrim Place and saw this angel in front of Napier Place. I remember that Eleanor Scott Meyers had mentioned that she had painted it, and after I took the photo, I asked her to tell me the story behind the angel.

A number of years ago there was a project in Los Angeles to paint various angels. Two people at Pilgrim Place ended up with one of these angels, but after awhile the paint came off. They gave the angel to Eleanor Scott and asked her to repaint it, and this is what she came up with. 

Cactus Flowers

Every week or two one of our little cacti flowers, and recently it had these five flowers all at once. The blooms last about a day and then are gone....

Claremont on So You Think You Can Dance

Last week when I was watching So You Think You Can Dance, I perked up my ears when I heard a dancer say she was from Claremont. They did a little story about her and how she played softball and has recently switched her efforts over to dance. The more I watched, the more I remembered Taylor Ward. She was one of my violin students about 10 years ago, and I remember talking to her mom about softball and violin.

You can watch her audition and story on youtube here.

Spring String Concert

Continuing the summer count-down, the EIMP gave our final concert of the year last night at El Roble along with the El Roble and CHS Orchestras. I always enjoy listening to how much the kids have improved since 1) the beginning of the year and 2) since the February concert.

This year all the teachers got these lovely, lovely bouquets, and I also got a Baskin Robbins gift card from a student. However, even more special to me was the heartfelt hug from one particular student who came to this school district this fall from another district. She had played the violin for one year, but she didn't really know how to read music, and through her hard work made a great deal of progress. When I told her I was proud of her improvement, she looked me in the eye and said, "It's because of you. You are my favorite music teacher." I'll try to bottle up that good feeling and enjoy it whenever I teach.

New Leadership at CUCC

On Sunday the Claremont United Church of Christ called our first woman to be senior pastor. Eileen Gebbie has been our associate pastor for just over a year, and when our senior pastor resigned a few months ago, it seemed clear to many that Eileen would make a great senior pastor. We already know her, she knows us, and we are ready to move forward under her leadership.

I borrowed these photos from the CUCC Facebook page as I was sitting too far back to get a good shot on Sunday.

Here Eileen is talking about the UCC scarf project during the children's celebration

Here Eileen is moments away from accepting our call

MCC Relief Sale

Last May I went to the MCC Relief Sale in Upland on Friday, and found out that all the good stuff was happening on Saturday. This year we went on Saturday. One of the big events is a quilt auction, and there are many, many quilts available for bidding, from small to large.

My favorite part of the sale was the chance to buy German sausage (imported from Fresno) which comes frozen. We bought our little bundle (apparently this sells out quickly) and carted it home to our freezer for a special occasion. When I'm feeling the need for some comfort food, I will pull it out, fry up some potatoes, make some zwiebach and maybe some plumamoos for dessert, and I will be happy.

Annual Concert at Vista

It's the summer countdown! Thursday night my 3rd grade recorder students and the Vista Orchestra performed their end-of-the-year concert which is a sweet, informal gig in the school Multipurpose Room. I am especially pleased with the quality of my orchestra players this year, and it has been a pleasure to work with them. Next week the CUSD strings concert and in two weeks after that, my private students recital.

Giant Carrot

As seen at Vista this week. This carrot is even bigger that the photo might indicate!

Love Notes

Yesterday was my last day teaching music in Kindergarten for the year. I received some very sweet notes from the children. You can tell which words were written for them to copy and which they spelled all by themselves. Here are pictures of just a few of my favorites.

Some of the drawings were quite involved.

Coke V Pepsi

The first part of this post is short. I noticed two weeks ago that Costco has switched from Coke to Pepsi products.

The second post is a little funny (to me). Awhile ago, H bought a Polish sausage at Costco while umpiring and didn't drink the Coke, so he brought the cup home "to save for later". And save and save and save, and I was about to throw it out, but we took it with us on Saturday and filled it with Pepsi. Is it legal to put a Pepsi product in a Coke cup?

*Disclaimer*

We rarely drink sodas - maybe once every two-three months or so.

Salad Days

The weather has turned hot - really hot yesterday at about 100 degrees. Time to have a salad for dinner every night. Time to find new recipes. I have been following a local blogger (see Blogs I Follow and find What's For Meat?) who sprinkles stories from her life at home with three little girls with recipes. The other day I looked through her salad recipes and copied a bunch and have tried two so far.

Tonight we had Butternut Squash with Lentils and Goat Cheese. We will have it again, and next time I will make sure we have enough mint leaves in the pot in the yard. Since I just knew we had a whole bunch, I didn't look before I went shopping, and when I went out with the scissors tonight, I harvested about a teaspoonful. 

Thoughts on Mother's Day

I think it is funny that people associated with the colleges will remark that Mother's Day ALWAYS falls on graduation. This is year is one example where the two did not coincide.

When my girls were little, and mothering consumed most of my waking hours, what I wanted most for the holiday was a clean house (done by someone else!) and a little quiet time to myself. Now that my children are grown and independent, I relish the chance to connect with them on Mother's Day. I had a nice chat with one daughter on the phone and shared dinner with my other daughter who brought over some delicious blackberry tarts for dessert.

In-between-time in the afternoon, I did manage to have some quiet time to myself, and although the house was not perfectly clean, it was clean enough for me to enjoy.

Farewell to Brandon Johnson

Yesterday was a very sad and difficult day for many people in the CUSD. Brandon Johnson, the El Roble instrumental teacher, as well as beginning band teacher in the elementary schools, was called from the reserves to active duty as Army Chaplain at Fort Hood. 

In the five years that Brandon has been with us, he has grown the El Roble music program, brought great innovations to the elementary program, given us great friendship with grace, humility and humor. In January 2011 he was honored in the school district for Spotlight on Excellence. Although he had many, many things on his plate, I never once heard him complain, but always framed everything in the most positive light. 

You can read his farewell letter to the community here.

The EIMP music staff had a farewell lunch for Brandon yesterday, just hours before his family started driving east to Texas for their next life adventure. Here are a few photos from the luncheon.

Gone Girl

May's book club choice is the best-selling Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, and I'm sure there will be plenty to talk about. Discussions abound on the web about the ending, and I will not post any spoilers here, but I will say that I was disappointed in the third section of the book.

The plotting for the first two sections is very clever, and though it ranges over 400 pages, it does read fairly quickly. Yet, it is one of those books in which none of the characters are likable. I am not averse to character flaws (I particularly liked Tony Soprano, mob kingpin and particularly bad guy with some redeeming characteristics), but there has to be something about some character that makes me care.

I know that many people will like this book, but I would not reread it.

Field Trip to the Getty Center

For the past X years, H has taken his students for a behind-the-scenes tour at the Getty Conservation Institute at the Getty Center. This year my schedule was clear, so I took up the invitation to join the students, as well as some alums on this private tour yesterday.

First we learned about some past projects that the Institute has been involved with, including ancient cave paintings in China, a recently re-revealed mural on Olvera Street, and mosaic on a cathedral in Prague (just three examples of hundreds).

Here are some pigments used in paintings

Then we toured some of the labs and learned about different scientific methods used in conservation research.

Here is a painting which imitates Jackson Pollack's work so they can see how the paint splatters, depending upon the method (dripping or flicking, for example).

This little experiment show different stages of what happens when sodium sulfate in limestone leads to the deterioration of the limestone. We watched a time-lapse video of the process, and it can all disintegrate within just 30 days.

Lizard Music

Continuing on my mission to read books I have on my shelves (and then to pass them along), I picked out the children's book Lizard Music by Daniel Pinkwater. I must have bought it at the Upland Public Library since it is a discard from there.

Pinkwater can sometimes be heard chatting on NPR, (although not recently) and I particularly like his obscure, out-of-print, book Blue Moose that I used to read to 2nd graders at the Vista Library. Pinkwater has a definitely quirky sense of humor, and Lizard Music reads like something from a kid's mind. Victor is left at home for several summer weeks by his folks, under the charge of his sister who runs off with some hippies, and Victor is happy to fend for himself. He notices that there some very strange shows on tv late at night featuring a band with lizards. Then he keeps running into the Chicken Man with a multitude of aliases, and soon he is off on an adventure with Chicken Man out to a floating island where he meets many lizards.

So, yeah. It's weird.

Saladfarm

It is our tradition to go out to eat on Sunday whenever the Claremont Concert Orchestra performs. Yesterday after the concert we tried out the newest eatery in Claremont - Saladfarm. It's so new that this location isn't even on their website yet. This one is on Bonita next to Taco Factory. The space used to house the short-lived King Wrap and Quiznos, and now with the two spaces merged, it is pretty spacious.

The people were friendly and apologized when the tuna panini that H ordered took a little while to prepare. I had the California salad, and it was so big that I am having the rest of it for lunch today. The food was pretty tasty, and we will probably be back.

High School Students

Here are two photos from this weekend to show that high school spring rituals are alive and well in Claremont.

Gathering before prom for photos

Self-explanatory