Day 72: The Improviser's Way

The Improviser’s Way involves:

    

 Less procrastinating . . . more action

 Less complaining . . . more thanking

 Less planning . . . more execution

 Less ruminating/thinking . . . more problem solving

 Less “special-ness”. . . more ordinariness

 Less seriousness . . . more fun

 Less fantasy . . . more reality

 Less competition . . . more cooperation

 Less caution . . . more mistakes

 Less talking . . . more doing

 Less preparation . . . more doing it NOW

 Less originality . . .  more obviousness

 Less “Me” . . .  more “YOU”

                                                                                                   

fish logo by KapiolaniDesign.com 

Day 71: Pesto Potatoes

This recipe is wonderful.  Ron and I are Pesto junkies.  We eat pesto on everything.  It's easy, if you have a blender or a food processor to make up a batch of pesto from fresh basil which is just now coming into the farmer's markets in bounty. Or buy readymade pesto in your deli case.  This recipe pairs it with roasted potatoes.  

Enjoy!

Day 70 Meyer Lemons

The first plant we put in the ground when we built our home in El Granada was a Meyer Lemon tree.  It was in a five gallon container and a it was a 24 inch plant.  Today, fourteen years later the tree is close to 18 feet tall and produces hundreds of lemons every month.  I've learned to make meyer lemon curd, meyer lemon marmalade and of course, meyer lemon cake.  They look especially lovely in a blue bowl.  

Day 69: Plein Aire Wednesday Cypress Cove, Half Moon Bay

Wednesday mornings the Half Moon Bay Plein Air Painters Group meets somewhere along the coastside for a three hour painting session.  We encourage each other and offer suggestions at the end of each session.  Often we go off to lunch together at a local restaurant.  Today our location was at Cypress Cove, just south of the town of HMB.  We had glorious weather and the sky was a clear blue.  The top photograph shows my subject.  Picture 2 shows the process and the bottom image shows the finished painting.  

Day 68: The beauty of ordinary things

Ron took this photograph of a stack of chicken wire spools near a toolshed at Tassajara. It is beautiful don't you think?  One of the virtues of photography is that it invites you to see your new eyes.  I am fascinated by this picture.  

Day 67 Thanks to P, G and E

Our house is surrounded by several giant cypress trees.  We noticed that a large branch had broken off and was hanging perilously 40 feet from the ground just above some high tension wires.  We called P, G and E and they came out in a timely fashion with their monster truck with its bucket that allows a man to be hoisted high in the air to do tree work.  They carefully detached the dead branch and lowered it to the street today.  Then they used their chipper to take away the debris.  They cleaned up the site really well, too.  I was impressed by the courtesy and skill of the guys who did the work, and I appreciate that this company really cares about our safely.  Cheers for P, G and E!  Nice work, gentleman.

Day 66 The Rognlie Tree

The tree pictured here is a Mountain Ash, also known as a Rogn tree.  This variety had its origin in Europe and was plentiful in Norway.  My husband's father's family came from a small farm near Mosvik, Norway.  The land where the farm stood was on a hill, or "lee".  The farm got the name:  Rognlie   or  Rogn + lee  "hill where there are Mt.Ash trees".  (Pronounced WRONG-LEE).  Ron has been looking for this tree for quite some time.  At last we found one which was shipped from the Pacific northwest where Ron was born.  He planted the tree in our yard yesterday.  Welcome, Mr. Rognlie Tree!

Day 65: Living at the beach . . .

On a sunny gorgeous day the world beats a path to where we live.  I'm afraid this isn't a very clear shot of the masses out for fun, but as I gazed down the beach it looked a lot like Coney Island today.  Thousands of folks from "over the hill" (San Mateo) or "up the coast" (San Francisco) descend to enjoy the free beaches along the coastline.  It was in the high 60's with no wind and clear sun . . . what could be more perfect. Ron and I took a lovely walk along the beach today.  Here's a painting I did of the Romeo Pier a few weeks ago. 

Day 64 Lunch with Dr. Kellen Glinder

In 1991 I formed a group at Stanford known as the Stanford Improvisers (SImps).  The original 16 members of that group bonded in a special way during their Stanford years.  I have kept track of most of this group during the past twenty years, gone to many weddings, celebrated the birth of their children and watched with delight on Facebook as they have sung their triumphs and shared their challenges.   On Friday I had lunch with Dr. Kellen Glinder who was one of this elite bunch.  Kellen is currently  a Pediatrician at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation.  He is a beloved physician who thrives on the quality of his patient care.  He knows how to talk to children.  


It makes me very proud to see his accomplishments.  He carries on the spirit of improvisation in his work today.  I found an instructive video which he made on "how to use an asthma inhaler spacer."  Bravo, Kellen.  

Day 63 Herbed Corn Bread

I am hard pressed to think of anything that smells better than bread when it just comes out of the oven or out of the bread-maker.  
This is my current favorite: Herbed Corn Bread.  It's not a "cornbread" but rather a yeast rising bread that includes a half cup of coarse cornmeal.  
Here is the recipe: (designed for a bread making machine, but can be done in the normal way, too)
(wets into machine first)
1 cup milk (or evaporated milk, or half and half)
1/2 cup + 2 Tablespoons water
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3 cups bread flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup  coarse cornmeal or I use polenta
1/2 teasp marjoram
1/2 teasp powered ginger
1 1/2  teasp celery seed
1 1/2  teasp dried sage
2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon dry yeast


Dump it all in your breadmaker.  I do a double mix by turning the machine onto the "cake" setting which just mixes everything.  After 12 min I stop this setting and the bread is mixed a first time.  Then I turn the machine to the Whole Wheat normal setting and let it cook as long as it takes.  My machine is 3 hrs 40min total.  This is a heavenly, light but dense in texture savory bread.  Wonderful toasted.  Enjoy.  

Day 62: Tragedy in the waters near Gaza

Pamela Olsen, a former student of mine and member of the Stanford Improvisers in the late1990's has been living in the Palestinian territories.  She has written a book, Fast Times in Palestine which tells her story as an American visiting there without any particular political point of view (at the beginning). She then shares how this neutrality changes as she witnesses everyday life in the Gaza strip.  Currently back from the Middle East and living in New York she has been writing about her experience during recent events.  She writes a thoughtful blog.  

Day 61 Yellow Roses

These lovely yellow roses were a gift from BATS Improv on Monday night.  I had the fun of teaching a short improv warmup for their yearly membership meeting.  BATS Improv is the premier school and group offering ongoing classes and performances in the art of improvisation.  Brilliant teachers and performers.  I recommend their shows and classes.  Take a friend to an improv performance soon.  Next year will the the 25th anniversary of this amazing organization.  Kudos to BATS  (Bay Area TheaterSports).

Day 60: Election Day

Today is the Gubernatorial Primary Election day.   Ron and I are volunteering to work at the polls all day.  It's a long day.  We have to be at the polls at 6:00am and work until 8:00pm.  We hope everyone takes advantage of this human right in the USA.  Be sure to VOTE!

Day 59 Rob Baedeker's Playhouse

Rob Baedeker's delightful article is published in SFGATE.  I am fortunate as a teacher to stay in contact with students who played in my classes twenty years ago.  Thanks to the wonders of Facebook I am able to peek in at the lives of these students.  I am grateful to Rob for kindly mentioning my book, Improv Wisdom.  He has clearly learned the lesson of seeing the gifts.  

Day 58 Ron's Tassajara Photos

Lovely to be home and back to our Saturday Farmer's Market in Half Moon Bay.  I spent today organizing some of the photos that Ron made at Tassajara.  I posted 77 of them to my Flickr account. See these lovely photos click here for my Flickr url.

Day 57: Tassajara Reflections

A week at Tassajara brings many pleasures and a few surprises.  One surprise was a rash of spider bites that descended during the night.  Never did I lay eyes on those critters, however.   Ron spent his days in an engaging workshop with the famous photographer,  Peter Cunningham.  I spent my days reading, writing, painting and listening to the sounds of the water moving in the creek.  Lush bird sounds were everywhere, too.  

Day 56: Driving home from Tassajara

When Ron and I do road trips we listen to books on CD's.  Our Sedona trip was accompanied by the amazing story of Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson.  On this drive home from the Carmel Valley we are listening to the sequel Stones Into Schools.  If you are looking for inspiration about how one life can make a difference, do yourself a favor and read or listen to these inspiring books.  

Mortenson and his Central Asia Institute are responsible for building  hundreds of schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, primarily serving women in this underdeveloped part of the world.  This NGO is doing impressive work.  I recommend it. 

Day 55: Self Portrait

This week as I am at Tassajara I am turning my attention to drawing and painting faces.  As you can see from this first attempt at a self portrait, I'm not yet very skillful at the task. It is more of a cartoon.  I've bought a book which promises to teach me how to draw faces.   I'll share my progress later on this blog.  

Day 54: Hanging Out in the Unknown

Pema Chödrön’s book, Practicing Peace in Times of War, (2007) advises her readers that instead of trying to get away from the uncomfortable feeling we have with the unknown that we develop an aptitude for what she likes to call 'positive groundlessness, or positive insecurity.' “We need to develop an appetite for groundlessness; we need to get curious about it and be willing to pause and hang out for a while in that space of insecurity,” she counsels.
This seemingly abstract dictum is precisely what improvisation teaches: how to live vibrantly in a field of flux, an office of uncertainly, even an apartment of landmines. We cannot let this not knowing paralyze us. We need to stay in motion, in action during this groundlessness.

We do not know or need to know what comes next. We create it. And we have a choice in how we enter the present.  Much has been written about mindfulness, or waking up to the “present moment.”  Dr. David K. Reynolds once quipped: “What other moment is there?”  

I'm a great believer in making friends with groundlessness.  

Day 53: Improv Wisdom goes to Japan

My friends all know that I think of my book, Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show Up (Bell Tower, 2005) as if it was my daughter in the world.  She is now five years old and has had some expansive experiences.  Last summer she was translated into both Korean and German and published in those countries.  The cover of the book took on a new look in both cases: 

                         

I received an email today from my publisher, Random House, informing me that the rights to the book had just been sold to a distinguished publishing house in Japan, and that the book will be translated and released in Japanese within eighteen months.  This delights me heartily because many of the stories in the book derive from experiences I had in Japan.  I've always dreamed that the book might take a journey to that beautiful country.  I shall look forward to someday posting the Japanese cover art.