Monday, December 21, 2015

Haciendo compost abono/ Making compost fertilizer


Escribiré primero en español, después en inglés. I will write first in Spanish, and then in English! See the English below the photos.

Dedico este blog a mi gran amigo Jonatán en la ciudad de Córdoba, Argentina. Jonatán  cultiva su jardíncito, de su proprio iniciativo, para dar comida a su familia.

Jonatán, por supuesto puedes hallar mucha información sobre compostaje en la red, pero prefiero darte informaciones más personal, de mis experiencias haciendo mi proprio compost por muchos años. Lo hago porque es abono limpio, sin sustancia química. Además, me da mucho placer hacerlo. Parece que todavía soy niña que quiere ensuciar sus manos jugando en la tierra!

Para comenzar con foto #1, se ve abono "vivo," plantas que se puede desarraigar, y despues socavar en la tierra. Hago esto después de unas estaciones, para dar de nuevo nutrientes a la tierra.

Una parte de mi composto se hace en un receptáculo de plástico. Pongo dentro malas hierbas del jardín y comida incomible de la cocina. ( Fotos #2, 3, 4, y 5)

En cuanto a las malas hierbas, es MUY IMPORTANTE recordar de no poner: plantas con semillas ni plantas con enfermedads, como fungo. Y en cuanto a la comida incomible de la cocina, no poner: carne, huesos, o cosas ya cocidas. Cáscaras de huevo son muy amadas de las lombrices. Te, café y maté también.Todo se pone en el receptáculo  grande de compost, foto #6.  La próxima etapa es girar el compostaje cada 2-3 semanas, poniendo lo de arriba en la tierra para formar el montón de nuevo. Al fondo del montón original, habrá tierra negra y fino. Esta es el compostaje bien "cocinado," o terminado, como se puede ver en foto #7. Este pongo en otro receptáculo  para continuar a "cocinar" durante los meses fríos, para usar cuando comienza la estación de cultivación. 

 El segundo tipo de composto es algo muy común en el este de los Estados Unidos: hojas! Compré seis graneros para hojas. (Foto #8) Las colecciono en el otoño, cuando caen, y las pongo en la tierra entre las plantas para impedir la salida de malas hierbas. Y, a la vez, las hojas son perfectas para nutrir la tierra. Al fondo de los graneros hay tambien compostaje de hojas que parece tierra negra y fino. (Foto #9) Este tesoro mezclo con el otro compostaje para abono "super." Produce plantas fantásticas también! (Fotos #10 y 11.) 

Pues, ya ven que soy una compostadora fanática! Pero vale la pena en cuanto al salud de la familia y el sabor de las hortalizas. Buena suerte, y buen provecho! 
Foto #1 Abono vivo.  Cover crops to replenish nutrients
Foto #2 Contenador de plástico para compost    Plastic composter 
Foto #3  Malas hierbas   Weeds
Foto #4 Receptáculo  para comida incomible de la cocina   Kitchen composter
Foto #5 Comida incomible de la cocina (se puede poner el mate!). Kitchen waste
Foto#6 Aquí se pone todo!  Put everything in here!

Foto#7 Compostaje terminado.  Finished compost

Foto #8 Graneros de hojas. Leaf bins

Foto #9 Compostaje de hojas, bien terminado.  Leaf mold.

Foto #10 Nabos!   Turnips!

Foto #11 Col rizado, o "kale"

ENGLISH TRANSLATION
I dedicate this blog to my great friend Jonatán in the city of Córdoba, Argentina, who cultivates his small garden, all on his own initiative, to give fresh vegetables to his family.

Jonatan, of course you can find a lot of information about composting on the Internet, put I prefer to give you more personalized tips from my many years of making my own compost. I do it myself because it's "clean fertilizer," without any chemicals. Also, it is great fun to make it. It seems that I'm still a little kid who wants to get her hands dirty playing in the dirt!

Starting with photo #1, you can see "cover crops," which are plants which you dig up and then bury in the soil. I plant these after a few season to return nutrients to the soil. 

One part of my compost is made in a round plastic container. I put weeds and kitchen scraps in it. (Photos #2, 3, 4, and 5)

Regarding the weeds, it's very important to remember not to put in any plants with seeds, or any plants with diseases, such as fungal infections. And when using kitchen scraps, remember to leave out bones, meat, or anything that's already been cooked. Worms love eggshells, as well as tea, coffee grounds, and mate. Everything allowable is put into the big plastic composter, photo #6.  The next step is to turn the compost pile every 2-3 weeks, putting the stuff on the top on the ground next to the original pile to form a new pile. At the bottom of the original pile, there will be fine black soil. This is "finished compost," which you can see in photo #7. I put this in another container to continue to "cook" during the cold months, in order to use it when the new planting season begins.

The second type of compost is something very commonly found in the Eastern United States: leaves! I bought six leaf bins. (Photo #8) I gather the leaves in the autumn, and put them on the ground between the newly-growing plants in the spring and summer to impede weed growth. And, at the same time, leaves are perfect soil nutrients. At the bottom of the leaf bins, there is also leaf compost that looks like fine black soil. This is leaf mold, a treasure shich I mix with the other compost to make a "super fertilizer." It produces fantastic plants!

Well, now it's obvious that I'm a compost fanatic. But it's worth it for our families' health and the taste of the vegetables. Good luck and bon apetit!






Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Re-Entry from Travel: What a Change!

A week ago I returned from a five-week trip to Argentina. During the first three weeks of the trip, I felt as if I were floating in a dreamy state of experiential bliss: observing new sights, walking and exploring endlessly, starting many conversations with strangers, and living free from schedules, to-do lists, obligations, and tyrannical self-rule, to which I have at least 50 years' worth of in-brain jail time. By the fourth week, I organized myself enough to eat vegetables, take my vitamins, and stop eating any pastries or junk food, but that's where the bossiness ended. So when my plane landed in Baltimore, I fully expected to enter the jail cell of my brain and endure the endless orders that an Organized Person gives to herself in order to Get Things Done.

There was only one thing to cause tension in my mind. My host in Cordoba, Argentina, looked at me intently, and asked "What kind of work do you intend to do when you return?" I cast about in my floaty vacation state, and couldn't come up with anything except, "Get my violin out and start practicing my scales....?" "But what kind of work?" he persisted. I just could not answer him. I knew I needed to do something, but I couldn't figure out what.

A week after my return, my usual tense self-exhortations to WORK, and to do my weekly planning and extreme day scheduling had not happened.  Although I wrote all my weekly goals in my fabulous Planner Pad, they were all relaxed and happy: rehearse Shostakovich, finish Giardinelli novel, start editing Argentina blog, start watching the video, "Sewing with Silk," etc. My daily life has been likewise relaxed. WHY???

I think it is because I am now retired. RETIRED!! Retired from the need to tightly schedule my interests around my work, to organize all my time efficiently and smartly, to push push push to accomplish accomplish accomplish. The five weeks in Argentina gave me a break in which to part ways with my weird driving nature of a working life, and have a relaxed re-entry to my new retired life.

So now I have an open and kindly-natured attitude to let ideas enter about what will happen next. There are so many possibilities! Here is a toast to being imaginative, helpful, creative, inquisitive and fun---so everyone can enjoy life along with me---and perhaps get a bit of interesting work out of me! CHEERS!



Friday, October 9, 2015

Scenes from Childhood: Scandalous Movies

These days, I am luxuriating in a wealth of possible online entertainment. What I have discovered is the ability to re-visit some of  the memorable movies I saw as a child. When I say "memorable,"I really mean it. My parents would take my sister and me all the way from Altadena to a Los Angeles art house cinema, the Nuart, which was 38 miles away.  And we saw a film, which we then discussed, because we went out to dinner at Kowloon's afterwards, and relived our artful experience with a Stinger (Mom), an Old Fashioned (Dad), and Shirley Temples (my sister and me). How special!

The very first real art film I remember is The Seventh Seal, Ingmar Bergman 1957, but I'm sure we saw it a few years later. Mom and Dad explained the meaning and symbolism of Max von Sydow's character challenging Death to a chess game, which made me feel like the most superior under-ten atheist intellectual of everyone we knew. See the chess match here

We saw Spartacus, Stanley Kubrick 1960, which wasn't really an "art film" because it wasn't European, but could qualify because Saul Bass designed the brilliant main titles. Saul Bass was a friend of the family. Sort of.  Anyway, here they are

My mother adored the joyous Never on Sunday, Jules Dassin 1960. The inimitable score immediately filled our house, but the film itself was considered scandalous at the time, and most definitely never for children. My sister and I weren't allowed to go, but it was talked about endlessly: a beautiful Greek prostitute, played by Melina Mercouri, goes to meet a boat of incoming sailors, and the fun begins. I was nine, and there was no censorship in our house! See the original trailer, and then see the film NOW.


Giving cause for fascinated discussion was Irene Papas in Electra, Mihalis Cacoyannis 1962. Electra and her brother Orestes avenge their father's murder by thrusting a sword into the throat of their mother Clytemnestra. At age eleven,  I had a personal understanding with Euripides: we related. The only link I found to this film contains ultra-short scenes, with a rather nice song accompanying them. However, the horror begins at 1:57 on the clip, so enjoy 

Can you believe parents taking their impressionable young children to see Tom Jones? Tony Richardson 1963. In the extreme low lighting of Kowloon's, we had a discussion of what could possibly have been going on in the "dinner scene." See for yourself.

Another artsy film, just right for a 15-year-old, was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf , Mike Nichols 1966. The events of the film were more dramatic than what happened at our house, so therefore impressive. I can't remember the Kowloon discussion very clearly, but I think it had to do with how bad it was to drink and argue. There are many choice scenes to choose from, but this is as vitriolic as any.

How great to be taken at a tender age to see these  totally inappropriate films! The urge to continue this highbrow movie-going tradition is in me still.   Great movies are so accessible now---may I recommend the 994 films from the Criterion Collection, available from a cheap subscription to Hulu? How wealthy I feel!



Thursday, October 1, 2015

Oh Shirt!

My third attempt to create “The Classic Tailored Shirt,” using Kwik Sew pattern 3555 and an excellent online video course put out by Craftsy, is the most successful one so far. Yet surprisingly, it was not easier, faster, or more streamlined, as one might suppose a third attempt would be. Why not? The pattern instructions seem easy and straightforward. The instructor, Pam Howard, speaks slowly and calmly, with therapist-like reassurance every step of the way. Her instructions seem clear enough. Yet in the making of the first two shirts, construction became so fraught with difficulty, that I seriously feared something was wrong with the processing abilities of my brain.

But no, this is not quite the case. The difficulty exists because each step needs to be damnably exacting, fussy, and perfect. The collar and collar stand, for example. Every single factory-made shirt that one can buy from the rack has one, done perfectly. It looks so easy. But doing it oneself, trying to make each side a mirror image, and then attaching it to the neckline---again perfectly---is difficult and challenging. Ditto with the shirt fronts. Well, those are slightly easier. But the worst part of all are the cuffs, and attaching them to the placket ends of the sleeves. They drove me crazy, these ordinary and boring parts of shirts. Ordinary is not necessarily simple.

In a previous foray into a difficult sewing arena, I did another Craftsy course called “Sewing the Couture Dress,” with Susan Khalji. Oh-ho---couture---we know that the word itself implies work that is exacting, time-consuming, and perfect, with exquisite, one-of-a-kind, expensive-looking results. And yes, the course was difficult in the sense that each step represented a new technique, and quite a bit was done by hand. But there was a lot of heartening control: if the fit wasn't quite right, it was easily correctable. Everything could be fixed.

But the shirt? No no no. By shirt number three, I finally discovered the Big Secret of why it was so difficult. It's because shirt making is part of tailoring.  I read Bespoke: Savile Row Ripped and Smoothed by Richard Anderson, which is a memoir of his frightfully long apprenticeship at Huntsmans on London's Savile Row, and his eventual opening of his own shop. In his apprenticeship, learning to make a cuff must have been a two-year stint! Actually, each step in the making of a Savile Row suit belongs to an expert who does just one specialty: pattern-making, cutting the cloth, etc. And here I was, making the entire shirt! When I discovered the link between shirt making and tailoring, I gained a great deal of respect for the "simple" task I had set for myself.

Which brings me to another favorite idea I keep spinning as I try different activities: getting to know the difference between passively experiencing something, and actually trying to do it. I have tried drawing and painting, juxtaposed to observing art in a museum. I have grown most of the vegetables I eat instead of just buying them. Playing the violin versus listening to the violin? Don’t get me started. Therefore, sewing my own garments cannot be compared to going to any store and choosing stuff to take to the dressing room. I have nearly come to regard buying ready-to-wear clothing as cheating. 

Despite the struggle to learn such a complicated skill, it has been extremely satisfying to keep trying to make this shirt. OK, it was designed by Kerstin Martensson, dedicated educator and founder of the Kwik Sew pattern company, and my personal creativity has merely consisted of choosing the fabric, the thread and the buttons. But the struggle, the angst, the incredible amount of time pondering the instructions and trying to figure out what they mean, and then trying many times to achieve them--- all this investment of my spirit and my essence in this most basic of clothing items is wildly inspiring. Shall I make five more shirts from the same pattern to really master it? Maybe I need to study online with a master shirt maker. Or actually apprentice to one myself.

What I think I'll do is to have and enjoy my respect for tailoring, for the art of shirt making, for being careful and exact, and for taking time to actually make the shirts, and---let’s move on to sewing with SILK!

Please enjoy the illustrated shirt saga below.
Cuffs! Clockwise from left, Shirt#1 (the muslin), Shirt#2, Shirt #3
Collars on their stands! 
This is the muslin, the practice shirt. People who sew will spot 10 horrendous flaws immediately!
Shirt #2  Much better! It was still a practice shirt, made for $6, with fry-yourself-in-the-sun polyester fabric.
The best, Shirt#3. A soft cotton lawn pima fabric, total cost:$26. If in the Vogue September issue, $1,600! 



Wednesday, September 23, 2015

I Flunked Apron, So Why Do I Sew?

I am just about to go upstairs to “The Studio,” our combined painting and sewing room, to work on my third version of a classic tailored shirt. November 3, 2015 will mark the second anniversary of my return to the sewing machine since the disastrous mess of an apron I “made” in my eighth grade home economics class in 1963.

There was a brief return in 1992 when I was inspired to make curtains for a new lodging. I mentioned this to an adult violin student, as we appraised my naked windows facing the street. The following week she lugged a 1976 all-metal Singer sewing machine along the sidewalk, and thrust it into my arms. “I bought it, I never used it, it’s yours,” she announced. I enrolled in a beginners’ class at G Street Fabrics in Rockville, Maryland, where I was thrillingly able to make a tote bag and a blouse. (The bag I still use; the blouse I wore out.) I called my experience “Re-doing 8th Grade Home Ec.” The important core of my success was learning to go slowly and carefully. In the class, I watched hurrying students put a heavy foot on the machine pedal, stitch madly out of control, and then rip out seams for hours. This was something I had done at age 12, not knowing The Secret of Slow and Careful.

So, I made some curtains, put the sewing machine away, and did not return to it until 2013.
  
What brought me back? Not curtains, and definitely not aprons. There were a number of reasons. First of all, there was the issue of fit. I am 5’3” and small-boned. I am also rather thin and somewhat awry in my proportions. I am thin because my diet is 90% vegetables.Then, there are two ancient pins in my left ankle, causing me to be a little lopsided. Also, playing the violin all my life has made my left neck-to-shoulder territory shorter and more congested with muscle than my right side. Ready to wear clothing just doesn’t fit properly. So, that was one reason I decided to sew.

More compelling attractions were the seductive twins of textiles and handwork. I have always loved fabrics, rugs, quilts, costumes, woolens, the Textile Museum in Washington D.C., the lace galleries in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Costume Institute at the Met in NYC, weavers in India, silks in Japan, cotton prints of the Kuna people of Panama, etc.  And handwork---which produces an amazing alpha-and-beta-wave combo---is Big Pharma to me. Sewing can set off those brain waves until time disappears, and I bliss out with concentration.  Years before, I crocheted and knitted, but stopped because I couldn’t stop. It was too calming, too pleasant, too addictive, too opposite-of-me. 

But I made the big decision to start sewing with the best reason of all: it’s a reward! A reward for what? For eating healthfully, exercising daily, taking my vitamins, seeing the doctor and dentist at proper intervals, growing all the vegetables we eat all year long, taking care, taking great care, every single day. One needs a Big Reward for all that, so I gave it to myself, and set up a sewing section in “The Studio.” 

As the second anniversary of my Sewing Reward approaches, today I celebrate  being able to concentrate on the lovely pima cotton lawn shirt, my 30th garment, counting all of the muslins (practice garments) I painstakingly stitched and fitted. So, I am contemplating a reward for pursuing my reward: a new “Rolls Royce” up-to-date sewing machine to replace my trusty “Model T” Singer. I’ve almost earned it.
 
Here is the tote bag from 1992,  holding my swimming gear (with Sophie the Cat)
The sewing section! Observe (left to right) pieces of shirt #3, shirt #2 on the dress form, and the 1976  Singer



Friday, September 18, 2015

Set the Date---For a Performance, That Is


The best advice I ever received for getting the ponderous mechanism of serious violin practice underway is to set a date for a performance. Then everything organizes itself: daily practice starts, and then proceeds in a logical way until the day of the event. For me, this works perfectly.

On June 12, 2015, I retired from regular studio violin teaching. This was because I wanted to devote all possible time to my many interests. As it was summer, the garden demanded two to four hours of daily outdoor work. There was sewing, reading, socializing, cultural events, and travel plans to be fitted in to my schedule. Since I wasn’t teaching, or playing in any group, there was nothing at all I was expected to do with the violin. “Freedom!” This was my first thought, followed by feelings of guilt: how could I think this way when I had so many years of playing behind me, such a fine violin and bow, so many lessons in the past from so many eloquent teachers? Freedom and guilt were both useless ideas for me. I needed some other principles.

After pondering my relationship with the violin, I remembered the advice to set the date. Handily, my neighbor’s parents had recently located to Silver Spring from Connecticut, and resided in a beautiful retirement community not far away. When I suggested to the neighbor that I set up a recital for her parents and the other residents, she was very enthusiastic---not just because of her parents, but because of a performance I owed her. Seven years ago, she “won” a performance from me in a school silent auction, targeted for her son’s Bar Mitzvah. I was unable to give it because of severe tendonitis. A long memory served her well.

So, I called the activities director at Kensington Park Senior Living, and set that date.  Action! I arranged to play with Grace, a good friend who plays violin and piano. Together we chose a 30-minute repertoire, set up a rehearsal, and for the next three weeks, I got back into shape to perform solos and duos in public after a long hiatus. Of course, as all performers know, this must involve consistent daily practice. (No! You may not skive off on Sunday!) Slow practice, spot practice, speeding up with the metronome, loathsome self-recording, practice run-throughs, and most importantly, trying to attain beautiful tone and phrasing.

Artistry: this is a term that is not frequently associated with average violin students under the age of 13. (Think instead: “nascent musicality.”) It wanted to escape my notice as well, since so much of my close-to-retirement practice consisted of exploring student repertoire. However, my friend and colleague Leonid Sushansky hinted to me that this could be a great “retirement focus.” He also recommended consistent practice as a key element of performance ability. These were powerful suggestions, which I took immediately.

And there was the date, September 13th, first floating in the future, and then inexorably drawing closer and closer. My practice intensified. My recital partner and I were equally affected, protesting incompetence, mediocrity, lack of will and focus; and it was I who delivered the big winner of self-deprecation, “I’m not as good as I used to be, and I never was.”

But daily practice, that precious consistency, of course paid off. My tone developed, phrasing was a joy, and the nitty-gritty slow intonation practice, open-string bowing, playing in rhythms, and other practice room staples crept through my fingers and brain to help coax out elusive artistry---maybe in mere seconds--but it wanted out!

The day of a performance is always the worst for me. I awoke on September 13th in a foul mood. Nasty illusions abounded. Life was not worth living. All my activities and interests pulled me into despondency. Ugh. Even putting on a pair of socks was awful. But I went through the morning, ate a big lunch, and then took a restorative nap. I did my last practice. I dressed and primped extravagantly, which was amusing.

Grace and I did a run-through at her house, and then we went to Kensington Park Senior Living, set up, and played the concert in two locations! They weren’t flawless performances, but for me, standing in front of people, focusing intently, pulling expression from the strings of my instrument, listening to Grace, and trying to have heartfelt collaboration---all this effort during the performance was the essence of the work of the previous weeks. This was the most exhilarating and enjoyable part of the entire process.

Immediately afterwards, and during the following day, I felt joy, a release, comfort and satisfaction.

Let’s do it again.
Performing Handel Sonata in E Major with Grace Boeringer

My neighbor and her parents, the three people on the right

Performing downstairs in "The Groves"

Poster that was created to display at Kensington Park

The program


Sunday, September 13, 2015

Soaker Hose Fabulousness

I have been a vegetable gardener in my humble suburban lot for nine growing seasons, and I’m just now discovering the wonder of soaker hoses. It’s embarrassing to give the reason. By chance, I planted a banana pepper bush in the exact spot where the sump pump drains during a heavy rainfall, and the crop of peppers has been phenomenal.

All these years I have been under-watering my poor vegetables! I could rationalize my ignorance by noting that Silver Spring Maryland is lushly green, and that I always harvested enough the last five seasons to fill three shelves of our vegetable freezer. I conscientiously used rain barrel water to soak everything that seemed to need it.  Also, over watering is evil. But the pepper plant spoke to me, so I purchased enough Gilmour flat soaker hoses to cover all of my back yard beds: 375 feet of “gentle, even and efficient watering,” as stated on the label.

This is an eccentric and inefficient task for September, as all the hoses need to be drained and put away before a hard frost. But note: there are cover crops of winter rye and legumes planted for soil enrichment. Kale, collards, beets, turnips and Jerusalem artichokes will be harvested until cold weather. Anyway, it’s been in the 90’s this week, and I need those hoses now!

After laying the hoses, there was such a surge in the growth of turnips and kale that the first harvest is imminent. It was fun to put the hoses down, trying to figure out the configuration.  It was even more fun to turn the spigot a quarter turn, and watch the beads of water spread foot by foot. Here’s a map of most of the hoses--couldn't get it upright on the blog---sorry!

This brings up an important point about gardening for me: every task is equally interesting and absorbing. Interesting and absorbing equals calming; calming equals happiness. The humble and ordinary soaker hose caused me to ascend to delight.

I got my happiness, then it rained 7/10 of an inch last night: gentle, even, and efficient watering.

 Here are some pictures from after the rain
The banana pepper with white sump hose pipe behind.

75' soaker hose, view 1: good view of the cover crops in the foreground.
Two 50' soaker hoses: collards, broccoli, and cover crops from front to back.
75' soaker hose, view 2: turnips, cover crops. The bed in the middle was just seeded.












Tuesday, September 8, 2015

A Life of Interests: An Introduction to this Blog

I have spent my life getting interested in something and letting the interest lead me into many directions, until it became a wound-up collection of topics, like a rubber band hoarder’s ball. My earliest passionate interest starting around the age of seven or eight was commonly ordinary for little girls: horses.  I read every book about horses in the children’s section of the library, fiction and non-fiction. I had a beloved collection of plastic horses, which were the only objects in my room I cared to arrange and dust. I studied riding from books, and used a largish concrete pipe section in the neighbor’s yard to “ride on” and “practice.” That led to begging for real riding lessons, which I earned by vacuuming our entire house. (I must have been about nine.) Then I was driven to Eaton Canyon Stables, a place filled with children, parents and instructors so unbearably snooty that my mother couldn’t bear to stick around to watch. It was miserable for me too, so I secretly discarded the idea of getting on a horse again.  I saw movies about horses on TV and at the theaters; I implored my father to take me to Santa Anita racetrack, which he did, once. At one point I so loved a huge and expensive book by a famous painter of horses, that I promised my parents that its purchase would be my sole Christmas present. I took a class at the Pasadena Art Museum where I only drew and painted horses, until the teacher gave up trying to persuade me to try something else. How long did this passion last? It’s still with me! When American Pharoah won the Triple Crown this year, I wept.

As the years go by, my passionate interests have become like powerful magnets being dragged through coarse sand, picking up pointy filings of related fascinations. Japanese, Japan, Japanese cooking, history, religions, customs, art, literature, music, Kabuki, Noh, film, husband, in-laws, etc.   Violin playing, chamber music, composers, recordings, performing, concert attendance, teaching, repertoire, pedagogy, travel, etc.

ETC., ETC.

The interests keep coming, joining the ones already there. They have never stopped, ever. They fuel, enliven, and drive my existence.I am enthralled by them.

TIMELINE
Here is an approximate chronology of when my various interests started:
1959                     Horses
1967                     Violin study with the Suzuki Method 
1968                     Spanish, travel
1969                     Japanese, Japan, Violin teaching, literary fiction
1970                     University classes in general education
1973                     Classical music: symphonies, chamber music
1974                     Latin American literature, bicycling, general education
1978                     Chamber music, French
1979                     London, French, museum visiting, European travel
1980                     Opera, theater, spiritual growth
1981                     Calligraphy, French literature
1983                     Italian, Italian literature
1984                     German
1985                     Arabic—Modern Standard
1986                     Arabic—Egyptian dialect, Egypt travel/history
1990                     Polish
1993                     Knitting
1994                     Violin study—traditional approaches
1996                     GLBT
1999                     Drawing and watercolor               
2001                     String quartets: Playing and studying
2004                     New home/neighborhood
2005                     Chinese, another new home/neighborhood! Native plants/natural habitat
2006                     Organic vegetable gardening, American String Teachers Association
2010                     Longevity diet and CRON
2011                     Fashion and Style
2014                     Sewing