report cards; colonoscopy

Well, Dan's colonoscopy went well yesterday. He was so buzzed from the drugs for hours afterwards, it was a cause for high amusement. He had what the doctors thought to be harmless pseudopolyps that they biopsied (just in case) and his bowel did show  some irritation. More roughage in his diet should help a lot with that. After we got home, we watched a lot of movies, as he was not supposed to do much of anything for twelve hours after the procedure. They even gave him a color picture of the inside of his colon.

Amazingly, the movies from Netflix came yesterday. I had signed up for the service on Monday after midnight, and they came in Wednesday's mail. I was told by a couple of people at work who have moved around a bit that the Netflix center in Lansing, which takes care of the Ann Arbor area, kicks butt and is probably the best in the country. After seeing how fast they got those movies to me, I can well believe that!

I got a letter from the radiology clinic today, telling me that my mammogram was fine. That was a relief.

The kids' report cards came today. They are both doing fine, and both are on the honor roll. They are both doing extremely well in math. The results of Steven's MEAP (state mandated and administered tests) came back as well and he exceeded state standards in math and science, and met state standards in all other subjects. I suppose that the next big thing for school for either of the kids will be Bill's AP tests in May. His teachers think he will do well enough on all three to get college credit, and he is expected to get the highest possible marks on the calculus test. That would be great, he would have nearly a semester's worth of credits to his record before even starting college.

I finished up The Little Prince yesterday in the hospital. I love that little book! It is charming and moving and wise. I am still plowing away on Erikson's Memories of Ice, though I feel like I am on the home stretch now, with only a couple of hundred pages left. I usually am reading one large hardcover (which I keep next to my bed) and one mass market paperback (which I carry around in my purse) at the same time. Right now the big book is the one by Erikson. I have started a new purse book, Elie Wiesel's Night. It is wonderfully written in a deceptively simple style, but the horror of the Holocaust makes it a difficult read.

Tomorrow Dan and I will get to go hear the SF Jazz Collective in concert; Saturday will be spent seeing Steven wrestle in a championship at Jenison Fieldhouse at Michigan State University.

long long day

Long long long day today. Dan is very stressed out over the colonoscopy tomorrow. He tossed and turned all night, and did not sleep well, so today he was exhausted. (I am also exhausted, as he kept me awake, too). He got himself so stressed out that he had diarrhea all day long, even before he took his bowel prep this afternoon.

At work we are short tonight; they did the same thing to a coworker tonight that they did to me tomorrow - she told them a couple of months ago that she would have to take the night off to take care of a family member having a medical procedure, but they did not schedule her off or cover for her. Why do we even bother telling them ahead of time then??????

I will get very little sleep again tonight; the appointment is early in the morning tomorrow. When we get home, I think I will probably curl up in bed and take a nap.

I am still plugging away on Erikson's Memories of Ice, which is just huge. I get a chance to read for about an hour every morning before having to do housework, so it is going slowly. The book is too big to take with me tomorrow while I am waiting during Dan's procedure, so I will take The Little Prince and finish that up instead.

Bill has pretty much made up his mind on where to go to school, depending on how much money Northwestern is willing to toss his way. It looks like it will most likely be Ball State University for architecture school and honors college. My son might well be a farchy! (They call the fall architecture school admits farchies and the spring admits sparchies). Thank God for the huge scholarship they offered him!

I signed up for a trial membership at Net Flix. My first three picks are two classics (The Seven Samurai and Bringing Up Baby) and the new version of King Kong. My list is mostly made up of classics I have never seen, some newer movies I have not seen, and a couple of television series. We will have to see how it goes...if I get enough movies each month it will pay for itself in money I would otherwise use for rentals at our sucky small town rental place and/or to buy new or used movies.

 

another Monday

Well, it is Monday once again. This week should be interesting. I told them at work a couple of months ago that I would need a family care day off this week (on Wednesday) because of Dan's medical procedure; he cannot drive himself and last time he got a colonoscopy he was loopy from the drugs for hours afterwards. But on the schedule they put me down for a day off on the wrong day. I've let them know that - hopefully it will get straightened out before Wednesday, or I will have to call in, leaving them short that day, and then I will be an extra person on Thursday. This is either the third or fourth month in a row my schedule has been messed up in just such a way (my approved days off getting on the master schedule wrong). Thank God I am not taking any time off in April; they couldn't mess that up.

This week is going to be nuts. Dan is having his colonoscopy on Wednesday; we are going to the big jazz concert on Friday; and on Saturday Steven will be wrestling in the MYWAY state championships in Lansing at a big stadium at Michigan State University. Hopefully my work schedule will get straightened out, as that will be one less thing to worry about.

I have been slowly reading my way through Steven Erikson's fantasy series. I am in the middle of the third book, Memories of Ice, and it is a monstrous thing; big as a cinder block.  Luckily, it is written well enough that it moves quickly, despite its huge size. Erikson has put thousands of years of history behind his world. Some of the many plot lines (the Chain of Dogs in the second book, the siege of a city in this third book) are quite stirring. Yet, I have never cared much for books with extremely active gods and demons...or with large numbers of magic users with hugely powerful spells. The fact that I am reading and enjoying these anyway says a lot for Erikson as a writer. He is quite good, but I still prefer some of the more character driven fantasy writers out there such as Donaldson, Martin, and Bakker.

I have the feeling once I get through this book, I will need to read something light and heart warming.

I shall also have to take some time and watch some movies or something as a change of pace. Not to mention  taking my elderly dog for some gentle walks this week, as it looks as if we shall have some wonderful spring weather. I now have four patches of snow crocuses blooming - one white, two yellow, and one light purple.

Spring and blooming flowers, are most welcome.

senior year varsity banquet

This afternoon was Bill's senior year varsity wrestling banquet. Needless to say, I attended, even though it meant I had to go in late to work. It was good seeing that core group of seniors together one last afternoon. Those kids had gone through hell in a hand basket together with the coaching changes and everything else. And they all handled it with so much class, so well. A great group of kids, just great.  I hope they will still get together from time to time, as they spent so many years together and achieved so much under so much adversity. They gave each of the seniors a poster sized portrait of him in action on the mat. Bill's is great, with him going head to head with an all-stater from Airport. I will have to hang it soon.

I'm not quite sure why, but I am very tired today. Luckily, work is fairly quiet. Then again, if it becomes busy, maybe I will get energized.

I love Fridays

Today went very well.

I wasn't sure what to expect from the mammogram, but it was fine. I was worried it would hurt, but it was only a little bit embarrassing and uncomfortable. They do squash your breasts a little bit with the machinery, but only hard enough to hold them in place for the images. The most uncomfortable ones were of the armpit area (breast tissue and lymph nodes are there), and even those were not bad. They also told me that I might well be called back for more images. Apparently the doctors do that quite often for women getting their baselines done, as these will be the images they will use every year for the rest of my life for comparison purposes. They told me not to panic if I do get called back in, as it is quite normal. And that is good to know! Because I would panic!

Dan was lovely today. I thought he would just meet me at the radiology office for moral support and then we would eat lunch and go separate ways, but he came home to drive me to the doctor. and we spent the afternoon together. We ate lunch after my appointment at a wonderful little new restaurant which serves Salvadoran food. We had wonderful black bean and rice soup, and tamales, which were delicious. Then we ran a couple of errands for his business, and came home. He was everything you could ask for, gentle and supportive. He even cooked dinner tonight, even though I did not ask him or need him to!

I was very sad to learn today that fantasy writer Robert Jordan is very ill (possibly terminally so). While he is not one of my favorite writers, I know he a great favorite of many readers. And I would not wish an illness like that on anyone. Very sad, and my prayers are with Mr. Jordan and his family.

end of the week

Well, made it to the end of the week. It was pretty busy at work. The tax payers got their money's worth (and then some) from all of us the last couple of weeks.

After checking out a lot of hotels on the Internet (and making us determined to get high speed Internet access pretty soon because it took so long on dial up) we decided on a hotel in the Wisconsin Dells with a good water park. I made the reservation today. The trip planning for June is nearly done. All we will have to do is to enjoy it.

I stopped off at the book & music store on the way to work today. I picked up a couple of Roman history books from the mark-down shelves that look pretty interesting. I also picked up some new tunes. I got a couple of CD's with symphonies from a rather obscure classical composer that was recommended to me by that former friend, which, of course, made me think about him for awhile this afternoon.

He really is a good person is many ways, and I know that my life will be impoverished because he is not in it. He opened up so many new worlds for me in literature and music and the arts, and my life is the richer for it and from knowing him. I have no doubt that twenty years from now I will still be missing talking to him about books and music. He has been very kind and thoughtful to me on many occasions; he was probably the most supportive person in my life (other than Steven and a couple of friends from work) when my father died. When all is said and done I am glad to have known him. I wish things could be different and better, but I do not see what other choice I could make. If he had treated me poorly and felt bad about it - showed any remorse or regret at all -  perhaps I could have  made a different decision. If he expressed any interest in still having me as a friend perhaps I could have made a different decision. But I made so many efforts to get him to sit down and talk things out, and he either ignored me or gave me lame excuses (which were pretty obviously lies) why he could not meet me. I just cannot go on allowing myself to be treated so poorly by someone who feels no remorse about it, and who does not even ask how I am doing, or how his crappy behavior has affected me, or what is going on in my life.

It seems like he is avoiding the mutual friends and places we have - the intersections of our lives. That makes me feel very bad. There is no reason for him to do that. He has done it in the past when he thought I was upset with him over his poor behavior, and I have always gone to him to beg for him to return.

He has said before that he thinks of me as being so vindictive that completely innocent people must be protected from me.

So I have always thought that must be why he does this. He must think that I will do something awful to him, or try to make him look bad in some way. He must think that I am out to get him.

I am merely human, but as far as I know I am no more or less vindictive than any other person.

I have no wish to "get" him, or hurt him, or make him look bad in any way. I would never ask him or expect him to stay away or give up any of the places or people we have in common. That would be grossly unfair. I would give them up first myself, even though those people and places are precious to me.

I am not going after him this time to beg him to return. If he thinks so little of me, if he knows me so little that he thinks I would seek or wish any harm for him or on him, then he is a moron, despite his being one of the most intelligent people I have ever met. He should know from the other times he has left and I have crawled after him begging him to come back, that he is more than welcome in these shared places. All I want is to not have to interact with him within those shared spaces. I would never ask him to leave them, or to give them up. I have always thought it to be evil to ask someone to give up his/her friends.

I am done with crawling. I am done with begging. I am done with being treated poorly by "friends" I trust and adore.  I am free now. And I will remain that way.

Actually, I am in need of a shower now. I will have my baseline mammogram tomorrow and I must wash off all traces of deodorant before my exam. Putting it on is such an ingrained part of my morning routine it will be hard to remember not to put more on in the morning. The exam, then lunch...then a nice evening at home with my silly husband and my children. I love evenings at home. Maybe I will stop off at the cool grocery store near the doctor's office and get some interesting pasta and sauce to make dinner. Or some gnocchi. And maybe some steel cut Irish oatmeal for Dan's breakfast. And definately some baking mixes. Dan loves it when I bake scones and other goodies.

 

the return of winter?

I'm not sure if one of the kids somehow adjusted the way the Internet looks on my home computer, or of it is something AOL has done in one of its updates, but a couple of weeks ago the size of the type in this blog became so tiny I can hardly read it with my middle aged eyes. So I have been trying to compensate by putting in the type in a bigger font. This sometimes works and sometimes doesn't (and I cannot figure out why it sometimes works and sometimes not). I realized on someone else's computer yesterday that the normal sized type was fine on that computer, and the 14 sized type looks huge. I thought perhaps I should explain what is going on, in case anyone is wondering why the different sizes of type...

Today is gray and cold. We are supposed to get snow today and tomorrow, and perhaps over the weekend as well. Winter is trying to return. I hope it will be winter's last gasp before giving way to spring.

I've been trying to catch up on all of the housework I did not get done in going down to Indiana and in getting sick. Man, is there ever a lot of laundry. But I will work on it, and get some done every day. I have been spending a lot of time with the cats and the dog. Though nature does not realize it is spring, the pets do, and they are starting to shed, and need plenty of brushing. Matty and Tigger especially enjoy it.

I have been reading a chapter or two of Erikson's Deadhouse Gates in the mornings. It looks like it will be pretty good, but I do not have more time right now...at work I have been reading the classic Brave New World on my breaks. I have not read it since high school, it is good to reread it. I had forgotten a lot of it, but remember it as being chilling, which it still is.

One of my friends recently got back from Russia. He and his wife are adopting a little boy, a toddler, from that country. He has very interesting stories. He and his wife enjoyed their time in Moscow. He said that their hotel was very nice, that they were able to walk to Red Square and the Kremlin, and that the restaurants and amenities were fine. But he said that the little city in Siberia where the orphanage is located is "an education". They will be going back soon to pick up the little one, after  some more paperwork is completed.

Ruby Tuesday

Well, it did get very busy at work tonight, as we thought it might. Just a lot of patients, and a lot of very sick ones. We worked our butts off, and got pretty much everything done we needed to.

They are getting a group trip together for the Broadway musical Wicked. A couple of the girls want to go, and they want me to come along. I did not like the book it was based on, which was what I thought to be a rather bitter and unpleasant social satire. I will have to try to find out more about the play before I commit to that, as I truly did not care for the book.

Spent most of the day online today checking out rates for various hotels with water parks in the Wisconsin Dells. Hopefully by this weekend we can make the final arrangements for our trip. The tickets to the White Sox game came in the mail yesterday; I was pretty excited. We do not get to see much good baseball here in the Detroit area. The Sox at home against the Cleveland Indians should be a good game. I believe the Cubbies game we will be trying to get tickets for will be against the Tigers that second weekend. The game will probably not be very good, but Steven is planning on wearing his Cubs shirt and his Tigers cap, so we will probably still have fun.

Dan has been very cute lately. Whenever I come to bed (if he is still awake) he makes a big deal about how warm and cuddly I always am, and then he wraps himself around me so he can steal all of my body heat. I asked him if he could sleep when I was in Muncie that night last week, and he said he could not sleep at all because he could not get warm. He said he nearly collected the cats to sleep with him and almost set up the heating pad in bed in hopes that  something could get him warm. he is teasing, of course. Though he does like to steal all of my body heat. He's just a cuddle pig.

Steven's soccer practices are Mondays and Wednesdays, and his wrestling practices are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and he still has wrestling tournaments every weekend for at least a couple more weeks. i feel blessed that one of the kids is now done with organized athletics. A few more years and they will both be done - and that will be a good day.

Monday Monday

Tonight at work I got a good chuckle. A week or so ago I watched the film Walk the Line, and told everyone that they should see it because it is very good. Apparently everyone I work with went out and rented it and watched it this weekend. Luckily they all loved it!

Work went well. It wasn't kicking our butts every second like all of last week did. It was steady but not terrible, though we have some pretty sick patients on the intensive care units so it could get ugly on us.

My cold is a lot better, though my ears are still popping when I blow my nose. Yuck!

Dan and the boys are doing fine. Steven wrestled yesterday at a big tournament and took second place, qualifying him go to the state championships for that wrestling organization. Those will be held in Lansing two Saturdays from now. I have tickets to a jazz concert that Friday night; I hope that the wrestling will not interfere with the concert (though I am sure I can find someone else to go with other than Dan if need be, though he would not like that). His spring soccer practices started tonight.

Well, time for a shower after feeding the cats and the dog.

doing better

Today I am doing a lot better. My nose is still sort of runny, but other than that things are good. Though we will have to see how work is tonight... I have even managed to get some housework done today.

I finished up Erikson's Gardens of the Moon this morning. It was quite well done, though not as good as the Prince of Nothing trilogy by R. Scott Bakker I also recently read. I love Bakker's use of language, and both of these authors are very good world builders, with thousands of years of history behind their creations. Next up will be Erikson's Deadhouse Gates.

It's pretty chilly today. The little flowers are staying tightly in their buds this afternoon. Yesterday was a lot warmer and the little crocuses opened up wide and happily in the sunshine.

There are daffodills and tulips popping up everywhere in the yard. I cannot wait for them to bllom later this spring.

back to the "wonderful" world of work

Well, the cold is better today, and I made it into work and even lasted for my whole shift without coming home. So things are better. I spent the morning curled up in bed reading Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson, which I am enjoying. Since he has a large cast of characters and a bit of a convoluted plot, you can tell that the headache was a lot better today for me to be able to read that particular book.

Going to Muncie was fine, other than the nasty cold. Spending time with Bill is always a joy. We drove down on Thursday afternoon, and on Friday morning had various tours and interviews at Ball State. We toured the Architecture school, the campus as a whole, ate lunch on campus, and then he had an interview with one of the professors at the Honors College. He enjoyed it, and enjoyed eating dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant and breakfast at a pancake house. We drove home Friday evening.

Yesterday I spent most of the day in bed trying to beat the cold. I did get up for a couple of hours in the evening so Dan and I could finish watching the last two hours of From the Earth to the Moon. We both enjoyed that miniseries, which brought such a nice human side to the Apollo space program.

Today it was back to work. One of my friends, Jim, cracked me up. He told me that he could tell I was tired and sick, but commented that I came in yet again with a big smile, and that the past few weeks I have seemed happier and more upbeat than I have in months. That did make me think about what has been different for me in the past month, and I realized that it must be due to getting out of that sort of warped relationship with that former friend. Now that I am not being treated like crap at random times for mysterious reasons, life is so much better. I should have taken Erik's advice and gotten rid of that person months ago...but there are so many good things about him I was reluctant to, at least until I finally realized the extent of his lying. And that was the final straw...so in the time since I have stayed away, have deleted the messages from him without reading them, and intend to stay very far away from now on. And I feel like five hundred pounds have been taken off of my shoulders.Such a relief!!!  It was just such a strange situation, and I am sure that I was probably much too lenient and forgiving. But that is the way that I am...for better or worse (in this case, definitely worse!)

This week will feature work, work, and more work. Followed by my baseline mammogram on Friday. But Dan is planning on going there with me (at my request) and we will go out to lunch afterwards.

One very happy note: I have two large areas of snow crocuses blooming today! One puddle of them is white, the other is yellow. And the moon was huge and glorious and low on the southern horizon tonight!

trip to Muncie; bad cold

Bill and I spent the last couple of days in Muncie. He really likes the architecture school at Ball State; but he likes the campus and food better at Western Michigan. If he could uproot the arch school and move it to Kalamazoo I think he would be very happy. Of course, he would like to be closer to home than that four hour drive, too, which is a big part of things. He is still having trouble making up his mind on which university to attend. I have been giving him advise when he asks, otherwise it is and will be his decision...

I have a rotten cold and sinus headache. That four hour drive each way and the couple of days on the trip were a trial. Hopefully now that I am home and can get a day of rest before having to go back into work will be helpful. I am sure that the rest and plenty of hot tea will help.

this is turning into a bad week

Well, as expected, this is turning into a pretty bad week at work...the upset person has called in for most of the week due to stress, and has a doctor's note to back her up. But that does not make it easy on those of us who have to try to do the work of two people each day as a result. We are getting to be pretty stressed out, too..

Right now I am so tired that I want to curl up in bed and not move for a day or so. My head hurts and my whole body aches. I could not even concentrate enough to watch a movie or read this morning, though I did mange to do a bit of laundry. And now I get to go to work.

And tomorrow we're supposed to get between 1-3 inches of snow mixed with sleet in the afternoon, and Bill and I get to drive in it all the way down to Muncie. Does that stink or what? Like I want to drive down there on bad roads when I will be even more tired tomorrow from another night of trying to do two people's work for yet another shift?

 

Ah well. Somehow I will muddle through this, as always.

Just one more night...just one more night...just one...

bill paying...blech!

Last night I should have started the bills, but I got to be just too tired. So I got up about an hour and a half ago (way too early for a permanent second shifter to be mentally alert) and will start the bills in a few minutes. I have let the dog out in the fresh snow (which helped to wake me up a little bit), taken a shower (which helped wake me up a bit more), eaten a few bites of breakfast (that was neutral in its waking effects), and am now drinking some serious caffeine in the form of a power drink. Hopefully I will fully wake up in a few minutes.

The bizarre weather continues. Yesterday we had thunderstorms and there was a tornado warning/watch for awhile. At one point the temperature went up something like twenty degrees in fifteen minutes and the atmosphere was very unstable. Then we had a windstorm all afternoon and night. This morning I woke up to fog and snowfall. Then the sun came out! Now there are huge black storm clouds again! And it is still very windy. They are saying that the gusts will continue to be up to 50MPH or there about.

Bill and I will get snow on our drive down to Muncie Thursday afternoon, which sort of sucks. At least the hotel is near the university, so once we are in Muncie we won't have to drive very much if it turns out to be a lot of snow. I am hoping that the forecasters will be wrong, and it will be lovely and sunny and springy.

This wild weather has me in the mood to listen to Beethoven's Sixth Symphony and its thunderstorm.

ugh ugh ugh

Bad night at work. Someone got all upset at something the supervisor is doing and walked out, leaving us very short handed for the night. And it was very busy on top of that. The person says that she will not return this week; I hope that when she gets home she might calm down and change her mind. Otherwise this will be the week from hell...

We continue to work on our vacation plans. We now have reservations for the first Chicago leg (including White Sox tickets and tickets to the King Tut exhibit & for the hotel). Tonight I added the hotel reservation for the night in Madison, and we will not need a reservation for the particular tour we will be taking at the Frank Lloyd Wright estate. So just the Wisconsin Dells (hotel) and the second Chicago (hotel and Cubbies tickets) leg to go, and we will be all set.

I should be paying the bills right now, but felt like working on the trip instead. Though I will begin sorting and paying the bills in a few minutes.

We've been having wild weather. The ground is saturated with water from all of the heavy rain and some of the area farm fields are underwater. We had more thunderstorms last night and this morning, and we've been having a pretty bad wind storm since this afternoon.

Only two more nights to go, then Bill and I will be heading down to Muncie to visit Ball State again...I can do this. I can do this even if my coworker really doesn't come in....

sick again

Well, last night at work stank. It was fairly quiet at the beginning of the night, and I even managed to get some of my required continuing education done. But everything sort of fell apart at the end of the night, when one of the narcotic dispensing machines broke down. And then I got nearly uncontrollable diarrhea. I was crying while I was driving home from the pain from the cramps. When I got home I found out that Steven had it in the middle of last week, so we're passing around germs again.

We've pretty much made up our minds about the vacation, though we still have to make some of the reservations.

Saturday: drive to Chicago

Sunday: White Sox game

Monday: King Tut exhibit at the Field Museum, then drive to Madison, Wisconsin

Tuesday: visit the Frank Lloyd Wright estate in Spring Green, Wisconsin, then drive to Wisconsin Dells

Wednesday & Thursday: Wisconsin Dells and water parks

Friday: return to Chicago

Saturday: Cubs game

Sunday: drive home

I am still sick today, but less frequently, so will be trying to go into work.

trip planning; wrestling tournament

I still have that lingering headache. Steven also has it. Dan has it ,too. It has to be either a shared cold, allergies, or perhaps the fact that another storm system is coming in tomorrow, with thunderstorms.

Steven and Dan went down to Ohio today and Steven wrestled in a big tournament down near Toledo. He came in third - and the two kids who finished in front of him are also (like him) kids who have placed in national championships. A fourth kid, whom Steven pinned, is a medalist in the Ohio state middle school championships. So this was a tournament with superb athletes, and he did very well to place.

Dan and I have spent the last five or so hours trying to do some trip planning on the Internet. So many things we had wanted to do on this trip are just not looking possible. We had wanted to go to a play at the American Players Theater in Wisconsin, but their season will not really be going yet (they will only be having one performance, and that is a preview, and it is not Shakespeare). We might still head to Spring Green to see the Frank Lloyd Wright estate. Some of the tours made us gasp at the cost, but there is one of a school building he designed that is more affordable, at only $16/person. We are still looking for a hotel with a good water park in the Wisconsin Dells to make reservations for the Wisconsin leg of the trip.

For the Chicago portion of the trip, we found a Best Western by Grant Park that had a vacancy, and while expensive, wasn't too bad in comparison to some of the other hotels in the downtown area. We got tickets to a White Sox game and to the King Tut exhibit at the Field Museum. But the kids wanted to see the Cubbies, not the Sox, and those games were all sold out. We checked some scalper sites, and the mark up was beyond greedy and into the ridiculous. We checked out the offerings at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, and one play being performed that month will be a Greek tragedy that I'm not very interested in, and the Shakespeare was an offering of two of the history plays offered back to back, which lasts over 5.5 hours, which would be a long long time for out butts to be in a seat. And they were charging an arm and leg for that, too. They were charging nearly $100/ticket, and that's an awful lot for four people! And there is no way I would leave my kids by themselves for that long in a big city! (Well, I would not leave them alone at all, but you get the idea).

So while I am happy to see the Sox and King Tut, I am also a bit frustrated. Neither of the theaters which offer Shakespeare is offering anything that we could both (either?) attend or afford. And how Wrigley Field is sold out for every game, but hundreds of tickets being available through scalpers for every game is beyond frustrating.

Maybe if we find a bit of time I can finally get to the Art Institute of Chicago this trip. I noticed on their web site that they will be offering a special exhibit of pueblo pottery from the Southwest in June. I would be extremely interested in seeing that...

Vienna Philharmonic; head ache

Busy couple of days, compounded by a nagging headache, which I think is due to the poor weather we have been having the past few days.

Let's see...Thursday night Dan and I went into Ann Arbor for dinner and the Vienna Philharmonic concert at Hill. We parked  at a bank where he does a lot of work (so they give him parking rights) downtown. We walked in the rain about a block to an Indian restaurant. Now, a lot of the Indian restaurants in Ann Arbor (or at least most of the ones we have previously eaten in) are Hindu. This one was Muslim, so we got some treats we have not previously had, such as this wonderful mellow Indian cheese. The appetizers were quite good. I got these pastries stuffed with spiced ground lamb and peas; Dan got the veggie version stuffed with spiced potato chunks and peas. Since we each got two, we quickly switched so we had one of each. Both versions were great! We also ordered this wonderful very buttery nan bread. For dinner Dan had spicy lamb and potatoes over a bed of rice. I got chunks of cheese in a spinach based sauce over a bed of rice. The food was excellent!

The concert was...different. It is hard to evaluate, in fact. It was like two different orchestras showed up that night. Most of the first half was technically brilliant but completely lifeless. There was no emotion at all in the music; they were utterly and completely flat. I was sorely disappointed; the New York Philharmonic had played so much better than that last winter when they came to town; the Detroit Symphony Orchestra had played even better in December with a guest conductor when they did Beethoven's Ninth.

I must not have been the only one to feel let down. After the first piece, the Schubert overture, the audience started coughing loudly. After each movement in the Mozart symphony more and more people got into the coughing thing, and they giggled as well. It was horribly rude, and from the stage is must have sounded like an avalanche of angry noise.

The crowd must have either angered or woken up the orchestra, though, because all of a sudden during the last movement of the Mozart piece, and for the full second half of the program (a Schubert symphony and a wonderful tone poem by Strauss) and for the encore they played with a lot of passion and fire, and you simply could not hope to hear better playing. They proved that they are amongst the best musicians in the world.

It was sort of a weird night; the poor initial playing (music without feeling is really not worth listening to...), the horrid rudeness of the crowd (I have heard of that before when a classical concert is not going well, but have never experienced it), and then the orchestra catching fire like that.

Today I still had that nagging headache, so did not get much done other than laundry and napping. I did go down to Ohio with Dan and Steven this evening so he could weigh in for tomorrow's wrestling tournament. Afterwards we went to the Krispy Kreme. It has taken me months to track one down even remotely close to our home...Steven was very pleased.

Tomorrow if I can get out of bed in time I will head down to Ohio with Dan and Steven. Otherwise, I will get a quiet day at home with Bill and the bills and laundry. Then back to work on Sunday, hopefully the weather will clam down a bit, and the headache will go away.

yeti crab

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0309_060309_yeti_crab.html

Photo in the News: "Yeti Crab" Discovered in Deep Pacific

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March 9, 2006—Its silky white looks may make it seem more at home in the Himalaya, but this unique creature was recently discovered in the deep darkness of the South Pacific.

Scientists found the small, blind crustacean last March during a deep-sea expedition some 900 miles (1,500 kilometers) south of Easter Island, which lies off the coast of Chile (map).

Divers using submersible vehicles were about a mile and a half (more than two and a quarter kilometers) below the surface when they spotted the animal near hydrothermal vents.

The creature, dubbed the "yeti crab," is so unusual that a whole new family of animal had to be created to classify it. Its official name is Kiwa hirsuta, and even after a year of study scientists say there's still much about it they don't understand.

One mystery is the purpose of the fine, hairlike filaments that coat the crab's arms and legs. The fibers trap bacteria, which the crab may use as food. But some scientists think the germs may filter out the toxic minerals that spew from the deep-sea vents.

Biologists with California's Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, which organized the expedition, hope to return to search for more yeti crabs farther south, in the waters off Antarctica.

—Blake de Pastino

walk the line; no news is good news?

I just caught the movie Walk the Line on dvd this morning, and thought it was one heckuva movie.

Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon gave wonderful performances as Johnny Cash and June Carter. And they did their own singing?

I thought it was very moving - how Cash survived a difficult childhood, went on to have an even more difficult adulthood - and finally found a moral compass and a reason to live in the love of June Carter and of her family.

That awful and awkward Thanksgiving dinner scene, where June's parents watch the interaction between Johnny and his father and then step up and begin to give John their support - that and the following scenes where John's life and health are finally starting to straighten out as he begins to dry out with the help of the Carters - that was an incredible series of scenes.

I'll admit it - the ending made me cry.

What a good movie.

I have been calling around today trying to find out how the girl who got in the car accident is doing today. No one has any news about her since last night, when we were told she was being taken in for brain surgery. I am hoping with all of my heart that in this case no news is good news!

I do not go out very often to things that require me to get dressy. Tonight a concert by the Vienna Philharmonic would certainly call for nice clothes. And with the rain, I do not want to wear a skirt or a dress. And I am tired of my one nice black lace pants suit to each and every dressy occasion. So tonight I will wear my silk trousers, so pale pink they are nearly white. I will wear slightly pinker lace panties underneath (I'm not sure if the silk will become see through if it gets wet from a hard rain - I do not want to be revealing, and those panties were the closest I have to a matching color), white stockings with tiny pink hearts on them, and a bright pink very low cut sweater (Dan will like that). For shoes I will wear my black dress shoes with copper embroidery and pink beading. I will carry my pink Coach mini bag. I hope I will be dressy enough for the occasion, and not look like the country girl that I am. City sophisticate I am not, I am a jeans and sweatshirt kind of girl. But it is nice to be get dressy every now and then.

I also made sure that I have plenty of cash to take with me. We have free parking in one of the structures near the auditorium, as we are subscribers, but we will probably eat at one of the very good delis near the hall; also one of the local merchants sells CD's in the lobby of the performing group, with the profits going to the music society. i am thinking that they might have some pretty good music for sale there tonight...also, there is a first rate French restaurant near the hall. It is very expensive to eat dinner there, but perhaps we can indulge in one of their legendary desserts after the concert. Or maybe go to one of the many coffee shops for hot tea and cookies afterwards.

I have to go googling now. Steven came home with a story about a new animal some scientists found - some sort of crab with fur. He wants me to check out the pictures of it.

rain, rain, rain

While I am still looking greatly forward to the Vienna Philharmonic concert tomorrow night, that has been tempered by sadness. A girl I work with, only in her late twenties, and a very devoted mother of four young children, got into a car crash on her way to work this morning. There were icy patches on the roads.  She is probably undergoing brain surgery to relieve the pressure on her brain as I type this. It hurts so much when something so bad happens to someone who deserves it so little. She is a good person, a devoted mother, a good and supportive wife. I hope and pray that she will come out of this well. Her husband is in his last term of nursing school, and I hope and pray that he will be able to finish school this spring, as they had planned. It is horrible that this happened, just horrible.

It is raining very hard outside tonight. We are suppose to get somewhere around 2.5 inches in the next 24 hours...

which Muppet are you? (quiz)

You are Rizzo the Rat.
You have few friends, but are loyal to those you do have. Maybe if you didn't smell like sewage you would have more.

SPECIES:
Rodentia Digesta Lotta Grub
HOMETOWN:
Brooklyn, USA

FAVORITE MOVIE:
"Rat On A Hot Tin Roof"

FAVORITE SONG:
"The Pest Is Yet To Come"

FAVORITE FOOD:
You got it, I'll eat it.

HOBBIES:
See "Favorite Food".

QUOTE:
"When do we eat?"


http://quizilla.com/users/AutumnSong123/quizzes/What%20Muppet%20are%20you%3F/

spring is trying to arrive

Spring has been trying to come in. Yesterday was bright and sunny and warm; today is gloomy and chilly. We are supposed to get torrential rain over the next couple of days, which might make the big concert tomorrow night interesting. The concert hall has perfect acoustics; I have been to one concert at Hill during a huge storm, and thunder and drumming rain do make for an interesting sound affect to accompany the musicians. In addition, now I will not get overly dressy for the concert. I was planning on wearing a rather short skirt in spring green, hand embroidered with flowers all over it. I am not sure what a drenching rain might do to that skirt, so now I will probably just wear a pants suit. And Dan is being overprotective and dithering about having me walk all over town in the heavy rain that is expected. He is saying he will drop me off at whatever restaurant we choose for dinner, find a temporary parking spot for the Jeep, eat dinner, drop me off at Hill, go park the Jeep in our regular parking garage, walk back to the concert hall, and then go get the Jeep and drive back and pick me up after the concert. I told him that I do not even know why he is worried  ~ in over forty years I have yet to melt from any rain, and besides, we can use an umbrella.

I am very glad to be done with work this week after tonight. I am so tired of hearing the constant complaints and whining. It's just a job; why do people have to make a constant high drama out of it? And it's not even a bad job; I have had so many that are much worse! Some of these people need to get a life.  I try to ignore as much of it as I can; but it does start to get me down after enough nights of listening to it.

This weekend we will probably go to Ohio for a wrestling tournament for Steven. It is near Toledo. I hope I can remember to ask tonight the directions to the Krispy Kreme that is down there. The kids loved going to the one near Eric's house in New York last summer.

getting excited about Thursday

     http://www.mlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/features-1/1141470813132480.xml?aanews?FEMU&coll=2

Quote:

Vienna calling
Philharmonic's trip to Ann Arbor is a noteworthy occasion
Saturday, March 04, 2006
BY SUSAN ISAACS NISBETT
News Special Writer
Like a sighting of an ivory-billed woodpecker, an Ann Arbor appearance by the Vienna Philharmonic is an occasion to crow about.

Over the last 50 years, the orchestra has made nine Ann Arbor appearances. Visit No. 10 - which marks the golden anniversary of the orchestra's first Ann Arbor visit, in 1956 - is just around the corner: Thursday evening, in fact, at 8 p.m. at Hill Auditorium.

And you can bet the hall will be full as the University Musical Society presents the Vienna in music of Viennese composers Schubert, Mozart and Richard Strauss, with a conductor much beloved of the orchestra - and much in the news this last year as he made a stormy departure from La Scala, where he had been music director from 1986-2005 - Riccardo Muti.

Muti has made six Ann Arbor appearances, at the helm of the Philadelphia Orchestra at two May Festivals, in 1979 and 1983, that seem like ancient history. But along with other storied conductors - Toscanini, Furtwangler, Bohm, von Karajan, Bernstein and Mehta - Muti has become a favorite with the Vienna orchestra, which, save for the war years and Furtwangler's continued tenure until 1954, has had no regular conductor since 1933.

The Vienna also had no women until 1996, when it made a decision to open auditions to women.

There are now five women in the orchestra, the first of whom, harpist Charlotte Balzereit, has already achieved tenure. More women can be expected in the ranks as members retire.

A democracy of musicians, which elects its own officers and still has far less than adozen paid administrators - a huge contrast with orchestras all around the globe - the Vienna picks its conductors from the moment's créme de la créme of stars.

What do they admire in Muti? Longtime Vienna violinist and chairman of the orchestra since 1997 Clemens Hellsberg, who has also written extensively about the Vienna Philharmonic, took time out from teaching, playing and administration to respond to that question and answer others posed in an e-mail addressed to him in Vienna.

Q. What qualities have made Maestro Muti a favorite with orchestra?

A. Riccardo Muti has been working with this orchestra for 35 years, the first time being 1971. It was love at first sight. It is very interesting that even recently, Maestro Muti stopped the orchestra during a rehearsal, saying that the VPO must care about its tradition of sound and that he still has the VPO sound in his ear from 35 years ago. Now he feels that he is at an age where he is obliged to protect this way of music making and that he has been influenced by his musical predecessors at the VPO.

He is very conscious of his responsibility to keep this tradition. I feel that this is the closest type of collaboration imaginable.

Q. Could you talk a bit about the "Vienna sound,'' for which the orchestra is revered? To what is it attributable and how is it maintained?

A. There are two key points that answer this question
First: Some instruments used by the Vienna Philharmonic are very different from other instruments used around the world, for example, the Viennese horn and the Viennese oboe.

And second, there is a tradition to the way the VPO makes music. Many generations have been taught by one great teacher - this is a very lucky situation, especially in the string instruments. In the winds, for example, a master teacher always had one best pupil who went on to succeed that teacher in the VPO as well as in replacing that teacher as the new master teacher.

This dates back to 1819, the year that the conservatory was founded in Vienna, it also being the time of Beethoven and Schubert. So, as you can see, there is a direct line.

Q. In Ann Arbor, the orchestra plays Schubert's "Overture to Rosamunde,'' D. 644, and his Symphony No. 4 in C Minor, D. 417 ("Tragic&quot;); Mozart's Symphony No. 35 in D Major, K. 385 ( "Haffner''); and Richard Strauss's "Death and Transfiguration,'' Op. 24. Could you talk a bit about the orchestra's traditions of Mozart, Schubert and Richard Strauss, either as it relates to these composers in general or the pieces in particular? I am also curious what original or early-edition scores and papers of these composers the orchestra might hold.

A. Beethoven and Mozart are among the pillars of the orchestra repertoire. We have no personal tradition with Schubert, who died 14 years before our orchestra was founded, and Schubert was not played a lot in Vienna early on.

As you know, our orchestra was founded in 1842, and many of the players in the founding orchestra actually would have played the world premiere performance of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony in 1824, as many of these players knew Beethoven personally.

Richard Strauss conducted the VPO in over 80 concerts between 1906 and 1944. He also did a major tour with us in 1923 to South America when the orchestra traveled by ship. The world premiere in 1919 of "Die Frau Ohne Schatten'' was played by us under his baton.

From 1919-1924, he was director of the Vienna State Opera (to which all VPO members belong). He was an honorary member of the VPO. We have many of his letters in our archives, along with the manuscript of "Fanfare,'' which he wrote for our first-ever Vienna Philharmonic Ball in 1924, and which we have played at that ball every year since.

We also have many sketch books of his. In 1939 when he celebrated his 75th birthday, and in 1944 when he celebrated his 80th birthday, he was at the Musikverein in Vienna with the VPO conducting concerts and celebrating in a private ceremony following these concerts. These birthday artistic events were organized for him by the VPO, and this is where he wished to be.

Q. Are there any players with the orchestra who would have come to Ann Arbor for the orchestra's debut here, at Hill Auditorium in 1956?

A. No. That was 50 years ago, so it is not possible that any members from that time are still playing with us. As you probably know, there is a mandatory retirement age of 65. It is also interesting to note, that the oldest living person who was a VPO member is now 91 and long retired.

Well, its only a couple of days away. Even Dan, who does not care for classical music (other than a couple of Beethoven pieces) is starting to get excited. I am thinking that there might be even more scalpers at this concert than when the New York Philharmonic came to town last year. Wonder if the crowd will have excited classical fans yelling out that the soloists are badasses again like they did at the NY Philharmonic concert?

They have changed most of the music they are planning on playing on Thursday night. I had bought CD's of the old program so I could be familiar with the music on their old program. Now their program will consist of:
Quote: Program
Schubert Overture to Rosamunde, D. 644
Mozart Symphony No. 35 in D Major, K. 385 "Haffner"
Schubert Symphony No. 4 in c minor, D. 417 "Tragic"
Strauss Death and Transfiguration, Op. 24

so the same composers, but most of the musical selections have been changed...it should be great either way, though, of course!

We are doing fine this week. I am taking Thursday night off for the concert, so will have a three day weekend, and am ready to start counting down for that.  I am looking forward to spending a lot of tiem with the kids this weekend. It will be good.

I have been reading Iain Banks's The Algebraist and finding it to be very good. Banks does such a great job with complex plots in a space opera setting!

Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony

Here is a link to some biographical information on Rachmaninoff:
http://victorian.fortunecity.com/parkstreet/746/rachring/rachring.html#

Here is a link to a page about the Second Symphony (there is even a video you can watch):
http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction=composition&composition_id=3061

To understand why this work is important to me you would have to head back about thirteen years in my life. At that time my younger son was a baby in arms and I was taking care of him during the day, I was working full time afternoon shift, and I was attending a small local university full time on the weekends. In addition to all of that I was taking a music appreciation class at the local community college. I had previously attended a large university for a couple of years, and I had enough transfer credits that I only had to take classes in my major at the small one and all of my general ed classes were done - except for one humanities class. Hence the music appreciation class to finish up that one requirement at a much lower cost.

Pretty much two years of my life are now a big blur in my memory from while all of that was going on. One of the very distinct memories I have (other than of my children) is one from that music class.

Now, the professor was really into roots music and blues and jazz. But he did sprinkle in bits of classical from time to time. And one day he had everyone come in and put our heads down on our desks and close our eyes, he turned off the lights and told everyone to relax. He then started playing a piece of classical music - one of the most beautiful melodies I had ever heard (and have still ever heard right up until today!). And then he told everyone to raise their hands when they heard the climax!

Well that music was the third movement, the adagio, of Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony. It is beautiful. It is like someone took the best sex they could ever have and turned that experience into music. That lovely melody just builds and builds and builds...until yes, there is a climax.

Later we listened to the entire symphony. It is some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard. It is lovely...it is like a celebration of beauty, but it is not sugary sweet. There is plenty of passion mixed in, and enough doubt and darkness to give it a nice edge.

I have always thought that this (particularly the third movement) is the music that the Wraiths must dance to at the Celebration of Spring in Andelain in Donaldson's First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

great weekend

Dan and I are having a wonderful weekend this weekend.  He took Friday morning off and we spent that together. After he left to work in the afternoon, I went to the store and got a lot of good stuff to make dinner. When he got home, we made that dinner - a Thai dish with stir fried rice noodles, vegetables, tofu, eggs, and shrimp. I underestimated the amount of time it would take to make the dinner - it took forever to de-shell the shrimp - and it took us over two hours to make what looked like it would be a simple stir fry in the wok. But man of man - was it ever good when it was finally ready! We each ate two platefuls, with huge mugs of steaming hot tea. Oh, that was good! Then we chased each other around the house and had tickle fights, and I tried to steal his socks, and stuff like that. It was good.

This morning the kids called very early to let us know all was going well in Battle Creek. We spent the morning curled up in bed, and fed each other breakfast. We then watched the movie Serenity, based upon the television series Firefly, which I have very recently finished watching. We both enjoyed Serenity a lot. Then we ate a great lunch, featuring warm whole wheat pita bread and various samples of gourmet cheeses from three different countries.

We are expecting the kids back this afternoon or early this evening, so we are now fully clothed and are trying to get productive stuff done.

another week is done

Well, we never lost our power even with the freezing rain, and that is quite good. Dan said the roads this morning were pretty bad, though he and Bill both got to work/school without any mishaps. And though many of the area schools did cancel today because of the icy roads, the kids did have school.

Tomorrow they will be leaving school at lunchtime and going to Battle Creek with the other wrestlers and coaches for the weekend. Dan and I will get our couple time after all, even though Dan told me Steven was quite a pain about it. Bill understood immediately and helped convince his little brother, thank goodness.

In celebration I went to the gourmet store and bought three wonderful cheeses (that good Swiss, a cheese imported from Ireland, and a Gouda from Wisconsin). I also bought a breaded raspberry Danish breakfast ring and some other goodies. Oh, and some real Sangria and three kids of fresh fruit (organically grown oranges, strawberries, and blueberries) to go in it.

I am looking so forward to tomorrow night it is quite unbelievable. Now it is time for a quick shower and time to make a fire for the cats. It is very cold tonight, and I want to get the chill out of the air here downstairs.

 

freezing rain

Got some good news for Bill yesterday - he was accepted for admissions at the University of Michigan's Engineering College. So that is one of the top universities in the country, and they admitted him. Even though Dan and I met when we were both students there, I don't know that our son will choose to go there. I think Michigan is actually pretty far down on his list. Even though he can live at home, it would cost an arm and a leg; more than some of the other universities would cost including room and board! But it is still an honor for him to be admitted there!

Looks like Dan and I might not get our two nights alone together after all. One of the kids is completely balking about going to Battle Creek. <sighs> Dan and I last had a night alone together a bit over a year ago, and it really helped with the reconciliation attempt. It would have been nice to be able to have some more time alone. But so goes life...

Tonight we are having freezing rain. The roads were not bad yet when I drove home, but I think they'll be pretty frightening by morning. There is already some really thick ice buildup on signs, vehicles, garbage cans in the driveway, etc. I am thinking that the kids might not have school tomorrow. We will see...

I just hope we can keep our power. I hate losing the electricity in the winter, when it is so dark and cold...