Steinway dream comes true

Remember my friends who are about to go travel in the motor home? See June 20. Rather than leave her 1927 7-foot Steinway grand piano in storage, Janet was nice enough to drop it off today for an extended visit at our house. I just wish I could play well enough to be up to the instrument's standard.

Last winter a mutual friend had a dream that Janet left her piano with me during this trip, and that indirectly led to this arrangement.

The piano obviously has decided to make the best of this upheaval and looks very content in our front hall.

Descarga -- Stanford Jazz Festival

Stanford Jazz Workshop happens every summer at nearby Stanford University. There are classes and camps and a lot of evening concerts.

Last night Ken and I went with my friend Dawn to see "Descarga: Salsa meets Jazz". I love Latin jazz, "descarga" means "jam", so how could we lose? The trombonist Wayne Wallace, in the photo above, was the leader of a lot of great local jazz musicians. The show was even better than we had hoped and had a standing ovation at the end.

To see more about this concert:
http://www.stanfordjazz.org/Bios/062604_Desgarga.html

Funny in Farsi

I just finished reading Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas, a humorous, affectionate look at growing up in an Iranian family in the United States. Some of my friends didn't think it was so funny and that it was a bit mean spirited, but I disagree.

Speaking of Iranian women who write, there is a note on the blogspot home page about Lady Sun, the online identity of one of the first Iranian women to start a blog. I can't read pinkfloydish.com myself.

Hallelujah, we loved him so

We lost Ray Charles on June 10. His funeral last week included musical tributes from Glen Campbell, Wynton Marsalis, David Newman, Stevie Wonder, Willie Nelson, and BB King. That's my idea of a great sendoff.

At irreverent moments, I remember him in the parody Whoopi Goldberg used to do, swaying back and forth as she pretended to sit sightless at a piano. Hearing his voice sing Georgia on my Mind on the radio tugged at my heart.

I went to iTunes to pick up some of his music and found his earlier jazz piano work. Some of the tunes with Milt Jackson and David "Fathead" Newman have held up very well.

Book Group

Several years ago, some friends of a friend were at a St. Patrick's Day party and decided to form a book group to read James Joyce's Ulysses. I had always been afraid to attempt this monster novel alone, so I joined in. We plugged along, 100 pages at a time, until four of us finished the book.

Members came and went, but for five years we read more than 20 books that we just wouldn't have read on our own. We rotated our meetings through all of our homes and the host(ess) served dinner. We even went on field trips, once to the Steinbeck home and museum in Salinas.

We got tired of the book thing, but we still get together to enjoy good food and good company. We met at David's house last night. He is pictured above with Nancy and Mary Beth.

David made a wonderful meal that ended with this cake.

Janet and David hit the road

We met our former neighbors and friends Janet and David Smith when our children were very young. After they moved away, I started taking piano lessons from Janet. Our lives have intersected a number of times.

Last night I went to their "Bon Voyage" party thrown by their neighbors in Saratoga. The Smiths have retired, sold their house and most possessions, and will be travelling in a large motor home for the next year and beyond. I look forward to reading their trip blog.

Here is a photo of their "land yacht":

Matthew Shipp

I heard a short piece about this jazz pianist on NPR. As a result, I bought his "Anti-Pop Consortium" CD which is a very original combination of hip-hop and jazz. I also love a solo jazz piano cut of his, "Prelude to a Kiss" from iTunes. So I was looking forward to his solo concert in San Francisco last weekend.

His recorded work goes off on tangents from time to time, but this concert was ALL tangents. He came out and played enthusiastically and loudly for 40 to 50 minutes at a clip with only a very rare nod to the melody. Like maybe there was 40 seconds of a hint of the melody in 40 minutes of, well, something. I could sort of see what he was trying to do harmonically, but it just didn't grab me.

I kept thinking of that "Bad Opera" skit they used to do on Saturday Night Live with Dan Aykroyd, only this was "Bad Jazz" and a MUCH longer skit.

Debra's Graduation and Grandma's visit

My niece Debra graduated from high school and her parents threw a great party. Debra is in the center in the blue shirt. An aunt (in the white shirt) from Israel was in San Francisco for a conference. Debra's dad, my husband's brother Bob, is at the right with a bottle of champagne. Other friends and family were there, too.



A special treat for us all was a visit from my mother-in-law from Chicago. In this photo, Daniel is telling her about surfing and she is telling him about swimming in the ocean as a child in Santa Monica.

Richard Russo's NOBODY'S FOOL

As in EMPIRE FALLS, which won the Pulitzer Prize a couple of years ago, Russo sets NOBODY's FOOL in a town that continues to live on after the reason for its existence is gone. I finished this book a couple of days ago and am still haunted by the characters. It's laugh out loud funny at parts. What gradually dawned on me was that the story is really about how a 60-year-old man can be so haunted by his brutal alcoholic father that he still cannot get on with his life.

Now I realize that this book was made into a movie with Paul Newman. Gotta see that.

The Great Job Hunt of 2002-2003-2004

Maybe my blog brought me good luck. The interview that I mentioned in my first post led to a job.

I was notified that I was laid off from HP in September of 2002, my official termination date was in November 2002. I learned a lot from outplacement services and and PenNet, a volunteer agency run by the state of California. For a whole year I worked really hard at finding work, but in all that time I only had three interviews and no offers.

After some time off from my search, I started looking again in February 2004. To keep myself motivated, I set up an incentive system -- if I managed to apply for 10 jobs in a week, I allowed myself to spend $5 on iTunes. Maybe that sounds silly, but it worked. Although I certainly would not say that the market has opened up, I did get more interviews and phone screens this year.

Things went well today at my first day on the job at RSA Security, who considerately moved to San Mateo before I started work. I have lots to learn and lots to do, but my first impression is that the long job hunt has come to a good conclusion.

Looking back, I am grateful for the time off that I could spend with friends and doing fun things. I got really good at looking for work, a skill that had never been necessary in a flush economy. I had the luxury of a husband who was earning money and had employee health benefits -- I won't take either for granted ever again. I can't forget that it's still really tough for many of my friends and former co-workers who haven't found a job.

Shrek 2

"Well, I'd already won an Academy Award so the only thing left to do was to go into management." This is the best quote from my job hunt and came from an Oscar winning software guy who interviewed me at PDI Dreamworks last year.

Ken and I decided to go see this movie today on the spur of the moment. I thought the story and characters were a lot of fun. The matinee also let us overhear cute little kids piping up with their comments. As the cliche goes, it was fun for young and old.

Alas, Dreamworks did not hire me and as is usually the case, I will never know why. So when the credits rolled and I saw familiar names, I felt a twinge of regret that my name was not among them. Still, they were a good bunch of techy folks, the company seemed like a real class act, and I applaud them for this terrific achievement.

Trip to Pennsylvania

From May 27 to June 2, I was visiting family and friends in Pennsylvania. It was a great vacation: pleasant weather with low humidity, GREEN GREEN scenery, lots of good food, and fun times with people that I love.

Here's a picture of some family members.


My uncle took this picture of my daughter.


I took the opportunity to visit a friend from high school who now lives in Virginia.


The trip to Virginia was an uneventful drive, except that I was stopped when tow trucks were removing the wreckage from an accident. I found a local paper on the internet that said one truck was blown over by a gust of wind. As it slid on its side, it collided with another truck.


Click here to see the whole photo album from the trip.

Back to livin' the vida blogga

I just returned from a trip to Pennsylvania and will write more about that soon. The iMac is also back. Yes!!!

My system for hosting photos returned with the iMac, so I reposted a few blog entries back to May 19. I felt a little like I was rewriting history, but please take a look.