The Month in Review

Well, dear reader, it has been quite a month. Looking back over the month's posts, it went from naked gardening to report cards, with pink kittens, bad math, Buddhist teaching, windy weather, Bach and basketball and the continued outrage of that guy who continues to thrash around like the bull in the china shop of democracy.

On the school front, Spring Concerts tucked away, report cards rearing their unwelcome heads next to the annual Samba Contest. Today 4^th graders in groups of four put together a coherent samba dance routine in eight minutes flat. Kids never fail to astound me with their energy, spirit, intelligence and kindness and that’s why I’m signing up for another tour of duty next year. Of course, they drive me up the wall, as is their job, but for now, the delight outweighs the insanity.

On the personal front, I went the entire 31 days without eating a granule of sugar, generally ate healthier and less, but the mirror is not reporting any progress on the 10-lbs.-less front. I vowed not to step on the scale until June 1 and tomorrow I will do so with fear and trembling. But really, at the end of the day, why should I even care? No young woman at bars are checking me out anyway and if my sense of beauty hasn’t moved its address to the soul by now, then I’ve wasted all these years. I did hike and bike more as well, not just to make numbers drop on the scale or rise on the cardio-vascular count, but for the simple pleasure of being outdoors and moving the body. I changed my screensaver on the computer, thought more about getting an i-Phone and decided “still not yet,” and got through another month without a microwave (never have had one—don’t think I ever will).

On the art consumption front, I reluctantly finished the wonderful book The Time In-Between, now am into Commonwealth by Ann Patchett and  enjoyed the always thought-provoking words of Wendell Berry in his new collection A Small Porch. Got hooked into the HBO series Veep, always there for me when I’m tired of thinking or producing or creating. I’m sure I saw some good movies, but except for the most recent Spanish film Truman, of course, I can’t remember them. I went to the Summer of Love exhibit at the De Young Museum and enjoyed some wonderful shows at SF Jazz.

In my own artistic pursuits, the piano and I remain close. Every once in a while it lets me feel that I’m breaking new ground in jazz improvisation or classical piano precision, only to turn around on some days and say with a smirk, “Just kidding!” The blog also remains a faithful companion, but my connection to it is indeed diminished by the either real or fake mammoth drop in stats. Yesterday it said 0! And is hovering between 20 and 70. (Thanks to Jeffrey Wilson for commenting that he’s still a faithful reader!)

June will kick off with the Warriors match of mythical proportions with the Cavaliers. I’ve been a faithful playoff fan, watching each of the 12 games they won. Now it feels like the meeting of “an irresistible force with an immovable object.” Should be exciting, but if the Warriors don’t sweep the series (not impossible, but unlikely), I’ll once again miss the final games unless I can find a Sports Bar in Morocco. Devastated about that! We’ll see what happens.

For the few faithful readers left, that’s the news and I know none of it deserves to be interesting, but occasionally I hope a sentence or two entertains you or provokes an interesting thought or affirms an unspoken feeling—or at least gives you a good book or movie recommendation! Happy June to you all!