Hi, Piqaboo! I think it's time we all got to know more about OT's ball-and-chain.

I know you've posted about how you and OT met, but it's been a while and I'm not sure everybody saw it. So could you refresh our memory?

Where are you from? Where did you go to school? What did you study?

How do you really feel about those rescue pianos?

My life is over....

The question that's on everyone's mind...


How did a beautiful, intelligent girl like you end up with OT?

quote:

Originally posted by Mary Anna:
I know you've posted about how you and OT met, but it's been a while and I'm not sure everybody saw it. So could you refresh our memory?

Where are you from? Where did you go to school? What did you study?

How do you really feel about those rescue pianos?

Oh my.
how we met - I'll get to that in a later post.

I immigrated to the US when I was 6 months old. We came over on the Queen Mary. We traveled 3rd class, but my folks stocked up on french wines for the stewards, thus allowing them to use the first class nursery for childcare, and eat in the better dining rooms. I have no memory of any of this, but I recommend touring the QM if you are ever in the Long Beach area. She's a grand old lady. On display are two oil paintings - one is a cross section of the ship as she was when a working passenger liner, the other is of a maritime disaster when she cut one of her escorts in two during the war (it zigged when she expected it to zag). Both are by my (now deceased) godfather, George LeBrun.
QM is where the Poseidon Adventure was filmed. My school class saw part of the filming by random chance. My grandfather was with us the day the QM sailed to Long Beach - the end of her last crossing.

I grew up in a couple different parts of Orange County, California.

I went to UC San Diego, and was announced at graduation as having a double major in biochemistry/cell biology and crew. There's an advantage to being last to walk - they were too tired to QC my card! My minor is in linguistics.

I like the idea of rescue pianos coming for a visit, getting refreshed, then finding new homes. I'm not too keen on a garage full of pianos that never go anywhere.

quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:
The question that's on everyone's mind...


How did a beautiful, intelligent girl like you end up with OT?

Wow, what a lot of assumptions! I gratefully accept all those that applied to me!

He laughs at my jokes?

In addition to liking OT, I trusted him. To keep me safe on a motorcycle, to be a father, to make acceptable decisions if not exactly the ones I might make.
Stuff like that.

quote:

I like the idea of rescue pianos coming for a visit, getting refreshed, then finding new homes. I'm not too keen on a garage full of pianos that never go anywhere.

I bet that is what OT would like as well!

I have a feeling that you don't play...yet...

Have you any desire?

Are you planning on your daughter taking lessons?

quote:

Originally posted by lilylady:
I have a feeling that you don't play...yet...

Have you any desire?

Are you planning on your daughter taking lessons?

Hi LL!
I took lessons when I was about 10 - paid for them myself. Was grand fun til my folks took over paying, then they also applied pressure to practice etc, so I quit.

I played the violin for ~ 8 years, which is when I learned to read treble clef. Bass is still a mystery, for all practical intents and purposes.

Will I take piano lessons again? Maybe. So many other things on the list tho, like becoming a competent vocalist, picking up the fiddle again, starting to sew again.....

I'd love Altoid to take lessons. I'd hoped to start her at 3 1/2 (plastic brain and all), but her lack of interest and our lack of funds conspired against that. She's just beginning to show an interest so I may check out the local options.

I'd love it if OT were taking lessons too - he'd set a great example for Altoid of how practicing leads to improvement. I'm waiting for the grand piano to come in first tho, so he has regular size keys to play on. Our current piano is a bit on the skinny side and it affects reach, finger placement, so much! Ah me, living vicariously thru one's offspring husband.

What's was the most annoying incident in your most recent round of work trips?

As a teacher, I so encourage parents to play for their children. They then get what it is all about. The practice, the learning, the frustration, the concentration, the enjoyment of accomplishing a piece etc.

I do suggest though that students start at about age 6 - when they can read, sit for a period of time and concentrate, and show the desire themselves to want to learn to play.

Don't rush them, in other words...plenty of time to expose them to all the wonders of the world!

quote:

Originally posted by Matt G.:
What's was the most annoying incident in your most recent round of work trips?

I dont travel much for work. I've been lucky in the little I get to do: Quebec City, Germany & Belgium, Ann Arbor, Boston.

Finding the hotel, when one person generated the map and a second person is driving? That's irritating !

I think the prize goes to the shuttle service I called to get me from U Michigan to the Detroit airport. The driver could not find the facility, was therefore late, and spent a good 30 min of the trip scolding me for not being able to give him detailed directions to the building. All I could think was - you live here, and I've been here less than 24 hours!

(I didnt tell the driver, but I probably couldnt have gotten back to the hotel on my own. I had NO idea where that part of the campus was relative to anything else.)

You wrote some very interesting posts about how some soda has quinine in it and how these sodas are healthy for food stamp recipients.

quinine:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinine

a) Those were such cool posts. May I ask you how it is that you came to be so open minded and understanding about people on food stamps? Most people have never met anyone on food stamps or wouldn't admit it if they had. Living on a small island, I've met about every kind of person you can imagine (think Giligan's Island, it's a microcosm of society in a very confined space). I think the US today needs people who respect middle class, working class, and poor people. You seem to be a person who does respect all people and I think that's great.

b) I know you like jewelry. How did you become interested in jewelry and what kinds of jewelry do you like best? As you know I like jewelry too. My grandmother collected jewelry. Nothing expensive. Some elaborate gold chains and bracelets from when gold wasn't as expensive and craftsmanship was more common. A 1 ct diamond, rings with other stones, mostly semi-precious (in those days semi-precious stones weren't expensive, now they kind of are), that kind of thing. Now when I look back on it, the gold pieces were extraordinary and I wish I had some of them. Myself, I'm afraid I've very attracted to expensive jewelry.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about jewelry!

Thanks, piq!

Now that you can no longer log on to WTF from work, have you considered changing jobs?

quote:

Doug:
Now that you can no longer log on to WTF from work, have you considered changing jobs?

Absolutely.
Unfortunately, the top two candidate jobs lack even read-only access: tollbooth collector and donut fryer.

quote:

LilyLady:
I so encourage parents to play for their children. They then get what it is all about. The practice, the learning, the frustration, the concentration, the enjoyment of accomplishing a piece etc.

Exactly! So often it looks as if it all comes easily to grown ups.
I remember as a kid thinking that "when I was a grown up", I'd be able to carve smoothly cut, beautifully scary jackolanterns just like my dad. As it turns out, no. There is an individual skill and talent involved which he has and I dont. And probably several years of practice!

quote:

Daniel:
a) how it is that you came to be so open minded and understanding about people on food stamps? Most people have never met anyone on food stamps or wouldn't admit it if they had.

Thanks for the kind words.

I dunno. I lived a year on donuts morning and night, and Carl's Jr salad bar for lunch. They were cheap, I survived.

I've known people on food stamps, I've served in a couple different 'soup kitchens'. I've known folks who lost a job and slowly lost all their possessions. And I've studied food, cooking and nutrition. People, all of us, are quick as a race to judge. Its part of being human. And we can only judge based on what we know. We're bombarded with the info that soda is empty calories, that chips are high calorie 'junk' food etc, so we judge from there. For perspective, each body needs calories. Chips arent 'empty' - they are just a higher fat choice. Apple juice is empty calories.
I've roasted chickens - it takes a long time. Frying is faster but hands on. If one is working 8-5, or longer (2 jobs), or working and helping kids w homework, there isnt time to cook much from scratch most nights. and if there is no skill, why waste good materials making bad food when the freezer section is full of tolerable eats? Or the rice roni aisle? That's just a riff on pilaf.

I assume that folks using foodstamps are trying to get to a more satisfying life, and therefore are either working or spending most of their time trying to get work, either via applications, or education. That surely describes the folks I knew.

quote:

Daniel:
You seem to be a person who does respect all people and I think that's great.

I dont, but I wish I did. Folks deserve respect until they prove they dont. Even then, if someone doesnt deserve to be respected in area A, they deserve respect as a human being. We are all so much more alike than we are different. Probably why we fight so hard - apparently minor differences take on huge importance so we can tell ourselves apart!

quote:

Daniel:
b) I know you like jewelry. How did you become interested in jewelry and what kinds of jewelry do you like best? As you know I like jewelry too. My grandmother collected jewelry. Nothing expensive. Some elaborate gold chains and bracelets from when gold wasn't as expensive and craftsmanship was more common. A 1 ct diamond, rings with other stones, mostly semi-precious (in those days semi-precious stones weren't expensive, now they kind of are), that kind of thing. Now when I look back on it, the gold pieces were extraordinary and I wish I had some of them. Myself, I'm afraid I've very attracted to expensive jewelry.

I like sparkly things - call me magpie.
Blessings upon OT.

Your definition of expensive and mine are different. I think your Gma was doing very well indeed!
I've been an earring addict for decades. They help define a jaw line that tries really hard not to be there.

I am pretty well equal opportunity as far as jewelry goes - I have plastic, paper, wood, seed, rock, glass, pot metal, pewter, silver and gold jewelry, colored with paints, dyes, rhinestones, glitter, enamel, inlay and gem-stones.

Because of my job (in the lab at the time), and impending motherhood, and a long-time attraction to the style, I chose a nearly flat wedding ring. Nothing to break thru a glove or scratch a child. I saw the style in a cheap clothing shop a good 15 years before and had been obsessed w it ever since. Rings are fun. I started to like wearing rings when a friend let me wear his mother's amethyst cocktail ring one day. there's something about wearing a huge ginormous deep purple rock that makes me appreciate having huge hands.
(Actually, i always liked having large hands. They can do so much so easily) (I expect they could learn to play a piano, if I let them try...).

I love gemstones - they are fascinating to me - from the insanely expensive to the relatively sane.
And sometimes they puzzle me - how did boulder opal go from trash to one of the more desirable forms? Can you say 'marketing', boys ang girls? Want to know why platinum came back in fashion? So DeBoers (sp?) can market yellow diamonds as desirable. Want to know why it went out? So DeBeers (spe?) could sell lots of 'off color' stones - the yellowness is much less obvious when set in a nice yellowy gold. these are the ones in color classes in the mid range - not yellow enough to be sold as 'yellow', but looking a bit off when set in platinum. Its all so interesting and so great for conspiracy theorists!
A stone I obsess about is benitoite. Its from a single county, in CA. It has a fabulous crystal structure - flattened triangles, and is dark blue. It has a good refractive index but its so dark it sort of doesnt matter. I'd like a natural crystal, set as a pendant, in gold, with a suitable gold chain - one day. Its not cheap and retirement/Altoid's college take precedence.


I really enjoy your threads and posts with pictures of the sparkling lovelies.

quote:

Originally posted by piqaboo:
I really enjoy your threads and posts with pictures of the sparkling lovelies.

Interesting thoughts! Thanks for sharing them!

I'm very glad that you enjoy my jewelry posts. Your collection sounds very eclectic and wonderful. I especially enjoyed hearing about your wedding ring and how you chose it. Congrats on getting what you wanted. I googled benitoite. It's beautiful. It will look great in gold. I certainly understand obsessing about stones (and metals).

Congrats on being named the forum member of the month. It's nice to get a chance to know more about you!