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

My *New* Laptop!

In December H worked on my 5-year-old Macbook to try to speed it up. It worked better for a little while, but then it went back to its old, slow ways.  After being so frustrated waiting 1-2 minutes for a page to load, I toyed with the idea of buying a new Macbook Pro whenever the next one comes out (June, perhaps?). Then H told me that if he bought a new hard drive for this one, along with more memory, this one would run fast again. Since the laptop does runs the software I need (and I still have my fairly new desktop), I was happy with that idea, and now, a few hundred dollars later, it's like a new computer again - running at a happy speed.

Yay!

Letters to Liesl

I thought it would be a good idea to start reading some of the books I own. The thing with library books is that you know you have to return them soon, so you read them in a timely manner.

I found Letters to Liesl by Charmian Carr and Jean Strauss on my shelf (autographed by both women) and started it one night. It didn't take long and was definitely a fun read.

I have not been shy to admit that my favorite movie is The Sound of Music. I saw it when it was rereleased in the early 1970s. A group of us girls went to the movie theater (someone's mom dropped us off) and I know I was entranced. I fell in love with the whole musical family, and I don't remember how many times I've seen the movie since.

This book is the sequel to Forever Liesl, Charmian's memoir of the making of The Sound of Music. (I still need to read that one.) In this one, Charmian answers some of the thousands and thousands of fan letters and we see how infinitely popular this movie has been - I am not the only huge fan (not by a long shot!).

The Claremont story behind this book is that Charmian used to date a Harvey Mudd College trustee, and that is how she met Jean Strauss, when Strauss' husband, Jon, was president of HMC. Jean told Charmian that her story must be told, and Jean made the book a reality. I even had a brief meeting with Charmian once at an HMC event, thanks to Jean.

So, good memories all around!

Thoughts On Clutter

So, I have been blogging about getting rid of clutter for a month now, and here are a few observations.

• I have made one big trip to Goodwill to donate this month, and I have another load on the back porch that will be ready to go in a week or two.
• It's helpful to do one item a day; that means that the task does not seem unsurmountable. However, it does drive home the point that the task is unending.
• The older I get, the easier it becomes to let go of some items.
• I have so much stuff.
• Some days it's easy to find a whole group of items to eliminate. Some days it is hard to think of one item.
• Blogging about this has kept me honest for a whole month. (Some days I sort of cheat when I do find 2-3 items at once and then spread them out for 2-3 days. I still feel that adheres to the "spirit of the law.")
• I think I do not need to publicly announce all my items anymore, but I plan to keep a list for myself to maintain this practice. I will probably continue this for more than a year.