CATCHING UP

Many news bits to fit in, so I'll just give highlights in chronological order:

NOV 16-20 NASHVILLE CONFERENCE

I attended the ACTFL Conference (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) in Baltimore last year for the first time. This year was my second go, this time in Nashville. (The most Starbucks-free city - indeed COFFEE-free city in America; plenty of Jack Daniels, however!) I was mainly after "networking" with potential job contacts, especially with Arabic, and checking out the latest high-tech offerings from the textbook publishers in the huge exhibit hall. I did walk around the small historic downtown area and listened in on all the live country and blue grass bands making a buck in the bar area. They even broadcast the music outdoors to bring in the customers.

One highlight was recontacting an old-old Georgetown friend, Sophia Severino, and her husband David. She was raised in Lebanon, so we had a lot in common. She and her husband are also devout Christians, and with her Smith College background, just a very stylish New England kind o' gal. We hadn't seen each other since 1998, we decided, so it was about time. They now have three kids. (They had one the last time!)

THANKSGIVING

I was invited to the Johnston clan Thanksgiving reunion down in San Diego county. I only knew Cameron, my brother-in-law, and his brother Doug (and my sister). But the clan were all very welcoming. Several of the sons had served in Iraq. One is back in Kosovo as a body guard. We got into some pretty deep political discussions on the Middle East. (They're not John Kerry's dumb boots-on-the-ground types; they actually have minds.) My only regret was that the main meal was so delayed I had a good two hours to fill up on all the snacky food I don't need. (Thanksgiving note to self: arrive at dinner just as the turkey is being served - that way you only eat the quality food.)

DEC 2-5 SANTA BARBARA

I try to visit old family friends (dating back to, well, 1998!) at Samarkand and my parents' old church several times a year if possible. I owed several people a visit, and fortunately, two of the most important folks - Ruth Satterberg (a retired nurse who helped during my mother's chemo and was at her bedside when she died) and old neighbors of my parents' Doris and Stuart Jones - were both free to dine. He's a retired high-ranking navy man who missed Pearl Harbor by only a week. (His ship was sent to Iceland just before!) It was the first time I found out that, as ex-harbor master in Boston, he had hobnobbed with Ted Kennedy and Tip O'Neil. (And both are dye-hard Republicans!) But they are such unassuming, nice people, I had known them for four years before they even dropped the names ...

I also met up with my former boss/overseer at the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation (which runs the old Spanish-era Presidio downtown in S. Barbara). She and her husband come from Santa Fe and are very knowledgeable about Southwestern culture. This time I was initiated into mescal, the lesser-known cousin of tequila. There's a Mexican restaurant in town that specializes in tequilas and high-end Mexican liquors. Mescal, apparently, is made by roasting the agave plant before letting it ferment - smokey tequila, if you will. It was actually quite sippable! (The salsas and guacamole were also high-end! Yum!)

DEC 9 OLIVER

Food, glorious good? Who will buy this wonderful feeling? Better pick a pocket or two? Remember those old standards? I went with some church friends to a local live theater performance of "Oliver" last Saturday. It was not in a fancy venue downtown but in a community theatre in Manhattan Beach, our side of town, in "South Bay". It was less professional than you might find on Broadway, but still very well done. Nancy, the alpha female thief who looks out for Oliver, was played by an American woman with a great voice who couldn't quite keep from slipping into a Julie-Andrews-Sound-of-Music-"Now, children ..." British accent out of her supposed cockney. I wasn't sure if the flower girl was pretending to be a lady, or the lady was pretending to be a flower girl.

DEC 13 WESTERN SEMITIC RESEARCH PROJECT

January is approaching, and I want to have some income back-ups. (I have also applied for regular ESL back at Cal State Long Beach this winter semester.) One of the temp jobs that caught my eye was advertised at the San Pedro Presbyterian church where I've been doing chorale practice for a Christmas concert. (The director and his wife are close friends.) A USC Semitics professor has started an archeological project at his own home in Palos Verdes with funding coming through USC. It's called the West Semitic Research Project ("West Semitic" includes Hebrew, Aramaic, Ugaritic, and other ancient languages), and their labor of love is to get high-quality computer images of ancient Biblical and extra-biblical manuscripts, sometimes journeying as far afield as Leningrad to find the documents. They then put all the images on the Web for scholars around the world to view. (They also photograph inscriptions, cylinder seals, etc.) I went out to the home for an interview Wednesday. They wanted an office manager, and I applied, but they want someone who will stay longer than a few months to make it worthwhile training the newbie, so for me, they discussed shorter projects where my linguistic and Biblical knowledge would be more vital. Who knows? I may be scanning cuneiform tablets for them next year!

DEC 17 CHRISTMAS CONCERT

Tomorrow is the big day. There's a family Christmas concert at First Presbyterian in San Pedro. I also sang Fauré's "Requiem" with their choir at Easter earlier this year. Allan Petker is the director (he's paying me to make a professional web page for him), and his wife is Kim Ayers, one of my oldest Aramco chums. We're doing a modern setting of Mary's "Magnificat" by an Anglican composer in the UK named Wilcox. It reminds me of a soundtrack for the "Lord of the Rings". Very medieval sounding but approachable. I also had my arm twisted to accompany the teen choir for their big medley. I play the synthesizer. After all the effort I've put in, I'm going to ask to be paid the same as their piano accompanist for the youth choir. Let's just say learning Michael Green Christmas tunes isn't high on my personal agenda. That's a lot of time filling someone else's agenda for free.

HELEN

Since Helen's main move back on November 10, Ann has been going back up to Crestline weekly (usually 2-3 days a week) to check in on Helen, organize her local support team (several women up there Ann has roped in) and oversee the finishing touches on the new house. I've gone up several times myself, most recently this past Tuesday. Helen seems to have settled in comfortably. With her wretched long-term memory, she has almost forgotten she ever lived anywhere else! But it's warm, one-story, with food in the fridge, her cat, and cable TV service, so she's reasonably happy. Ann is the one who's been stressing out mainly! But we're cutting back on Mountain Nursing's hours with Helen. They've been bleeding her bank account these past months - normally 9-11 billable hours on a Friday to ... do what? Take her to the post office, bank, supermarket and out to lunch? We're writing a New Year's letter to the agency saying that, now that Helen is in a new situation, we will only be requiring 6 hours maximum per week. (Other tasks can be done by local contacts Ann trusts more.)

If I don't write again before the 25th, a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS (God Jul) and a HAPPY NEW YEAR (gott nytt år)!