Rolling On One

One of the greatest parts of being in a Jewish choral group is singing psalms in the original language, where they scan the way they’re supposed to and you can feel that, although you don’t have any idea what the tune was in the first place, you’re singing at least words that people sung 2500 years ago.

In Koleinu we’re learning a setting of Psalm 118* (verses 19 – 24, anyway) by one of the better songwiters you’ve never heard of, Sholom Secunda. You know a couple of his tunes. Joan Baez popularized “Dona Dona” — “In a wagon, bound for market, there’s a calf with a mournful eye…” back in the ’60s. Secunda’s words for another song had a short life in the Yiddish theatre, but his tune went on to be the biggest hit record ever up to that time — Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen. His setting of Psalm 118 has varied tempos, a solo section that sounds cantorial, rich harmony, everything you want in a choral piece.

* and, cool! from that link I selected “Hebrew (OT)” from the read/print popup at the top of the page, and a new window with Hebrew script popped up.

Placewares, the former Boston area store chain that specialized in ‘places to put your things’, used to sell a line of furniture called Techline. The pieces all came knocked down, like Ikea stuff, and had to be assembled. They’re nice and sturdy, with a heavy laminate or thick enamel finish over chipboard. We have several of them in our Newton home office room. Arlene saw two Techline student desks posted on Craig’s List, on the other side of Newton. We went over to get them Wednesday evening. I’m posting this from a laptop on top of a two-drawer oak file cabinet that we got, oh, maybe three weeks ago on Craig’s List, but the desks will be put back together here in Casco tomorrow and we’ll have enough space to have a laptop, keyboard, and mouse all on one surface.

I forgot to say, one of the things I did last Sunday was use Matt’s tile saw to cut pieces to finish the hearth overlay for the Maine house. There’s a wood stove, but the brick hearth under it only extends a few inches from the front of the stove. Now, normally you open the side of the stove to put in more wood, and the bricks go out far enough from that side, but it’s not safe to open the front of the stove when it’s lit now. Several weeks ago I brought up a piece of plywood and lots of leftover tiles from the Newton bathroom, cut the plywood to fit in front of the bricks, and put down tiles as far as I could. The corners needed tiles cut to order, though. Matt has a tile saw that he’s been using while working on his mother’s bathroom. That projec† is done, and he loaned it to me. It has lots of warnings — you MUST use hand, eye, and ear protec†ion while using this tool — so I had been somewhat intimidated. I took a deep breath, set it up, and sawed four or five tiles quickly and easily with it. So that projec† is ready for some grout.

We were in Maine again this weekend. There was a lot of fog going up on Friday evening. We stayed on route 302 through Windham rather than taking the longer but faster but less traveled route through Gray, which had seemed very slow in the fog two weeks ago. The Windham route was still slow in the fog, but more familiar so even with the fog it was better than the other way.

The sky was beautifully clear when we got to Casco. I got out the H.A. Rey star book and went outside to look for a little while. One thing I liked when we first saw the property was that there was a lot of open sky. There was a good view of stars from Sirius on the one side to Cassiopia on the other (if you don’t mind my mixing a star with a constellation).

Our first trip Saturday was to Bridgton to get information on the Mushers Bowl winter carnival that’s going to happen next weekend. Arlene wanted to look in antique stores, but they all seemed to be closed. Reny’s department store was open, though, with things marked down and an additional 20% off lots of items. She got a flannel shirt; I got a pair of corduroy pants, originally L.L. Bean’s, for about $5 after all the markdowns, a corduroy shirt, and a lightweight sports shirt. We crossed the street for a local paper and headed back to the house.

The weather was nice (though still disturbingly warm!) most of Saturday. We set out to walk clockwise around the property, cutting a trail along the northeast boundary as we went. The snow was melting. Our socks and pants cuffs got cold and wet before we got to the end of that side of the property. We did find the stake at that corner of the lot, the first time we’ve found it, though. From that point it wasn’t long before we found the trail we had cut around the other three sides of the property, and we got back in less time (though more than three times the distance) than the first side had taken us.

I made a batch of bread, sort of 50% whole wheat bread with half a cup of honey and three quarters of a cup of Wholefoods cranberry trail mix. I had made some white bread with the trail mix thrown in several weeks ago. After this batch, I’ve decided it’s definitely my favorite bread add-in. Between the nuts, cranberries, and other ingredients, it adds lots of texture and flavor.

Saturday evening we went to Windham to check out the new Lowe’s store for a washer and dryer. We didn’t get the appliances, but we got lots of information about what’s available, delivery, etc. We did come back with a snow shovel, a shop vac, three cellular window shades (did you think phones?), and small items. I was excited to find that they carry hardwood in lots of thicknesses down to 1/4 inch — perfect for sides of small drawers, if I ever want to make small drawers.

We started the fourth jigsaw puzzle of the set of four lighthouses. It’s still sitting there, unfinished.

I put the vise on my workbench, and pine boards over the front and back 2 x 6s to bring the height up above the vise jaws. So that’s all done!

Today we installed a new toilet seat (another Lowe’s purchase), put up the window shades, and hung four pieces of art.

We stopped at a Japanese restaurant, Sakura, in Portsmouth NH on the way back. It was the middle of the superbowl. The restaurant emptied out while we were there. Walking back to the car, we said, “Here in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the normally bustling streets are deserted.”

Much of the way home from Portsmouth we were able to hear the Maine Public Broadcasting Network airing the Classically Black program about composer Florence Beatrice Price, whom I’m sorry to say I had never heard of before. We like to keep MPBN on as long as we can, just to stay in Maine longer, anyway. We lose the station just as I-95 merges onto route 128.

The plant cafeteria had a special superbowl tailgate barbecue lunch yesterday, and I couldn’t resist. It wasn’t at all bad. Besides lots of ribs (and that was after I told the cook, “I’m a small guy, give me a small batch of ribs”) there was cornbread, baked beans, cole slaw, and corn. I would have been delighted with it, except that the family had decided that we were going out to dinner to celebrate my birthday (two weeks after the fact, as it happened), and I had chosen to go to Bob’s Southern Bistro, the former Bob The Chef’s, so I could get barbecue. I would have preferred to spread my rib consumption out more.

Less than half of my reason for wanting to go to Bob’s is the barbecue. The rest is the side dishes and dessert. There are other places that have decent barbecue in the Boston area (notably Blue Ribbon in West Newton, and Charley recommends Redbones in Davis Square), but I don’t know any other source of good collard greens, blackeyed peas, or sweet potato pie. Except for times that I get to choose where we go to eat, or if I try to cook blackeyes myself (a losing proposition in a kosher kitchen) I’ll never get any of those. So, even though I left over some of the main dish, I ate my vegetables.

I jumped out of bed this morning and shaved in cold water, but it was still late by the time I left for work after the plumbers had removed our old water heater. I went to City Hall to pay the real estate tax, and then across the street to the library to return one irrelevant book and start my February reading by taking out a couple of plays by August Wilson. I’m pretty sure what I have are Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Jitney.

I filled up the gas tank on the way to work. Bruno’s station finally has pay-at-the-pump pumps! It’s always been awfully slow there, since the attendant has had to go into his booth to fill out a credit card slip up to now.

When I got home from klezmer class last night Arlene said, “We have a problem. There’s water in the basement and the hot water heater is broken”.

We’ve replaced our water heater twice before in this house. This one turned out to be just under ten years old, and since it was a warrantee replacement of the previous one, it’s not under warrantee. I did without a shower this morning and shaved in cold water. The plumbers were here by just about 8:45 this morning and are working on getting a new one in.

Our starting piano player at klezmer class told us two weeks ago that she had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Not only did she tell us, but when our 80-something violinist, who’s a little hard of hearing, asked what was going on, the pianist had to repeat it, twice, louder and louder. I couldn’t imagine. I just tried to type it, in all caps, to give you the effect, but it’s not easy to type and it wouldn’t have been easy to look at.

The surgery is next Tuesday. It was caught very early and the prognosis is good, but still. Our pianist was there last night, in pretty good spirits. We played two numbers secially for her, one that our flautist says was very important to him when he was very ill a couple of years ago, “Abi Gesundt” (a-BEE ge-SUNDT), “So Long as You’re Healthy”. It’s probably from the ’30s, by Molly Picon, the great star vocalist of Yiddish theatre. “Zei nor gesundt” (“just be healthy”) and “abi gesundt” are common phrases to say to a person on parting, like saying “take care” or “be well.” The song goes, “A little sun, a little rain, a quiet place to sleep, so long as you have your health, you can be happy”. I sung it in Yiddish the first time through, and then we all took solos. Tears were coming to my eyes on the piano solo.

The other song is one we didn’t have music for, and just tried to remember and fake as best we could. The woman said that the morning after the diagnosis she woke up and found herself singing “Can do” from the musical “Guys and Dolls.” The name of the song is really “Fugue for Tinhorns”. “I’ve got the horse right here, the name is Paul Revere, and there’s a guy who says that if the weather’s clear, can do, can do…”

At my physical therapy appointment today, I thought someone who walked out of a small room a couple of tables away looked and sounded familiar. I asked my therapist, “is that ?” Yes.

That was my last appointment there. The muscle spasm in my back is really gone. I’ve been typing and writing for much longer stretches than a week ago, so I’m hoping that the tingling in my left hand is going away, too. It’s hard to tell how much better it may or may not be getting. Two weeks ago there were days when I could barely button my shirt, because I couldn’t find the buttonholes with my left hand. It felt as though there was a lot of static on the line from my fingertips and the feeling was getting lost in the noise. There’s still static, but the signal-to-noise ratio is improving. I’ve been thinking that the way to measure the improvement is in how many decibels the signal-to-noise ratio is, but I have no real way to measure that.

Zum Gali Gali Rubber Stamps was invited to present a workshop at a Jewish education conference in Rhode Island that was today. The conference was on integrating art into Jewish education. The keynote speaker talked about theories of multiple intelligence, teaching with art, and teaching by art. Arlene had prepared a big display board with examples of stamping on all levels from kindergarten worksheets to complex greeting cards and decorated envelopes we’ve received. The participants really got into it and did some good work.

The conference was over early in the afternoon. I had looked on Google Maps yesterday and thought I could find Watchemoket Cove. Sure enough, after one stop at a parking area way above water level, we got to a parking place next to the East Bay Bike Path and walked down the bike path to the water. There were lots of American widgeon (baldpate), a mallard-sized duck that we used to see all the time at Great Meadows but have seen only rarely in the last several years; three canvasbacks; loads of swans; red-breasted and hooded mergansers; and a big flock of scaup. Apparently a very rare gull has been seen around there, but we didn’t try to pick it out from among the large number of very similar ring-billed gulls.

We went back to College Hill, found a parking space near RISD, and went to the RISD museum. I qualify as a senior citizen for admission, as of just under two weeks ago.

I started to put rush on the seat of that rocking chair for the living room. Arlene is threatening to buy a Craig’s List-listed chair that needs a new rush seat, so maybe I’ll be doing a third one soon.