Halloween in the Attic

Now that the furnace and air conditioner and new ducts are in, it's time to retrofit the attic. Today this is the scene at our house with lots of dust flying. Now I see where more of the cobwebs are hanging.....

Cleaning Out

One of the parts of the energy retrofit of our house required making the air intake larger. We chose to do that in a place under our stairs where we store cleaning supplies. Because of its awkward location, we rarely look back there, and we usually just grab a rag or the Windex or a new vacuum bag. 

So that the guys could work back there uninhibited, we removed all the stuff and were amazed (we probably shouldn't have been) at the amount of stuff back there (insecticide we almost never use), several bottles of glass cleaner, things to clean stuff I don't think I've ever used. From the days when we used to have carpet in most rooms, we have nearly two gallons of carpet shampoo. After posting on Facebook about this, I have a taker for the shampoo, and the rest of the stuff will have to wait for a hazardous waste round-up. 

If we haven't used it in the past, um, 5-10 years, will we really need it?

October Thoughts

I am posting this in hopes that I will remember to look back at it at the beginning of October next year (or even in September) to remind myself of a few things so I can make better choices for myself.

First of all, I should remember that our little bedside radio/alarm clock is programmed to be helpful and change the time for the daylight savings switches. However, it was programmed before the dates were moved to one week later in the fall and three weeks earlier in the spring. Yesterday morning, I crawled out of bed only to discover that it was already 8:00. Good thing it was Sunday, and I wasn't late for anything, but that was still very surprising since the bedside clock said 7:00. Oh, yeah. That preprogrammed thing.

More importantly, I should remember that during October when all my school-year activities are in full swing, I should learn to say no to some commitments, or at least put them off until January. Even if each activity only requires a few hours a week, I feel as though I am scrambling for what I am supposed to do and I am not fully prepared for whatever it is I am about to do. I look at my lesson plans just before I head off to school and realize that there was something I was supposed to do - a visual to prepare, a song to put on my iPod, something that I would normally have taken care of early.

I know that some people are great at this "just in time" preparedness, but the older I get, the more it unsettles me.

Also, October is one of the long months in the school year. It has 31 days and no special days off. March is the other long month. In November I can look forward to Veteran's Day as well as a week off at Thanksgiving, so soon I will have a chance to feel caught up.

Thanks for allowing me to indulge in a little self-reflection for this post. Tomorrow I should get back to regularly scheduled life.

Village Venture

I do not know when I last went to Village Venture, the huge arts and crafts street fair in downtown Claremont at the end of every October. Any blog about Claremont should include something about this long-standing tradition. Often I have a music workshop on that Saturday, and other years I have not felt inspired to walk in the heat. Today was yet another sunny, warm day for the Venture (while we watch the news of the impending Hurricane Sandy up the eastern seaboard). 

Playing with the Village Pipers led me to the festivities today as we played in the booth for the Claremont Community School of Music.

The line was very long at Rosa's tacos. I waited in line, talking to a nice woman to pass the time until I reached the front and bought two tacos.

Lovely scarves for sale

Copper whirligigs

Unique clocks

Some of the pottery available

Blown glass

I like this sign advertising a place to rest at CUCC for weary Venturers.

The Barbarian Nurseries

I believe I heard about this book because it was the choice for the freshman read at Pomona College this year. I should have read it this summer along with the first-years and then gone to hear Hector Tobar on Sept. 2. Oh, well.

This might be my favorite read of 2012, or, at least, in my top 3. It is a rare book that marries good plot with good writing, and this one does just that. It also sets the place very well, and Orange County and Los Angeles can be considered characters in this novel.

None of the three main characters hide their flaws, from themselves or each other, and yet they seem sympathetic because their circumstances in life seem to have created them. I appreciated that there was growth for each of them by the end of the book.

I think I will choose this book for one of my book clubs because there will be plenty to discuss.

Fridays in Minnesota on the Web (and a photo)

This morning I saw on Facebook that I could stream the convocation live, and since I was home, I thought I would do so. Every Friday during the academic year, Carleton shortens classes by 10 minutes each so that everyone has an open hour to hear the speaker. When I was a student I heard Richard Leakey and various other speakers at this Friday ritual. However, I know that I did not take advantage of the richness of these opportunities as a student since I would frequently use that extra hour to prep for my next class, or something else. Now, I know better, and I think I might try to make up for lost time and check in with these free Friday talks. They start at 10:50 a.m. in Northfield, so that makes live streaming start here at 8:50 a.m.

Today's convocation featured Sherry Turkle from MIT. She spoke about the human relationships we have with technology, and how technology shapes our relationships with other humans. This talk will be archived in the near future, so if that seems interesting to you, check back in a few days to see if you can watch it, too.

Cherp!

This week the guys from Home Performance Matters started retrofitting our house for energy efficiency. It's a good thing that it isn't too hot or cold right now since the old furnace and air conditioner are disconnected.

This ought to take 5-10 days, so it will be just in time for those really chilly mornings coming soon!

Cactus Blossoms

These are the blooms I saw this morning in my yard. Such big flowers for such a small cactus.

Sound Drop

Here's a little video of a free iPad app called Sound Drop. If you amuse easily, this one is for you!

Remembering and Finding Out - Skip Meury

I never cease to be amazed at the community of Claremont. We have been attending CUCC for over 26 years now, and have come to know many of the golden members over these years. Golden signifying perhaps their ages, but really, golden signifying their quality of spirit. Recently I wrote about the lives of Joe Platt and Gray Bell and their amazing lives within the HMC and CUCC communities as well as in the world.

This afternoon we said our final good-byes to Skip Meury in the Kingman Chapel at CUCC. I've known Skip since we've been in Claremont, mostly as someone very involved in the life of the church in many ways, as well as the grandmother to my daughters' good friends. You can read about Skip from one of her granddaughter's blogs here.

As memorials are times to come together to share stories, I always learn special things about the people who have gone on before us, and I wonder why I didn't know these things before. I never seem to think to ask people about their lives, except for what is going on in the present. I should, perhaps, remedy this.

Anyway, the things I learned about Skip today were quite colorful. When Myrlie Evers moved to Claremont after her husband, Medgar Evers, was gunned down by a sniper in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi, Skip immediately befriended her, helping her and her children settle into life in Claremont. 

On a completely different fact, when Skip was working in New York as a fashion illustrator, she was approached by Norman Rockwell and asked to be a model for a painting. Although that painting never did make it to the cover of the Saturday Evening Post, it does hang in a private gallery in Princeton, NJ. 

I know that this just barely touches on the stories about Skip, and many people spoke of her caring, dedicated friendship at the service today and her tireless work in social rights all her life.