070428 - Different Day

With a multitude of really neat options for tonight, I'm at home with the kids about to watch a DVD ("Meet Joe Black" as it happens). Beth is still not well and it turns out Bryan has a Choir concert in Woodbridge tonight.

Spent the morning with Annie helping clean up a yard so a wheelchair ramp can be installed for a family where the grandmother now has multiple sclerosis and the grandson has muscular dystrophy. It's amazing how much yard work a mere 12 people can do - particularly when several of them are guys. We took two truck-beds full of yard waste and several trashcans to the county dump and there's still a major load by the curb. I'm so glad I live in a townhome. On the other hand, I learned that Bryan likes it when I do gardening. At least, I assume that's what elicited the hug and the comment "You are more precious than rubies" when he found me spreading mulch left over from the morning's activities around our azaleas.

The Elders were supposed to come eat with us, but Bryan had to leave for his concert before they would get here. And it's against the rules for them to be in a home if there isn't an adult of the same gender present. So we packed up the food for them to take with them. Honey-steamed carrots, whole-grain rotini in a mushroom/garlic/mozzarella 'sauce' and cut bits of hot dog (taking some shortcuts). Then there was yogurt in token of the ice cream they would have gotten had they eaten at our house, and a bottle of pomegranate-apple sparkling stuff (from Ikea).

Bryan's been reading me a book ("The Sharing Knife: Beguilement" by Lois McMaster Bujold). It's irritating because the 'voice' keeps trading between the female lead character and the male lead character. And they have (in one day) fallen in 'love' with one another. So they are constantly thinking about 'things.' It would bother me in any case, but the female lead has just had a miscarriage. The morals of the piece really bother me. I guess it is also because I have just been writing a miscarriage myself, and I've had a miscarriage. Somehow I don't recall the experience being consistent with the desire and arousal being portrayed in the book (PG-13, but still…). I presume there is something worthwhile that will happen in the book eventually.

070402 - Great evening

Tonight we held a surprise birthday part for Brother Don Redd, who recently turned 85. It was a mini concert over at the Evans' home put on by members of the ward. Kate Thurgood started it off by singing a medley of songs from The Sound of Music, followed by Eddy Ward singing Second-hand Rose. Next Janell sang Someone to Watch Over Me and Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Bryan and I sang a capella A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square and Copeland's I Bought Me a Cat. Omar Salam followed by singing Ol' Man River and Makin' Whoopee. While Loren Stevenson got ready to play his cello, Julene Updike played the first part of Debussy's Claire de Lune. Several of us were sad that Loren finished setting up before Julene completed the piece. Then Loren played a Scherzo from a book of Cello Competition pieces. Really fast.

JD Evans had been thinking of singing something, but decided not to sing Sweet Violets, a funny piece Bryan and I had sung for Winn Redd's birthday before she died. After the prayer on the refreshments, he was saying he had always wanted to sing Some Enchanted Evening, which we started to sing together. It was really nice. Then a fabulous cake and fun conversation before we decided to leave.

When we got home, we shared some of the refreshments with the kiddies, then walked up to the dog park with the green laser pointer and the binoculars to look at the stars in the night sky (those we could see given that there was a full moon). We were able to see the Summer Triangle, the Winter Hexagon, Orion, Canis Major, the Pleiades, Auriga, Arcturus, Spika, Venus, Gemini, Taurus, Saturn, Leo, Ursa Major, Polaris, and several others. So fun.