Emily, David and Otis

Emily David and Otis came to visit as part of their whirl-wind weekend of wedding of David's sister, visit of grandparents/ great-grandparents and dinner at the Sage Hill Bistro. It was good to see them and they are doing well.

Late September Saturday

Right now I am sipping coffee and looking at a fiery golden tree in the back covered with ice. By noon or sooner it will melt and I will be walking around barefoot riding a bike and maybe watching some football or driving to a hot spring.

Something is changing this week in my attitude up here as we had a great teaching week and very few new H1N1 cases.
Perhaps it s because I have a real strong nibble on my house right now and have a win-win-win situation developing with my renters, me and the potential buyer.
When the imagination meets the realities, you really know where you stand. I am definitely ready to sell as the house and the post hurricane insurance culture there have really whipped me over the last few years.

Oh that ice came from the automatic sprinkler system that comes on at 5 a.m. no matter what.. The control guy s probably n Taos enjoying the end of summer.

Oh Jeff says hello and thanks Kelly for his thoughtfulness. He has the 'traditional ' cold now.

Next week - San Antonio

Yeah, I know that's not very far away, but believe me, it will be like a different country once I get there. Somehow I thought was a good idea to do two presentations and I take the reins of our Graduate Student Advising Commission - the out going chair won't be there because of budget cuts and so I will go to the meetings she was suppose to go to, go to the meetings I am suppose to go to, do my two presentations, and be cheerful to everyone I meet. It will be a busy 5 days. So if you don't hear from me for a week, carry on :-).

Bust

I said yesterday Honduras or Bust. Well, the deposed President returned and is at the Brazilian Embassy. Street protests and roadblocks and closed airports make it difficult to do what we were going to do. So I will be here instead. Emily and David and Otis are coming this weekend for his sister's wedding in Covington so that will be a good reason to be here. Listening to a Beatles Album at the Birdman. Great Songs. Phil-remember the Ed Sullivan Show broadcast in the Parish Hall at St. James? Later.

Honduras or bust

Off to Honduras Wednesday. We are going to check out a possible building project in a small village as a follow-up to a school we helped build last year. We fly into San Pedro Sulu and travel around the area. Our new priest, who is from Columbia and speaks fluent Spanish, and I are going with some folks from St. James and St. Luke's. It will be good to travel with a native speaker as I try to absorb some of the language. Adios!

earphones and ipods

Every once in a while I try to use headphones and an ipod like device and just don't stay with it. I think it may be because I always have so many songs going through my head anyway. Sometimes when I am listening to music, I find myself turning it off because another song just came into my head and I want to listen to it instead. I know for a fact that it is very hard for me to have music on when I am doing something that takes concentration. I can have music on if I am working on my room - tiling, painting, hammering - but if I am reading, working on a paper, or something like that, I can't have music on. I don't know if it's because when I listen to music, I listen to music - it is not just background music. So when I am painting or tiling, I can listen to the music and be painting at the same time - but I stop the music if I leave the room so I don't miss anything, even if I have played the album a hundred times before. If I ran, I imagine that I could listen to headphones, but if I am walking, I am usually too engaged with the walk to want to have headphones on.

Just curious is all.

Mary Travers

Just heard on the radio that Mary Travers died yesterday. I feel sad that she is gone, but also joy that she added so much to my life. Always a gentle voice, but strong and just. Her songs always stay with me.

Just want to say thank you, Mary.

Tate and Tucker in their garden in Swaziland displaying flags that we painted for their cousin Otis(flags to be delivered shortly). Their yard is a great place for bike racing, tree and rock climbing, makeshift golf, hammock swinging, hide and seek baseball and a rousing game of hide and find the gold. Later we set up a mega-play dough station and stargazing station on the patio. We bought a pogo-stick in South Africa but they we not qute big enough to stay on it and Toby and I were too big for it-later.

Dinner with Trevor and Dona

Had dinner with Trevor and Dona last night. I fixed spaghetti and I thought it was pretty good, if I do say so myself. Would have been better if I had had lots of fresh tomatoes and really made the sauce from scratch, rather than just mostly made it from scratch. Makes me think again about what it would mean to have a good garden and grow some of my own food. Old conversation that never really gets old.

Who out there has a garden? Herbs? Veggies? Flowers? - - - cactus? I have some herbs, which I use as often as possible. Mostly basil and mint and bay. And I have cactus and could use nopalitos more often than I do. I could also make prickly pear relish. Watch out - you may get some for Christmas this year :-).

Just want to say I know how lucky I am that I get to have dinner with Trevor once a week and see him regularly. I am very happy about that.

Hasta lumbago!

I went to a great concert on Saturday

I go to these house concerts that are "singer/songwriters," folky, sort of concerts and the one Saturday was really great. The whole time I was listening, though, I kept thinking of David. The guy of the duo was tall, dark-headed, could play the guitar, mandolin, uke, and banjo like nobody's business, and really funny. Not comedian funny, but subtle, thoughtful funny.

The duo is from the Fayetteville, Arkansas area and is called "Still on the Hill." They used to be a foursome and played more "bluegrass," but they were not purist enough for the bluegrass circuit so they went to just the two of them and they play what they want, which was all very good.

One of the neat things is that they really seem to get to know people and notice their stories (reminded me of Emily's faculty website and talking about learning people's stories in the most innocent of conversations). They had some handmade instruments with them that were made by a man in the Ozarks who had a vision when he had a heart attack where God told him to make instruments for children. They are truly one of a kind (the guitar that Kelly brought has a saw blade on the inside that gave it a really weird reverb when you put your ear against it). Check out their website if you want.


http://www.stillonthehill.com/index.html
http://www.stillonthehill.com/pictures/instruments/index.html

Later, alligator.

Back from the banks of the Limpopo and Zambezi Rivers.

I am back from my travels to Africa. Had a great time visiting the 4 T's. They are all doing very well. We traveled about 2000 miles through Swaziland, South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe. I will report in more detail as I gather my thoughts. Travel was good and flights were on time. Jeff, all of the region is getting ready for the World Cup 2010. More later.

So did we even have Labor Day back then?

Just kidding. But what did we do on Labor Day? Anything special? I remember 4th of July - I liked the snakes. Did not like sparklers - I could go on and on about why.

On another note, I was trying to think of all the songs we sang with Daddy Harry. We joke about only being taught "It was Saturday Evening," the Kappa Sig song, "John Jacob Jingle Heimer Schmidt," and "Three Little Mice," but we actually did sing other songs. "She'll be Comin' Round the Mountain" "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" "Red River Valley" "There's a Hole in the Bucket" But what were some of the others?

And did we sing at Mimi and Papa's? I remember picking out songs on the piano. Exodus! Bum, bum. Bum, bum. Bum, bum, bu , bumm, bum-bum. Heart and Soul.

Art and Labor

My Entries in an art show.. Your titles welcome..

Going to Galveston this weekend

We are going to go down to see Jack's dad this coming weekend and then drive over to Galveston. We have not been over there since Ike and don't really know what to expect, but they have an air museum that Jack's dad really likes and it sounds like a nice day trip so off we go.

I am having dinner with Trevor tonight and installing Snow Leopard - the Mac upgrade. I know, that sounds pretty exciting and I'll tell you all about it :-). Trevor and I try to get together for dinner once a week, but if either of us have something going on we postpone it. Last year I used the night to watch House, since we essentially don't have a TV. But the new season of House has not started yet so - technology!

What are you guys up to?