Monday, March 31, 2008

Sunday Creativity

Good morning and a pleasant Monday to you all!
As you can see from the poll, it seems the majority of my voting constituency thinks I should sign up for the iron man blogging competition. I wish I knew who my 4dissenters were…for instance, if I knew you were family, your votes would count for more. Nevertheless, I’ve decided that in the spirit of democracy I’ll go ahead and sign up, but I’m only committing to a trial period of say, two weeks. After that, if daily postings are driving us all nuts and ruining the essence of our communication, we’ll withdraw.

Yesterday after church a bunch of us in the “young” crowd (which spans roughly 19 years old to 37ish) went out to a diner-style burger place called Cindy’s. The burgers aren’t bad, but they sure aren’t American either. When the weather is nice like it was yesterday, all the restaurants on that street put tables and chairs outside. We sat in the sun for a few hours visiting and I didn’t get home from church until 5 pm! But it was fun.

Last night I put my new pastels to good use. I drew the following landscape based on a demonstration in Elizabeth Mowry’s book The Pastelist’s Year.



Normally I do my own compositions, of course, but I have new pastels that are considerably softer than what I’m used to and I’m trying to learn to use Wallis paper too. So, I took the easy route and copied for the sake of learning. I’m fairly happy with the results, but I can see I’ll have to be really careful to not get carried away with my initial color application on this surface--There are several areas that got a little thick and muddy. I might correct them later this week. People always say sanded paper is so flexible and you can build up lots of layers, but I still think the suede mat board can handle more. The major advantage of Wallis paper in my opinion is that it facilitates working quickly. This picture only took me about 4 hours, even with the learning curve. The same drawing on mat board would have taken me 7.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

fascinating insights into my personality

While I'm waiting for my hair to dry and my dinner to make itself, I've been reading other people's blogs and taking unconventional personality quizzes on Brainfall.com. I did about 4 of them (I got offended and quit when it said I'm the sort of person who should live in L.A.). I won't bore you with the details, but I thought you'd be amused by the results from the quiz "which sesame street character are you?" Personally, I like to think of myself as an Oscar the Grouch because people like him have spunk, individualism, and an attractive crankiness down pat. But nooooo...apparently I'm a Big Bird/Elmo:

"You are part Big Bird. You are something of an eccentric, and not everyone always gives you credit for your inventiveness and intelligence [I agree with this part!]. You may not always know everything, but people turn to you for your sound, unique logic[as they should]. Plus, you have a big heart. Really big.

You are part Elmo. You are lovable and ticklish [not ticklish, at all, under any circumstances, so don't even think about it], and always inquisitive. Sometimes, though, your excitement about the world can make you seem childish, naive, and occasionally irritating to others."

Irritating. Naive. Pshh! What balderdash. No wonder mom and dad didn't let me watch sesame street.

In other news, we change our clocks tonight, so I will be 9 hours ahead of all you west coasters again.

Yesterday Janet and I went exploring with our bus passes, snacks, and no destination other than the wide blue yonder. It was great fun, totally free, and nothing beats the feeling of discovering villages and trails and hills you never knew existed before. I'll post some pictures later and maybe a map so you can see the route we took.

Happy weekending to you all!

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

iron man blogger?

Ok, friends, it's time for another poll. Should I, or should I not participate in the iron man blogger competition? The basic change to my blog would be that I would post every day until I either am the last blogger in the competition continuing to post daily or until I quit, in which case I would lose. Content is not likely to change significantly, unless I discuss the optional "topic of the day." On the plus side: more daily entertainment for you, more "mandatory" creativity for me. On the negative side: perhaps TOO much communication for you, added daily constraints for me, and attracting additional and perhaps unwanted attention to our otherwise peaceful little blog universe. Gregg is advocating for participation in the competition--in fact, it was his idea to begin with. Votes and comments welcome! If I'm going to do it, I have to sign up by the 31st, so I'll need your votes pronto.

cheerio!

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Something appropriate...



(c) Anne Tainitor, Inc.

Happy Easter!

"As a result of the anguish of his soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquitites. Therefore I will allot HIm a portion with the great, and He will divide the booty with the strong; because He poured out Himself to death and was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressor." Isaiah 53:11-12

"But we do see Him who has been made for a little while lower than the angels, namely Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through suffering. For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason, He is not ashamed to call them brethren." Hebrews 2:9-11


Jesus is Risen, and it's exceedingly good news for you and me.


It snowed all day today! Is that not marvelous?! Other than the minor inconvenience of having to adapt my Easter outfit to freezing weather, it was splendid Easter weather. Instead of staying in church this morning, I sat in on the 3-6 year olds Sunday school class. I'm going to be on the teaching rotation pretty soon here, so I thought it'd be a good idea to get to know the kids and see how they do things here at this church before I dive in. Plus I was a little worried about the age...I mean, what do you say to a three year old? I had a great time though! I so rarely spend time with little kids that I forget how much I enjoy them. For instance, today the teacher started out the Easter lesson by saying, "Do you all know what happened on Easter?" A little blond boy confidently piped up "yeah, the Easter bunny came!" (apparently he had chocolate at home to prove it!) Ah, the classic Sunday school answer. :) It was the poor girl's first time (ever) teaching and she hardly knew what to say in response. We spent the rest of the lesson acting out the bible story, crawling around under tables, singing songs I haven't sung in 10 years or more and learning about what ELSE happened on Easter besides the advent of the bunny. After the lesson, the same little boy said, "I've heard that story before." and his classmate said, "Me too. I have the movie."

I had lunch with friends from church. That was fun! Of course I also missed being home and everything that comes with that. Mostly bothering Grandpa. It's really tough to adequately pester the GPs from this distance, you know? but I do my best. And I had a great time today with my friends here! It's my first time in the "student far from home" category. I've always been close enough to my parents to not only go home for holidays myself, but to also bring armies of out-of-state and international friends and acquaintances along too. It's nice to be on the invited end now. In fact, I'd say generally living here is definitely giving me a renewed appreciation for hospitality, both because it's wonderful to be the recipient of it, and then because of that I'm a bit more sensitive to ways that I could be hospitable to other people. Oh, and in other news, everyone was quite adamant that I should learn to ski, and I might even be borrowing some stuff. So Skiing may be in my very near future...stay tuned.

I'm down to one more day of vacation before school starts again, and although I had big plans for the break, I feel like I didn't exactly do a lot...which is probably cuz I didn't. I had quite a few meetings, however, and I think that filled up more time than I realized. Oh well. It was a good and mostly restful break anyway, and I'm ready to get back to work now. But that's not to say I wouldn't welcome a couple feet of snow...

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Easter Vacation Week

WELL. This week has been a blur. I just now posted the story I wanted to share with you for Easter. I was going to post it in three segments over the three days up to Good Friday, but since friday is upon us, you get it all at once, though still in three segments. A bit about Chekhov, in case you're unfamiliar: b.1860 in Russia, he has been credited with "iventing the modern short story" and was tremendously influential in theater as well as fiction. David Plante, the editor of Ward No. 6 and Other Stories, writes in the introduction:
The longing for something that can only ever be longed for is the tragic force of Chekhov's work. It is also the work's moral and spiritual force. To repeat his own hope as a writer: 'my goal is to kill two birds with one stone: to paint life in its true aspects, and to show how far this life falls short of the ideal life. I don't know what this ideal life is, just as it is unknown to all of us. We all know what a dishonest deed is, but who has looked upon the face of honor?" No one, especially an ardent Russian Orthodox believer [as Chekhov was] would ever presume to look upon the face of God...And yet, the longing to be united with God, beyond understanding, must awaken the vastest possible awareness, itself beyond understanding.


The story I have posted is not my favorite Chekhov story, but I like it for many reasons...too many to say in the 15 min. I have before my computer dies. So, you tell me--what do you like about the story? And if you want to read more Chekhov, I would highly recommend the Barnes and Noble Classics collection I have, although fair warning: a lot of his stories are tear-inducing, so if you hate books that are tragic, you won't like Chekhov much on the whole.

Ok, other news from this week...
I have been busy, but haven't done much "productive" work. I had some meetings for school, went shopping a couple times. janet and I went thrift store shopping and shoe shopping today! She got some sassy red heels, and I got some white heels to go with my 3 white dresses (see?! I NEEDED them). And we had a picnic at Stephan's apartment, cuz he wasn't home and we had the key. In fact, between the two of us, we have keys for quite a few people's houses...good thing we're not more mischievous than we are.

I rode thte train WAY out to Timbucktoo (Holderbank, actually, but could have been Timbucktoo) yesterday for dinner with some people from church, and let me tell you, nothing refreshes my thrill at living here more than riding a train to somewhere I've never been. The hills, the houses! the train itself! the churches! Really, it's great. And since I have a tram/train pass for a great big portion of Switzerland I think I will just have to ride off to places I've never been before more often. Anyway, so I got out there, and had a nice dinner with them.

Tomorrow I'm going to the Good Friday service at church, and will possibly be hitting at least one other more liturgical services with the lovely Janet over the next couple days. Sunday, I'm going to Easter lunch with Dom's familia and some other people from church. So if you don't hear from me for a couple days...it's cuz I'm busy running all over this blessed Canton. And a few others also, for that matter.

Also, for those of you who I usually call on the weekends...my microphone is having a major attitude problem and refusing to function, so you'll have to call me. :) Love y'all. Have a Great Easter celebrating the savior's resurrection!

Easter Reading, Part 3

The Student, Part 3 by Anton Chekhov

The labourers came back from the river, and one of them riding a horse was quite near, and the light from the fire quivered upon him. The student said good-night to the widows and went on. And again the darkness was about him and his fingers began to be numb. A cruel wind was blowing, winter really had come back and it did not feel as though Easter would be the day after to-morrow.
Now the student was thinking about Vasilisa: since she had shed tears all that had happened to Peter the night before the Crucifixion must have some relation to her….
He looked round. The solitary light was still gleaming in the darkness and no figures could be seen near it now. The student thought again that if Vasilisa had shed tears, and her daughter had been troubled, it was evident that what he had just been telling them about, which happened nineteen centuries ago, had a relation to the present—to both women, to the desolate village, to himself, to all people. The old woman had wept, not because he could tell the story touchingly, but because Peter was near to her, because her whole being was interested in what was passing in Peter’s soul.
And joy suddenly stirred in his soul, and he even stopped for a minute to take breath. “The past,” he thought, “is linked with the present by an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of another.” And it seemed to him that he had just seen both ends of that chain; that when he touched one end the other quivered.
When he crossed the river by the ferry boat and afterwards, mounting the hill, looked at his village and towards the west where the cold purple sunset lay a narrow streak of light, he thought that truth and beauty which had guided human life there in the garden and in the yard of the high priest had continued without interruption to this day, and had evidently always been the chief thing in human life and in all earthly life, indeed; and the feeling of youth, health, vigour—he was only twenty-two—and the inexpressible sweet expectation of happiness, of unknown mysterious happiness, took possession of him little by little, and life seemed to him enchanting, marvelous, and full of lofty meaning.

The End.

Easter Reading Part 2

The Student, Part 2 by Anton Chekhov

The Gardens were called the widows’ because they were kept by two widows, mother and daughter. A camp fire was burning brightly with a crackling sound, throwing out light far around on the ploughed earth. The widow Vasilisa, a tall, fat old woman in a man’s coat, was standing by and looking thoughtfully into the fire; her daughter Lukerya, a little pock-marked woman with a stupid-looking face, was sitting on the ground, washing a caldron and spoons. Apparently they had just had supper. There was a sound of men’s voices; it was the labourers watering their horses at the river.
“Here you have winter back again,” said the student, going up to the camp fire. “Good evening.”
Vasilisa started, but at once recognized him and smiled cordially.
“I did not know you; God bless you,” she said. “You’ll be rich.”
They talked. Vasilisa, a woman of experience, who had been in service with the gentry, first as a wet-nurse, afterwards as a children’s nurse, expressed herself with refinement, and a soft, sedate smile never left her face; her daughter Lukerya, a village peasant woman, who had been crushed by her husband, simply screwed up her eyes at the student and said nothing, and she had a strange expression like that of a deaf mute.
“At just such a fire the Apostle Peter warmed himself,” said the student, stretching out his hands to the fire, “so it must have been cold then, too. Ah, what a terrible night it must have been, granny! An utterly dismal long night!”
He looked round at the darkness, shook his head and abruptly asked:
“No doubt you have been at the reading of the Twelve Gospels?”
“Yes, I have,” answered Vasilisa.
“If you remember at the Last Supper Peter said to Jesus, ‘I am ready to go with Thee into darkness and unto death.’ And our Lord answered him thus: ‘I say unto thee, Peter, before the cock croweth thou wilt have denied Me thrice.’ After the supper Jesus went through the agony of death in the garden and prayed, and poor Peter was weary in spirit and faint, his eyelids were heavy and he could not struggle against sleep. He fell asleep. Then you heard how Judas the same night kissed Jesus and betrayed Him to His tormentors. They took Him bound to the high priests and beat Him, while Peter, exhausted, worn out with misery and alarm, hardly awake, you know, feeling that something awful was just going to happen on earth, followed behind….He loved Jesus passionately, intensely, and now he saw from far off how he was beaten….”
Lukerya left the spoons and fixed an immovable stare upon the student.
“They came to the high priest’s,” he went on; “they began to question Jesus, and meantime the labourers made a fire in the yard as it was cold, and warmed themselves. Peter, too, stood with them near the fire and warmed himself as I am doing. A woman, seeing him, said: ‘He was with Jesus, too”—that is as much as to say that he, too, should be taken to be questioned. And all the labourers that were standing near the fire must have looked sourly and suspiciously at him, because he was confused and said: ‘I don’t know Him.’ A little while after again someone recognized him as one of Jesus’ disciples and said: ‘Thou, too, art one of them,’ but again he denied it. And for the third time someone turned to him: ‘Why, did I not see thee with Him in the garden to-day?’ For the third time he denied it. And immediately after that time the cock crowed, and Peter, looking from afar off at Jesus, remembered the words he had said to him in the evening….He remembered, he came to himself, went out of the yard and wept bitterly—bitterly. In the Gospel it is written: ‘He went out and wept bitterly.’ I imagine it: the still, still, dark, dark garden, and in the stillness, faintly audible, smothered sobbing….”
The student sighed and sank into thought. Still smiling, Vasilisa suddenly gave a gulp, big tears flowed freely down her cheeks, and she screened her face from the fire with her sleeve as though ashamed of her tears, and Lukerya, staring immovably at the student, flushed crimson, and her expression became strained and heavy like that of someone enduring intense pain.

Easter Reading Part 1

Alrighty, in honor of Easter, I bring you the Russian writer Anton Chechov's short story "The Student." Reproduced without permision. Copyright 2003, Barnes and Noble Classics.

The Student

At first the weather was fine and still. The thrushes were calling, and in the swamps close by something alive droned pitifully with a sound like blowing into an empty bottle. A snipe flew by, and the shot aimed at it rang out with a gay, resounding note in the spring air. But when it began to get dark in the forest a cold, penetrating wind blew inappropriately from the east, and everything sank into silence. Needles of ice stretched across the pools, and it felt cheerless, remote, and lonely in the forest. There was a whiff of winter.

Ivan Velikopolsky, the son of a sacristan, and a student of the clerical academy, returning home from shooting, walked all the time by the path in the water-side meadow. His fingers were numb and his face was burning with the wind. It seemed to him that the cold that had suddenly come on had destroyed the order and harmony of things, that nature itself felt ill at ease, and that was why the evening darkness was falling more rapidly than usual. All around it was deserted and peculiarly gloomy. The only light was one gleaming in the widows’ gardens near the river; the village, over three miles away, and everything in the distance all round was plunged in the cold evening mist. The student remembered that, as he went out from his house, his mother was sitting barefoot on the floor in the entry, cleaning the samovar, while his father lay on the stove coughing; as it was Good Friday, nothing had been cooked, and the student was terribly hungry. And now, shrinking from the cold, he thought that just such a wind had blown in the days of Rurik and in the time of Ivan the Terrible and Peter, and in the their time there had been just the same desperate poverty and hunger, the same thatched roofs with holes in them, ignorance, misery, the same desolation around, the same darkness, the same feeling of oppression—all these had existed, did exist, and would exist, and the lapse of a thousand years would make life no better. And he did not want to go home.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Saturday

Hi Friends!
Tomorrow is Palm Sunday and one week until Easter, so starting either later today or tomorrow, you can expect a series of readings on the subject. I haven't quite decided what I'm going to use yet (could be Chekov installments, could be something else...). I am at Janet's house at the moment. I spent the night here, and we are doing our Saturday German-studying (as in the language, not the people)/running time, except it's now after 1 pm, and we haven't run or cracked a book. We are both overdue on blog updates, so this is technically productive work.

I haven't had a very interesting week, so I'm afraid I don't have much to say.
I had Janet and Stephan over for enchiladas on Monday. It was a fairly successful dinner with minimal language-induced cooking hazards. I did accidentally buy rice that was supposed to be soaked overnight because I couldn't read the package. But dinner was just slightly later, and still tasted more or less like proper Spanish rice. It was fun to cook for company, though, and enchiladas are my favorite food! Any excuse to make them is a good one.

Other than that, really there's little to say about my week. I did buy some new earrings, which I'm quite pleased about. They're very simple, but a good color. Another lady was looking at earrings too and asked my opinion on two sets. Well, I told her which ones I liked better, but she kept talking about it in Swiss German, so of course I wasn't understanding. She caught on pretty quick and switched to English and made a good case for one pair being better for summer. I added they're also more versatile for patterned or non-patterned outfits, and she said "pattern? what's this?" I pointed to my white shirt and said this doesn't have a pattern, and pointed to her striped shirt and said, "that has a pattern." Ah! she understood. So it was decided. She bought that pair of earrings. It's nice to know I'm making my mark in the world, don't you think?! :) Gee, if you only read my blog and didn't know me personally, you might get the impression that I'm highly materialistic. More accurately, however, I would say I get great joy in very small things--like earrings. Once, I cleaned my room and found $1000. I had tucked a couple hundred here, a couple hundred there, and forgotten about it (see?! I have good reason for claiming financial incompetence!). When I found all that, Gregg said, "you could buy a new laptop!" and Brian said, "you could buy new wheels for your car!" and I thought, "I could buy that $2 nail polish I liked!" So I hope that will give some perspective to all my blabbings about this or that thing I bought.

I'm looking forward to Easter, and I don't have school this coming week. I will spend my time on some research projects, relaxing with friends from church, teaching my German friend Roxy to make chocolate chip cookies, and drawing masterpieces, of course!! I'm also submitting a story to 3 publishers. Oh, and I volunteered to start teaching Sunday school so I will have some meetings about that this week. Ok, I am off to Olga's birthday party--1/4 of a century!(I love having friends who are older than me!) Perhaps I'll have some adventures to share with you later in the week. Until then, enjoy your weekend!

love y'all.

Friday, March 7, 2008

speedy update

Alright, since I don't want to go to sleep (no surprises there), I'll write an update for all you interested parties.
Today was the first day of my long weekend, and it was altogether a rather pleasant day, even though the seven year old I live with did throw his dirty underwear at me and refused to tell me guten nacht when his mom asked him to. But if that's the worst thing that happens all day, there's really nothing to complain about! I slept in a bit, and then was fairly productive: laundry, emails, reading, translating. Translating is slow going, but I decided that at least for now, until I get more proficient with the vocabulary of international conflict and globalization, the best thing is to type up the whole chapter and paste it into google to get the basic picture. Then I'm working out the details and funny wordings with an online dictionary. Then, as time allows, I'm going back through with an eye for vocab, trying to get a feel for the German version of the information so that I'll sort of be able to follow class. It's a pretty entertaining process, actually, but it does take hours. I'm having a great time with the vocabulary though. For instance, did you know that sowjetunion is NOT the German phrase for "when pigs fly," but is actually the name of the Former Eastern European super power? Yup. 'Tis true. :) See? With homework this fun, who needs hobbies!

There is an older Swiss woman named Sylvia in my literature class who had a coffee factory in the Congo from the 1960s until the 1990s, when they lost everything (again) and were forced to return to Europe. Yesterday we were talking about Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and the girl who was scheduled to present didn't show up. My teacher used the opportunity to ask Sylvia all kinds of questions about her experiences in the Congo, and it was tremendously interesting!! She has some terrible stories, though. Really heartwrenching. For instance, she lived in the eastern part of the country, relatively close to Rwanda and Burundi. When there were conflicts between the Hutu and Tutsi (which began decades before the 1994 genocide), they felt the affects of it. She said in '71 or '72, one day she told her driver she needed to go to the city (Kinshasa?) to get milk for her children, because the shipment of powdered milk hadn't come in yet. He said he couldn't take her, but her father-in-law's driver could take her. She didn't understand why he was refusing, but the other driver seemed to understand, and they were just going to switch. But as she went out to the car, an Italian teacher from Kinshasa came in the gate, crying and a mess and said Sylvia had to stay and talk to her. She had been teaching that morning, and all the Tutsi girls were missing from class, so she asked the other girls if the Tutsi were having a feast that day. The girls had giggled and said "we have shot them this night." And they had. The teacher waited at Syliva's house for her things and went home to Italy and never went back to Africa.

In 1994, Sylvia had hostages camped outside their gate--"refugees," technically, but really part of the human shield of hostages that were being forced to stay there surrounding the militant insurgents in the middle. Each day there were people dead on the road who had tried to return home the night before. She said there was a very very old couple camped right in front of their gate, directly in front of it so that they had to move to let the car out. One day the old man said "Ich danke Ihnnen so, so viele!" He and his wife were old enough that they had learned German when they were little children when the Germans were colonizing that part of the continent.

Interesting, huh? Sorry for the awful stories. These are all things I read about in class, but it's different to hear it from a person who was right there to see it. The past suddenly jumps to the very present and very relevant when you meet someone like that.

Well, that wasn't so speedy afterall. Off to bed I go!

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Happy Last Day of Radiation, MOM!


Congrats are in order for my mom, who finishes radiation today!! I'm pleased to say it's gone well. You're cooler than a frozen lake in january, Mom! (and I'm sure I'm not alone in that opinion!)

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Home Fires

What do you get when you apply one girl to a pile of homework? A VERY clean room, a great salad, and a home improvement project of course! This week I had a lot of homework to do, which is not to say I’ve done it. I will do it, just as soon as I get done telling you everything else interesting that’s been happening this week. First things first, you know. The most exciting news of the week is that my crocuses are finally blooming!!

Everyone else’s have been blooming for a couple weeks now, but the little micro-eco system in my pot didn’t get the memo. They are finally with the program now and are busy serenading the morning each day. Crocuses used to be my favorite flower, and they’ll still in the top five, I’d say. Daffodils, old-fashioned roses, peonies, hydrangeas, lilacs, and jasmine are the other four. Oh wait, that makes 7. Well, anyway. I’m pleased about my flowers.

I’m also quite pleased with my recent additions to décor and functionality on the home front. First, we have my new star-studded “bookcase” (aka brown cardboard box).

It’s true that the box would have held books just as well without the great purple and silver wrapping-paper addition. But would it have looked just as pretty? Certainly not. And would the little lady of the room been as happy? Of course not! Hence, the wrapping paper (I have to hand it to you, Mom—I learned this from you).

Next, we have my new snazzy coffee-in-5-minutes French coffee press.

I really just wanted a normal, drip coffee maker. But I couldn’t find one under 60 francs, so the 20 franc alternative seemed like a good option, and I think of all my French friends (all two of them) every time I use it.

And finally, my beautiful new ceramic wall blocks. The picture doesn't really do them justice.

I actually bought these at home, at Valley Art in Forest Grove. I went in to find presents to bring back to some girls here (honest!) but instead I spent my Christmas money on a blue soap dish and these fantastic wall blocks, and put in a request for a third one in the same colors and motif. Someday, when I have an old farm house, they’re all going in my bathroom next to white curtains (I already have the fabric!). I unfortunately had to leave the wall blocks home, along with my growing collection of other art, old chairs, rugs, tea towels, cloth napkins, silverware, pottery, and power tools. Could it be any clearer that I need a house?!

I went to two concerts this week. Thursday night was Janet’s medieval improvisation concert in Leonhard Kirche in Basel. She played medieval harp. Then, moving ahead a century or two, last night Gaby and I went to Dominic’s baroque concert in Frick, which was also quite excellent and made me miss playing violin. I also got to listen to a lot of Swiss German along the way, which is always good.

That’s all my news! Hope you are all well!!
Love y’all!
steph