Scout Moves

This is the view from the window in my new office. It's bleak in winter, but during the summer, it's kind of nice with full green trees and a picnic table. Here is the list of animals I have encountered in this parking lot/front yard over the years (I worked in this office for quite a few years before being allowed to settle into my home office): Deer A cow which wandered away from a farm that must be just over the hill. It actually wore a bell. A chicken which I assume came from the same farm. It hogged an entire parking space, and I had to park further up the hill while it decided which way was home. Black snakes. Several years in a row, these icky creatures made a nest right by the front door every spring until someone would either club them with a shovel or relocate them to a less populated spot. At the first spotting, a general e-mail went around saying that "our friend" was back, and I would spend the next week or two afraid to cross the threshold and afraid to

...to John Steinbeck. I know I keep wishing happy birthday to dead people, but there are just so many wonderful dead people to honor. John Steinbeck is one of them, being my favorite American author. I was first introduced to his writing when I was given a copy of Of Mice and Men to read in school. I think I must have read the Red Pony earlier, but it bored me senseless. Of Mice and Men, on the other hand, was a marvelous thrill. I remember reading it in the back seat of the car on some kind of road trip, and my mother reached over the back of the seat demanding to have a look at my book. She insisted on reading the books the high school English department assigned to her daughters in case they assigned pure filth. I don't recall the novel, but she blacked out all the "filthy" words in one of my sister's books, so I was afraid of what she would do to my Steinbeck. I handed it over dutifully and was forced to submit to a one-hour rant about the ruination of society whe

Another round of Fracas' Monday Melee: 1. The Misanthtropic: Name something (about humanity) you absolutely hate. I say this every time, but I don't like the word hate. Let's say I do not prefer arrogance and self-righteousness, which quite often go hand in hand. 2. The Meretricious: Expose something or someone that’s phony, fraudulent or bogus. Low-fat food. When the food makers take out the fat, they add sugar so the crap will actually taste like something edible. Rule: if it comes in a plastic cup and is made of words I can't pronounce, I leave on the shelf--oh, and if it jiggles. Food shouldn't jiggle. 3. The Malcontent: Name something you’re unhappy with. My horn lessons are too far away. I should go through my previous Melee participations and see if I have already named this. It plagues me. 4. The Meritorious: Give someone credit for something and name it if you can. The assistant pastor at my church is genuine--he is humble and funny and soft-spoken, and I d

Well, here we go. This is my last day to be a floater--in case you don't recall my post a while ago about floating, here is what I mean. Beginning tomorrow, I will be working in an office from 8 to 2 four days a week, leaving Mondays free for horn lessons. I will have a desk that won't have stacks of handmade paper and valve oil and a metronome. I will have book shelves with actual books instead of stacks of horn music and a big plastic box of old family photos, and I will have company-issue rules and staplers and note pads. I will have occasional meetings (which as a rule should never last more than 20 minutes and should all be stand-up). I will have office neighbors who will not appreciate a horn solo at 1:30 in the afternoon. Nor will they appreciate a glass-shattering belch after a quickly guzzled diet-Pepsi. It's a pity. I will not have Turner Classic Movies in the background playing classics like The Thin Man. I will not have my cat Mike sleeping on the floor just to

...to Dame Myra Hess, born 1890. She was a British concert pianist who, during WW2, when the concert halls of London closed, organized lunch-time concerts at the National Gallery. I'm not sure if the National Gallery has relocated since then, but it was at the National Gallery in London where I discovered the paintings of J. M. W. Turner. I remember standing in a room surrounded by his work and being mesmerized. I marched directly to the gift shop and bought a book about him and his paintings which now rests on the shelf behind my piano. I have digressed. I might not know the name Dame Myra Hess if my parents had not bought a Readers Digest record collection called Great Piano's Greatest Hits--seven or eight albums of some of the greatest piano concertos in classical music history. While the other kids were listening to Bobby Sherman and The Partridge Family, I had my ear glued to the console stereo filling my dreamy head with pianists like Earl Wild and Myra Hess playing Ch

...to George Frideric Handel, born in 1685. Born in Germany to a valet and barber, he studied law according to his father's wishes, even though his true passion was music, and he was clearly gifted. He jumped feet first into a musical career--well, more than a career, really--after his father died, and aren't we all grateful. Handel moved to England in 1712 and became a permanent resident of London. As I read a brief biography of his, I thought how refreshing to learn a little something about an historic composer who wasn't an alcoholic, a drug addict, suicidal, or a narcissistic pig. And when he died, he wasn't buried in obscurity with his hundreds of manuscripts accidentally lost under some cathedral flooring--he was given full state honors at his funeral at Westminster Abbey with 3000 mourners attending. Bach said of him, Handel "is the only person I would wish to see before I die, and the only person I would wish to be, were I not Bach." I'm sure this

Do you ever just sit and stare and recognize you don't have a thought in your head, except for the recognition of emptiness? Is it a chemical thing, I wonder, or maybe there just isn't enough oxygen being pushed up toward the top of my head. Or maybe I need to reboot. Whatever the reason, yesterday I didn't form a single cohesive thought to be expressed on my home page, and it was kind of like a blog vacation. My sister called late in the afternoon to see if something was wrong--she is a regular reader and was shocked to find Tuesday's post where Wednesday's post should be. Nope. Everything is fine--and not fine in the socially acceptable sense--I just didn't have anything to say. Not a stinking thing. I occupied my time with a little of this and a little of that, sailing through blissfully completing tasks as assigned. The office person asked for a file--here you go, early even. Dinner? Have a carmelized onion quiche. Catbox is dirty? Not anymore. Kid has a con

Tell an Ish person to show up around 9 a.m., and you'll see them somewhere around 9 a.m. Tell them to show up at 9ish, and you'll see them anywhere from 9:05 to 9:20. You have given them license to dilly dally, and who wouldn't take advantage of that? The other night at the big shindig dinner party, one of the drummers said the rehearsal the next morning would begin at 9ish. "I am an ish person," he says. Immediately the clanker goes off in my head--oh, good, I thought. I can deliver my daughter a little late. No Ish person is early, so if you say 9ish, that does not mean give or take 5, 10, 15 minutes. It's exclusively a taking phrase. Take an extra 10 minutes to drink your cup of coffee. We won't mind. We're Ish people. Sunday's rehearsal started at 2:00. Because it was conducted by the same people who conducted the Saturday rehearsal, my understanding was 2-ISH. My daughter is worse than I am about taking liberties with Ish time frames, so she d

A photo from Small Town Newspaper's morning edition (as if there were an evening edition). My child is in the upper right hand corner behind the bass mallet. So, Pantasia was last night's event, and it was a delight as it is every year. The auditorium was full to the brim with family and friends of the 30-plus band members and alumni. College kids travel home in all kinds of weather for this concert, and they stand around in their old high school lobby reminiscing about their days in this incredible and unique band. The kids played very well--they have some staple numbers they perform every concert, and they learn new numbers with the help of Pan Ramajay during the 3-day clinic. This year, they were also joined by the steel band from New York University in Manhattan who is conducted by an alumnus. This group performed music with their own set of drums that I swear did not sound like mallet hitting pounded steel. They performed a piano etude, and if you closed your eyes, you

Well, not really. It was really more like a night at the symphony, but I do love the Marx Brothers. Last night, husband and I went with a group of friends to a concert entitled Gospel Meets Symphony performed by the Akron symphony and a choir made up of singers from local churches. The majority of the choir members were from black churches and well-versed not just in the lyrics but in the style--they knew to sway, and when directed to sway, they knew in which direction to begin. I'm not sure that if I had been on the risers with them, I would have leaned left when I should have leaned right. When I was a student in Chicago, it was my mission to attend as many different styles of churches as I could, and one of the churches I attended (only once) was a 100% black church in Cabrini Green. I can't speak for that part of town these days, but at the time it was a notorious housing project where white people were typically not welcomed or were at least suspect. My friends walked the

It's a great day to get out and see the world, well at least the two miles of it that runs between my house and the grocery store. I had to buy tomatoes. Driving through the maze of plowed up snow and weaving through normally wide streets that now have snow banks running straight down the center because...well, where else do you put the stuff...was a little like being on the set of Dr. Zhivago. But when I got out of the car and began the slow, shuffling walk to the store entrance, careful not to put a foot down on a spot of ice that wasn't covered over with mushy slush, I found myself next to Walter Huston, I swear. Here was this shuffling old man who was doing the same don't-fall-on-your-ass walk. He looked over at me with a lovely summer grin and said, "Isn't winter fun?" I loved him immediately. Who knows how many winters this man has seen come and go, and who knows what other seasons he has endured, but he can look at this dirty situation and laugh, "

...in case you forgot. Here is just a quick post before I gather up my shopping list and get to work on the big dinner. Out of my way--I've got appetizer cheesecake to bake. Here is how it goes: 1/4 cup butter, melted 6 sheets phyllo dough 3 oz marinated artichoke hearts 3 8 oz. packages cream cheese, softened 1 1/4 cups feta, crumbled 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano 1 clove garlic, crushed 3 eggs 1/4 cup sliced scallions Brush bottom and sides of 9-inch springform pan with butter. Cut phyllo into 13-inch rounds. Ease one sheet in pan off-center so it extended 3 inches up sides of pan. Brush with butter. Repeat with remaining phyllo and butter, placing sheets off-center to cover bottom and sides of pan. Make 2 slits in the center for steam to escape. Bake in a 400 degree oven 9 to 10 minutes or til lightly browned. Cool on rack and decrease oven to 325. Drain and chop artichoke hearts, reserving 2 tablespoons of marinade. Set aside. In a large mixer bowl beat cream cheese ti

This is the front of a postcard my grandfather sent to my grandmother before they were married, sometime before 1920. He never mailed it, so either he handed it to her or had it delivered outside of mail service. His message: Dear Ola, You will be some what surprised to get a card from me. I must beg you to excuse me Sunday. I had a hearing from home and I am crazy to go home. I have often wondered about this message. Knowing what I know about the Methodist church services in those days and how they lasted all day with dinner on the ground between morning and evening sermons and singing, I suspect my grandmother-to-be had invited my grandfather-to-be to spend Sunday with her family, and he wasn't able to make it because he was homesick for his own family. I wonder where he was that called him away, given that he was not in the military or at least not overseas. Regardless, she was patient, and he eventually joined her. They spent every Sunday together until she died in 1974. Here

Sassy has defined her version of a nightmare movie, so here is my version. It will be difficult for me to complete becauseu when it comes to actors and directors, my mind often misfires and I end up saying things like "who's that actor who was in that one movie with that one woman, you know the one?" Plot: An adaptation of a Nicolas Sparks novel Director: M. Night Shyamalan Leading Actor: Ben Stiller Supporting Actor: Owen Wilson Leading Actress: Demi Moore Supporting Actress: Melanie Griffith Bit Players: Kathleen Turner, Ted Dansen, Juliette Lewis There is my nightmare movie. Because I didn't have anyone to give me the names that were just on the tip of my tongue, I had to go look them up.

My entry into the First Chapters writing competition at gather.com suffered a glitch. It was to be posted online for 14 days, but it was mistakenly removed two days early. The contest administrator just informed me they have reposted it here --so if you didn't get a chance to rate my humble entry, here's your chance. It will be online until 2/16

I was about to take a picture of the slowly mounting snow in my yard which has covered up the intricate non-pattern of deer hoof prints leading all the way up to my back door. But then the camera battery died. So, instead, here is a picture of the lake and trees as seen from the deck of the lake house--note the horizontal roping. This was taken two weekends ago when the thermometer read below zero, and the water was freezing over. Below is a picture my daughter took of some landscaping stones in the back.

I wouldn't say we are snowed in, but we do have a few inches of snow on the roads and are expecting quite a bit more between now and tomorrow mid-day--part of this big white mass that is gliding over half the country in the form of snow and tornadoes. So, while I stay snug in my house today, taking care of what work comes my way and watching Daughter #2 gleefully enjoying her snow day, I will begin the process of obsessing about the Pantasia dinner I will be hosting on Friday. More about that process later. First, here is the menu: •Appetizer Cheesecake--a rich savory cheesecake flavored with marinated artichoke hearts and surrounded by a phyllo crust •Scallop cakes with tomato jam--I have talked about these little tasty bits before. The tomato jam will finish them nicely, I think. •Jamaican shrimp or gazpacho served in shot glasses--or maybe both. We'll see how industrious I feel on Friday. •Asian Beef Salad--an incredible concoction that takes at least an hour to reduce the o

If I can get away with declaring Saturday to be Italy Day, then I can get away with declaring this entire week as Steel Drum Band Week. As odd as it may sound, our high school music program has a steel drum band, and it's good. It's not like a bunch of white middle-America kids pretending to be from Trinidad/Tobago. I suppose it isn't so odd when you consider Akron University has a well-developed steel band program that produces music teachers with thorough knowledge of the music and the instruments, but still--Ohio in winter and the tropics don't seem to mix at first glance. Every year about this time, our steel band students are graced with a clinic led by Pan Ramajay , a professional steel band based in California. Three of their lead performers spend four days here and work with the kids, teaching them a few new songs. And on the last day, they all give a concert called Pantasia that is so unlike any high school music concert I have ever attended. It's a big gia

It's not Italy Day anymore, it's just plain old Sunday with groceries to buy and cobwebs to sweep, and a tennis lesson for Daughter #2 while I sit and read in the waiting area for an hour wishing they'd turn on the blasted heat. But last night's Eyetalian concert was a delight. The first half was The Fountains of Rome, and it went smoothly. Pictures of the fountains (I think three of the four still remain) were projected on a side wall for the audience. The second half was a collection of pieces performed with a chorus made up of local people. Some of them were quite old, and the very aged woman standing beside the horn section had to sit during one song, with her eyes watering and her hands shaking. I was concerned, but she snapped out of it and went on. O Mio Babbino was so sorrowfully lovely, the audience demanded an encore, so we performed it twice. I only had one note in that piece--two actually, tied whole notes--but the soloist was really a treat. We finished wit

...to Jimmy Durante "Ha-cha-cha-chaaaaaaaaaaaa."

Today is Italy Day, I have just declared. My orchestra is performing an Italian salute this evening. If you were my father, you would pronounce it Eye-talian, or you would just settle for Dago. He never had much regard for the Eyetalians because of the war, and refused to allow pizza into his house. But he didn't mind spaghetti with Ragu and a nice loaf of Dago bread. I didn't know that Dago was an unkind word until I was ten or so. My mother likes to tell the story about how my sister and I went to the grocery store to pick up some pasta, sauce, and bread for dinner. I stood in the bread isle, held up a loaf of bread, and hollered to my sister who was yards away, "Hey, is this dago bread?" My sister grabbed me by the collar, ran home, and chided my parents for raising me so improperly. Anyway, back to Italy Day. We're performing Fountains of Rome, which is a piece by Respighi written to honor four fountains in Rome. It's full of loud, obnoxious horn parts, wh

(More local history) In the early 1900s, there was a guy named Ernest "Mooney" Warther. When he was five years old, he found a little knife while out tending cows, and he taught himself to carve things out of wood. After the second grade, he quit school and worked at jobs around town and worked in a steel mill. Mooney was a creative and mechanical genius, and as his carving skills improved, he became enamored with the steam engine. He set out to carve the history of trains out of ivory, walnut, ebony, and pearl, and at the age of 68, he finished the last train in the collection. These trains, around 64 of them, are unimaginably ornate with moving parts, and some of them have up to 9,000 parts all to scale. The trains were on display at Grand Central Station in New York for a few years, but most of them have been brought back for the family museum in my town. For a small-town museum, Warther's is surprisingly polished and quite a treat, once or twice. Part of the tour, whi

Well, Dive has issued a general tag by way of Prudence, here goes: "Here is the assignment, list five lyrics that stick out in your mind and their significance to you. It can be as zany, quirky or catchy to having had an influence or impact on some aspect of your life." My Romance (Rogers & Hart) My romance doesn't have to have a moon in the sky. My romance doesn't need a blue lagoon standing by. No month of May. No twinkling stars. No hide away. No soft guitars. My romance doesn't need a castle rising in Spain, Nor a dance to a constantly surprising refrain. Wide awake, I can make my most fantastic dreams come true. My romance doesn't need a thing but you. Well, we're approaching Valentine's Day, aren't we? The "holiday" is artificial and relatively insignificant and far from the roots of Saint Valentine, but the song is in my head nonetheless. I first learned it from a Carly Simon CD I have of show tunes. Tempted and Tried (gospe

Because my parents grew up when Hollywood produced happy movies with little objectionable imagery--cue the fade to black so as not to reveal anything too, um, private--and with little objectionable language--even "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" was racy for its time--I was not allowed to see movies in a movie theater. I was allowed to go to a drive-in with the neighbor family once to see Herbie the Love Bug, but I think that exception was made because my aunt dated Dean Jones in high school. My mother liked to reminisce about the days when movies were worth the 25 cent admission. Stars were stars, and women were beautiful. Children were respectful, and America always won. She remembered the day Gone With the Wind was released in 1939, and for a school girl in Alabama, it was an event. The schools closed early so all the children could go to the matinee, and they were embarrassed when Rhett Butler delivered his final line. What a day that was, and I grew up hearin

It's good to be a nice person--to say nice things, to do nice things, to write nice things--but I declare an end to the use of the word nice. Nice is what you say when you can't think of any other adjective. Someone shows you a picture of their back yard--that's nice. Someone tells you about their afternoon adventure--that's nice. Or someone describes their childhood in great detail and sometimes with painstaking effort--that's nice. It's a lazy word, and it's non-descriptive. Nice is like mashed potatoes with noodles and chicken gravy all in a big pile on one plate with some canned corn for garnish. Everything is the same color and texture and base substance--starch (this is a favorite Amish dish). Nice is like a partly cloudy day in April when outside feels like inside, and you can't tell a difference between the lighting and the temperature of your living room and the lighting and temperature of your front yard. Nice is a glass of lukewarm water.

Crust: 1/2 cup butter 1/4 cup sugar 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 1 cup flour Filling: 4 8-oz. packages cream cheese, softened 1/2 cup sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla 4 eggs 12 oz. white chocolate, melted and slightly cooled Preheat oven to 325 F. For crust: cream butter, sugar, and vanilla in a small bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Gradually add flour, mixing at low speed until blended. Press onto bottom of a 9-inch springform pan. Prick with a fork and bake 25 minutes or until edges are light brown. For filling: beat cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla at medium speed with an electric mixer until well blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing at low speed after each addition, just until blended. Blend in melted chocolate, and pour over crust. Bake 55 to 60 minutes or until center is almost set. Loosen edges of cake from pan and cool before removing the rim. Refrigerate 5 hours or overnight. Garnish with chocolate curls and powdered sugar. Serves 12.

These days, I am reading The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy. I had started reading it several years ago but didn't make it past the first few chapters. Now, I am determined to read it through. The edition I am reading is a Harper & Brothers 1922 edition with warped boards and yellowing pages. The first thirty pages or so are distinctly marked with a spill--coffee or tea or stump water, I'm not sure which. My favorite "feature" about this edition is how it was treated by its original owner--Bunny McClelland. She signed it on the opening end sheet. Below her signature, Bunny McClelland has noted the key characteristics of the main characters. And all through the book, she has underlined unfamiliar words and defined them in the margins, which is helpful because otherwise I wouldn't know that soi-disant means would-be or that purlieu means haunt . At the bottom of page 121, when Hardy references Correggio (a name I am inclined to skip over because I don

1. The Misanthropic: Name something (about humanity) you absolutely hate. I hate how we sometimes try to make other people look small in order to make ourselves look bigger. 2. The Meretricious: Expose something or someone that’s phony, fraudulent or bogus. The Nigerian widow with cancer who wants me to spot her some cash. 3. The Malcontent: Name something you’re unhappy with. My horn lessons are almost a one-hour drive from home, which mean it takes two hours to make the trip. Sigh. 4. The Meritorious: Give someone credit for something and name it if you can. Daughter #1 for jumping feet first on the rowing team. Daughter #2 for making the honor roll. 5. The Mirror: See something good about yourself and name it. I make really really good cheesecake, and I share it. 6. The Make-Believe: Name something you wish for. I wish we could get a mulligan with the Middle East. Here's credit to Fracas for this fill-in-the-blanker.

Given Dive's pictorial history of Norfolk and Ame's lesson on her own local mission, here is a bit of history from Ohio. In 1772, David Zeisberger, a Moravian missionary, moved to the Tuscarawas River with a few Delaware Indian families that had converted to Christianity. They built a village named Schoenbrunn, which means "beautiful spring" in German. They built the first school house in Ohio, developed skills in various trades, and lived as pacifists during the Revolutionary War. Their town grew to over 400 Delaware and Moravians, but they were pressured by hostile natives controlled by the British and by aggressive frontiersmen. When they realized their pocket of peace wouldn't last, they held one last worship service and then dismantled their church. They moved their settlement, but the British eventually took complete control. Some of the Moravians were tried as American spies, and the Delaware were sent off to another location. Eventually, they were allowed

...to Norman Rockwell. While some might consider his Boy Scout and Saturday Evening Post covers corny, he was capable of pulling out a single moment in everyday life and freezing it beautifully. He and his two wives suffered from severe depression, but he was determined to show the better side of life. Interesting fact: (from Wikipedia) During the First World War, he tried to enlist into the U.S. Navy but was refused entry because, at 6 feet (1.83 m) tall and 140 pounds (64 kg), he was eight pounds underweight. To compensate, he spent one night gorging himself on bananas, liquids and donuts, and weighed enough to enlist the next day. However, he was given the role of a military artist and did not see any action during his tour of duty.

After reading Dive's list of the first ten songs his ITunes spits out when set to randomly play, I thought I shouldn't bother because mine would most likely play pretty horn songs for me. But I was wrong. Here's what it gave me instead: 1. Slap Leather by James Taylor 2. Skater's Waltz from a Mantovani Christmas CD 3. Children, Go Where I Send you by Michael McDonald 4. White Christmas by Bing Crosby 5. Dead Wrong by The Fray 6. Melody of Love by Frank Sinatra and Ray Anthony 7. Planxty George Brabson from The Chieftains' Water from the Well CD 8. Miracle Drug from U2's How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb 9. Play What's Written from Marcus Robert's The Joy of Joplin 10. Lost in the Stars--Judy Garland's astrocious Christmas Through the Ages CD

Some people hate winter--the cold, the gray skies, the light deprivation, and all that--but I like it. I like the natural cycle of the earth's rotation. It's clockwork, and it never fails. When you grow up in a place with changing seasons, so much is governed by that rotation. You are conditioned to approach each shift with all of your being--it's more than just mittens in the winter and shorts in the summer. In the spring, you sweep away old road salt and paint the shudders. You step out in the morning and take in a good whiff of fresh green growing things, and you do the two-step in the driveway to avoid squashing the worms. You hope for just enough rain, and you munch on jelly beans you've plucked from plastic eggs. In the summer, you go outside and drink cold things and kick off your shoes. You feel like stretching your arms straight out at your sides and spinning like a whirligig. Everything is warm, and you fire up the grill for dinner. In the fall you start flipp

Moving this up to the top so no one forgets!! Okey dokey. My first chapter has been posted in the contest. I have 23 votes at the moment, but I want more, please. During the first round, the chapters are posted for 14 days and then pulled to make room for the 50 gazillion people entering this contest. So, if you choose to vote...

I was going to play a game of Who Am I and tell a whimsical little biography. At the end, you would have to guess the "bio," but I have yet to meet a horn player on my site. So, I'll just tell you the name of today's subject--it's Jan Vaclav Stich. Stich was born to a serf indentured to Count von Thun in 1746 (near Prague). If he were to write an I Am From exercise, he would be from mud and straw. Von Thun invested heavily in young Stich as a prodigy and had him instructed in the finer subjects of the day--singing, violin, and horn playing. Stich studied with some of the better teachers in Prague and Munich and eventually became a really great horn player. The thing was, he didn't want to play in the service of the Count, who kind of owned him, so he and a band of pals ran away to Italy. The Count was so put out, he sent a posse after Stich with instructions to knock out his front teeth so he could never play the horn again. That would have been worse than kil