Book Club book

Tomorrow night the book club comes to my house, and we've read The Commoner by John Burnham Schwartz. What must it be like to be married into Japanese Royalty in the 20th Century? Schwartz gives us a glimpse into the struggle to change worlds for one extraordinary young woman.

HMC in the news

Harvey Mudd College's president, Maria Klawe, has just been named to the Microsoft Board of Directors. Read all about it at the HMC website here.

Concert Weekend

The Claremont Concert Orchestra performed a concert of Russian music this weekend. It was one of our better concerts, and the piano soloist was excellent and garnered a standing ovation at both the Saturday night and Sunday afternoon concerts. She played Rachmaninoff's Variations on a Theme by Paganini. Since today was the switch to Daylight Savings, it's a good thing we all made it to the concert on time!

iPod Battery

I've had my 5th generation 30-gig video iPod for almost 3 years now, and this morning when I turned it on, it didn't. The battery had given out, despite the fact that it had been charging in my speakers for several hours at school yesterday. Hal says that 3 years is a good life for a battery. So I ordered one online including tools to open the iPod. The website also offers a how-to video. I will enlist Hal's services to see if he can make my indispensible tool work again!

I use my iPod every day. Not only do I listen to NPR podcasts when I work out or take a walk, but I use it in my music teaching. We often listen to a piece of Classical music. Yesterday in first grade we compared loud and soft sections of the Toreador Song from Carmen. Sometimes we move to Classical music to learn form, or for self-expression, or to tell a story. In beginning strings we listen to the accompaniment to the easy songs to keep a steady beat. In recorders I have lots of accompaniment to maintain a steady tempo, too.

Elevations

This morning the contractor we talked to yesterday dropped off these elevations of the kitchen. The sloping roofline makes the top cabinets on the south elevation short, and makes them kind of funny-looking in the west elevation, but there is room for a small dishwasher next to the sink!

After the Landscaping....

We can't seem to rest....Now that the landscaping is nearly done, we are going to remodel the cottage kitchen and bathroom. This morning Hal and I talked to a contractor, touring the cottage and looking at possibilities. We are probably going to take down the wall between the kitchen and dining room, move another portion of a wall a little bit, and completely gut the kitchen and bathroom. Also, we'd like to replace some of the "beaver board" with drywall, and, in doing so, update the wiring.

Here's the contractor's sketch he dropped by this afternoon.

Thinking ahead to Italy

Next Friday Hal and I take off for Italy - to tour Tuscany and Rome with Claire. Tonight we have been pouring over maps and a guidebook. Since there is no way we can even come close to seeing "everything," our plan is to take it slowly and just savor where we are at the time. I look forward to daily gelato and wine, although not necessarily at the same time of day.

Spring is in the air!

Our peach tree is in beautiful bloom. Our new fruit cocktail tree is also very happy!

Facebook Find

This weekend I found another of my friends (on Facebook) from elementary school days in Chicago, Cynthia. Isn't she cute? We actually chatted on FB for over an hour on Saturday, and we had a great time reliving memories and trying to figure out who all those kids in the class pictures were. Some of them she is still in touch with, so I even saw recent pictures of some of the other kids in my class. What fun!

Book Club Book

Hal and I are off to book club tonight, and I just now finished this month's choice - Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. It is a graphic novel (which used to be called a comic book) that won the Hugo Award in 1985. The Hugo Award is for science fiction. The selection of this book is timely since the movie comes out on Friday. After our meeting tonight, I may say something about our discussion, which could be quite lively. This kind of reading is not really what I enjoy, but I may get more out it if I hear what others say.

On Monday after book club - others in the club delved more deeply into the characters than I did and enjoyed the book on a more sophisticated level. I was not enough convinced to go back and reread the book.