Appalachian Spring

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.

Couples' Massage Class

Hal and I have just returned home from a couples' massage class offered through Human Resources in the City of Claremont. It was taught by the most recent resident of our cottage, and it was very much worth the time and money. The first hour was listening and learning about massage in general, then massage techniques. The second hour was time for each of us to give the other a half-hour massage. Since there were only two other people in the class, we got lots of individual attention with our technique, and now we just need to practice on each other! One thought, though. Take turns on different days. I worked on Hal first, and when it was time to switch, it took him a little time to get unrelaxed!

Wednesday's Menu

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.

Tonight I made another recipe from Real Simple. This was Fettuccine with White Beans and Artichokes. I substituted whole wheat fettuccine for regular. Actually, I thought it was pretty tasty, and there's enough left over for my lunch tomorrow.

Still enjoying spring break!

Spring Vacation and Food

Today has been a relaxing day of spring vacation. Since I have been having a hard time getting some of my vegetables to grow from seed, I have been taking trips to the various nurseries and gardening places and buying already-sprouted plants. Today was lettuce. I found a pony-pack of leaf lettuces, and now they are in the ground, waiting for the chance of rain tomorrow.

Tonight for dinner, I am going to try the recipe for Chickpea Patties I found in Real Simple. Yesterday I spent an hour going through magazines finding recipes to try.

Book Club this week

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.

We will discuss Emotionally Weird by Kate Atkinson on Wednesday. A few years ago I tried Case Histories by Atkinson, but didn't get far, so this is the first of her works that I have read all the way through. I am guessing that several of the women in the group will have enjoyed this much more than I did (there is clever language, the format is unusual), and I hope they can enlighten me as to its other strengths, even though it will probably not redeem itself too much for me. I didn't care at all about any of the characters.

And for those who want to know - No, the earthquake in Italy did not affect Claire. It was closer to Rome than her town of Arezzo.

Lemonade

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.

Little Miss Sunshine Cleaning

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.

Reliving Recent Memories

Hal and I were called upon to give tips and info to our friends, Mel and Beth, about traveling in Italy since they will be going there in a few weeks. They had us over for grilled salmon, and we regaled them with information - hopefully all good! We also sold them our last euros.

Bon Voyage, Mel and Beth!

More Woody Allen

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.

A note about my computer. Although Hal got it to work for a day, this morning it refused to turn on for more than 30 seconds, so it is now in the shop, hoping to get a new power supply, or something not too expensive to make it all better - and soon! I am fortunate to have Liesl's old laptop to keep me tied over. I am sooooo attached to my computer!

Cottage

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.

Today we met with the first contractor and went over more specifics. The contract should be in hand in a day or so, and perhaps they can start in two weeks. If we are lucky, we may have new tenants in by July.

With people living in the cottage, I rarely see it, so I forget just how much work it really needs. It really does need lots of attention. I posted some before pictures on my Picasa site....It's almost embarrassing.