A joke from our Slovenian tour guide: Melania likes that Donald was elected president because now people call her First Lady instead of “third wife.”
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Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! Find out how here: https://lindaghill.com/2019/07/31/one-liner-wednesday-up-there/
I have done a couple of posts on Slovenia here and here, but am hoping to do a series of posts on different things that we did and saw there. I thought I’d start on the reason we travelled to Slovenia.
I am a member of the Smith College Alumnae Chorus. We sing at occasional events on campus in Northampton, Massachusetts, and every other year or so, go on an international tour. This year, we spent a week in Slovenia. We sang the Haydn Missa in Angustiis, also known as the Lord Nelson Mass, and the Duruflé Requiem, in conjunction with orchestra, tenors, and basses from Slovenia. We did have a few tenors and basses of our own along, mostly spouses of alumnae, but, as a women’s college, the vast majority of our chorus is sopranos and altos.
We performed two concerts under the direction of our conductor Jonathan Hirsh on our last two evenings in Slovenia. Our Friday night performance was at the cathedral in Koper.
On Saturday night, we performed at Saint James’ Church in Ljubljana. To our surprise, a representative from the United States Embassy came to greet us and the performance was recorded by the Slovenian public broadcasting service.
To the delight of the audience, Maestro Hirsh addressed them in Slovene before each concert. He told them a bit about our chorus’s mission to collaborate with local musicians when we toured and a bit about each piece. Both were written in times of strife and uncertainty. The Haydn, which was the first half of the concert, ends with a forceful plea for peace. The Duruflé, however, is much more meditative and ends very quietly with the “In Paradisum” as the soul enters into paradise. Mr. Hirsh asked the audience to take a few moments to reflect before applauding.
Those moments of silence, after the last chord had finished reverberating in those magnificent spaces, were incredibly moving, illustrating the power of music to reach across language, social differences, and time to touch hearts and minds.
As you can see from my One-Liner Wednesday post this week, B and I have recently returned from Slovenia. We stayed for the week in the capital, Ljubljana, and went on sightseeing excursions from its central location.
One thing that impressed us about Ljubljana is how clean it is. There was almost no litter. I did see someone who I assumed was a municipal employee picking up a stray piece of paper with one of those sticks with a claw on the end – but only once in the many hours we were out and about in the Old City, which is mostly pedestrian and busy with residents and tourists, visiting the sites, shops, and open air markets.
Slovenia rightly prides itself on its environmental stewardship. As part of their green credentials, along the streets are small dumpsters for glass, paper, plastics, organic waste, and things that don’t fit in any of those categories. People are very diligent about dealing with trash, which goes a long way in keeping the streets clean.
Some of the people in our group were surprised to see some graffiti here and there. B and I were not surprised to see some in a city of 300,000. Graffiti is a combination of artistic expression and social commentary. I don’t think of it as being dirty.
Maybe this weekend, I will get some time to start organizing photos and writing some posts about details of our trip…
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Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “clean/dirty.” Join us! find out how here: https://lindaghill.com/2019/07/26/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-27-19/
SoCS badge by Pamela, at https://achronicalofhope.com/
Taken by my spouse B in the “Old City” of Ljubljana, Slovenia, where I was singing with the Smith College Alumnae Chorus in Ljubljana and Koper; blog posts will be trickling in over the coming days.
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Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out how here: https://lindaghill.com/2019/07/24/one-liner-wednesday-creepy/
Badge by Laura @ riddlefromthemiddle.com
Linda gave the final prompt for this last day of Just Jot It January: “your favorite thing/part/blog post of last year or last month.” I thought I would write two brief responses.
My favorite blog thing for the last month is that I actually managed to post every day this month. Given that my posting has been so sporadic for so long, this feels like an accomplishment. Bonus: It means that I am writing again, which had definitely fallen by the wayside over the last couple of years. I even have managed to write a few poems recently. Can I keep it up? Probably not the posting every day part, but I’m hoping to carve out some writing/revising time on a regular basis.
My favorite in-person thing of the last month was the return of daughter E and granddaughter ABC from their four week visit with our son-in-law L in London UK . Sometimes in the past when ABC travelled, she would not immediately want to come to us, but this time she broke into a big smile, called out to us, and wanted hugs and kisses. This gives me hope that, when she and E re-locate permanently to the UK later this year, we will be able to keep our relationship alive via videochat. I knew this was possible if chats happened on a daily basis; ABC definitely knows that L is her daddy when they videochat. I doubt we will be able to orchestrate daily calls once they are all together in London, but it seems that weekly ones may be enough to keep us in ABC’s memory bank.
Thanks to Linda for Just Jot It January and thanks to all the other participants! Write on!
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Join us for Just Jot It January! Today’s pingback link is here: https://lindaghill.com/2019/01/31/jusjojan-2019-daily-prompt-jan-31st/
More information and prompts here: https://lindaghill.com/2018/12/31/what-is-just-jot-it-january-2019-rules/
So now my daily participation with Just Jot It January just got more challenging by a factor of two, but I couldn’t be happier! Daughter E and granddaughter ABC arrived safely yesterday evening after four weeks in London. Given the long day and the five hours of jet lag, they are both adjusting to being back quite well.
ABC was away for her nineteenth month and grew another inch while she was gone. She added more words, including a couple words of Tagalog. She is also pronouncing some of her older words more clearly. She clearly remembered us and the house – and her toys. She has been in quite a good mood, especially given that not only is there jet lag but she is also just getting over a cold.
The house is undoubtedly livelier than it has been. With more demands on my time, I’ll have to re-double my efforts to continue to post every day.
Can I do it?
Stay tuned…
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Join us for Just Jot It January! Today’s pingback link is here: https://lindaghill.com/2019/01/14/jusjojan-2019-daily-prompt-jan-14th/
More information and prompts here: https://lindaghill.com/2018/12/31/what-is-just-jot-it-january-2019-rules/
This really will be just a jot today because we are getting ready for daughter E and granddaughter ABC to come home from London, where they have been visiting with son-in-law L for almost a month. We need to finish up the toddler-proofing that we had undone/ignored while ABC was away. There will be some time with Nana and Paco, as there usually is every day, but we need to leave for the airport mid-afternoon. Unfortunately, the flights didn’t work out to come to our local airport, which only has one carrier and three flights a day, so we will need to take an hour and a half drive to pick them up. After dinner near the airport, we will all head for home in our hybrid Pacifica. Although we will get back here between 8 and 9 PM, it will feel to E and ABC like 1 to 2 AM, so there may be napping on the way. Everyone at my house and Nana and Paco can hardly wait to have E and ABC back with us!
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Join us for Just Jot It January! Today’s pingback link is here: https://lindaghill.com/2019/01/13/jusjojan-2019-daily-prompt-jan-13th/
More information and prompts here: https://lindaghill.com/2018/12/31/what-is-just-jot-it-january-2019-rules/
Our family has taken another step in reducing our carbon footprint. We replaced our 2005 Honda Odyssey with a new Chrysler Pacifica hybrid. Having had a minivan in the family since E was an infant thirty-two years ago, we like their versatility for transporting people and cargo. We wanted to keep that utility but cut back on emissions.
As it turns out, the Pacifica is the only plug-in hybrid minivan on the market. It has a full gasoline-powered engine plus enough battery to travel thirty-ish miles. That means that most days, we can run on battery power but have the flexibility to go on long trips without having to plan on stopping at a rapid charging station as we would have to do with our Chevy Bolt.
As it turns out, in order to get the most advanced safety features, we wound up having to get a lot of other bells and whistles, too. I admit that I am having a bit of trouble adjusting to nearly everything happening by touch screen. Sometimes, buttons and knobs are easier!
It is nice to not have to go to a gas station very often and I appreciate that we have so drastically reduced our transportation greenhouse gas emissions. For those of us who live in places without much mass transit, transportation is one of the most difficult areas to achieve reductions, so I am grateful to have gone mostly electric, especially as most of our electricity comes from our solar panels.
It’s fun to go green!
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Join us for Just Jot It January. Today’s pingback link is here: https://lindaghill.com/2019/01/07/jusjojan-2019-daily-prompt-jan-7th/
More information and prompts here: https://lindaghill.com/2018/12/31/what-is-just-jot-it-january-2019-rules/
One of the promised catch-up posts…
Over these last months of spending additional time dealing with Nana and Paco’s needs, I have been spending less and less time taking care of things at home.
Happily, spouse B and daughters E and T have stepped up to deal with the bulk of the shopping, planning, cooking, and cleaning so I don’t have to worry about it.
A bonus has been that E and T have been trying new recipes and expanding their kitchen expertise, which will be good preparation for the time when they each will have to manage their own house or apartment again.
It was also nice that when E’s spouse L was able to be here for three weeks in August, E, L, and one-year-old ABC were able to get a taste of what it will be like when they are able to have a household of their own.
Just before L returned to London, he and E prepared tea for us, featuring finger sandwiches, homemade scones, Coronation chicken, and a Victoria sponge for dessert. Of course, there was also tea!
Maybe late next year, they will be together in London and B and I can visit them together and have tea there.
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Join us for Just Jot It January. Today’s pingback link is here: https://lindaghill.com/2019/01/04/jusjojan-2019-daily-prompt-jan-4th/
More information and prompts here: https://lindaghill.com/2018/12/31/what-is-just-jot-it-january-2019-rules/
I don’t live near a waterfall, but I like to visit them.
One that is not too far from home is Taughannock Falls in Ithaca. I especially like to walk on the trail to its base. There are a lot of waterfalls in the Finger Lakes region, due to, well, geology…
Of course, these are small falls compared to Niagara Falls, which I saw first as a child and have visited several times as an adult. I love to look at the power of the water and see the mist and occasional rainbows. I also wonder how loud it must have been when it was having its natural flow. For decades now, some of the water has been diverted to harness the hydropower. I admit to having a particular interest in hydropower because I grew up around it. My father worked for many years for New England Power, including lots of years as superintendent of the Upper Deerfield. We often visited the network of dams and hydro stations, including Bear Swamp, a pump storage project that was constructed when I was a child. Some of the dams were designed to spill when the water was too high, looking somewhat like waterfalls. Usually, though, you tried not to spill excess water, as you wanted to store it for generation later.
Some of the most beautiful waterfalls I have seen were in Hawai’i. Because all the islands are volcanoes, the sides are quite steep, giving lots of opportunities for waterfalls to develop. Often, the peaks have hundreds of inches of rain a year, which flows down to meet the surrounding ocean. Often, too, it isn’t raining where the waterfalls are, so there are often rainbows as the sun shines through the mist caused by the falling water. Of course, the beauty of the Hawaiian waterfalls is enhanced by the lush vegetation nearby, watered by the rain falling on the heights of the volcano. Now that E no longer lives in Hawai’i, we haven’t visited recently, but I hope to get back there someday.
Do you have a favorite waterfall?
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This week, Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday was to ask someone for a prompt! I asked my daughter T who gave me the prompt “waterfalls.” Join us! Find out how here: https://lindaghill.com/2018/12/28/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-dec-29-18/
Joanne Corey 