fun stuff | Change Is Hard

There’s another (perhaps the last?) cold front coming through now. Katie and I watched the weather on the news this morning and decided we would try to squeeze in a small adventure before the storm hit.

We just made it.

It was cold. And windy.

And the park people had recently done a controlled burn of acres and acres of fields.

It smelled pretty bad to me, probably worse to Katie.

But we had fun anyway, and made it home just as the first spits of sleet hit the windshield. I’d tell you what it’s doing now but I promised not to talk about s*&! anymore.

March 29, 2011
by dawnkinster 14 Comments

Just overwhelmed

Here it’s only Tuesday and I’m already overwhelmed. I had an hour between work and community band rehearsal tonight and I sat in the car and watched people coming and going from the grocery store wishing I just had grocery shopping to do. Sometimes getting to rehearsal seems so hard, but once I’m there I’m usually glad I went. But not tonight. Tonight we got all new music for our last concert which is in 6 weeks. I didn’t like any of it, and it all looks like a lot of work. And I’m too tired to think about it.

Last night Katie and I went to school. The instructor is getting more accepting of us, and occasionally we get a “good job with the Sheltie.” But we also still get “the Sheltie is lagging!” Which of course she is. I think it has more to do with where my shoulder is than a problem with Katie. It’s hardly ever the dog’s fault you know. She did great on her sits and downs this week; last week she kept lying down on the sits. But her recalls were really horrible. She’d come when I called, but she’d run past me and hide behind my legs. She was worried about the shadows from the overhead lights, though they are the same as they’ve always been. She didn’t like the conformation class in the next ring because one of the little hairless something or others kept squealing. I didn’t like that noise either. The highlight of my whole week so far is that Katie allowed the instructor to touch her on the stand for exam! 🙂

So that’s my week in a nutshell so far…on day two. Tomorrow night I have book club and I haven’t finished the book yet. Guess that’s not going to happen. But dinner and conversation that doesn’t revolve around work or the dog will be good!

Hope everyone else is having a great week! I’m with Carol…no more talk about snow!

March 27, 2011
by dawnkinster 13 Comments

Mashup

Did you know that’s a word? Mashup. I had to get a graduate degree in information to find that out. And I’m still only vaguely sure what it means. So for the purposes of today’s post, class, we will define it as a bunch of unrelated topics mashed into one post.

First up are technological problems. There was the blog issue where it suddenly one evening stopped behaving in the way I’ve become accustomed. Even with the graduate degree in information I have a phobia about technology. And when things don’t work the same way they’ve worked before I get a little weirded out.

I’m trying to be better. I really am. And braver about clicking away at different things in an attempt to fix stuff without making other stuff worse. But it’s still uncomfortable for me to do that. And during the past two weeks we’ve been having cable issues here at the house as well. Intermittent outages, little blackouts, for a few seconds, or hours. So the odds of having internet work when I needed it were low. The combination of blog problems, work problems and internet connection problems was, at times, overwhelming.

So I did what any good person does when technology lets her down. I made soup.

I haven’t made this recipe before. It’s the Weight Watcher version of potato soup. I make another potato soup full of Velvetta cheese and bacon that is purely heaven but hardly healthy. This one is full of onions and leeks, and though I’ve only tasted a bit of it as I cleaned up the pan, I think it just might be a different version of heaven.

And after the soup was made and put away Katie and I went for our weekly adventure. I’ve been wanting to take her on longer car rides. I’m hoping to get her used to trips of greater and greater lengths so that we can explore further afield on weekends this summer.

So with high hopes, and virtually no planning, I loaded her up and off we went. I got approximately 1/2 a mile down the road when she started complaining. Loudly. Seems I forgot to do the potty break prior to the loading of the sheltie.

So we stopped at her favorite local park. I figured she’d do her thing like she always does, as soon as she’s out of the car, then we’d continue on our way. But no. We had to EXPLORE first. Did I tell you it was cold yesterday? We had blue skies and sunshine, but the temperature was in the high teens.

Yes it was very very cold.

Eventually she got her jobs done and I started back to the car. She was like “WHAT?! We haven’t done much of anything and this is MY FAVORITE PARK MOM!!!!”

But we headed off to MY favorite park, about 40 minutes away anyway. Because I had the car keys and she doesn’t even have her learners permit to drive yet.

Once at my favorite park we headed out to the end of a point of land that extends into a big inland lake. It’s a picnic area when times are warmer, but during winter it’s just a part of the park with no cars going by and no runners and nobody on bikes. And it’s down a long hill so it’s sort of out of the wind. Did I mention it was COLD out?

There are some big old hickory trees out there with the most beautiful bark.

There are lots of beautiful places to look at the lake and enjoy the sunshine. It was almost totally frozen over with a smooth sheet of ice that reflected the blue sky.

We saw a pair of swans who were doing synchronized swimming just for us.

We had fun walking around and pretending it was summer. Which it clearly wasn’t.

Then I had to go to the bathroom, so I loaded up the sheltie again and off we drove in search of an open restroom. Once I got to one I debated leaving Katie in the car. But I never do that..so she and I walked across a playground to the bathroom building. Katie didn’t want to go in the big scary building. But she did. And she certainly didn’t want to go into the stall, even though I used the handicapped stall so she’s have more space to freak out in. But she did. And she was not OK with the fact that the toilet paper holder thingy squeaked. A lot. But she held her own and only tried to get under the wall to the other stall once. But the flushing thing? In a big empty concrete building with all it’s echos? Oh boy. That’s why she was on a leash. Picture it, crazed sheltie, all four feet going, head down, pulling wildly on the leash and Mama just trying to get her coat back on. Good thing we were alone.

So after the bathroom adventure we came home. She was pretty quiet on the 40 minute trip home. I guess she figured if she stayed quiet she wouldn’t have to go into any more scary places.

And for our third and final mashed up topic, husband and I went to see “The King’s Speech” last night because the TV and internet were down again, and we’d read all the hard copy magazines and newspapers we had in the house. Technology let us down, so we had an old fashioned date night. Not such a bad thing. The movie is wonderful and deserves all the praise and awards that it has received.

When I got home the internet was back up, so I looked up more information about King George VI, his brother, Lionel his speech therapist and Wallace Simpson. I guess I have a love/hate relationship with the internet.

Class dismissed.

March 20, 2011
by dawnkinster 18 Comments

Weekend extra extra…by Katie the Sheltie

Hi everyone, Katie here. My Mama says I can write this blog about my weekend adventure because she’s too tired after spending the weekend grocery shopping and doing laundry and cooking and stuff.

See, yesterday after she spent the whole afternoon with Daddy’s Aunt Vi, shopping for clothes and food and such she got home ready to put her feet up. She said they hurt. But Daddy said I had been a very good dog all day (that’s mostly cuz I napped all afternoon while waiting for my Mama to come home) and Mama should take me to the park! The PARK?! Yes Mama..that’s a VERY GOOD IDEA. I got all excited and I don’t know why Mama was glaring at Daddy and telling him to shush up!

Well you know us sheltie-girls….once an idea about going to the park is in our pretty little heads…well…we’re pretty persuasive. And you also know what a pushover Mama is. So guess what? We went exploring..just Mama and me. Daddy stayed home. I think he had his feet up but I’m not going to tell Mama that.

And you know what else? My favorite park in the whole world was open! It closes for the winter, but the gates were open yesterday so we went there! And we had it all to ourselves! There was still ice on the pond…but we heard red winged blackbirds calling..and even more special…we heard FROGS PEEPING!!!! How cool is that!

Everything is still brown, but that’s ok.

Lots of good sniffings anyway, no matter what color the fields are.

We walked around the whole thing. I don’t know how far that is, but I’m sure it’s over a mile. Maybe lots more. Hard to measure when you’re busy checking everything out.

I was pretty good. I even did some heeling for Mom. The only way she could get that picture was of our shadow. Don’t we look good!? OK…so maybe my butt was out too far and stuff…but I was paying attention to Mama and that’s what counts? Right? Right?

Anyways…we had a whole lot of fun and Mama even forgot her feet hurt. She’s glad she went to the park with me, and I’m awfully glad we got to spend some time together when she wasn’t grumpy. (You know she’s been sort of grumpy mad for awhile now, right?)

Mama’s cooking in the kitchen now, and humming along with the show tunes playing on the TV. She said it’s fun to guess what show the song is from before she looks to see if she’s right. I think that walk in the park did a lot for her spirits.

Glad to be of assistance.

-Your gal Katie…

March 20, 2011
by dawnkinster 12 Comments

Moon over Michigan

Did you go outside to see the moon last night? In my part of the world we had a “super moon” which is when the moon’s orbital path is as close to the earth as possible at a time that coincides with it being full. That makes it appears to us earthlings as being bigger than normal.

Well of course Katie and I had to see that! The TV weather guy said it would be up at 8:07. We went out at 8:10…nothing…and it wasn’t till after 9:30 that we finally saw the moon hanging in the trees across the street.

Sure it looked pretty. And maybe bigger. But I remember a time in the early 80’s, when I lived in Houghton in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, when the full moon rose over the mountain and was so big that I ran back inside the house, grabbed my camera, and drove a mile up the mountain to an overlook in order to see it better. That moon was HUGE; it filled the sky just like in the movies. It was incredible. And of course it didn’t look like anything special in the photos I got back from the film processor later in the week.

I guess sometimes special things just can’t be kept anywhere but in our own memories.

March 13, 2011
by dawnkinster 13 Comments

When music fills the night

Last night my husband and I were privileged to spend another evening with the Ann Arbor Symphony. The program, titled Russian Romance, included three pieces all energetic, rich with imagery, full bodied and lush.

They opened with the Overture to Rusland and Ludmila, from an Opera about a princess and her betrothed warrior, composed by Mikhail Glinka in the mid 1800’s. The strings raced up and down long runs of notes as if they were a single instrument, the clarinet showcased in the middle captured my heart and the sound of the orchestra swelled and filled the hall with such a robust sound it was clear this piece was meant to be a fanfare for the rest of the evening.

Also on the program was Symphony No. 5 composed by Prokofiev in 1944. Each of the four movements brought such imagery to my mind. The first movement reminded me of a massive Russian army marching across a cold barren landscape. The second movement was more “Peter and the Wolf ” -ish, only bigger, with animals running and frolicking in a deep Russian woods. I’m pretty sure I heard an elephant or two in there as well. I think this movement was my favorite. The third movement started off reminding me of a dream scape, soft, floating, somewhat sad. But it quickly turns into a nightmare with shrieking woodwinds and ranting strings moving closer and closer to some horrifying climatic event that we didn’t even want to imagine. The fourth movement combined bits of all three, the playfulness of movement two intertwined with the marching army of movement one and the dreams in movement three. And it all came to a crazy, frenetic, crashing conclusion that left us all gasping for air even as we began to applaud our appreciation.

But the highlight of the evening? The twenty-five year old Israeli pianist Roman Rabinovich playing the Piano Concerto No. 3 by Rachmaninoff. Prior to the concert he gave a little talk, and when asked what we as audience members should listen for during his performance he paused…thought a moment…then said: “There are a lot of notes. And you should listen to every one of them.” We all laughed. Later he said we “shouldn’t think too much…just let the music take you.” Good advice.

It started out lush and full as if someone was falling in love, then moved into a playful period, as if the two lovers were enjoying their new relationship. But soon ominous tones began to infiltrate; trouble in paradise? The music became more frantic and it became clear (to me anyway) that this was the story of an overly dramatic teenager. Then came slower, and more plaintive music, almost contemplative music that moved toward angst and confusion. Then the flutes calmed the senses and the oboe has a conversation with the rest of the orchestra as well as the piano. The music become plaintive again and then the piano takes over, reminding me of an older couple walking hand in hand through the landscape, remembering their history together, the memories portrayed in different parts of the movement lively and full of life, including the dancing of a waltz together near the end of the lives.

Then the music chages again and it is as if we are on horses galloping through hills and woods, perhaps on a hunt. We’re soaring over fields and I followed the pianist’s advice…I let go and flowed with the music for the rest of the piece. I can’t tell you the details from this point on…it was as if we were flying and this talented young man was the horse with wings. As the piece came to an end with a lush, fully orchestrated swell I knew the young lovers, the older couple and everyone in the audience lived happily ever after.

And as the last note slipped into the heavens the audience erupted. Rabinovich played three encores; it was as if we couldn’t let him go. Such talent.

What a gift all the musicians gave to us last night. I wish you all could have been there.

March 5, 2011
by dawnkinster 11 Comments

How to color a black and white weekend

It’s snowing here. Big wet white flakes. The sun is hidden and any grass that had emerged is covered again. And they say we’ll get 3 more inches tonight. My world has threatened to turned black and white.

But thankfully I didn’t have to sit here and watch the snow pile up. No I did not. Today the community band I play with participated in a concert band festival. Twelve community bands from across the region were invited to play for judges comments and incidentally for the other musicians hanging out waiting for their own group to go on.

Each band played a program lasting approximately 45 minutes. They started at 9 in the morning and the music kept on until after 6 p.m. We were the fourth band up and played Sousa, Gershwin, Hazo and other composers. Everything went magically, as often happens on concert day. I had to concentrate on concentrating, afraid to get lost in the music for fear of forgetting to come in when I was supposed to. But it was tempting to just go with the moment. And it was so much fun.

It’s always interesting to play in a hall you’ve never been in before. The sounds are so different in every place you play and sometimes cues you’re used to hearing don’t sound the same once you’re on a new stage. On the other hand the clarinet player next to me and I both jumped at one point when the gong in the percussion section was hit. Apparently it had been in the music all along, but we’d never heard it before!

We’d been warned by our conductor that the adjudicator assigned to us was tough; a retired band teacher who still teaches private lessons. And we haven’t yet heard the comments she put on tape during the actual performance, but she walked into the room where we assembled after our concert to hear her verdict and told us that she had been enjoying the music so much she had forgotten to write any comments down! She did mention that we could do more with dynamics; many community band have issues with dynamics. Like she says, every band can play loud and fast…the good ones can play with feeling, soft, loud, fast and slow. We did quite a bit of that…but we could do more. Needless to say we were thrilled by her comments on the things we did well.

After we were finished I slipped back into the auditorium to sit with my husband and listen to two more bands. One was a band I played with more than 15 years ago. Many of the players I’d known were still there…some with gray hair or no hair…but recognizable even from the audience. I enjoyed listening to them very much, especially when the conductor who had been there so many years ago came out to conduct one of the pieces. It was as if the band perked up and played especially well for him. And I was glad I had the opportunity to see him.

And the second band was the one my Aunt plays with down near Ann Arbor. I’ve never heard them play. Often their concerts this past season were weekday nights or nights we had concerts ourselves. So it was especially fun to listen to her group perform.

I have to thank my husband for going with me. He sat through four bands..and concert band music can get a little old after several hours of it. Especially if you don’t play an instrument. But he’s a trooper and I appreciate it. I made him some cookies tonight as a thanks.

And of course Katie-girl wanted to know what she got for having to stay home alone most of the day. So I took her out to play in the snow this evening.

Somehow as she sits drooling on our feet as we enjoy the oatmeal cherry raisin cookies I don’t think that was exactly what she was hoping for.

Silly girl.

February 27, 2011
by dawnkinster 18 Comments

The art of writing letters

Writing letters… is that something that disappeared in my mother’s time? Have twitter, facebook, bloging and emails eliminated the time worn tradition of touching base through paper and a stamp? Does instant automatically equal better?

I’ve been considering these issues because I used to love to write letters. And I grew up in a letter writing household. Though we lived only a hour away from my Grandmother, my Mom wrote a postcard to her every week. Mom’s writing was tiny and got tinier as the space in the postcard began to fill up. I remember her finishing the last sentence by running it up the edge of the postcard, and I used to wonder if my Grandma used a magnifying glass to read them.

In turn, many years later when my Mom lived in Alabama and I was still here in Michigan I restarted the tradition. Bonnie the sheltie-girl and I would get up every Saturday and write Mom a letter, using a computer and regularly sized paper, which we hurried out to the mailbox so that the mailman would pick it up that morning and she’d have it by Wednesday.

We did this every week for years…until email happened along. When we found the almost instant connection the letters dwindled. Yet after her death I found all those letters I had sent bound together, safe in her desk. Through my tears I recognized the value of a letter, the way you can touch them over and over, knowing they were touched by the person who took the time to send them to you. They are tangible evidence of thoughtfulness and care and love.

So I was intrigued by a challenge presented by PJ on her blog Books in Northport. She challenged all of us to slow down a bit and commit to mailing one letter a week to someone between now and Memorial Day in May. It doesn’t have to be the same someone. You can choose to mail a letter to someone different each week. You can delight many people.

Like I was delighted this week when in the mail arrived a card from Bree, Reilly’s Mom. She makes handmade cards which are lovely, and she sent one to me because she knew I would be a bit depressed by all the snow here after my wonderful week in sunny New Mexico. Now that’s what I’m talking about. The unexpected, the smile that comes in the mail, the realization that someone thought about you and took some time to send you something to tell you so.

Reilly’s Mom just had a contest to give away some of her artwork. I’m hoping those that won the cards will use them to brighten someone’s day…one card at a time, one note at a time, one stamp at a time.

I’ve accepted PJ’s challenge and mailed my first letter to a friend I’ve been out of touch with last week. This week I have someone else in mind. When I think about it, there are a whole lot of people that I’d like to touch base with more often than the Christmas letter.

I bet if you think about it you have a whole list of people that would enjoy hearing from you too. Why not join me in the challenge. If you have time to spend 30 minutes watching TV during the week you have time to touch someone’s life, to bring a smile to a face, to let someone know they were thought of.

Pretty cool. And thanks Bree!