Peter Quince

I'm running a little behind in postings. Here's the first part of the early August performance at Purchase College of Midsummer Night's Dream in which Becca played Peter Quince:

Cape

We're just back from a few days at the Cape. When we first got to the Cape we shopped at the Hyannis Mall to make Becca happy.

In Provincetown we went to the Race Point Beach,ate lobster at Clem and Ursie's,shopped, and visited the Bearded Lady to see what was wrong with Becca's ear cartilage.

We saw the new Woody Allen movie and spent part of two afternoons swimming at Hathaway's Pond, one of my favorite swimming spots in all the world. It's got beautiful surroundings, a clear sandy bottom in the part of the pond near the beach, and is usually uncrowded since most folks who don't live in the Barnstable area or don't scuba dive seem unaware of it.
And our last night there, after lobster rolls at Seafood Sam's, Becca and Kathy competed with each other in minigolf (and I competed with myself).

Macy

About a month ago, the man next door moved back to Australia and Macy came to live with us. Here are the first few pictures we've taken of her:

Summer Reading

Over the last few weeks, as I’ve sat waiting for Becca to come out of various activities or been at airports waiting for planes to take off, I’ve finally had the chance to get a lot of “summer reading” done.

I’ve made through all four of Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies trilogy. I really enjoyed the new world developed in Uglies and elaborated upon in Pretties a lot. By the time I got to Specials however, I’d sort of lost interest with what would happen to Tally Youngblood and her friend Shay since that volume didn’t seem to contain any more creative developments about the world in which they were living. Extras was exactly the opposite. The idea the fourth volume took on was a very creative one, but I just couldn’t get into it because none of the lead characters (all different from those in the first three books of the trilogy) really interested me. I’m glad, though, that I stayed with Extras to the end since the last part of it was the best.

I finally got the time to read Michael Shaara’s Killer Angels, a novel that does a superb job of capturing the personalities involved in the decisions at the Battle of Gettysburg and gives a much less textbooky feeling to the issues that drove the Civil War. I also read Rise to Revolution, the book about the beginnings of the Revolutionary War written by his son, Jeff Shaara. Of the two, I think I preferred the latter, though not because it was better written, but because I enjoy the time of Adams and Franklin with its international issues more than that of Buford, Longstreet, and Lee with their more narrow national focus.

Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad was a delightful change of pace! I loved the way she developed the story around the hanging of the twelve maids, played with the symbolisms throughout the Odyssey and brought several of the characters who were mere placeholders in Homer to life in her book. If I ever teach the Odyssey again, I think I’ll use it as a supplemental reading.

Minneapolis

We spent the weekend in Minneapolis with Kristen, Kathy’s niece, and Heidi—and of course with Chewy, Gromit, Shmadios, and Taice,their dogs and cats. For a long while now Kathy has wanted to go out to visit them, so I'm glad we could do it.

Saturday we did a driving tour of both Minneapolis and St. Paul’s, went to the Walker Art Center and Sculpture Garden,

and stopped nearby for the mini-golf course designed by artists. We had some of the best falafel I’d ever had at the Holy Land (even better than a lot of what I’d had in Jerusalem!), snuck in a little gardening, and ate with Heidi and Kristen’s friends M.B. and Alex at another good restaurant whose name escapes me. Sunday, Kathy got a chance to play several hands of canasta with Kristen while Heidi and I went to a workshop on communicating with animals. Then, after a little partner canasta and some brief time riding on motorbikes--

I still haven’t gotten the hang of making a left turn without speeding the bike up, but I enjoyed riding more than Kathy did-- and a great meal at home, we ended the evening by competing on the Wii. I now know that I can’t hoola hoop for my life!

I really enjoyed Minneapolis' greenness (so much parkland and so many bodies of water) alongside what seemed like most of the benefits of a large city--theater, progressive ideas, and good food. And I hope that Kathy found it a nice blend of seeing a new place and family time.