HOT, JUNE SUNDAY

Where's my ice? Dinner's in the fridge, cold soup for DH. He bit into a nut Friday and broke off part of a tooth, so he gets liquids and soft foods. First thing Monday morning: emergency call at the dentist.

BBQ AT UNC Wellness Center, Saturday June 7.

Everyone in the Triangle knows that one of the top pulled-pork purveyors around is Allen & Sons. The recent feature on Oprah of her best friend, Gayle’s hunt for the ‘Best Sandwiches in America,” found Allen & Sons to be the 'best of the BBQ category.' Not that I have missed it, we have been many times but since the nutrition-fitness program began, BBQ has become more infrequent. When UNCwellness announced that the annual member-picnic would be catered by the best, I immediately got tickets.

Yes, it was hot outside, hotter than usual and the shade was minimal but we survived with lots of iced tea and making the most if pulled pork, green beans and cole slaw. Forget the rest - all fat. Beside, I had less than an hour left to walk and get ready for the 2 o’clock Aqua-fitness pool class.

Except that did not happen. At the last minute a substitute had to be found for Noriko. If I have not mentioned her before Noriko is the MOST fit person in the North Carolina, after twenty years of teaching aquacise, aerobics and a roster of private clients. What happened?

THE NEWS OF NORIKO'S BROKEN WRIST WAS SLIGHTLY EXAGGERATED.
Noriko was in the gym today, left arm in a sling. She was accidently injured yesterday by a weight-machine just before her regular 2 o'clock class at UNC Wellness. The class was led by a quick-substitute as Noriko spent the afternoon in the ER-UNC.

No bones were broken, but the left arm is well iced to keep the swelling down. She appeared this morning at the Wellness center, with her daughter, to do a one-armed workout (?). Noriko said nothing about her class schedule for this coming week but do not be surprised to see her doing a one-handed routine for the next few days.











PROJECT UNDER WAY
That one-patch, thrift shop find from last year is now looking rather nice. “Ragtime Dreams” is working our sooner than expected, though not without some problem-solving. For one, making a mitre corner fold between two borders of unequal width is not simple. The top-bottom borders were purposely made deeper than the two side borders - except getting the corners to match at the mitre-fold is a problem I had not faced before. The trick is to fold into a slight curve rather than a straight line. And then top-stitch the mitre in place.

The photos show the work in progress on the lettering applique - the most tedious and so far the worst part of the work. Next phase is fusing and stitching the stars and crescent moon. My dilemna about the moon is scale. Working out the dimensions in CorelDraw9, I though I had it perfectly but sizing the paper cutout over the patchwork, it looks much too big. So-o I’m in the process of printing out various moons in decreasing sizes until one of them seems right.



The hard press for this job is that I need to have it ready by Monday, June 16, the date of the next quilt guild meeting when I can hand it off to the long-arm quilter. After that I can resume working on jackets, plaids and other “UFO’s ” in the studio.


Why "Ragtime?" The scrappy look of this quilt could go anywhere but I rather like the fact this is not my personal color choice. So, I searched for something that would connect the patchwork, DH and me. Since he is into jazz and ragtime music playing the saxophone; and "rags" are street talk for fabric; and quilting being my passion - the only overlap I could think of was "Ragtime." Too obscure,no?

Sister Jan is driving to New Jersey this day. Her mother-in-law died yesterday, her brother-in-law lives alones in the NJ parental house, a sister-in-law living in Virginia, all will be back home for the week. The family must now tell Dad who has been in a VA hospital for nearly four years. The news will not come easily and may prompt his demise as well.

Jan and husband, Rich, have been dealing with the family stresses for years and this will not be the end. My hope is that Jan will cope with the heat and not re-injure her foot (just recently out of a boot from heel surgery). This will not be a happy time for them but as in all families, this is part of generational aging.

Dancing Wednesday at 3 pm as usual this week. Pray that the temp will not exceed 90. Please.
bb

Aquacise with Noriko

Being Saturday my schedule, as it always is, takes me to the UNC gym about 1:00 pm to walk for 30 min. Then change into a swimsuit and get ready for the 2:00 aquacise class with Noriko. For anyone who's had Noriko's classes you already know this is as fit a body you'll ever find, perfectly tanned, dark eyes, THE personal trainer and aquacise teacher that EVERY gym wants. I see her once a week at aquacise and sometimes she talks to me in the weight room where I am working out with the puny 7.5 pound weights and she's bouncing thirty-pounds around like nothing. We speak a little after the pool workout but nothing very personal.

For some reason today I was ready to reveal the start of dancerCIZE and the ballroom classes this coming Tuesday. Would you believe her mother was a ballroom dance teacher in Japan and as a young girl Noriko was a jazz dancer. Yes? I asked if she had seen the Japanese version of "Shall We Dance?" She answered many, many times and that the lead in the film reminds her a lot of a time when her mother was younger and still dancing. That did it - if I wasn't already impressed with her fitness career the fact that she also dances did it for me.

AND while talking to Noriko, another lady (this is in the locker room), asks about ballroom dance lessons, who turns out to be an acquaintance from U.U. days. I may have yet another couple in the ballroom class (6). All out of the unexpected. Who said "chance favors the well prepared?"

I am stiff tonight - the workouts yesterday and today have challenged every part of my body and I still have the Sunday morning workout to face. EF is happy as a clam; early this morning he began the transition from Earthlink to Bell South and so far (???), my Email is still working. I was getting tense just thinking about lost files and interrupted connections.

Waiting to see what the blog from DR brings next and was roaming the Dominican Republic travel pages to find an interesting blog from a Peace Corps volunteer. This young girl wrote from mid-05 until recently about a two-year assignment in an impoverished village in the mountains of DR. Her experiences organizing a youth club, baseball and local cocaine dealing is the stuff of nightmares. Apparently a tourism-based economy can bring money to the beach resorts but does nothing for the lower-class population. I have pursued this research to learn more about the country, it's culture and geography - but it leaves me with many concerns about living there.

My research is now turning to aesthetics and philosophy: specifically Hume, Hutchinson and Kant. Now that I've skimmed over Kant's Three Critiques, I seem to be back at the beginning of asking "What is the meaning of aesthetics?" I keep getting caught between art appreciation, architectural history, and sensory perception. The difference between pure reason, practical reason and aesthetics compares to empirical vs. rational knowledge but I don't see how aesthetics fits into that schematic. Thursday I'll ask more questions.

Tomorrow night: dinner & dancing at Fred Astaire. We practiced cha cha tonight. Rumba in the morning.
nite, nite bb