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