After the recital.... Laura with her lovely chrysanthemums.

This past weekend, Scott and I drove to Beaver Falls, PA for Laura's junior piano recital. The drive back to Indiana was particularly striking since we took state highways down the Ohio River valley, past old steel towns. Old houses huddled in the shadow of abandoned mills, their views of the river entirely blocked by enormous sheds and towering smokestacks. Houses whose elegant wooden facades were peeling and crumbling, their porches sagging, their windows boarded over. It all seemed particularly haunting given the weather: a steel-grey sky, dry snow swirling endlessly across the windscreen. Hillsides cloaked with tall, straight, black trees, the river rolling steel-grey and flat under the flat sky.

Seeing my mother, Laura, and Stephen was delightful though, with Mrs. P, Stephen M, and Keith as well. Laura played beautifully; probably about seventy or eighty people came to the concert. On Saturday, we went out for breakfast at BFCAT for their legendary waffles, and then downtown to Athen's (yes, that's how it was spelled) for lunch. I think Scott and I both could've spent much more time with everyone, but we wanted to be back for church in Bloomington on Sunday, so we ended up driving fifteen hours out of the last thirty-six.... Sweetened with some Father Brown mysteries and a sermon by Pastor D, of course!

Church today was well worth coming back for. Pastor H has been preaching on Joshua, a surprisingly encouraging book, as it turns out. Today: Joshua 5, preparation for fighting against the Canaanites, about how God equips His people, sets them apart as His own, feeds them, provides for them, strengthens their faith. A timely reminder that it's not what we do so much as who we are that God cares about (of course, what we do flows from who we are, necessarily).

The weather today has also been gorgeous, a pleasant change from that bleak Ohio afternoon. Daffodils coming up and crocuses blooming in profusion.

Stargazers to help drive back the grey days.

This weekend Scott and I are driving up to Beaver Falls for Laura's junior recital. It will be a whirlwind fourteen-hours-in-two-days drive, but well worth it.

Now Playing: Some sort of Indie pop music in The Pourhouse where I'm sitting.

I'm grading essays for W131 right now. Slowly, slowly, slowly.

Scott has been painting away.... The office is now a lovely shade of robin's egg blue. Since it's up at the highest corner of the house, the room feels like an aerie or the cabin at the bow of a ship.

Now Playing: Brahms, Requiem, "Behold, all flesh is as the grass."

Scott and I went out for sushi yesterday for lunch. The colorful plate made a vivid contrast to the snow outside (by this morning, most of the snow has melted).

Now Playing: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack by Howard Shore, "The Prophecy." I know, I know, but I just can't give it up. It's such good study music.

Right now I ought to be revising a short paper that's due tomorrow in my Cosmopolitanism in Medieval Literature class. The professor assigned it last Tuesday and gave us a week to complete it, but she also said she didn't want us to spend too much time on it. I feel sort of as though I cheated because all day Wednesday and Thursday, I had two documents open: this paper, and the poem I was writing for workshop tomorrow. I'd poke at them both by turns, but I'm not sure whether that approach helped or hindered.

Anyway, this past weekend was lovely: Laura, Mary, Cindy, and I drove up to Chicago. We stayed with Laura's grandparents overnight (they have a house by Lake Michigan, an hour's train ride east of Chicago) and took the train into the city the next morning. We ate brunch at the Bourgeois Pig, a restaurant about as delightful as its name would indicate. Some of the best waffles I've ever had.

We spent most of the day at the Art Institute. Balm to my soul: it's been a long, long time since I've been to a real art museum. Their collection of Impressionist paintings is fabulous. I stood for minutes on end, mesmerized by A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, Seurat's famous pointillist painting, and was startled into delight by one of Monet's Waterlilies, by vivid blue and deep green. They had Corot, Constable, and Turner as well--like running into old friends. Toulouse-Lautrec lent his nightmare-like gargoyles to the Impressionist wing, and Degas a few restrained, delicate pastels.

For a late lunch we joined one of Laura's friends at a pizza place for Chicago pizza. Crust as flaky as pie dough, and an enormous wedge of sausage down the middle. Then we took the train back to Beverly Shores and drove to Bloomington. The moon rose in the southeast, very low, enormous, orange and lavender.

And now it's back to work: paper for class tomorrow, poem for workshop tomorrow, film screenings in W131 this week, a presentation on Thursday, and so on and so forth.

Apparently, spring is the time for gorgeous sunrises. We're battening down the hatches for snow here. If Oklahoma got it, amazingly, then I'm guessing we will, too. Poor daffodils!

This morning I went running, and it was snowing. Little tiny snowflakes. So apparently spring isn't here yet after all....

A slice of life in Bloomington.

This past Wednesday evening, we celebrated the first orchestra concert of the semester--Rachmaninoff's 2nd piano concerto and Brahms's 4th symphony--with dinner at Scott's house. I made curry, which has become my specialty, and Mary made pears soaked in rum sauce. Her plan: to set the pears on fire, in a reprise of her attempt at my birthday party back in November (she used wine that time, which didn't work).

Scott, Laura, and Eric helpfully suggested that a cast-iron skillet might be a better place for the not-yet-flaming pears than a thin metal baking sheet.

On goes the sauce....

 Partners in crime, as usual. Scott provides the lighter.

Success! We stood around and watched the sauce flare up in small, petal-shaped blue flames before we ate the pears with vanilla ice cream.

A lovely sunrise this week, one of the few perks of waking up at half six every morning I teach.

There he is, ladies and gentlemen, a cardinal perched up in that saucer magnolia. I love cardinals because when they start to sing, it's usually late winter or early spring, and their cheer-cheer-cheer-cheer calls often signal the end of the most bitter weather. This morning I walked home from campus and was treated to not only cardinals, but also chickadees and sparrows (a trio of them nearly ran into my head), as well as snowdrops and crocuses blooming at the feet of trees. It felt very much like Aslan's spring in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (minus the snow!).