I'm looking at an ad for Yahoo! Personals. It reads: "your cat will never appreciate the sunset". Actually, I'm not totally sure I agree with that. I'm pretty sure my cat does appreciate the sunset. Especially if it involves a soft, warm place to sit and someone present to scratch behind her ears. Hmmmm...come to think of it, that would definitely improve a sunset for me, too!

Lori tagged me. Here are my lists of four things. This is right up my alley; I love lists!

Four jobs I've had:

Systems Programmer (Brown University)
Senior Software Engineer (Macromedia)
Freelance Violinist
High School Teacher

Four movies I can watch over and over:

Spaceballs
The Princess Bride
Aladdin
Amelie

Four places I've lived:

Wilton, Maine
Providence, Rhode Island
San Francisco, California
Portland, Maine

Four places I've vacationed:

Poipu, Kauai
Yosemite National Park, California
Cape Hatteras, North Carolina
Portland, Maine :-)

Four of my favorite dishes (that I make at home):

Roast Brussels sprouts
Polenta pasta with roast asparagus and poached scallops
Fresh Spring rolls
Homestyle Thai duck noodle soup

Four sites I visit daily:

Google
Yahoo! (mail)
Lori's blog
Sherry's blog

Four places I'd rather be right now:

On my old deck in San Francisco, drinking tea and looking out over the city
Hiking in Yosemite in the quiet eastern end of the park
On a bike ride to Fort Williams, just before sunrise
At camp in Oxford, listening to the water lap on the shore

I had an idea of what I wanted to talk about in A.'s lesson today, but I don't think I did a very good job of getting there. Fortunately, an hour and a half later, D. required the same sort of lesson and I did a much better job the second time around. So I guess I came out about even. The frustrating thing about being a new teacher is that I'll always do a better job with future students. I hate that! I want every one of my students to have a fantastic lesson with me, always, and I'm forever running up against the fact that I'm not perfect and that I'm learning, myself.

I was feeling bad about this until I remembered having a conversation about this subject with B., who said he's much better now at some procedure where he has to poke holes in people to insert stints for dialysis. It sort of put the whole "practicing on people" thing in perspective. But I still resolve to do better.

I've been so excited to see snow today--of course I want to ski and try out my Christmas snowshoes, but I also just want to be inside watching the snow fall. This morning I kept waking up and opening the shades to see if it had started yet. Nope. Nope. Still nope. Finally, at 7:30, it was there. Yaaaaaayyyyyy! And blowing like the dickens. Yikes!

Hey, I think I'm a Unitarian!

A brief chat with S., a guitarist friend of L., got me thinking about the whole church dilemma once again. L. had said, "I'll quit my jazz choir if you quit church", which led into a discussion of my current church experience. S. said he's a Unitarian, and it turns out that he goes to the UU church near me that has the canoes in the yard. Well, the next morning, the pastor at First Lutheran called me out during the sermon, saying, "Valerie, what do YOU treasure about Jesus?" In a word: yikes. Violin in hand, I said that I treasure the ability to share my music with others.

This is true. I do treasure the ability to share my music with others. I think God is probably responsible for it. But I'm not convinced that Jesus is responsible for it. More and more, I find it difficult to sit in church and feel like I'm the only one with questions. Major questions.

Today I found the Allen Avenue Unitarian Universalist Church online. Indeed, it sounds like my place. I followed a link to "UU Origins", and read the sentence "Unitarians and Universalists have always been heretics.". Now that I can identify with! :-) And after browsing the A₂U₂ website, I'm excited!

I'll have to cool my heels for a couple of weeks, due to my upcoming San Francisco trip. But when I'm back, maybe it's time to visit a church on purpose.

I've had several interesting conversations over the past week about love, different facets of love, relationships and what makes them work or not work. Was it Valentine's Day? Was it the recent article in the National Geographic about the chemistry of love? Who knows. One thing's certain: Helen Fisher is sure getting some press these days. Sherry posted a link to a summary of a recent talk she gave. I've added her to my ever-growing reading list. Maybe this summer...