Scout Moves

JP Auclair Street Segment (from All.I.Can.)Sherpas Cinema on Vimeo . I watched this video this morning and was moved, moved to find ways to make the most of it. Here is this guy skiing down hill, which is nothing spectacular, but he's not skiing down a frosted slope lined with pines, hearing only the sound of his own skis swishing through the snow. He's going down hill in a town dreary from a long winter, surrounded by houses and cars, hearing barking dogs and the noises of small-town traffic. I'm imagining his peripheral vision as a wash of color painted with a wet brush—he sees the smear of grungy snow and ice piled high along the road, carved into at crosswalks and side streets. It's interrupted by leftover Christmas decorations, stop signs, clothes on the line. Under a sky the color of dishwater, he dodges a threatening snowball, maneuvers down steps and over parked cars. He finally gets to the bottom and unclamps his skis, and then he boards a bus headed b...

Usually when the girls come home for Christmas, they only stay a few days, or one will stay for the duration of her winter break while the other will come and go. This year, both girls are here for about a week and a half, the same week and a half. I normally have the house to myself, and I can keep it as tidy as I like, but I've happily given the place over and let them dump their crap wherever. And boy, do they have crap. There are coats on the dining table, dirty glasses on the kitchen counter and shoes just about everywhere. No, wait. Those are mine. I'm no good at putting my shoes away. Here's No. 1 settling into her spot in the family room—books, laptop, iPod, shoes... Eustacia usually sits on the opposing couch with her own paraphernalia, and the puppy runs between the couches looking for and giving lots of attention. Here he is getting some from Eustacia: There seems to always be someone making a sandwich or digging in the fridge for something. There is al...

I realize this isn't really true—Christmas is about different things to different people, things like the birth of Jesus, time with family, the comfort of nostaglia, the joy of celebration—but at just this moment, coming off of a weekend spent largely in the kitchen, it feels as though Christmas might be about food. There were four of us in the house for two days, and that means a lot of cooking, mostly on Sunday. We began with a late breakfast of French toast made with croissants. I wouldn't have come up with that idea on my own, but I found a recipe in Bon Appetit . It was your basic French toast recipe but with croissants cut in half horizontally into this slices of butter, flaky goodness. Then later in the day, we created a vegetarian buffet. No. 1 and Eustacia are vegetarians these days, so this seemed appropriate. I assigned them each a dish to make, and we worked side by side so that all three dishes were ready at the same time. No. 1 made a Parmesan-olive torte—p...

I love this photo of Charles Babbage because he looks like the quintessential Dickens character, sitting firmly in his chair, hands clasped, mouth set against the rabble that gets on his last nerve. He actually compiled a list of 165 nuisances he encountered over an 80-day period all perpetrated by "the mob," as he called the common classes. He particularly disliked organ grinders, saying, "It is difficult to estimate the misery inflicted upon thousands of persons, and the absolute pecuniary penalty imposed upon multitudes of intellectual workers by the loss of their time, destroyed by organ-grinders and other similar nuisances." So, basically he sat in the chambers of his Better People Societies, glared out the window and barked, "Get off my lawn!" Although, if you look closely, there is a hint of mischievous humor in his expression. It may take mischievous humor to make a list of things that annoy you. It may also take some of that to think aga...

I'm pretty rusty at the piano these days, and my singing voice is even worse, so as a way to wish you all a merry Christmas—or happy holiday, whichever you prefer—here is a repeat of my personal Christmas card to Blogville recorded back when I was slightly more practiced. My wish for us all is that we each have a delightfully memorable holiday, a much-needed rest from the day-to-day and that we get or give at least one gift that makes us happy.

For as long as I can remember—seriously, all of my life—my sisters have gotten together for Christmas. First, the ones who had moved out of our parents' house came back for the holiday, and later we all came back with our husbands and children. Christmas was often the only time we would see each other all year, and we would spend two solid days cackling and singing and telling stories. Fun. Well, this year my family unit has decided to do something different and stay home for Christmas. We did this once before—after 9/11, the Chicago sister was uneasy about flying, so we all agreed to spend the holiday at our respective houses instead of traveling to Georgia. That was the one Christmas meal I cooked for my family, and this year I get to do it again. It's just one meal for one day, but I've been planning, searching for recipes and menu ideas, making a grocery list that fills an entire 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper, making a schedule for when to make what. I can make the c...

Now that I'm on the orchestra board, I have to attend its monthly meetings. Yesterday, a friend told me the secretary takes attendance, and there is such a thing as an unexcused absence. You're expected to participate. I've yet to see the full potential as a participant, but I'm eager to find out just what can be done with this thing. The December meeting is held at the general manager's house, and people bring food in to make it special. That's one thing I do know I can participate in, so I made something I haven't made in several years, a Champagne Cream Torte. I used to make this for company Christmas parties when I worked for Husband in his office. The torte is basically a giant cream puff filled with Champagne cream, which is a delight on its own, and topped with something pretty. The original recipe calls for a brushing of corn syrup and a sprinkling of almonds, but I went the ganache route with a sprinkling of pearlized sugar. It goes like this...

War and defense and national security do not stop for a holiday, even Christmas. It's a year-long, around-the-clock prospect, protecting a nation is. I find that disheartening, but then I learned that in the midst of all of the ominous work it does, NORAD tracks Santa Claus every year, and millions of kids around the world check in to find the big elf's coordinates on Google Earth. NORAD maintains a website for Santa trackers , with games, student videos from around the world, a countdown clock and information about Santa and NORAD. The site links to organizations that help veterans, too, so a kid can play a game and then learn something about wounded soldiers or military personnel who wouldn't mind receiving a card now and then. In the big picture, tracking Santa may seem like just a band-aid, but band-aids are good things. We could use more of them, I think, and so I've written my weekly column about NORAD's Santa tracking and the man who started it all, Col. ...

I had the weirdest dream last night. Yes, I know. Retelling one's dreams may be an inane exercise, a drudgery to have to sit through, but stick with me. I have a point. I had just sat down for an orchestra rehearsal, putting my music on my stand and emptying spit from the valves when an authority figure–someone who does not translate into my orchestra reality—handed a mouthpiece to me and said for everyone to hear, "They want you to practice with this to help improve your tone." Apparently, "they" weren't impressed with my tone at our last performance and thought I needed help. And there I sat flayed in front of the rest of the group, exposed as a fraud. But also there I sat wondering who "they" were. They weren't the conductor or the principle of the horn section. In reality, orchestra board members don't sit around the table discussing this or that musician's qualifications, so who was it who was so critical of my playing and had ...

If you'll remember, Eustacia and I spent some time at an orphanage in Romania last summer, working as volunteers for United Planet. On the surface, it's a ramshackle place with a string of buildings lining a dirt road, cows wandering away from their herder, mules braying at all hours and cooking done in black iron kettles made by local Roma. There would be no meat for days, and wild dogs roamed the place like a plague. But we loved the place, Pro Vita. In fact, Eustacia went back for about two weeks last winter. She nearly froze to death with little heat, no hot water, and freezing temperatures; but when she came home, she said if anything, she bonded even more closely with the people there. Well, there was a big fire at Pro Vita earlier this week. It broke out in the buildings just beyond the residences where no kids are living. The nearby houses were quickly evacuated, and people formed a line to remove as much stuff as possible—the building housed the kitchen, dining ro...

I know it's the cool thing to eat within the seasons—asparagus in the spring, strawberries in early summer and corn a little later and tomatoes when they are fresh off the vine—and if you can buy all of these things grown by local farmers, all the better. It's a nice idea, and I try to stick with it because, after all, what's worse than eating a crunchy, bitter strawberry picked way too early and shipped thousands of miles in February? And tomatoes are best in the summer. It's just a fact. But sometimes I ignore the rules and eat what I want when I want it. This recipe inspired me to make a tomato salad the other day, using grapes tomatoes grown in a greenhouse in Mexico. I don't know when they were picked or how they were shipped to the middle of Ohio. I only know that I bought a pint and put the things in my salad, and it was all worth the trouble. This is called Bloody Mary Tomato Salad, but there's no vodka in it. Not a drop. I used Champagne vinegar i...

I wrote this film review several years ago, and I think it's worth repeating. I finally found "We're No Angels." on DVD and watched it while decorating the tree this past weekend. You should watch it, too. We're No Angels is a Christmas favorite (a favorite of mine, anyway), starring Humphrey Bogart, Peter Ustinov, and Aldo Ray. It is not to be confused with the crap version starring Sean Penn and Robert Deniro. This is the story of three convicts who escape from Devil's Island and find themselves in a bustling village at Christmas time. Their intent is to pillage from this unsuspecting community and then escape by ship--there is a ship anchored just off shore. They stumble into a shop, a kind of general store run by a quiet man, his wife, and grown daughter, and they offer to "fix the leaky roof." While they are on this roof, they crawl from sky light to sky light observing this family and their troubles, and they work out their plot. Boga...

I am in full Christmas mode these days, between wrapping presents and decorating the tree, performing in a holiday concert and planning for returning daughters—how does one prepare a Christmas meal for vegetarians and omnivores all seated at the same table? In keeping with the spirit, here is my column as it appeared in yesterday's edition of Small Town Newspaper. Please, enjoy.

I told you about Small Town's Christmas Parade and how the orchestra was involved in it to promote our children's chorus and upcoming concert, so let me tell you about the concert itself. It happened Saturday. We perform at the Performing Arts Center at Small Town's branch of Kent State, and the place is a sight to behold. This is what it looked like all dressed for the holiday as I approached it from the parking lot. When I was little, my sisters taught me an odd thing—they would turn on a flashlight, place it up to one eye and say, "Oh look, a party!" Seeing the PAC from the outside is a little like that. There's a party going on inside, so you better hurry up and get in. Orchestra members take our seats at will with no specified time as long as we are ready to play at 7:30. The concert master comes on stage, and we tune. The board president comes on stage and gives some announcements. (or maybe their entrances are the other way around). And then the ...

A weird thing happened today. I was driving the puppy to the park because we like to take walks there, and I passed a sign, one of those big yellow ones on black legs with moveable letters. It was directing people to a Christmas shop that will open Saturday December 10 for some special sale or something. I was turning a corner and needed to watch traffic, but the words "Saturday, Dec. 10" caught my eye, and I said to myself, "But Saturday is the 11th." It is, isn't it, I thought to myself. The orchestra will be performing our Christmas concert on Saturday, and I have been focused on it for weeks. I started by putting together the newsletter plugging it, and then going to a show at Kent Stage to help promote it, and then I moved onto planning our involvement in the parade and then onto a cookie thing for after the concert—I'm going to taste test some Christmas cookies at a new bakery tomorrow!—and then onto practicing my part for the concert and then reh...

There have just been a few gift requests I can remember making in adulthood—I asked for a telescope for my birthday one year, and last year I asked for a bottle of Chanel and a camera for Christmas. I remember getting the telescope which is now in the trash, and although I didn't get the perfume or camera, I bought those things for myself in January. I just don't think in terms of what I might want as a gift. That could mean that I buy what I want when I want it—like the perfume and the camera—or that could mean I'm not a big shopper. Or maybe it's a combination of two things. This year when No. 1 asked what I wanted for Christmas, I sent her a link to boots I think I might need this winter while walking the dog out there in the big winter wonder land, and I pointed her to Crabtree & Evelyn's La Source body wash. I don't know what's in the stuff, but I'm hooked. Other than that, I don't want or need or have expectations for anything. Even m...

The orchestra was in a parade! OK, not the entire orchestra. All right, not the orchestra at all but the children's chorus and a few board members. Next Saturday, the orchestra will perform our annual Christmas concert along with a stage full of kids singing songs written by Alex Bevan , a Cleveland-area folk legend. Nearly 25 of those kids piled into a giant sleigh on wheels last night and sang their hearts out. Small Town puts on a humdinger of a Christmas parade every year, with lighted floats and Santa and a marching band and hot chocolate. All the participants line up near the football stadium, and after kick-off time, the parade heads toward the main drag, turns right and bee-lines for the square. The route is sparsely populated initially, but more people are sitting or standing street side as you go along; and when you reach the square, which is brightly lit and festive, you find yourself surrounded by townspeople, all waving and hoping for candy. And the announcer te...