QuidNunc/QuidTunc?

Back in the day when I could go to the Cedar Rapids Public Library and sit in a cushy chair and listen to CD’s while my children browsed for books, the great Jessye Norman introduced me to the Negro Spiritual. It wasn’t that I had never heard one before, but she took the thing and made something of it thatI had never heard before, while lifting me out of my seat! Really, I looked around to see if anyone else could hear, but I guess my headphones were pretty good. I felt like I was in a concert hall as she spilled out “Great Day. great day, the righteous marchin’ Great Day, God’s gonna build up Zion’s wall” with a flair of drama and power that has had me all agog ever since. The liner notes mentioned that spirituals were typically songs of hope and deliverance and it shows up in the power of her voice! Lately I have found this little gem on Youtube and every time I sign in to something, and there is the little box that says ‘remember me’, this is what comes to mind. It is called Dido’s Lament and Dido is the woman who had a love affair with Aeneas after he escaped the fall of Troy and was on his way to Italy via Carthage. Dido was a Phoenician who ran away from Phoenicia because her brother had killed her lover and I believe she was the queen of Carthage when Aeneas came along. He deserts her to fulfill his destiny.It’s hard to remembe all the details that far back! ;>) Enjoy the music.

Last Saturday Joel and I got to go to the Symphony. We live within walking distance of the concert hall, so if it’s not so hot you work up a sweat walking there, it’s rather pleasant. The first piece was a song the conductor dedicated to his wife in honor of their 39^th wedding anniversary. At some point she had heard this song and said to him it was the most beautiful song she had ever heard. When they started to play it I recognized it as a song I had disciplined myself to learn the first fall I didn’t go back to school. I never played Brahms because you can’t sight read it, you have to learn it. I thought “where am I going” so I played it slowly enough to play every single note and then started going through line by line like you do in piano lessons! It’s called ‘Intermezzo’ in my book, but in the symphony program it was called ‘Black Swan’. The orchestration was absolutely beautiful. The symphony conductor has a reputation of being kind of a crank, but he must have scored some points for this one! The guest soloist was a pianist who had gotten rave reviews for the performance of the night before. The newspaper editor was quite ecstatic; I never saw so many adjectives in symphony review! Well, Rachmaninoff was on the program and it was excellent. BUT while tearing up the last movement the soloist put both hands in the air and when the conductor stopped he said loud enough for everyone to hear, “I screwed up!” So he went over to the conductor’s score and they found a place to start and went right on as though nothing had happened. There was some chuckling in the audience and it only took a minute or two and no one was the worse for it, except for maybe the soloist. He played a lovely little encore, too. Afterwards, we walked home.

On Monday Joel put a shelf up in the closet in the study for me, which enables me to get rid of one of the many pieces of furniture in that room and he put a curtain rod all the way across the wall that has three windows on it, so now I can think curtains! I made 75 cupcakes for Marlowe’s birthday party! It was sort of a combination party; they have friends who are moving away, so they had other friends over for that. Poor Marlowe had a little bit of a fever, but it made him cuddly, so we cuddled. He has a way of ‘airing his opinion’ when he is displeased and J was changing him and he was fussing and I walked into the room and said something. He paused, pulled his fists away from his eyes to see who it was, and went right back into his fuss! I think there must be an A.A. Milne poem about such behavior. I love sitting here and writing. I wish I had more to say! It’s another gray cold day, needed an extra blanket last night. Well, that gives us a little ‘energy’ space between heat and air conditioning!

I did post some pictures on my flickr of our newspaper route Saturday morning. It’s starting to get light before we finish and often there is a thick fog patches that are really beautiful. And some not so thick spots, too. I was trying to catch the shadow of the trees. And when Joel went into the barn to get milk, this is what he saw!

Why does the font get tinier and tinier???? I got some pics off my camera and in the computer, so let’s see what we can do!

First I went to Ellis’s Spring Fling at his pre-school and PA school for the Deaf. He is actually on the playground in this picture, riding around like Fred Flinstone. I might put a video on my flick of the program, but though the video is pretty cute, E is not in it.

We got our garden started at the County Park’s community garden section.

We went to Uncle John’s funeral.

we helped a family move and then had them stay with us for a couple days until things got a little organized!

and we had a great Mother’s Day picanick

And had a play day with Katarine and Annika… and the mamamaria

We also drove to Danville PA to take Luisa to a nanny job there and if I can get the pics off Joel’s phone, that finishes the story… I think!

There must be something to say about a Monday morning stream of consciousness! I was just thinking about when I was in the 5^th grade I started taking piano lessons. As there were 5 of us taking lessons at the same time I had the early morning slot to practice. I had 5 minutes to get out of bed and get down to the piano. It wasn’t a problem. I loved practicing. The 5 minutes I had to get dressed was the problem! I suffered a lot of consequences for that. Somehow getting up is so much easier if you look forward to how you are starting your day. I got up shortly before 7 this morning thinking about how ‘early’ I was getting up, but then I reminded myself that wouldn’t crack it for getting to school. Well, I don’t have to worry about that!

I did write a post about going to Uncle John’s funeral and I read it on my web site, and then it wasn’t there. We had a good trip and it was fun having an excuse to go to Michigan. Brad and Jason are shorties! Jason has really cute kids and I hope I got my pictures up on flickr but maybe I didn’t. The computer has been weird lately. Being at Uncle Norm’s and Aunt Rosemary’s is like being home. Amy and I thought it was probably since I got married since we had seen each other.

My friend, Terry, and I have a term we call ‘double-party-ing’. Well, last weekend I thought I had reached an all time high of triple –partying! On Saturday Joel and I got up at 3:00 like we usually do to deliver papers. He went from there to the greenhouses. I came home and panicked about my bills and when he got home we finished running errands. I think he got a little nap and then we left to go visit Sam and Sarah. It took us 3 hours to get there, stupid Schuylkill Expressway. So we ended up just having dinner and walking around a little and coming home. On the way home we stopped at the airport and picked up Luisa. The next morning Joel went to water at the greenhouse again, Lu and I went to church and came home and scrambled together a picnic with Nick and Nicky and the Stover gang. We went to my latest favorite place to go, Lancaster County Central Park, nicknamed, The County Park. It was like having a big backyard, big picnic table, ball fields, hiking trails, gardens all in a space of maybe a mile, mile and a half maybe, just guessing. David had brought a fun kite to fly, even though it wasn’t the best kite-flying day ever, and there were a few playing ball and Lu, Katelyn and Jonathan had gone on a hike. Jonathan got separated from the girls and they thought they would catch up and they didn’t. So there was a panic in which we packed up toys lickety split and jumped in 4 different cars and fanned out around the park. Emily and I went to the trail where they had been and Em ran down the hill yelling and he was at the bottom, pretty scared looking! He had gone back to our picnic place looking for us, but we moved out when we went to the ball fields and someone had moved in as Joel finished packing our things! So that was a little disconcerting. So we were thankful to find our boy! I don’t think terror strikes a mother’s heart like a lost child! I felt optimistic, but I knew Em didn’t. I know the thoughts that went racing through my head when I couldn’t find one of mine! After that we had to get down to see Joel’s mom. We didn’t tell her Luisa was coming. Mary came with Annika while we were there and she played ‘peek-a-boo’ with her great grandma! We sang for a little while. We had also been invited to Mrs. Noe’s 85^th birthday party and I just figured I would show up late and giver her our greetings. But I had gotten mixed up. It wasn’t until yesterday! And we went and had a nice time. A Cono friend, Barb Gerow, came from Philadelphia. And I met Eugene Potoka and his wife. They had two sons at Cono. Then Margaret’s husband, Darrell, played the piano. He played at Jeannette’s wedding. I love to hear him play. When we took Luisa to Covenant last fall Joel and I stayed with them and he played me Billy Joel’s classical composition! Well, it doesn’t sound like rock and roll! Their daughter Carrie played and sang a couple of her songs and then there was more singing and playing. Joel and I had to scoot off!

Last night at church I was giving a lesson to the kids and the story was about Peter healing the lame man by the temple gate. I have some act-ive boys so we needed to act-out! So when the lame man was healed I asked the boy who was acting it out what he would do if he had two broken legs and all of a sudden he could do whatever he wanted. He said, “I think I’d break-dance!” I said ‘yep, he break-danced right into church!”

Well, it’s time to crawl out from under the laptop and get my blood moving. I am going to work in my garden at The County Park today! I hope to get some grass clippings from a former student who mows lawns. So I don’t have to weed. Joel and I don’t think too highly of the soil and I think that this will help not only the weed control, but feed the soil.

Ciao for now!