Third Week of May

5/17 AM Trio for Bells and Bird
It is Saturday morning so I stayed at home for the sunrise and recorded audio only. Norman rang from inside the house and I tapped on the glass to cue him when to start and stop. It was a nice little trio with the two of us ringing bells and that one very insistent bird.

5/18 AM Can anyone tell what kind of bird this is?
I recorded another quiet, very foggy morning out back with that one persistent bird. Anyone recognize this song?

5/18 PM Schultze Gets the Blues, We Got the Bells
We had dinner at our friend Mardi’s house and then watched the movie “Schultze Gets the Blues”. Just before we started the movie, we rang bells in the living room. A few of the people got cut off because I put the camera on the television and it wasn’t far enough away to include everyone.

5/19 PM LATE LATE LATE.
I don’t know what’s happening lately, but I was 8 minutes late this evening. Norman asked me about the sunset or I would have continued to be preoccupied. Thanks, Norman. It was still a bit light out, although the fog had never burned off and it was dim. Here's an audio recording from the evening, for a change.

5/20 AM Just Fog
When I woke up, that one little bird was peep…peep…peeping away- close by and strong. As soon as I went outside to record, he took off and so we are left with the sound of the garbage trucks and street cleaners. And the one streetcar making its way to the beach.

5/20 PM Bells and Blessings
These are the people in my mediation group. We meet every Tuesday night and sit with our teacher Howie Cohn. Each week, we follow the same schedule so that at around 8:15, we take a short break between sitting and discussion. This is a very small window of opportunity for everyone to ring bells at sundown. There might be two days in the whole year where the sundown coincides with this little break. Tonight was one of them.

5/21 PM Imposing on Our Guests...(Again)
One more instance of imposing on our houseguests. Sorry guys. We walked across the street to where my car was parked at sundown and rang a few bells before dinner. Short and sweet and SO windy!

5/22 AM Absence
Linda and Lamar are leaving this morning so this is our last morning to ring together. Linda brought her bell from her home over 3000 miles away so she could ring it at sunrise here.. When I woke up at 5:45, Linda was already up and ready. Usually I straggle out of bed in the dark and stumble around by myself, so it was so nice to see someone standing there, bell in hand, ready to go. Encountering someone more awake than myself made me realize how UN-awake I really am at that hour. I can’t really talk or see, and if I didn’t lay everything I need out the night before, I wouldn’t be able to remember where anything was or what I should actually do. Fortunately, the bells were on the table, next to the minidisk recorder. Force of habit had the cell phone in my pocket and I just had to say’ “Let’s go out back”. Which we did. That little bird wasn’t there this morning so it was quieter than usual, and Norman, Linda and I rang the bells. I was so grateful for that moment. I realized how much I will miss my friend, Linda when she goes home. And in that moment of anticipating the absence, Ann was there.

5/22 PM Great Concert, But Where Are the Women?

Tonight was the final concert of the Electronic Music Program at San Mateo Community College. These are Krys Bobrowski’s students, and this is the 4th year in a row I’ve been able to attend. I love these concerts. Bravo Krys and congratulations to everyone. Thank you all. One observation I must mention is that out of 20+ performers, there was only one woman. This is by no means an isolated occurrence. Any ideas about why so relatively few women are involved in composition and electronic music in general?

5/23 PM Another Divine Evening

Dinner with Liz and Norman at Café Divine again. It was so cold that Norman stayed and rang his bell inside the restaurant while Liz and I went outside. Short and sweet and chilly.