The ongoing project

Whew it has been a whirlwind month. How refreshing it is to step out of our usual repertoire of reading choices. The book clubs have forced us to stretch and read things that neither of us would read -- for example Brian is reading some great fiction and I am reading more history. Now there's a reversal! But both of us are enjoying the ones that we read together. We had a blast reading Water for Elephants and both adored the book.
I so feel as if I am on a senior slide. It is an effort for me to get to the computer to finish up works in progress. But I finally managed to complete the full manuscript for the Tasman-Mohr collaboration. Yay! Luckily, being the important personage he is, Allan is not too timely so he did not notice me dragging my feet in the last few months. At work I find that I could really not care what is going on and I basically read a book through meetings. Always hated those anyway as they are such a waste of precious time.
Time -- ah yes -- what a precious commodity and more precious every day. I was reading an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about a gambler. The guy is unemployed (lost job) has a wife and two kids and goes to the casino in Chester several times a week to -- as he puts it -- "kill time." Why would anyone want to kill time. Time is to fill with interesting things to do and things to learn -- not to kill. I wonder how many people out there (gambling addicts and others) are living lives of quiet and gray desperation where it is so dismal that they have to kill the precious commodity of time.
This past few weeks we met one of our "art of cooking" groups at a Venezualan Restaurant. Oh Yum. I've had a lot of cuisine, but never Venezualan. It was great! This group is run by a chef and he does interesting activities such as visiting the Terminal Market and the Italian Market, cooking classes, and sampling interesting fare across the city.
We attended an all Brahms performance at the symphony. The performance was wonderful, but Brahms is really not my favorite. I prefer more Romantic rather than Baroque and then my favorite, Berlioz, who was a true character, is always a treat. We attended the Picasso and the Avant Garde special exhibit. It was very well done and on Saturday we will be taking the first half of the course in cubism at the museum, so that will enrich what we saw. The last course we took (last month) was on the Renaissance and it was great. The U. of Penn. art history professor really brought the art and architecture to life, placing it in the context of what was going on historically and economically in Europe.
We visited Jon and Shannon for 4 days and took the kids to Gymboree and other kiddie activities. Jacqueline sure does like her Dziadzio, while Sophie seems to favor Babcia.
We watched Alina for a weekend while Tara and Mike went to the beer festival and she wore us out. The child has soooo much energy and she is always up and happy. What a temperament! She loves her Dziadzio, favoring him over me. We met the kids in Philly for lunch earlier this week for their anniversary and when she saw him in the restaurant, she yelled "Dziadzio!" at the top of her lungs and ran to him, throwing herself into his arms. It was truly a Kodak moment.
On a final note, sadly we had to put Wookie and Bevo down today. Wookie was almost 18 and Bevo was 15. They both had arthritis and had trouble going up and down the stairs. Wookie was in renal failure and drinking and peeing everywhere. Bevo was spraying to cover Wookie's scent. It became an untenable situation. This is the first time that we will be without an animal in over 30 years. Very sad.