Mary and Jeremy visit

  

Jeremy pondering bees

      Now that we are both in our sixties, it doesn't seem quite right to describe Mary as "my oldest friend".  However,  we have been friends since we were 16.  She  cut the cord when my son David was born.  Her husband Jeremy is dear and thoughtful, one of my best sources for new ideas and analyses.  We had a fine time together when they visited last week.
     Jeremy is a beekeeper and an expert on honeybees.  The first thing he saw when he stepped into our back yard was a swarm of bees in our dogwood tree.  I tried to convince him that I had cued the special effects in order to give him a grand welcome.
        We toured the Rhododendron Garden and the Japanese Garden, and Mary did prodigious work in our garden.  Jeremy fixed our broken lamps.

Mary

View from our guest room

  
    Sheila came for a walk and tea.  Betsy and Les invited us for coffee in their 23rd- floor aerie with their spectacular city views. We had such engrossing conversations that none of us wanted the morning to end.

Author and Powell's Espresso book machine

    At Powell's City of Books, we witnessed an example of the revolution in publishing when we saw a demonstration of their new print-on-demand book machine.  The machine prints the pages, cuts and collates them, prints the cover, and binds the book, all in about ten minutes.  The author was hovering around, as anxious and then as proud as the mother of a new baby.

Joyful Lois signing books

Clowning around at the party

     My friend Lois Leveen's new book, The Secrets of Mary Bowser, was  published on May 15 the traditional way, by HarperCollins. It is fiction based on the true story of Mary Bowser, a former slave who returned to Richmond to spy for the Union by pretending to be an enslaved maid working in the Confederate White House. Jeremy, Mary and I  were part of the packed house at Powell's on Friday night when  Lois read from her book. We then made a brief stop at a party honoring Lois.

At the Japanese Garden

      All too soon, Mary and Jeremy left to go home to their grandchildren and their honeybees in Pennsylvania.  Such good times with good friends!
  

Among the many arts

     Lately I have been enjoying the work of actors, authors, and other creative people.

Black Pearl sings

      Judy and I  went downtown with Betsy and Les to the Gerding Theater to see Black Pearl Sings.    It is an adaptation of a true story from the 1930s.  John Lomax, folk song collector from the Library of Congress, heard the singing of Hudie Leadbetter in Angola Prison Farm  in  Louisiana.  Lomax brought Leadbetter, known to us as Leadbelly, to New York to perform.   In  the play Susannah, a  folk song collector, meets Pearl,  who is in prison in Texas for murdering a man who needed killing.  Susannah helps Pearl get  parole, and leads her to New York to sing at Carnegie Hall.  Pearl dresses in her finest clothes.  At the Gerding, the audience gasped when Susannah brought out prison stripes for Pearl to wear at her performance.   Pearl's singing was strong and rich throughout the play, with Susannah's Appalachian tunes as a counterpoint.

Goats for the old goat

     Sheila and I went to the screening of a documentary about Ellen Ratner, political commentator for the Talk Radio News Service.  Ratner spoke after the screening, and inspired all of us with her drive for humanitarian work in South Sudan.  For her sixtieth birthday, Ratner founded a charity called Goats for the Old Goat.

Proud Pat with her books

     My friend Pat Lichen, author  of Kidnapping the Lorax,  organized a  successful Author's Fair at church.  Over 40 writers participated in workshops and sold lots of books.  I was in my church lady mode as I helped at the accompanying bake sale.

Sheila's new puppy

    Sheila and I drove  on Saturday to the county fairgrounds at Canby for the Master Gardeners' plant sale.  The nursery growers of Clackamas County filled the fairgrounds with glorious plants.  Sheila adopted a new pet.

Bryan Bowers

      Later Judy, Donna and  I drove south to  a small American Legion hall in  Salem to hear Brain Bowers, preeminent autoharp player and storyteller.    Brian gave  his usual fine performance, but I couldn't help but notice that most of his songs were about old age or death.   We had some time before the show, so I explored the grounds of the Chemawa Indian School.  The cemetery, from 1886, is closed off by a chain link fence tenderly topped with artificial flowers.

Chemawa totem pole

Bob Moore signing his biography

    On Tuesday I talked to Bob Moore, founder of Bob's Red Mill here in Milwaukie.  A few years ago Bob to celebrated  his retirement by  giving his very successful nationwide company to his employees.  This year he and his wife Charlee gave $ 5 million to  Oregon State University to found a center for research and outreach in the fields of nutrition and childhood obesity.

    

Maxine dancing November 2011

     My favorite art of the week came during a Skype call with  Maxine.   Maxine is preparing for a dance recital next week, and  she showed  us her some of her moves.

Maggie in Evanston

      I had  a fine time in Evanston last weekend visiting  Paul and Tina and Jack, age 8, Charlie, age 6, and Sam, age 3.

Sam rocks

Cool glasses

     I arrived to delicious grandson hugs on Friday.  Sam is into costumes these days, so he wore his tiger outfit.  We ate a   quick dinner of  baked penne with Bechamel  sauce (even Tina's leftovers are superb).  Then we went out for some Chicago night life:  Paul and Tina's good friends Jason and Emily performed at a farm-to-table restaurant/music space.  It was a happy, friendly  crowd of  music lovers who conversed eagerly with me, even though I was the only one in the room wearing glasses that were not cool, retro, or black-rimmed.  As we walked back to the car through the Chicago night, I refrained from saying what was going though my head, "It's after 9 o'clock!  Isn't it wonderful to be out in the city at night?"

Books change lives

Dragons of Blueland

        On Saturday morning we went to the Evanston Public Library.  Paul is in a two-man book club with Jack, and also one with Charlie. Charlie and Paul each checked out  a copy of   Dragons of Blueland. Jack and Paul found  copies of  Diamonds of Darkhold,  the #4 book in Jeanne DuPrau's Book of Ember series. Charlie couldn't wait to delve into his book.   Sam was just happy to have his very own book.   Jack looked for cookbooks to bolster his collection of recipes from around the world. Tina, meanwhile, found information to help her get practice for a mosaic tile mural she is planning to create  on a blank concrete wall in her garden.

   In Evanston, you can walk most places you want to go.  We crossed the street to a buffet lunch in an Indian restaurant.  During  the rainy afternoon we hung out at home, playing music and games.  Jack and Charlie worked on the kid blogs set up through their school.  Jack writes restaurant reviews and book reviews.  Charlie worked his way through the  spelling of  his first online book review.    We had turkey with mole sauce in burritos for dinner, then talked into the evening.

Baseball

Chess club

Checking out a worm

    On Sunday morning Jack made Mexican hot chocolate for us while Tina prepared elaborate Greek bread for her dining club.  I read Bad Dog, Marley to Sam about forty times.  Paul and I had a long walk around his neighborhood while Tina took the boys to a birthday party.

Charlie sizing up the competition

Heavy load

     There are three parks within two blocks of Paul's house.  Late Sunday afternoon  we walked to Mason Park to play baseball.  Three other boys joined the Kalils in batting and fielding drills.  Even Sam threw and hit, before he got distracted by the playground equipment.

     I walked Jack and Charlie and their backpacks the two blocks to school on Monday morning.  They arrive at 8 on Mondays in order to play chess.  Tina and I dropped Sam and  at  preschool and  then headed to a world of wonders,  a Midwest garden center. After school, a gang of boys clustered around a Beyblades box ( a kind of contest with tops), with Charlie right in the middle, holding his own against the 5th graders.

Charlie wins a bey battle

      On Tuesday morning Tina and Sam drove me to the airport.  Sam, in his skeleton costume, gave me delicious grandson hugs and kisses goodbye.