Sunday Afternoon Gig

Today the Trio Camerata (Edris on violin, me on viola, Pat on cello), played for a tea put on by the Cooper Museum in Upland. The event was held at the Whitney Estate, corner of 16th and San Antonio, and we played underneath this lovely arbor.

Here's something about this lovely property: "The AB Whitney family moved here in 1916. At that time, the only building on the property was an old barn. The current house was designed by Myron Hunt, who also designed the Huntington Mansion and Library in San Marino, Los Angeles County, California.

Over 300 visitors toured this Mediterranean-style villa that features the architecture of Myron Hunt. They also enjoyed the gardens, fountains, patios. It even has a tree-house!"

Alum Gathering

My newest volunteer duty is to be in charge of planning events for Carleton alumni in the Inland Empire. Tonight was our first event - a potluck. 9 of us enjoyed good food and great conversation. I even met an alum who went on the same program to Graz, Austria that I did, so we had some stories to share.

A Birthday Today

Happy Birthday to my little sister!

Kindergarten Pumpkins

At the end of last school year, the kindergarteners planted pumpkins. Here is what the sprawl looks like today.

Storm Watch 2009

Our first rainfall of the season made national news. The burn areas are most in danger of mudslides, but I think most areas were spared today. I saw on the news where Claremont got less than .2 inches, but some areas got 3 inches. There is some mention that it could possibly be an El Nino year, but it's hard to tell this early. We do need the rain, despite the dangers in certain areas.

Start of Fall

Here is evidence of the first sign of fall on our street. You can see that some of the leaves are turning. So, from now until December, we'll have leaves to rake each week, or day.

We have also been waking up to a cool house - 66 degrees, and the promise of our first rainstorm is in the air!

An Afternoon of Beethoven

Yesterday afternoon at the Claremont Library, we played for an event of Claremont On the Same Page. The Friends of the Claremont Library have sponsored a city-wide book read for the past three years, and this year we've been reading The Soloist by Steve Lopez. Last Sunday's event was the author talk which I mentioned in this blog.

Today's event was titled "Strings and Things." Michael Lamkin talked about music, mostly Beethoven, and how there are some ties between Beethoven, his music, and the life of Nathaniel Ayers, the musician featured in the book. We played three movements from some Beethoven trios interspersed between Dr. Lamkin's remarks. We had a lovely turnout for this Sunday afternoon event.

Quick Getaway

On Friday we hooked up the tent trailer to the car and headed to the beach - San Onofre near San Clemente. We spent Saturday taking a two-hour hike in the hills, doing a little shopping, and then closed the day with a sunset walk along the beach. We took along our old technology, a little AM/FM transistor radio and listened to the Dodger game. The Dodgers swept the Cardinals to win their NLDS!

There are a few more beach pictures at my Picasa Web Albums site.

Poltergeist Thwarted?

Our poltergeist problem has continued, even when the light switch was replaced. The light would come on at will, the fan would come on at other odd times. The good thing about the new switch is that there is a small switch at the very bottom which turns everything off, and so far, when it's off at night, the light nor fan have come on.

Homecoming

This is a video of the El Roble Band in the Homecoming Parade this afternoon.