Happy Birthday, Monee!

I went to visit Grandpa Marsh in the hospital today. I was actually pretty impressed with how he's doing -- he was smiling and talkative and seemed to be taking everything very well. So it made me feel a lot better to see him.

Grandpa Marsh got well enough to return home from Austria and now he is in John Muir Hospital. He had actually had a stroke, which affected his speech, orientation and blood pressure, and he is still pretty weak from having been hospitalized so long. He will probably leave the hospital fairly soon but will need to go to a convalescent home for physical therapy before finally going home. But we are all very glad he is back in California again and is gradually improving. We love you, Grandpa Marsh!

I'm reading another book by Eknath Easwaran now, and came across this passage: "Very often when people come to me and announce that they have moved out of their parents' home, left their boyfriend or girlfriend, or terminated an old friendship, they explain by saying, 'We had irreconcilably different philosophies of life.' If I may be blunt, the problem is not irreconcilable differences in philosophy, as if you and your estranged partner used to debate free will versus predestination; it is simply that neither was flexible enough to concede that the other has a valid point of view." (The Mantram Handbook, pg 108.) That one really struck me. I wish I'd been reading this a long time ago.

Happy Birthday, Pa!

We had a very nice party today at Rossmoor. Today is Pa's birthday and Halloween is Monee's, so we usually just have a double celebration. Mom, Paul, Curtis, Jill and I were all there, and as a special surprise Cristie and Andy came down from Seattle. (Side note: Cristie and Andy had their first date a year ago today -- Happy Anniversary!) So we had almost all the cousins there, just missing Lacey (we miss you, Lacey!). We ate a lot, watched the end of the world series, ate some more, saw Paul's pictures from Thailand and England and generally had a nice time. Here are some photos.

I went to Jammix last night and I also got a pair of dance sneakers (my old shoes are already falling apart). The sneakers are comfy and should last a lot longer. They're a bit different to dance in, but they worked pretty well last night. It was a fun dance, though I'm a bit tired now. Someday I need to find a way to reconcile wanting to be a dance person with wanting to be a morning person, in a way that still gets me enough sleep.

Tonight is the Halloween contra dance, which I've never been to, since it's always the same date as the Halloween Gaskells. I've been thinking about going this year, but I guess it'll depend on if I feel like staying up late again, which I may not. Also, sometimes one dance in a weekend is just enough (especially when there were three last weekend).

I guess I haven't said anything here for the past few days, the primary reasons for this being:

• Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thic Nhat Hanh


• The Early Diary of Anaïs Nin by Anaïs Nin


• Meditation by Eknath Easwaran


• Harry Potter y el Prisionero de Azkaban by J. K. Rowling


• Bethena by Scott Joplin (as well as other piano pieces, of course)

In other news, I signed up at a temp agency the other day, but I haven't started working yet. I'm not hurting for money yet, but it would be nice not to get to that point. And this way I can maybe have a somewhat more flexible schedule, as well as a chance to see what other companies are like and to gain more general work experience. We'll see what happens with that.

Also, we heard today that Grandpa Marsh is still improving, and if all goes well everyone will come home in about 4 days. He'll go directly to John Muir Hospital, but at least he'll be back.

Here's today's Doonesbury cartoon for all you bloggers out there.

I've been very lucky recently to have a lot of wonderful music in my life. There was the Nightingale concert, of course, after which I spent a while listening to their CDs and learning tunes off them. Then we had a live swing band at the dance last night, and that's always fun. Today I've been listening to Testimony's excellent CD, which I borrowed from Tina. I also went to a student piano recital this afternoon. I went specifically to hear the two Scriabin sonatas, which were great, but I also really enjoyed the Rachmaninoff pieces and the Busoni Bach transcription. Tonight, more Nightingale, this time at the contra dance. I love music.

I went to the Swing Kids dance on campus last night, and that was a lot of fun. Lots of people there that I didn't know, though. It was sort of disconcerting. But I had a good time and learned a few cool new moves, thanks to Kari, Donia and Tina. Tonight there's a Homecoming weekend swing dance on the Quad. I'll probably go for a bit and see how I do with dancing on concrete.

WOW! Nightingale is such an awesome band! I went to their concert tonight and it was amazing. I was pretty much just spellbound the whole time. I also finally got my own copies of their two cds. And I'll probably go to the contra dance they're playing in Santa Cruz on Sunday. Wow. Yay for music and great musicians.

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Last night I stopped by the end of Viennese Ball Opening rehearsal. It was fun to see everyone who's in it this year and talk to Qi a little bit about his choreography and all that. This was the part of Opening I always liked best -- just dancing with everyone and learning the choreographies. I do miss it a bit, but I really don't want to be in a performing group right now, otherwise I'd be doing it again.

The most recent news from Germany is that Grandpa Marsh has been getting a bit better, and may be able to come home in a week or so. Dad's heading out there today, though, so at least someone else can be there with them.

Uncle Jim and Siri Kirpal are down from Oregon for a few days, so tonight I got to visit them with Mom and Monee and Pa, up at Rossmoor. It was really nice to see them again, I wish it were something we could do more often.

Unfortunately, we also got some unpleasant news. Grandpa Marsh and Grandma Jackie were supposed to be getting back from their latest trip to Europe, but a few days ago Grandpa Marsh was hospitalized in Germany. Aunt Tommy made it back to the States as scheduled, which is how we heard about it, but Grandma Jackie is still over there with him. It's frustrating having them be so far away and not being able to see them or anything, but we're all praying for them, or sending them loving thoughts, or whatever it is we each prefer to do.

I've got a wonderful family. I love you all.

I ended up not going to the Berkeley Waltz night on Friday. I was too tired and didn't want to deal with the drive, plus a lot of friends from here at Stanford decided not to go. But I went to Dance Lab and later had a nice evening hanging out with Tina instead.

I did, however, go to the contra dance last night, and that was fun. Stump Tail Dog was playing. Listening to Dan always makes me want to start writing more tunes. I'll have to get him to teach me a bunch of his at camp this year.

On Saturday morning I had tried to go to the Palo Alto flea market, in search of rugs for my room, but when I got there I found that it was actually on Sunday. Grr. I would have liked to have slept in on Saturday. But anyway, I went back this morning, not being too hopeful, since usually at flea markets you find things you're not looking for. But as soon as I got there I started seeing rugs all around. A lot of them were way too expensive, but I did find a couple nice ones and now my room is much nicer and I am quite pleased.

I haven't been teaching a whole lot of music lessons recently, but by now I've made enough money from it to pay for Camp Harmony! That's kind of cool.

More library volunteering time tonight. As the only person in the computer lab who knows anything about computers, I tend to get called on to fix various random things, but that's okay. I also helped some people learn how to set up an e'mail account and practice with spelling and typing programs. Nice people there, and I enjoy helping, so it was all good.

I just finished Harry Potter Book 2 in Spanish. On to book 3!

Friday Night Waltz was fun last night. Thank you Joan for going out and getting a minidisc so we could have a zweifacher. And thank you John for teaching me a new cross step waltz move. And thanks to everyone for all the wonderful dances.

Today Mom and I went to Santa Cruz, to sort through some of the stuff she still had in the garage down there. There was a lot of it. I found some old things of mine, too, including a bag of stuffed animals. There was a dragon I had been missing for a while, a unicorn, a couple dogs, and an absolutely ridiculous strip of brown fur with a single eye at one end. That's the one that amused me the most.

I had my first evening of volunteering at the library last night. It wasn't a very busy night in the computer lab, but that was okay since the lady who's usually in charge of it was out sick. So I was there with a new employee and we mostly just spent the time figuring out what sort of programs were around for people to use and helping with basic computer questions for the few students who were there. It's usually busier there in the evenings, so it will probably be more interesting next week.

Today I went down to Starlite Ballroom for an interview for the dance instructor job. Turns out the hours for that job would be 1pm to 10pm, though, which would be a bit of a problem. But oh well, interview practice is always good.

Well, I've had a couple days of being unemployed now. So far I'm kind of just taking it easy. A little rejuvenation time with lots of books and piano playing is always good. I'm spending some time looking for jobs, too, but it's a bit difficult since I don't really know yet what I want to look for. I've still got a lot of thinking to do about that. It's one of those things that only seems to get harder as you go along, though.