Change of view

Yesterday was pretty hectic at work (by "at work," I mean up in the NE bedroom where I have a home office). I didn't step outside once, or even look out front. Went out for coffee with Patricia at about 6:15a this morning (before some kind of certification class she was attending) so it was dark when we left the house. When I came back, I was somewhat surprised to see that our neighbors had painted the exterior of their house a darker color. (Garage door is the previous color). I think they had it done yesterday, but maybe they were sneaking around overnight?

Is this a minor event? Yes. But hey -- as with most non-nomadic folks -- the view out front of our dwelling is pretty static. Especially in a desert climate. So this was the first big change of view in over 12 years.

Part 2 - Freezing

Backyard photos from Wednesday Jan 31. Ice on the lawn plus plants with severe frost damage from a couple weeks ago.

And here's our front-yard orchid tree, dropping leaves after the big frost. Not sure how that will one will turn out.

Forecast highs up to 80 next week.

Maximum enjoyment from Christmas decorations

Patricia is so talented at taking down and putting away Christmas decorations that it only seems right that she handle the task. I stay out of the way except when manly lifting is required.

Given that Mayo Hospital has been running her into the ground lately, we've had plenty of extra enjoyment from the decorations. But thanks to her efforts on Sunday (Jan 28), now it looks like we'll be able to get the tree out of sight before Valentine's Day.

There should be a service that would come in and take the tree -- without removing any decorations -- off to storage, and bring it back the next year. That would solve the decorating effort, the undecorating effort, and the storage problem (remember, we have no basement).

At least we had a pleasant Sunday evening, discussed here.

Rembrandts visit Phoenix

Patricia and I are members of the Phoenix Art Museum for 2007. First time we've tried this. The museum just completed a major group of facility improvements and the place looks great.

Anyway, a few years ago the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam announced plans to undergo a renovation, and the director of the Phoenix Art Museum immediately called over and asked if PAM could exhibit some of their things while in storage. Two other U.S. museums also were chosen, so this show is pretty exclusive to Phoenix.

It so happened that Patrick was in town during our scheduled trip to the exhibit, so he came along. We much enjoyed. The show included works by various Dutch masters of the Rembrandt era (17th century). The brochure features Rembrandt's late-in-life self-portrait as the apostle Paul. My favorite was the scene showing Peter's denial (see accompanying photo, as always click to enlarge). Among other neat features, check out how the candle illuminating Peter's troubled face is behind the hand of the servant girl asking about him. I wouldn't have seen it without the audio accompaniment at the museum, but Christ is over Peter's left shoulder giving him a look.

Anyway, the exhibit gave an overview of Dutch town life shortly after independence from Spain and during a period of major prosperity. I'm a sucker to buy books of things I see, as you can see in the bottom photo. The book is a great way to recall the images, but it is amazing (though not surprising) how much larger and more vibrant the works are when seen in person.

We next drove downtown to Arizona Center and sat outside for lunch at Sam's Cafe on a glorious Arizona afternoon. Quite fun.

At night we taught Patrick pinochle. He caught on too quickly for our comfort factor.

Rembrandt is worth reading about, bio here.

Suns are at it, again

No doubt - the NBA is far and away the best sports league going. And here in Phoenix we get to watch the most entertaining team in the NBA.

The Suns have been on an East Coast swing into the major media markets - Washington DC and New York City for starters - and so are riding a publicity blitz with regular comparisons to Magic Johnson's Showtime Laker teams of the 1980s. It helps that they have the best record in the league and lead in every major offensive category.

I liked this photo from nytimes.com because it shows a standard scenario: 1) Steve Nash running the break; 2) two teammates filling the lanes in classic formation; 3) sorry defender trailing behind, but at least in a good viewing position for the upcoming dunk or three. I also like how they superimposed the statistics, and that they took the photo from an interesting angle.

I'm hugely entertained by all this. Here's an entertaining (if somewhat fawning) Bill Simmons article that gets into much more detail about what the Suns are up to this year.

Freezing

It's been ridiculously cold here. About a week ago, we had the hardest freeze in the Phoenix area since 1990. Many of our plants were damaged. Check out the browned-out hisbiscus and the whited-out fern. (Both should be fine though will need cutting back). Lots more of our plants look even worse, including the bougainveilla (or however that's spelled, I understand the plant is named for some French military guy).

Patricia had to work today (she had a crazy-busy week) so I was on my own. Made for a long Sunday. But I did sweep out the swimming pool and took care of some other noxious tasks. It actually snowed in the northern part of town (meaning there were a few crystals in the air) and in the higher elevations, including nice amounts on the Superstitions.

Here's an oddity. We've already had two left ankle injuries from playing basketball in the last couple weeks (discussed here and here). This week Patrick reports that he also messed up his left ankle playing basketball. I'm hoping for photographic confirm. This is getting creepy, and CPG -- as last man standing -- better watch out.

We saw our second good movie in a row over the weekend, discussed here.

Part 2 - Basketball can be injurious to your health

I thought he was kidding, but no.

Just yesterday I put my crutches into the closet for good (why I was using them is explained here). This afternoon Paul Jr. calls saying he rolled his left ankle playing basketball and had immediate severe swelling.

What's there to do? Only one answer: head back to Patricia's emergency department for an X-ray. The kid has a bad sprain and has now taken possession of my crutches (as you can see in top photo). So I got to meet a bunch more of Patricia's co-workers, and we were treated very well.

But something odd is going on here. We miss Patricia when she's at work, but seem to be going to ridiculous lengths to go visit her. Twice in 17 days. Whatever. After she got off her shift, she hung around with us and then we went to dinner at 8:45p at a place called Bahama Breeze. It was good, or we were just really hungry, or maybe both.

Paul Jr. will now get to experience the joys of hobbling around a college campus. Ugh.

(And how much fun is a phone with a camera? Who ever carries a camera separately?)

Christmas is officially over

Patrick went back to U of A last Tuesday. Paul Jr. went back to ASU today. So that ends Christmas. (Even though our tree isn't down and, with Patricia's upcoming work schedule, will be up at least another week or so.) The weather still feels like middle of winter - a hard frost last night that pretty much hit everything in our yard that is frost-sensitive.

At least we've seen some interesting things lately. Saw a really good movie, Children of Men, discussed here. And last night we went to a piano competition at ASU; really enjoyable, discussed here. Patricia and I went to dinner tonight at "My Big Fat Greek Restaurant" to top off a fine day.

Basketball can be injurious to your health

Check out the unwelcome addition to my life. I just finished a week on crutches following a pretty significant ankle sprain. Swelling has not gone down much though I feel quite a bit more strength down there. Not sure how long this will take to fix, maybe another week on crutches?

All this started late afternoon of Friday, December 29. My three sons and I were having one of our little two-on-two basketball games at the court in the park just west of our house. Chris and I were playing against Patrick and Paul Jr. Darkness was falling and we were down to the last couple points. I jumped under the guise of contesting a shot by Paul Jr. (or failing that, I was just going to foul him). On landing from the not-so-dizzying heights, I rolled my left ankle. Swelling was immediate. Oh, he made the shot anyway. I walked around pretending to play defense while Patrick finished us off, then gimped home.

So on Patricia’s day off from her job at the emergency department (Saturday, December 30), she took me to the emergency department at Mayo Hospital. I met a bunch of her co-workers, a nice group and it was fun. They did an x-ray and gave me some training on using crutches. (Though they didn’t show me the tricky part, which is negotiating stairs.)

Patricia and I went to coffee on December 31. I haven’t set foot outside the house since. So I’m still looking forward to my first outing of 2007.

My pals here are pretty good about accommodating me, but I think I deserve more sympathy. It is disappointing that I can’t play basketball when the weather is so favorable. How could you beat playing 2-on-2 with three sons?

Today is my Dad's 78th Birthday

My dad hit #78 today.

I like to write a little something about him and my mom on their birthdays. Usually something I liked, or learned from (or both). I’ll have plenty of material unless perhaps they last well past age 100.

Something from the old days: it was very good fun, and quite instructive, sitting around and watching him interact with our various corn-shelling customers. He was dealing with a wide variety of local personalities and I think we benefited from watching all these encounters. Even if our attention spans were sorely challenged from time to time as the conversations sometimes wore on (and on). But then again there were a lot of topics that deserved attention, and the St. Joe-area populace, as a whole, truly has excellent conversational skills. They (and he more than most) tend to be interested in local and non-local ideas, events and people. And they really enjoy spinning out their ideas in conversation. I think they’re every bit as busy as those of us that live in cities, but somehow have really preserved the art of conversation. (I was reminded of this twice recently. First during a morning of delightful conversation with my Capesius cousins, Jim McEnroe et al at the seed corn shed in late August. Second, with Virgil and Laurel (St. Joe neighbors) outside Gammage Auditorium following our holiday concert in early December.)

Back in the day, we did get to meet a large percentage of the locals due to the corn-shelling business – including non-Catholics who we otherwise wouldn’t have seen much of given that most social activity was highly concentrated among Catholic church, Catholic school and relatives and friends. Most of the corn-shelling customers fed us in their homes at least some of the time. Back in those days, the pastor (or minister) often was the person who had the opportunity to be served a meal in more area homes than any other person. Given our “mixed” clientele, perhaps my Dad would have held this title in our area?

Top photo is an old corn-shelling shot that one of my sisters took way back when (summer 1982, I believe). Bottom photo is from our 2003 trip through Pennsylvania Amish country – it was fun getting his take on their un-mechanized farming (that was a good day of touring in general).

Happy #78.

Like the Old Days . . .

I kept something of a diary starting with 1966 (turned 10 that year) . I was a steady, if uninspired, diarist for the first years, then went into an accelerating decline after about 10 years. I think I started doing this as pure imitation of my dad. Plus he had free diaries for us from insurance agents.

Anyway, within individual years during that period, I typically started strong and tailed off at year end. I think of this because that happened to me in 2006 with this online diary. I have a number of events I want to catch up on here. Once I get past the year-end tailspin.

Thanksgiving was fun

We made it through Thanksgiving in fine shape. Except we didn’t do much in the way of taking pictures (though Nicole has some that we hope appear on a photo sharing website sooner than later).

Kerry arrived late Tuesday evening from Baltimore; Nicole arrived mid-day Wednesday from Chicago; Patrick arrived late Wednesday from Tucson. Paul Jr. finished classes Wednesday and Chris was around every day. So that was good. Lots of excellent eating. We put up the Christmas tree on Friday. Also went to look at a house that Chris and Jon Blaha are signing a contract on; if all goes well, they could be homeowners by year-end (of 2006) (see photos).

Saturday was fun – the kids went to Tucson early in the day with various of their friends, toured Patrick’s fine apartment, and tailgated for the ASU-U of A game. Then they drove back home for the end of the U of A game, and we also watched the USC-Notre Dame game (which didn’t require much of our attention). Had people over for this, it was fun.

Lost Nicole, Chris, Patrick and Paul Jr. on Sunday, but Kerry’s flight didn’t leave until late afternoon Monday. The three of us had supper at Z Tejas Sunday evening; then Kerry and I visited Patricia at work at Mayo, had a Pei Wei lunch, and otherwise killed off Monday. She even had a tour of my office (and acted interested).

It was nice having everyone around, and it’s nice that Christmas follows on so soon.

Keewee Sighting

Kerry called from Baltimore airport last night and said she was coming into Phoenix in a few hours. This was part of her trip to Tucson for U of A Homecoming. So we picked her up at the airport about 11:15pm and she was in Phoenix most of today. The three of us went to Tempe and had lunch at House of Tricks with Paul Jr. (who conveniently was out of school celebrating Veteran's Day). This is a very nice restaurant with fantastic outdoor seating, and best of all, it's not a chain restaurant. You can read about the restaurant here, and the lunch menu is here. We heard some, but not much, about Kerry's most recent trip abroad, plus caught up in general. And it was just fun to see her.

Signs of Winter 2

About a month ago I posted about the start of our winter lawn. Here it is in full glory.

ND Trip Day Two

Back on our (somewhat) recent trip to Notre Dame - this summarizes Friday, September 29.

After a fine breakfast at Moreau Seminary, we started the day where every good pilgrim begins: the Grotto. Just kidding, we actually went to the Bookstore, where all things ND can be purchased. It’s just like being in a store at a high-end mall. Except they have more parking lot attendants. Got away as quickly as possible. At least there was an area to throw the football around. Said hi to Monk Malloy in the lobby as he had a book-signing for “Travels with Monk,” based on his travel diaries.

After wandering the campus just a bit – fantastic morning weather – we had lunch at Moreau Seminary with Bill Seetch and John Conley. Always a highlight of a trip to see those guys. We caught up on various and sundry topics, including some stories by Seetch from the football sidelines. Patricia and I walked over to campus and eventually checked in at the Glee Club reunion registration area (the “new” DeBartolo performing arts center); saw a few Glee Club folks there, then we went to a little eating place called Recker’s to relax and have a cup of coffee.

Next was practice for the reunion concert. The rest of our traveling party came over for this; also had a chance to say hello to Kate Gales. Not a huge turnout of folks from our years at ND, but saw several folks including David Clark Isele himself. The auditorium was incredibly live and it was fun to sing the old songs per usual.

Back to Recker’s for a quick bite. Ran into Dick Waris and his son on the way out of Reckers, and ran into Mike and Sheila Geddes on the way into the concert, that all was fun. The reunion concert itself went just fine and I appreciated the opportunity to participate. There is an element of déjà vu or whatever in doing those song especially for those numbers conducted by DC Isele. All good. The kids and Jon bought me a ND Glee Club polo shirt which was actually quite nice.

I’m going to post a bit of video from the concert, at least when I get past an editing problem that I didn’t have a chance to resolve yet.

Progressively cloudier and colder as the day went on, and a nice rain shower by the time the concert was over. Which left us with a 15+ minute walk back to Moreau. Fortunately, Brian and Andrea Shappell had a minivan and hauled us back (plus we had a few laughs on the way over). We got organized and drove over to the reception at Daniel Stowe’s house. Which was difficult to find through the deep woods on a dark, rainy night. The reception featured the usual singing and sipping. Frank Barrett played some jazz stuff and his setting of William Blake’s “Dream,” which really is quite excellent.

Back to Moreau for a round of ice cream and good night. This was a fine day. Patricia and I have been at several of these reunions and we were glad the kids had a chance to at least get a glimpse of all that.

Back

OK, in the next week or so I'm going to catch up on recent (and less recent) events after finishing a couple major work projects and extra rehearsals etc. for our Choral Union concert.

I am a fan of webcams. And of the look of the Tucson area. This photo is from a webcam on the University of Arizona campus. You can check out the webcam here. The view is to the northeast, and the Catalina Mountains look great.

I also like the Northern Arizona University webcam looking out over the San Francisco Peaks, viewable here. I can check out the snow pack plus get some (slight) idea of color change in the aspens in autumn.

If I hadn't seen it . . .

. . . I wouldn't have thought it possible. A quick note about Monday Night Football: it was fun to attend in person. A quick note about the Arizona Cardinals: they have an uncanny ability to find a way to lose. Since our opening day victory (read about it here), there have been three more home games. Each time, our local heroes take what seems to be an insurmountable lead, only to prove it surmountable. Tonight they had the undefeated Chicago Bears beaten up and down the field for 57+ minutes.

The good news is that some pals of Dennis Blaha arranged a major feed stop at the tailgate. Brats, Italian beef, sides. Weather was awesome. The game was very fun in its own way. And they opened the roof (see photo)! At this point, Cardinals fans tend to be fatalistic rather than frustrated or angry. No more home games until November 12, which is good because we could use a recovery period.

I can't stand to write about the game, but you can read about it here.

Signs of winter

Here in Arizona's Sonoran desert the onset of winter can be distinguished from the precursors that we noted back in the old country. (We got a chuckle out of Bill Seetch’s comment back at Notre Dame a couple weeks ago, which I hope was tongue-in-cheek, about the rats in the presbytery being extra furry this year, meaning of course a bad winter. I think caterpillar furriness also was considered to have forecasting value. Here's an academic discussion about fur and winter.)

Anyway, here you can see a rye grass winter lawn making its way through the Bermuda summer lawn. The winter lawn grows in after about two weeks of keeping the topsoil dampened. It looks great and doesn’t require much care thereafter. Especially if you are strategic (i.e. erratic) about mowing. And a winter lawn keeps down weeds that might otherwise grow in a dormant Bermuda lawn, as we learned last year.

ND Trip Day One

Finally getting around to posting some info on the ND trip. We left for South Bend on Thursday, September 28. Traveling party from Phoenix included Patricia and me, our three sons and Jon Blaha. I insisted on leaving early, so naturally offsite parking went smoothly, all lines were short and we ended up sitting around the airport awhile before take-off. (Snug and secure with our “A” boarding passes on Southwest, courtesy of PJ.) Flight was easy. Only glitch was getting our rental minivan, which counter girl at Budget wasn’t able to line up. Even that turned out well, as we were upgraded to a MASSIVE Suburban.

(An aside on the Suburban: this thing is an absolute monster. You could actually feel the gas tank lightening as you drove. Amazingly, I learned that all of the ads are totally true: by driving a monster vehicle, I received much more respect from everyone I encountered: fellow motorists, campus guards at various gatehouses, bookstore traffic handlers, etc. Plus this thing had about 20 cupholders, and you can never have too many of those. So it’s all worth it! Or something. I've posted a photo below of the beast taken on Sunday outside Moreau Seminary; the passengers look like mere ants.)

From Midway, we met “Nana” (Patricia’s mother, Shirley O’Donnell) for lunch at an Italian restaurant at 95th and Cicero. This ended up being lots of fun. Just look at the photo! We kept adding folks to our table. Mike O’Donnell showed up a bit and dropped off his son, Mike. Kerry arrived at Midway from D.C., and Nicole picked her up and the two of them arrived about 40 minutes after us. Got the food thing off to a good start with deep dish pizza. Turned out our waitress had been Mike’s kindergarten teacher, which was kind of entertaining.

Easy trip to South Bend, after killing about 30 minutes working through 294 construction. Courtesy of the Reverend Patrick Neary, we were able to stay at Moreau Seminary. Which is a classic place to stay when at ND. We found our rooms, mostly on the south side overlooking the lake with views of Golden Dome and steeple, etc. Pat wasn’t around. So we went out to dinner at The Vine in downtown South Bend. I’d go back willingly. Here’s a link to the restaurant’s website. Check out the menu when you’re there. I ordered the best dish: the Cajun Salmon Filet. Being in northern Indiana, this sounded dicey – but wasn’t. Pasta New Orleans was excellent. Hot asiago appetizer was excellent. Plus some IPA on tap. I was happy.

Then back to campus. The guard trembled at our Suburban and waved us on. Visited the Reverend John Conley at Siegried Hall. We had a nice chat, some nice munchies, and a nice tour (had never been in this hall before, it’s taking up a field where we Grace Hall studs used to throw the football around back in the 70s).

Went to Moreau. Did a short tour of the facilities (impressive as always). That was it for day one.

We're Back from N.D.

Our trip is over. Everything about it was great. I'll put in daily detail once I catch up at work. In the meantime, here's a family photo from the morning of Saturday, September 30. Also a photo taken from Moreau Seminary looking across the lake, taken near sunset on the same date. (Much) more to come.