Happy Spring!

It is officially the first day of spring. In honor of that, I have changed my blog look from the wintry Mt. Baldy to the blooms in front of the Claremont City Hall. I took that photo on Sunday, when it was still officially winter. In Claremont I can't always tell what season it is unless I look at the calendar. This month we've had cold days and hot, summer days already.

Whatever the weather, I am still enjoying the later sunsets these days.

Leprechaun Traps

Every year the Vista Kindergarteners make leprechaun traps for St. Patrick's Day. This year I missed the grand showing, but at the end of the day there were two traps still in Room 2, so I snagged this photo.

How would YOU catch a leprechaun?

Flash Mob!

If you were at the Claremont Village West Plaza yesterday around 4:00, you would have seen a large gathering of people (many clad in green for St. Paddy's), many schoolchildren milling about. Then you would have heard them sing the old jazz standard, Sing, Sing, Sing!

This event was spearheaded by Ken Corhan of CEF and Donna Marie Minano, music teacher at Sumner/Danbury and Mountain View, meant to raise community awareness that CEF funds music and art education in the K-6 schools in Claremont. I don't know exactly how many students showed up, but I think there were at least 100, probably more.

Donna Marie giving instructions at the Metrolink Parking Lot before the trek over to the Plaza.

Ken Corhan giving out release forms to parents.

Students singing.

Shameless Saturday at Dale Brothers

Here is a small-town story. Friday night I got a call from Lynn who said she had run into a friend at the CHS play. He's in a band called Sons of Claremont (no link here - they do not have an internet presence). Sons of Claremont was set to play a gig at Dale Brothers Brewery in Upland for St. Patrick's Eve, but that they didn't really have much Irish music in their line-up, and they invited Lynn and me (aka Drowsy Maggie - again, no link) to join them and do a few short sets. Of course we said we would.

As a fan of Pomona Queen beer from Dale brothers, I looked forward to having a pint (after we finished playing), and although we did not get any cash for playing, we did get free beer and free food from Hillbilly Tacos. I chose the taco (as opposed to the dog or the quesadilla). Basically it is a cornmeal pancake wrapped around pulled pork, cole slaw and sauce, and in honor of St. Paddy's day, the pancake was green. It was pretty good, despite what it may sound like.

So we played a few 30 minute sets and had a few people dancing a jig to our faster songs, although by the end of the second set our jigs had slowed a bit.

Art in Unexpected Places

Yesterday H walked in with blog fodder in the form of this large framed Ansel Adams photo of El Capitan in Yosemite. That he would just walk in with such an item was somewhat surprising (in a good way), but the fact that he admitted where he acquired it was more of a surprise. Apparently this art was in a dumpster at the colleges, just begging to be rescued.

Now, I have no problem at all of saving items from landfills. When we were grad students and pregnant with our first child, I saw a changing table being thrown out (next to a dumpster) and after recovering it, I used it through two babies before donating it to some thrift store. However, I was ribbed endlessly about this changing table by the father of my children, even though I never actually pilfered through trash to get it.

Of course, I would have grabbed this Ansel Adams if I had seen it, and now we have to find a place to hang it so we can enjoy it every day.

Flying Allergins

Visual evidence of why my allergies are in full swing these days:

From the trees -

floating to the ground

Broken Like This

Hey, another book read! My co-ed book club will be discussing Monica Tresandes' first novel, Broken Like This, a story about a young bisexual woman who is in an accident and how that affects the various people in her life - her boyfriend, girlfriend, mother and creepy stepfather.

Well, I think that's what it's about, although it gets all weird at the end. It's told with lots of flashbacks, which I am very used to these days, but what I found tiresome was the repetition of so much material. The back and forth between past and present was easy enough to follow that I didn't need lots and lots of reminders.

This might have made a much better novella, with some depth to the characters, and maybe a clearer theme. Getting the idea I didn't like it too much? Well, I won't put a star by it on my list. We'll see what others in book club thought.

Springing Forward!

What a perfect day to eat lunch outdoors. These are garden views from our backyard glider where we enjoy the quiet, sunshine and garden.

Ashirwad - The Blessings

Last December we tried to go to this little Indian restaurant in Upland, but it was closed, so we tried again this weekend and were successful. This seems to be a reinvented version of the last Indian restaurant in this location, and we very much enjoyed the food. We ordered it to-go and took home some samosas, palak paneer and rava masala dosa.

The owner was very friendly and helpful, and while we were waiting for our food, he offered us some reading material - Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet. Somehow the wait was not long enough to get much of the book read.....

Oh, Daylight Savings - Yes, You're Worth the Lost Hour

I understand why people in Arizona and Hawai'i and other places do not partake in Daylight Savings. I am just glad that here in Claremont we change our clocks twice a year. I'm also rather glad that it starts earlier than it used to. Now that I am older and my sleep is directly affected by sunlight, if daylight savings didn't start until April, the sun rose so early in March that I would wake up way before I wanted to.

I also savor the light in the early evenings. Here it is 5:00, and I know we are going to have daylight for nearly two more hours, and for that I gladly give up one hour of this day. It doesn't hurt that it is almost warm and very sunny out today which lifts my spirits.

Sure, it may take me anywhere from 3-5 days to completely adjust to a new time, but I never complain about those kinds of things when I travel to different time zones. It's just a small price to pay for something that I want.