Old friend surprises

 On Thursday afternoon, I had someone in my office, and so let a call go through to voicemail. On our phones, voicemails get converted to text, so I actually read the call I had missed, and was very surprised, indeed shocked, to hear an old friend's voice telling me that he and his wife were being baptised on Saturday, and they hoped I could come. He asked if he could text to that number.

I responded via text, telling him he could text to my office phone, and expressing "happy surprise" about his phone message. 

He sent me this text message:

Alan is quite a renowned violist.  I have known him since 2002, when I attended my first International Viola Congress, which was in Seattle that year. I have written a bit about him before, like when he donated his materials to PIVA in 2015. I just honestly thought that he (and by extension his wife Evie) had no interest in religion at all. I am pretty sure he low-key teased David Dalton and Dwight Pounds both about their religiosity (David as LDS and Dwight as Baptist) and he was a person who really enjoyed the vino. However, he was also a good friend to them, and he did in fact play on the program at David's funeral. 

David Dalton had extracted a promise from Alan to watch over PIVA, and Alan and his wife Evie moved to Utah, to Mapleton, 8 years ago, so he has been a presence in the library quite frequently doing his due diligence about PIVA. I thought that they would hate living in Utah--so did the Daltons, who would ask "are you sure you want to live among all these Mormons?" But instead, they have loved living here! Go figure.

Still, I never expected them to want to get baptized!! 

Then I forgot about the time of the baptism until 2:20 on Saturday. I quickly looked up how long it would take me to drive to the location (20 minutes) and was out the door by 2:30. (Because I need extra time in case I make a mistake on directions.) I arrived at maybe 2:52. I went in, and saw Donna Dalton sitting alone, and she motioned me to sit with her, and so I did.

Alan has taught students who have done very well professionally. And he has taught students who come from storied backgrounds, so I fully expected the Marriotts to be at the baptism, and they did come. Neill Marriott is known in the church for serving on the YW General Board. But also, she is President Jimmy Carter's cousin. (Her Wikipedia article does not so state. However, it is true.) And her husband David, who is a very nice person, is the son of one of the J. Willard Marriott sons, I just don't remember which one. 

Here is Alan with Kate, the Marriott daughter who studied viola with him at Indiana University.

And here are all the BYU related people who were around when picture-taking was going on. Why didn't we bring Donna into the picture? I don't know!! David Day was also there at the baptism, but he and his wife left immediately after, so he was not around for pictures. 

L-R: Haleigh G. V., Kate M., Evie, Alan and me, with David and Neill Marriott behind Evie.

Also, there is not usually a General Authority at every LDS baptism, but there was one for Alan and Evie. Here they are with Elder Hutch Fale.

Elder Fale was the last speaker at the baptism, and it was a very short and very sweet message taken from Mosiah 18:9, that when we get baptized, we take on the responsibliity to serve others. That when we get baptized, we show we "are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places." As he spoke of Jesus and his life of service to others, and his commandment that we love one another, there were literally tears running down his cheeks. I have not ever been so close to a general authority while they are speaking (I was on the second row, directly behind Alan and Evie, and he was standing maybe two feet in front of them.) It was very touching and tender and heartfelt. Awesome. 

Donna wanted me to take a picture of her with Haleigh and Kate, who were both students of David's as teenagers, before they both went off to Indiana to study viola under Alan at university there. I accidentally took a video which was a right mess! Wonderfully, Josie could extract a photo for me from the mess that I made!

And then I realized that I should get a photo of me and Donna with each other. One of the nice ladies in the kitchen took this picture for us.

Someone asked if Donna and I were sisters. Donna responded, "Yes! We are sisters in the gospel!" She is such a fun bundle of energy still, at over 90 years old. I went to her 90th birthday party, or at least poked my head in the door for a minute, and I think that was last year, so 91. She recently renewed her driver's license, and they gave her a ten-year license. I hope she lives to see that license expire!

This baptism was unique because there was so much music in it--a quartet sang four numbers, and three cute little girls sang "I'll walk with you" while their mom played the violin and also piano accompaniment. That song sort of expresses the theme of this baptismal service -- caring for those in need. Caring for others we meet. The bishop also spoke, and the stake president spoke before Elder Fale, and they all talked about "go forth to serve" after baptism. 

Also, Alan's three children and a grandchild all came to support him! I had also met all of them before, at BYU viola events. His daughters both live in Washington, and his son Sean lives in California. So nice to see all of them. 

Another unique thing about this baptism: there were two people in the font with the person being baptised. Just an extra precaution due to disability of elderly people to get them safely immersed and back on their feet again. 

And then today, another Old Friend Surprise!

My good old friend Angelynn Okelberry has moved into our ward! She married Andrew Bay who is in our ward. And his first wife, who died many years ago, was my old friend Ana Maria Preto from Portugal. We took a YA literature class together when I was at BYU when my kids were young--1988, I think. So that is wild that this one man married two of my old friends (who did not know each other) and now I get to have Angelynn as a neighbor again! I am so happy about that.

So, a weekend of old friend surprises it was!

August is also hot

 Still reaching 100F or higher every day--but there were a couple of cooler mornings this week, for which I was grateful! Twice I opened windows for a short while and let in some cool fresh air. I really like fresh air! I get really tired of air conditioned air, even though I am so grafeul to have it. I just prefer fresh air.

I am low-key dreading this coming week--I am supposed to get a new computer. This was supposed to happen last week, so I moved a bunch of pictures and files onto my hard drive, and I am so good at that that I lost a lot of files, so I copied my entire recycle bin from this computer onto my hard drive, which means there is a lot of junk on there. 

I am worried that I will even lose access to my blog, because what is the password? Who knows? I don't think I do!! Arrgh!! I can currently just click into many things because my computer is smart like that, while I am password challenged. All the time.

Oh well!! Progress, right? Gotta love it!

This was Miriam's last full week with us before she flies out to join her family in Doha. We have a couple more days with her, and then it will be airport day on Tuesday.

This last full week was the BYU Organ Workshop that is held every year. Miriam attended last year, and also this year. 

This year, her private organ lesson (on Tuesday afternoon) was with her first organ teacher, when she took the Organ First program at BYU taught by Nora Hess, beginning when Miriam was only eight years old. It was fun to see the two of them interact all these years later, which I got to do because the rules are that minors have to have an adult with them. Rachel had a class at the assigned time, so lucky me! 

It was fun to hear the new pieces Miriam is working on! The Bach Gigue Fugue had a very sticky tune and very tricky timing. Nora got Miriam going with the metronome, and it was, from my point of view, super helpful. The other pieces was litanies of some kind, and I liked how Nora described it as this big rock, and when it starts to roll downhill, it doesn't go at the same rate because science! That was a helpful metaphor for me (who was not the one playing the piece!)

Here are Miriam and Nora together at the end of their lesson:

The other organ event this week was the Hymn Sing that they traditionally do at the BYU Organ Workshop. This was held on Thursday evening, and Rachel and I met Miriam there.

This year, Don Cook, who retired from BYU a year ago, was the featured organist. He was so happy to be there, and so emotional. He was the one who worked tirelessly for a long time to get the huge wonderful pipe organ that BYU has today. "The concert hall pipe organ is the Létourneau Opus 100, a custom-built instrument designed in the English Town Hall style. Installed in October 2024 in the BYU Music Building's Concert Hall, it features 4,603 pipes and 81 ranks." (quoting Google's AI overview) BTW, this is a Quebec-built organ--when Isabelle Demers was here she commented on how close she lives to their facility. 

Don planned a program of 10 of his favorite hymns. As per this event's usual, the printed program had two sides: one for the singers, and the other to explain to organists how he chose to accompany each piece. Also people who were registered for the organ workshop would also have (for one week) access to the free organ accompaniments used on each last verse. These arrangements were mostly by Don Cook himself, but there were a couple by Gerald Dick (he was once upon a time the music librarian at BYU, and then the music cataloguer, and also a bag piper as well as an organist AND apparently was also a harp builder) and the last one was by my good friend Vanja Watkins, which was a free accompaniment for the hymn "Press Forward, Saints" with lyrics by my other good friend Marvin Gardner--we three are currently working on a music project together. Also Marv wrote the lyrics for another one of the hymns that Don planned.

Free accompaniments -- people might not know what that means. "An organ free accompaniment (also called an alternate or free harmonization) is a creative re-harmonization of a standard hymn tune. Organists play it to support the congregation or choir, usually on the final verse of a hymn while people sing the melody in unison." - Google AI but they got their info from the BYU Organ website.

Anyways, here is Don talking about one of the hymns. He just spoke for a minute or two about each one, about why he chose it or what it means to him.

This next picture is an attempt to show that they also had a screen set up on stage that showed his feet while he was playing. (That would have been cool to have for the Isabelle Demers concert, but I guess nobody thought of it until later!)

It happens that I took that picture at the very beginning of "Silent Night." Yes, we did sing not one, but two, Christmas hymns in August, on a blistering hot day!! This is because Don was choosing favorites, and so "Hark, the herald angels sing" and "Silent Night" were chosen.

For "Silent Night" the house lights were turned off, and then on the phrase "all is bright" people were supposed to turn their little candles on. (Because people were given the opportunity to take a little tiny candle light when they came to the concert if they wanted to.) Only the first row would turn on theirs, and then the second, then the third, and so forth, until all the rows in the concert hall had their lights shining by the time we got to "radiant beams" in the third verse. (No free accompaniment for this one.)

 People who came in late (there are a bunch at top left of the above photo) missed out on the opportunity to have candles, so not many lights up there. And we also sang the last verse a capella, in the candle light. It was lovely. It was indeed calm and bright, like the song says.

And at the end, I took a picture of Miriam with her friend Abby who has also attended the BYU Organ Workshop for two years. So they have become pretty well acquainted with each other. It happened that Abby and her mom sat behind us. (That is Abby's mom just behind Miriam, talking to a young man.)

And that is all I have to report on this week! I am just walking every morning while it is still decently cool, and digging lots of dandelions, and dreading getting a new computer next week!

Goodbye July (including books)

 So hard to believe it is July 31! This month has been both too long and too short. And definitely too hot!!! 

Do you know what NOAA is the acronym for? I did not. I had to look it up. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Only I don't believe that average nighttime low, because I think it hardly ever got that low at night!! Sometimes on my 6 AM walk it was 79 F. Or even 82 F. 

I am soooooo thankful we decided to spring for a second air conditioner for the downstairs. With three girls (and three cats) downstairs, it would have been so hot, and just impossible to cool down since the nights were so warm, without air con.

I have been working at BYU for nearly 25 years. It will be 25 years in about the middle of August. I have had three different offices in those 25 years. My first office had dark wood panelling on the walls, and nothing to decorate those walls. My second office had a bit of dark wood panelling, but mostly the walls were cinderblock. I put up a couple of gamelan posters, but mostly I had nothing on the walls because neither panelling or cinderblock are particularly good hosts for artwork. I have been in my third office for one year, and to celebrate, I put art on my walls for the first time in 25 years. TA-DA!

The four posters of similar style were created for me by Nancy when she lived in North Carolina. I used them then--and still use them now--to promote the library. I have some on sandwich boards that I take to things like CFAC NSO. (College of Fine Arts and Communications New Student Orientation.) And so I sent the files to Roger, our PR person in the library, asking to have them printed and mounted for my walls. 

The other poster is from two conference poster sessions, at IAML in July 2025, and at MLA in February 2026. I really like the poster, and there it is as evidence in my office that I do research and scholarly work. Even if about Korean Dramas. 

This other view shows that I also have a piece of art created for me by one of my student workers, Alyssa, which she made for me when I got my PHD, which was I think in 2013.

I only read six books this month. It was a long month, but a busy month, and so I did not do lots of reading, comparatively speaking.

1. A study in Charlotte: a Charlotte Holmes novel (2016) by Brittany Cavallaro. Jamie Watson, greatgrandson of Dr. Watson and Charlotte, who descends from Sherlock, run into trouble at their Connecticut boarding school. This was interesting enough that I have started the second book of this series (but have not finished it yet). (This book reminded me of the book I read last month that opined that Sherlock was really a woman named Charlotte.)

2. Max in the house of spies: a tale of World War II (2024) by Adam Gidwitz. This is one of a two-book series, and I am also about midway through the second book of this series, too. (This book reminded me of the book about Enzio Busche that I read last month, because of how it makes you realize that people in Germany thought the Nazis were good until history and hindsight changed their minds. When you are living in the moment, you are too close to see the whole picture.)

Lately, when books get too tense for me, I have to set them aside and read something else. So I am constantly reading four or five books at a time. The second books associated with both of the books above are like that--therefore taking me awhile to finish.

3. The herring-seller's apprentice (2007) by L.C. Tyler. This is the first in a series called the Elsie and Ethelred mysteries, which feature Ethelred Tressider, a crime writer, and Elsie Thirkettle, his literary agent. I will quote from the blog "Clothes in Books" whose author wrote "Crime writer Ethelred Tressider and his agent, Elsie, are investigating the disappearance and then the murder of his ex-wife. There is an alternating narrative, a lot of jokes about the literary and crime fiction worlds, some pastiche, and some unreliable narrating. It could have been an unfunny disaster, but actually it was great fun, and I was delighted to see that there are more books in the series. Elsie is an absolutely splendid character, and I hope the books will follow her for a long time to come." I concur.

4. My double life (2010) by Janette Rallison. It has been awhile since I read a Janette Rallison, and this was such a fun read. I had forgotten how refreshingly fun her books are. A picture of Lexi is posted online, and is seen by the agent of a teenage singer, Kari Kingsley. She is looking to hire a body double for Kari, someone who can lip-sync onstage at small events while Kari remains in the studio working on her newest album. Lexi discovers that there is a reason she and Kari look so much alike!! 

5. Glorious Rivals (2025) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes is the sequel to The Grandest Game, the puzzle-solving game that Avery and the Hawthorne Brothers have cooked up. It had been too long since I read the latter; I did not have a great handle on the characters going into the book. But it came back to me! I still prefer the original series, The Inheritance Game books, better. But she is a good writer, so I enjoyed this book, too. 

6. The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club (2025) by Gloria Chao. The Thursday Murder Club, The Marlow Murder Club--these books are good, so this title appealed to me. I did finish the book, but I did not love it. I just found her language a little crass. Unnecessarily so. I was suprised that an MIT graduate who was also a dentist before turning to writing full time didn't have a better vocabulary? Or didn't use a better vocabulary in the book, at least. Clearly she is an intelligent person. But so much of my a$$ and your a$$, instead of just me and you. Why? Do people really talk like that? I do not think that they do in my circles!

Today I had another former student visitor, Abby!  She was my intern, then my RA, and she also worked at the help desks. Now her sister, Hazel, works at the fifth floor help desk. Here are we three together:

Me, then Abby, then Hazel in yellow. Abby has had such interesting jobs since graduating from BYU! She worked for the seeing eye dog foundation in Oregon while working on her MLIS from UNT, and also volunteering at the Sandy Public Library in Oregon. Then she went to Alaska, working in Skagway as Lucky Lou, helping cruise ship visitors pan for gold, while dressed in character as a lady of the Gold Rush era. Then she got hired at the public library she volunteered at, and on the side she writes book reviews for Kirkus Review. It was fun to see and catch up with her!!

Organ Surprise

 As promised, the sequel to the Organ Concert post! How can it be a surprise, since I gave notice it was coming? Read and find out!

So, Friday was July 24, which is a holiday in Utah. For Bruce, it was a normal retired-person stay-at-home day. For me and Josie, it was a stay-home-from work and do-work-at home kind of day. For Rachel, it was a drive-Heiss-grandparents-to-the-airport kind of day. And for Miriam, it was her last full day of the POE, and at the end of the day would be a recital (or two) at which the 30 participants of the POE would be the performers. 

Rachel was back in time for the first recital, which she attended with Josie and me. The two of them were happy to support Miriam, but less happy to immerse themselves in four hours or more of solely organ music, played by performers of mostly unknown (for us) ability. There was talk of maybe bringing a book, but in the end, we just went, and I think we all had a good time! 

The first recital was to be 16 of the 30 players, but two of them were sick. (Janice thought that their illness was heat related--it was 100 degrees outside pretty much all day every day all week, and when the organizers did their planning, they were expecting less heat than there was. So, for example, on Thursday evening, they ate their dinner outside by the carillon tower, and Janice offered our fourth floor seminar room in the library as a place to eat in the air conditioning, but the organizers were pretty set on following their pre-arranged schedule.) 

It was interesting to listen to the variation in proficiency, and even when players were beginners, you had to admire their courage to play on a huge pipe organ--which is an instrument that is not very forgiving of mistakes. Whatever is played is going to be heard! It was also interesting to see that some of the students came out with their teachers, who handled pushing stops or turning pages, while other students were able to handle those kinds of logistics on their own. 

After the first recital was the "dinner." We knew about this--Miriam had been asked to RSVP about how many people would attend the dinner. I imagined a banquet hall and a sit-down dinner. But in talking to my friend Sheri at the concert on Thursday night, I learned that they were going to be feeding 160 people--way more than anticipated--and that they did not have access to a room that would hold that many. So they were going to set up the food in the long hallway between the two large ensemble practice rooms on the bottom floor of the music building, and then people could find a place to sit in one room or the other. They meant to offer an opportunity for students and their parents to be able to quickly eat between the two recitals, since there was not really time to leave and come back between them.  Sheri said she was planning to set up a donation box and because I had a hard time imagining what that would look like, I planned to donate via check and put it in an envelope.

So, at the end of the first recital, they asked that all the people who had RSVP'd leave via "door no. 2" which is downstairs, so we all trooped down: Janice, Josie, Rachel, and me. And there was a familiar face!! Surprise!! It was Cherilea (Hardy) Pace!! Wearing a POE volunteer blue T-shirt!!

Cherilea is our cousin Rita's daughter. She was among my first piano students in Raymond. I had had a piano studio in El Cajon, CA, when we lived there, and then also in Raymond, AB, when we lived there. (That was the end of my piano teaching, though--got too busy with other things, mostly raising children. And then working.) Cherilea went on to become a very good pianist, and then an organist. She took classes from Don Cook at BYU, and then continued on to have seven years of organ lessons on her own, and actually now has one organ student (the only student she has ever taught) who is a young man in her ward who asked her to teach him when she was ward organist. And now he is ward organist!

Doesn't Cherilea still look just like her young self? I think she does. But she is now a grandmother--her son Malcolm has one child! So she joined our group for the dinner break, and she and I had a really great visit. Some of her news was not so fun: for example, she got tested for the BRCA 2 mutation, and she has it. So far, of Rita's 13 children, only Cara, Cherilea, and Janae have been tested, and Janae does not have it. Also Nola's daughter Holly has it, but she found out, like Cara, the unfortunate way, by having breast cancer. Visiting with Cherilea sure made me miss Rita, her mom. Rita was such a good cousin to me when we lived in Raymond, and also after. We have stayed at her house. In 2014! That was a long time ago. And then Rita died (thanks, BRCA 2) in 2021. Cherilea, who lives in South Jordan, Utah, went up and spent Rita's last month with her, caring for her mom. 

After dinner, we trooped back upstairs, and sat in our same row, only in a different order, this time with Cherilea on the outside edge. I asked one of the organ volunteers, who I had met at the organ lunch in the library on Thursday, if he would take a picture of our group, and he did.

Here we are: Cherilea, me, Rachel, Josie, and Janice. (Janice is not wearing her POE volunteer shirt this day because she had no volunteer responsibilities. She was wearing it on Thursday, but I did not take a picture of her on Thursday.)

We knew by this time that Miriam would be playing on the second recital, third person from the end. Actually, when we were in line for the food, Sheri told me that she texted me to tell me when Miriam would be playing, but apparently it has been a long time since Sheri texted me, because she had my 801-669-4533 number still, so of course I did not get the text!

So, we were sitting there enjoying the second recital, when between one student and another, a handsome blonde young man slid in beside Cherilea, put his arm around her, and there were some whispers back and forth. Cherilea leaned over to tell me that--Surprise!! It was Ammon, her brother Jared's son!! They were there in support of his (brand new) wife Eliza's brother, a student at the POE from North Carolina. (Only Cherilea got confused and told me South Carolina.)

We did take a picture of ourselves with Ammon and Eliza after the recital was over. I will just put it here now. (They actually just got married on my brother's birthday, June 6, 2026, in the Raleigh, North Carolina, temple.)

Here we are: me, Ammon, Eliza, and Cherilea. (Thanks to Janice for taking the photo.)

Now, the Heiss family lived in Durham, North Carolina, for five years. And for the weirdest surprise in a night of surprises, the last three people on the program were Miriam Heiss (who is not presently from North Carolina, but has a history there) playing Carillon de Westminster by Vierne, and then Calvin Stewart, Eliza's brother (who is from Apex, North Carolina) playing Bach's Prelude and Fugue in F Major, and then Seth Austin (who is also from North Carolina, and who Miriam already knew was from the stake the Heisses were in when they lived in Durham) playing the Vierne piece that Miriam really wanted to play if he hadn't decided to play it, the Final from Symphony no.1.

So--three North Carolina connected people in a row, two of whom share relatives!

There was also one young man (emphasis on young--maybe about 13 years old) from Raymond, because of course there was someone from Raymond. (As my mother would tell you if she could, there is always someone from Raymond! Wherever you go!) Anderson Stone was his name, so Ammon and Cherilea had to go and talk to him to find out if he is from the Stone family that is related to them!! (On their Hardy side.)

Miriam could not remember what names to say about Raymond--she knew she was related to people in Raymond, but knew that it was not Layton that would be the right name to say. I told her (too late for it to matter) that she could say Hardy (because Rita had 13 children, so, lots of Hardy people) or Navratil (because Aunt Celia had 9 children, so lots of Navratil descendants) or Hancock, my mom's maiden name and also a big family of 12. Any of those names would have been familiar to young Master Stone. Probably!

And weirdly, though I didn't know at the time I told her that, if she had said the name Hardy to the group, not only would Anderson Stone have noticed, but also Calvin Stewart, since his sister only recently married a Hardy from Raymond!

So that was fun--all the connections!! Connections we would not have discovered if Cherilea had not stayed for the second recital!! She only stayed for the dinner because she saw me; she only stayed for the second recital so she could hear Miriam! We would not have met Ammon and Eliza and discovered the connection to Calvin Stewart had Cherilea gone home early as she had originally planned to do!

Here is Miriam playing her recital piece, which she did very well. I think Josie did a video recording of Miriam's entire performance, but I do not have it. Maybe she or Nancy will put it up on YouTube. 

And here is a picture of the entire group of POE students and teachers. (Thanks to Janice for picture!)

You can see Miriam in the white sweater and black skirt close to the left side. Miriam's first organ teacher, from when Miriam did the "Organ First" program at age 8-9, Nora Hess, is at the far right in brown pants and green and white top. It is wonderful to see how Miriam has grown as a musician and organist from when she was just a little girl!

And that was the end of the evening! We stood around and talked with people, and didn't eat the Rice Krispie treats they had on offer, though Rachel took one home for herself, and for Bruce, and then we left Miriam to enjoy her last night with the POE friends, and Rachel picked her up from the BYU School of Music at noon on Saturday.

Today was Sunday, and we had a little surprise for Miriam, who came to Relief Society with us, and led the singing (because Jane, who should do it, was delayed after sacrament meeting) because she was volunteered to do it. (Surprise, Miriam!) She was visiting Relief Society instead of visiting Young Women, and after Relief Society, I wanted to take the opportunity to introduce both Rachel and Miriam to Janice Kapp Perry (JKP to me and others at the library who routinely call her that, but to her face I call her Jan, which is what everyone who knows her normally calls her). 

I asked her if we could take a picture of her with the girls, because the girls want to be fan girls. Jan said, "Do they want to be fans of old ladies? Because that is what I am now--an old lady." 

Aren't they so cute? Wearing their Primary Colors! (Our Primary Colors are 1-2-3! Red, yellow, and blue...)

And I will just end with a completely out of place picture, because I took this picture in honor of Rachel's birthday on July 20, but then did not remember to include it in that post, so here is a picture of the sixth floor at the library. Colette's desk is in front, and she is the one who made this poster celebrating Rachel. (Heiss, to be clear: there are other Rachels on the sixth floor. At least one; maybe more!)

Organ Concert

 Miriam is attending the POE: Pipe Organ Encounter, which is a week-long camp for teenagers to have some organ immersion and also to play magnificent pipe organs. The American Guild of Organists sponsors POEs every year--this year there are three--scattered around the country. So there has not been one in Utah for awhile. Turns out that my friend and neighbor Dorothy is the organizer of the event this time around. And I found out about it because my friend and library colleague Rachel W. posted about it on Facebook, and I noticed Dorothy's name and contacted her about it...and long story short, Miriam won a scholarship to attend it. Which was great, because she had to get here from Georgia, and that already cost money.

So she started on Monday, Rachel's birthday (Rachel H.), and I think she has been having a great time. On Tuesday, Dorothy called me because they "lost" Miriam--it was her turn to play the pipe organ in the choral hall, but she was in the concert hall, having been given conflicting information. (Miriam is not the type of person to just blow off something!) I was, of course, worrying needlessly until one or both of Dorothy or Miriam let me know (they both did) that she was "found."

Yesterday, I took a cart full of things up to Janice in cataloguing, but she wasn't there, and Colette said she was doing some choir thing with Rachel (W.) today...and I was like "Maybe an organ thing?" Yes, that was it. Somehow, Rachel and Janice had to end up driving the kids from Timp Lodge to campus yesterday, and also they had to figure out lunch, which Colette did the ordering for them. And when I went downstairs, I happened to run into Janice who told me to come and crash their lunch party, which was in the Flex Room. So I had a nice visit with Janice (who is also an organist) and Rachel W. and other grown-ups, and Miriam did come and talk to me for a minute. 

Everyone was saying that Miriam looks like me, which is a nice compliment to me, but I am not sure how she feels about being told she looks like an old white-haired grandma. 

Last night was the concert given by their guest artist, Isabelle Demers. Janice walked over directly from work, and I drove over and we sat with another organ person who assists the BYU organ faculty and I cannot for the life of me remember her name even though Janice told me several times. She was nice, though! I remember that! She who I cannot name because I don't remember her name helps with organizing concerts, and she mentioned how happy she was to see a good-sized audience; she was afraid it would be an almost empty hall because the organ is a bit niche. I told her that Dorothy invited our whole ward. (Later, after the concert, I would talk to a bunch of people from our ward, so her invitation worked.)

The concert was amazing. The students all sat on the sides, which would give them a better view of Isabelle's hands. Here is Miriam and the other girls from the POE. (The student breakdown was 23 males and only 7 females. The girls, it was reported to me, had become a pretty tight-knit group.) In this picture, there are actually six of the POE girls and one of the POE boys. The man in blue a couple of rows behind is Dorothy's husband, Richard. (Picture taken before the concert, not during. There were more people during.)

We sat in front, so we had a good view of Isabelle's back, and also her feet, which would become important! And wow, what a workout she gave herself, playing more than an hour's worth of music (including two encores)--playing the organ is NOT a sedentary thing to do!

Isabelle played two Allegro Vivace movements from two Fifth symphonies (of Charles Widor and Felix Mendelssohn, respectively) and then Bach's Prelude and Fugue in D MAJOR--the minor one I know well, but was unfamiliar with the major one.

Because she is Canadian, she wanted to include some Canadian music. Healey Willan, though born in England, lived out his adult life in Toronto. Isabelle said, "Well, he could not help it that he was not born in Canada, so he came as soon as he could!" And then she played a lullaby by Rachel Laurin, who was her friend, and Isabelle is currently working on a CD release of music by this now deceased friend.

And then she ended with Variations on a theme by Paganini by Sir George Thalben-Ball and holy doodle! That piece is about 3/4 played only by FEET. Trills and arpeggios and crossing one leg over the other, and reaching both feet as far as possible away from each other and chords and runs--Isabelle was sometimes balancing herself with both hands on the bench while her feet danced hither and thither. 

There is no NEED to play the organ that athletically, by which I mean that the organ was designed to play using your hands, supplemented by your feet, but that composer/organist, Sir George, wanted to see if it could be done to give the feet the bulk of the music, and yuppers, it could be done. But I do not think there are many organists who would take that challenge on!! I am sure Isabelle was exhausted after playing that piece! But she still played two encores (walking across the stage each time, as if she wasn't already worn out from playing for so long and on that last very athletic piece!): her own arrangement of "Somewhere over the rainbow" and then I think a Reger arrangement of a Bach invention. 

Janice and I were standing just outside the concert hall with Miriam when Isabelle popped out of a side door with Neil Harmon. So we were the first people who got to talk with her, and the first thing she said to me was that in that morning's master class, at 9 AM, Miriam was the first student to play, and that she was wonderful--did I come to it? (I didn't know about it, so no.) We had a lovely chat, and I said, "Did Miriam tell you that she is Canadian?" And she had not, and so the two of them had a lovely chat about that. And then I asked if I could take a picture of the two of them, Isabelle and Miriam, together, but then Neil said to let him take the picture so I could be in it, too. And so I said thank you, and here are the results. 

I had a chat with Dorothy's son, Daniel. I have known him for a long time (I knew him before I knew Dorothy) because he used to be a frequent attendee at the Hymn Sing program that I ran in the BYU library for a very long time--stopped due to COVID in 2020, and never resumed because we are now in a super red-tapey era, and I just don't want to have to deal with it. Anyways, Dorothy got Daniel to take the kids on a hike to Stewart Falls, which apparently Miriam was very excited about. Dorothy is a very outdoors kind of woman, and also she is still (at now past 80 years old) running more than one Cub Scout troupes! She just has found that she can't do the hikes anymore--she can still hike, but she is so slow and young people want to go faster, so she gets Daniel to do the hiking. 

Daniel said it was a successful hike. (The bar is low: nobody died = success!) He said that organists are a good group of youth to hike with because they value their limbs and know that they can't really do their thing--play the organ--if they have damaged their limbs. So, he didn't even have to tell them to be careful, because they are just, by nature and self-selection, a careful group.

Also I had a chat with Neil, who said that Miriam can do an in-person audition for BYU School of Music admission. I am to have her email him. He also said that she can go into the SoM and practice on their organs anytime next week. He thinks the other organ professor might have a busy week, but he doesn't, and I told him that Miriam literally has nothing to do next week except whatever she wants to do. So we will work that out.

Last of all, I heard Neil say to a tall, dark and handsome (and married) organist, that he thought the Canadians should meet: meaning this guy and Isabelle. Well, it was Dallin Bissett, from Raymond, who is the grandson of Bob and Mari Bissett. Mari was my sister  Colleen's roommate. I am afraid I told him tales of his grandfather sleeping on the couch in Colleen's apartment when he had some roommate issues going on. Dallin and his friend thought that back in the day they were maybe looser with the Honor Code. I think that back in the day we were generally big-brothered much less about everything than we are today! At BYU and everywhere else!! Anyways, he was fun to talk to. 

Tonight we have more organ stuff to happen, so stay tuned for an organ update!

Adventures in Buying Something

 I got my title from Nancy's post, Adventures in Buying Nothing, only real buying was involved, so Something instead of Nothing. 

The Something we needed to buy was a recliner. We first bought a recliner for Bruce 19 years ago (almost--it will be 19 years in September) after his open heart surgery in 2007, because they sent him home (too soon, in my opinion--culture shock Canada to US medical systems--they would not have sent him home that soon in Canada) and he couldn't really lay down and get up and stuff. So before he could realistically come home from the hospital (too soon) I had to go and buy a recliner. Which I did.

I had hoped that one recliner would be enough for one lifetime, but it turns out that it was becoming less comfortable, and if you know Bruce then you know that when he is not comfortable, you find out about it. And I thought, okay--we'll just get a new recliner. They have improved over the years, anyway, so we can get a better one.

Before I decided that we should just bite that buying bullet, he of course was sending me links to this recliner and that recliner and generally reinforcing the idea that he wanted a new recliner. But as I looked at the links, and read the reviews of people who had purchased recliners online, there were those who said "Go to a store. Try out a recliner. Buy the one you like," 

That made sense to me, so I sent him on an errand to go to stores and try recliners. Which he did, but he did not buy one because they are expensive, and he was in sticker shock. Also delivery fees are much higher than they were 19 years ago! (Or even six years ago, which was about the last time we had anything delivered from a furniture store.) 

So it looked to him like buying from Amazon, and letting our Prime membership pay for delivery, was a good idea. A better idea.

Okay, so I went along with that. Knowing what features he was hoping for, since he had gone to stores, I found one that met his desires that also included free shipping (and was also much less dinero than any of the store models he had tried) and ordered it. (This was my first mistake.)

It came. And that is when the trouble started. Nobody was home when it was delivered last week (July 15), and Bruce came home from shopping (the rest of us were at school or work) and there was the huge box. Apparently he stood and looked at the box for some time, causing Josie's Ring Camera notification to go off time and again, and she would look at him standing there looking at the box.

Our neighbor Clark also saw him standing, and came over to help. And the two of them opened the box. Which, by the way was quite damaged. (Later, Bruce would show me the Ring Camera video of the delivery of the box. The one man dumped it out of the truck and then flipped it boom boom boom end over end four or five times.) Inside, the chair was also damaged.

Well. That is not what you want to see on a new piece of furniture that you just received. It wasn't in a hidden spot either, just very much in evidence. 

So, he sent me this picture at work, and I made my second mistake. I went on Amazon to try to click on one of the options for a dissatisfied customer. And I should have waited--Amazon has a very generous return policy, so there was NO RUSH. And yet, I was too hasty. I should have gone home and looked at the chair, and looked at the box, and taken my time. But no. 

At first I clicked on return item, but then I made my third mistake, and changed it to replace item. Which immediately triggered a second chair to be sent to us. I did not realize that it would do that tout de suite like that. Arrgh.

Because when I got home, I saw that there was a bigger problem than just a wrecked brand new chair. There was a bigger problem than just significant damage to the box it came in. Bruce and Clark had basically finished the job of ruining the box that we would need to use to return the chair, AND when I looked in the trash can to pull out the packing material that Bruce had thrown away, there was so much very little there!! I could not believe how flimsily the chair had been wrapped for shipment!! Like, no wonder it got damaged. And watching the video of how the guy unloaded it--it is a wonder there wasn't worse visible damage. (And maybe internal damage too, which we will never know about because we have not tried the chair out.)

Seeing that made me realize that I did not want a second chair from this company!! If they packed it so terribly, and if they had it delivered so carelessly, then the second chair might be as bad as the first, or worse. So I thought that maybe I could change the replace back to refund, but no. That is not an option.

So the next day, I called Amazon Customer Service, and after enduring stupid AI questions from a stupid AI operator, and after asking politely and then demanding and then yelling that I needed to talk to a human, I finally got to talk to a human.

Oh but wait! I forgot to relate the worst mistake--which was not one of mine, thankfully. This mistake was completely mind boggling!! So here is Bruce, this person who "needs" his recliner, and who cuts online calls with his children short because he just can't sit in this (high-backed and in my opinion pretty comfortable) chair, because he needs his neck to be better supported by his recliner. This recliner-addict...wait for it...took apart his old recliner! As soon as the box was delivered! Before he even knew what was inside! And then, when the new recliner was obviously not going to work out, he could not put his recliner back together. So he sat in it leaning it against a wall, with the back kind of connected but not properly.

So once I knew this--he had apparently tried to tell me, but I think my brain just could not compute "I took apart my chair," because WHY would you do that?--Josie and I worked with him to try to put it back together. But like Humpty Dumpty, all the effort we could muster couldn't put the chair back together again. In fact, I think that the back of the chair got broken in the taking apart efforts that I was not there to see, because it was literally not possible to line things up to put it together.

And also...why??? All he had to do was put it on the front porch AS IS, and I would have listed it on the Provo Buy Nothing Group, and someone would have taken it...

Instead, we put it in the van, and in the morning, he took it to DI. He was excited because I told him to just go to wherever his favorite chair he had tried was, and just buy it, and pay the delivery fee and have it delivered.

And so he did. But delivery would not be until Monday. So he took his puzzle chair (which is an office chair) into the TV room and was just uncomfortable for all those many days. Like, he thought he was uncomfortable before, but this took uncomfortable to a whole new level.

In the meantime, I am going back and forth with the Amazon Partner company trying to stop the shipment of the replacement chair. By Friday morning, they were telling me that I needed to call FedEx and stop the shipment. And FedEx is telling me that only they can do it. And they are telling me they did do it. And FedEx is telling me there is nothing telling them to stop the shipment. And both are telling me that what I need to do is to refuse the shipment, because if it is delivered without me refusing it at point of delivery, then I will need to return not one but two chairs.

And one is a problem enough, because I need to somehow recreate a ruined box, and that sucker is heavy to lift into our van, and take it to UPS, which handles Amazon returns. 

So Saturday, starting at 7 AM, mostly me, but occasionally spelled off by Bruce or Josie, someone had to be watching for the delivery. It was excruciatingly boring. (Rachel and Miriam were both "here" but had gone for the day with their friend from Georgia so were not pressed into the watching rotation.)

Finally, at some point in the afternoon, I had the idea to use the tracking number the Amazon Partner had given me on FedEx's website, to see if I could pinpoint a window of time, because Josie and I wanted to run to Costco to buy a Costco chocolate cake for Rachel's birthday, which we were going to celebrate on Sunday because Miriam and Kelli would both be there, and neither would be there on Rachel's actual birthday.

Fortunately, that worked, and the window of time was 6:15-9:15 pm. So we left Bruce to watch (because windows of time have been known to be wrong, even when you think you know them) and ran to buy just only what we needed at Costco. (That was not hard because we both strongly dislike the Orem Costco. Too many people. Too much muchness.)

We also picked up pizza for dinner because I didn't want to be cooking and miss the stupid truck, because our kitchen has no windows on that side of the house where the truck would come.

We ate early, so that we would be finished by the time the 6:15 window of time opened, but would intermittently also open the kitchen door to look outside to see if there was a truck in the street. (We had the garage door open, but didn't dare leave the kitchen door open because it was 100 degrees out there.) 

When the truck actually came--early!--I was the only one who heard it. The driver was already in the back of the truck about to unload the box and I yelled "Wait! Stop!! We want to refuse this delivery! We have been trying all week (hyperbole!) to stop the delivery!!"

And so he stopped, and he got me to sign the appropriate place on his little device, and then he drove away, and just like that, we had succeeded in refusing the box with the replacement chair inside!!

One down and one to go!!

And then on Monday Bruce's new chair came, and he feels quite relieved with his adventure in buying something he wanted, even though it cost a chunk of change.

And I am still trying to acquire a big enough box to at least be able to patch together some semblance of a box so I can return the damaged chair.

Lessons learned: I mentioned one already, "don't be hasty." I should have taken at least a day, or at least until I got home, to make a choice about how to handle the problem. Lesson two is related: with Amazon orders ALWAYS just return. You can always buy the item again later if you change your mind that you really did want it.

And to finish on a positive note, here is a selfie or two of the girls on July 19, Rachel's not-birthday, after Bruce had gone to bed for lack of a recliner to sit in.

And this one, which I think is so cute of Josie, but that she probably might not like:

So. All is well that ends. And this adventure has really not ended yet. I have one refund for one chair taken care of, and one more to go. And, not being hasty, I have a week or so to figure out how to box up and ship out the last chair, so eventually this adventure will indeed end. 

Music and Move

 A week ago Thursday, July 2, our neighobor's daughter, who is a BYU alumnus and also University of Kansas alum for her master's degree as a collaborative pianist, gave a recital at the end of the work day in BYU's Museum of Art. It was so good! 

Here is Beth, talking about the program:

 And here is the oboeist, Colby, she collaborated with on one piece:

And here is Beth and her mom, Mary Elizabeth, collaborating on a couple of piano duets by Oliver Davis, who was a composer I had not heard of before, but who I find I really like the music of, so I have begun ordering a few pieces for the library.

Beth also collaborated with herself, singing and playing the Sammy Fain piece, "I'll be seeing you," which she dedicated to her deceased brother Jacob, because in the year and a bit since his death, when she goes to all "the old familiar places" she sees him in her mind's eye. It was very touching. A couple of other pieces she played as piano solos were also kind of "about" family love, and I was moved to tears unexpectedly--don't always expect to cry at a piano recital! 

All week we were gearing up for yesterday! Josie was working an extra hour every day so she could take a half day off on Friday so that we could help Rachel and her Heiss grandparents with emptying Nancy's pods. And it only took two hours start to finish, including driving time to Spanish Fork and back!! That was because we had so many helpers. Many hands make light work!!

I didn't remember to take pictures on the Spanish Fork end of the pod unpacking, but there were maybe 17-20 people helping at that end. They did not all come to the unloading zone at the storage unit Nancy and Andrew had rented, but these people did:

R-L: James, who works with Rachel in the Music Cataloguing area, Steve and Janice (Janice Rachel's boss and also James' boss), me, Josie, Rachel, and the lady and her two children who are neighbors to Aunt Linda. Missing is Janice and Steve's son, Reuben, who had to leave a few minutes before the picture was taken, and Reid and Darla who somehow both avoided being in the picture, and the nice man from Aunt Linda's ward who drove the truck we put all the stuff into.

I think the most awkward thing to move was Grandma Conrad's old sewing machine (dated by my colleauge Jed to, he thinks, 1921) which was heavy. Mind you, boxes of books were heavy, too. I proved myself to be very weak compared to other people. So I was really grateful there were others there to help. Had it just been me and Josie and Rachel, it would have really been noticeable how weak I am, and it would have taken WAY longer!!

Here is Reid, holding up the code that Nancy and Andrew devised, which helped us know where to put things. White tags are back left, with the two purples in front of it (not perfectly sorted, but those are Rachel's and Miriam's things). In back right there are the furniture-ish things, like a desk and the sewing machine and TV screens, then red tags and food buckets at front right.

We left home at 1:05 (that was my fault; Josie and Rachel were right ready to go at 1:00; I was 5 minutes late according to the timing that I set) and got home again at 2:53. Not even two hours!!! That is amazing. We brought the musical instruments, the viola and the ukulele, to our house, and Janice put the bike in her van, and dropped it off at our house. It is nice that there is an aisle in the storage unit.

And there are the bookends to the past week. Or the past ten days.