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."