Our Book Club

Our neighborhood book club met for the second time last night, in the home of our newest neighbor, who moved in about 4 months ago. I had not been in that home in ten years; it had been extensively redecorated in the meantime, and is a perfect candidate for a slick home magazine article. We got to tour the lower level and it was a real treat, along with the tasty appetizers, salads and desserts we all brought to share. 

Even though we are in the middle of October, it was warm enough for us to sit outside on the terrace, surrounding a lovely fire, until after 9:30 pm. We discussed our latest book - Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See - and the consensus was that we liked it and found it challenging as well as educational. It takes place in China during the time of foot-binding, and reading about that made us all glad that we live in this day and time and don't have to face that custom.

The discussion about the book was lively, with everyone participating at some level. I'm not sure how I became the leader of the discussions - but last night I tried to suggest that the woman who hosts the group should also lead the discussions, and I was shot down very quickly. It was also decided that we will meet every two months, instead of three - since we are enjoying it so much.

I am going to host our next meeting, which will be in January (even though we changed it to every two months) because December is busy enough without adding book club to the mix! The book I chose is  "Cane River" by Lalita Tademy, and if you haven't read it - you might want to check it out. Tademy was a former vice-president at S*n M*cr*syst*ms, who left her job to research and write this history of four generations of her family.

As you may know, I worked a lot last week; two days of at least six hours per day and two days that were longer. It doesn't sound like much until you know my age and the fact that I stand on my feet the majority of the time I am working. I'm not crowing - just stating a fact. I have noticed that my stamina is not as good as it was five years ago. So.......I'm t.i.r.e.d......and blogging is suffering because of it. If I am sitting here in my chair at the computer, all I really want to do is check Facebook and read a few blog posts - not write one. You'll forgive me, won't you? And hang around until I get my mojo back?

Five women from the neighborhood went downtown to the NCMH - North Carolina Museum of History - to see a furniture exhibit on Tuesday. The furniture was all built by a NC free man of color, Thomas Day, during the 1830's and 40's.  He was quite a craftsman, and was well known in this area for his good quality furnishings. The exhibit has quite a few pieces (many on loan to the museum), as well as a model workshop of the type he had., with lots of old wood-working tools. I took lots of photos, and I will put them here some day soon. 

After the exhibit, we went to Caffe Luna for lunch, where two of us had calamari atop a Caesar salad, and one had pumpkin raviolis. I'm not sure what the others ate; I was too busy devouring mine to notice. It was pretty good! The last time I ate there, I had either risotto or pasta with mushrooms, and it was excellent, but they don't have it on the menu any more, and I was disappointed. Maybe they'll read this and put it back!

Our NC State Fair starts this week. I haven't decided if I'm going or not. I'd like to see the exhibits and the flower arranging competitions, and visit the petting zoo and hold baby chickens, etc. but I'm not sure it is worth the noise, the crowds and all the walking. Of course, there are the deep-fried bacon with cheesy mashed potato bites, the roasted corn on the cob, the sausage and pepper sandwiches, the home-made fudge......maybe I will go after all.......LOL

The Concert

Somewhat surprisingly, I found myself at a harpsichord concert on Sunday afternoon, having been invited by my blog-friend  Tiff. I am SO glad I took her up on the offer!! Just look at that fabulous instrument! It was absolutely beautiful  ~  hand painted by North Carolina artist  Lisa Creed, built by Richard Kingston and played so proficiently by Elaine Funaro Love.

This Baroque-style harpsichord was also onstage and played wonderfully by Beverly Biggs, of Chapel Hill, who specializes in period music of the late Baroque, Classical and Early Romantic eras.  

Seen here are Lisa Creed, the artist and Andrea Love, an animator, who made an eight minute video animation about the genesis, design, building and painting of Opus #333, called "Birth of a Harpsichord." Andrea is the daughter of Elaine Funaro Love. She is standing beside her set for the video animation, which was informative and funny.

Baroque music has never been a favorite of mine; I call it "constipated" music, since it seems as if they are so very reserved and proper and you know all they really wanted to do is cut loose and boogie (as I imagine Marie Antoinette did...lol)

 Elaine Funaro Love is  Artistic Director of a group called Alienor, which provides commissions, competitions and concerts concerning harpsichords. They sponsor composer competitions every four years for new harpsichord music. In this concert, they alternated Baroque music with some of the newer compositions and I was so impressed! They were beautiful, exciting, quite rhythmic and I loved all of them!

The tone of the new instrument is so rich, particularly in the lower range. It reminded me of the response I have to alto saxophone and oboe; for me, the sound is very sexy! Do follow this link -

Alienor -  and read about the instrument and the people who made it. And if you ever have the opportunity to see and hear this remarkable harpsichord, you will be lucky!

~~~

A funny thing happened, proving that it is (as we all know) a small world. I met a woman whose distinctive name I have only heard one other time in my life. I asked her if she was related to the someone I once knew with that name - and she is his third cousin. She was born in my home town, too. Her cousin is rather well known; having been the governor of West Virginia a while back. I went to middle school with him, and I have not spoken to him since I was a senior in high school, although I saw him at Tamarack a few years ago.



Ladies, Gentlemen and Children of All Ages....

A friend whom I have known since middle school has a fun and interesting business in Florida. Barbara makes props and costumes for circuses, Disney, schools, etc., and you!

Check out her web-site here. It isn't finished yet, but I wanted you to know about it now, and when the site is completed, I'll post it again. Click on "gallery" to see what she has designed and produced. **The link is fixed now.

Barbara's mother was a surprisingly good seamstress, and she didn't need a pattern to design and sew a dress in just a few hours. I think Barbara has inherited her mother's talents!!

Update below!

We hired a pressure-washing company last week, to do the decks, the railings, the concrete pool surround, the walkways, steps and driveway. He came highly recommended by a good friend of mr. kenju's, and he has a contract with the largest shopping mall in town - so we thought he'd do a good job.

He did, to a point, but as far as time goes, he marches to a different drummer. He showed up two hours late the first day, two hours late the second day, not at all on the third and fourth days and while he has promised to be here Saturday morning at 10 a.m. - but I'm not holding my breath.

He and his helper did all the railings and the decks (which total 1800 square feet) on the first day, and the concrete areas the next day. I had asked about moving things before they came, and was told they "take care of it all." I did bring indoors some of my better ceramic frogs, but left the plants and crocks in place. Big mistake.

He sat the plants out of his way and then moved them back into place when he had completed that area - but - the foliage and pots were covered in crud from the deck washing. Maybe he will clean that up tomorrow, but I'm not (again) holding my breath. Of the seven crocks that sit on either side of the pool pump house (purely for decoration), five were moved and two were not. So when I tried to move them all into new positions, I uncovered two 8" diameter dark areas. Lovely.

It was the same in a couple of other places and out on the driveway, where I have a concrete planter that even I can move, they didn't move it and tried to clean around it - leaving darker areas that are very noticeable to me (even if mr. kenju can't see them.)

Having recommended this guy (after the first day) to a good friend of mine, I am thinking of rescinding that recommendation. She wants her house washed, and I am afraid this guy will ruin her foundation plants (as he did mine.) Well, I shouldn't say "ruined", but they look a lot worse for the wear and I will have to prune them back severely as soon as it is cooler. I couldn't bear the thought of standing, bending or crouching in this heat long enough to do all the pruning I need to.

Another "ruination" was the cover to our pool skimmer, which couldn't withstand the pressure washer. To be fair, it is almost 29 years old, so I'm sure it was brittle after all this time. It cracked in about 20 pieces. He has agreed to replace it; so I went looking for one Friday - and wonder of wonders - I found one just like it. It doesn't fit quite as snugly, but at least it covers the hole into the skimmer.

This guy is going to seal the railings and floor of the decks, and I am promised it will look terrific when he finishes. I sure hope so, because at this point, I am not sure it was worth all the frustration I have experienced. And mr. kenju is no help at all, because he is pre-dispositioned to think that all women are complainers (although he puts it a bit stronger than that.)

Update: The guy came back this morning about 11:30 am (only 90 minutes late) and finished the job, all but the sealant, which will be done next week (or so we are told). We haven't paid him a penny yet, so those of you who mentioned never paying in full - we don't either. In fact, we seldom pay anything in advance of a job like this one. The photo of the before and after is not our deck. Ours was dirtier than that and had plenty of mold and brown algae on it. It looks 99% better now, although some boards need to be replaced due to splintering, but that is not the pressure-washer's fault.

I am about 95% satisfied with him, and if I ever recommend him, I'll be sure to mention the problem I had with his timing. That won't matter to some people, who are only interested in the final result. I doubt he will give our names as references.....lol

Written by Elizabeth George and published in 2006. I just finished this book and found it more interesting than I thought I might. It is the story of three disadvantaged children who live in London, England and the few years that precede the eventual downfall of one of them. Here are two quotes, with which I found myself agreeing:

"Even if you settle upon that permanently, you must still find a creative outlet for yourself. You see, where people go wrong when they set out in life is not exploring that part of themselves that feeds their spirit. Without that food, the spirit dies, and it's a large part of our responsibility to ourselves not to allow that to happen. In fact, consider how few psychiatric problems there might be if every individual actually knew what to do to keep alive in himself something that could affirm the very essence of who he is. That's what the creative act does, Joel. Blessed is the man or woman who knows this at a young age like yours."

And:

"The greatest sin is letting riches go to waste once you know they're riches. The difficulty is that most people don't know. They define riches only by what they can see because that's what they've been taught to do: to look at the end of things, the destination. What they never recognize is that riches are in the process, the journey, in what one does with what one has...."

Those lines are spoken by a man who is mentoring one of the children. It is sad that despite his attempt to steer the boy to a path of creativity and self-esteem, he fails. The boy can only see one way to insure the safety of his family - and it leads to his destruction.

My only fault with this book is that the idiomatic and slang language spoken by some of the characters is not explained, and the reader is left to his or her own devices to imagine exactly what is meant. I found that a problem in the early chapters, but as the book progressed, it became less so. When I read in the acknowledgments that Ms. George is an American who wrote in the voice of foreign children and teens of a lower socio-economic/educational level, I was impressed at her ability to capture the flavor of certain sections of London.

Odds & Ends

By the time I took this photo, the snow and ice had already begun to melt. Though I had only seen our deer once since my neighbor shot a 22 rifle in their direction about six weeks ago, this is incontrovertible evidence they've been around. I took this photo looking out an upstairs bedroom window; it covers an area of about 30' from left to right. On the same day, I saw bunny tracks in the front yard.

When I left home Saturday morning to have breakfast with my daughter, there were five deer on the right side of the house; thumbing their noses at the neighbor, I imagine, since they were very close to his property. The deer didn't spook when I came out of the garage to get in the car, and they were still around and didn't spook when mr. kenju came back home from a church meeting shortly after I left. I think they are getting used to the two of us, and they know we won't hurt them. That pleases me.

Speaking of breakfast, we went to Courtney's. I had pancakes and bacon and enjoyed every mouthful. It was a stack of three, and I couldn't eat all of it (they were at least 9" in diameter!) We usually go to Brig's for breakfast and I think I prefer them, but Courtney's was acceptable.

***

Since I will be working every day next week save one, I had to go to the grocery today to stock up. I really hate going to the store on Saturday when everyone else is there too - but I had no choice. Even with $37+ worth of coupons, it was a huge bill. I complain too much about the cost of food, I know, but humor me, please. Another thing that gets my ire up at the grocery is how they pack the bags. I take my own permanent bags (6 of them). The baggers don't seem to like it when you do that, since they have to actually put some thought into how they do it. They would prefer to bag everything in those damnable plastic bags, so they can put 1-2-3 things in one bag and send me home with 20 bags. And everything falls out of them on the way home, so I have to pack them all over again. They always pack my bags with too much heavy stuff, and even though there are heavy-duty strap handles, they are the devil to lift out of the van. I guess I should remember to tell them not to do that when they first start, instead of waiting until the end and then complaining about it. LOL

Hallelujah!!

Until about 11:30pm, I was having problems all darn day with blogger and google. I couldn't get into my dashboard to write a new post, and I couldn't leave comments on blogger blogs. What's up with that?

My daughter came to the rescue by unplugging the modem for a minute. That did the trick! I didn't think of doing that earlier because I could access gmail and blogs and everything else google. If I had not been able to get on line at all, I would have unplugged the modem myself. I don't understand why that solved this problem, but I'm sure glad it did. It's still slow - but at least it works.

Did anyone see Grey Gardens on HBO last night? It stars Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore in an adaptation of the story (also on Broadway) about Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Little Edie; aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and her sister Lee Radziwill. It was a very interesting story, about which I had no prior knowledge and no preconceived notions. I am sure it will be repeated, so I recommend you watch this one - or rent the documentary. You'll be fascinated.

I read about it on this blog too, so go and check out her review of it. Jo said it better than I could.