Happy Halloween!

This year, Lenny's costume for Halloween is a moose outfit. He hated this one equally with his past Halloween costumes. But isn't he cute?

I don't think I'll ever be able to wrestle him into the costume again, but I think we could try to recycle it at Christmas as a reindeer outfit.

The Dalai Lama

This Saturday, Chuck and I had the honor of hearing His Holiness the Dalai Lama speak here in Bloomington.

We had "student" (cheap) tickets and were pretty high up, but we still had a very good view. It's hard to tell in the picture, but the red dot in the middle of the big yellow chair on stage is the Dalai Lama. As you can see, there was also a Jumbo-tron for a close-up view of him (we were in the IU basketball arena).

When he came out, he took off his shoes and sat Indian-style on his chair. He also put on a funny little red visor (because of the glare of the lights). An interpreter sat next to him, but to our surprise (and delight) he spoke almost entirely in English. The interpreter helped out with a few words here and there.

The talk he gave was on compassion, and he was very inspiring. It's hard to describe everything he talked about, but he stressed the importance of recognizing the humanity in everyone in order to practice compassion - each and every person is a human being, just like yourself. He said that a lot of suffering in the world is man-made, and stressed the importance of ecology and taking care of the earth. He said that compassion can be practiced regardless of your religion, and that most religions have this ideal in common.

He was also very funny. He peppered his talk with a few jokes and had really good comic timing and delivery. He even joked about those of us way up in the cheap seats - that we were up in heaven, and we better not fall down from heaven! He had a great voice, too. It was a deep baritone voice, but when he was emphasizing a point it would rise in pitch and he sounded just like - how perfect is this - Yoda.

Chuck and I have both read a few of his books (our favorite is Ethics for the New Millenium), so the message of the talk was obviously similar to those, but it was just amazing to see him in person.

Again...!

Are you sick of reading and hearing about Chuck yet?

Well, I'm not. I guess I never will be. :) I'm so proud of him!

The BSO concert on Saturday night was a big success and I think the orchestra felt great about how they played (I played principal flute for this concert). The local arts critic gave a very positive review in the paper.

Bravo Maestro!

(You can click on the image for a larger, readable version of the article).

Media Maestro

Chuck was interviewed on our local NPR station to preview tomorrow night's BSO concert. To listen (it's a few minutes long) click HERE!

Kelley's Perfect Political World

You already know that Barack Obama has the official endorsement of me and my blog. But now I have picked a suitable running mate for him - another candidate with the politics of hope - Republican Mike Huckabee!

Huckabee is a former governor of Arkansas and a former fat guy. After a health scare, he lost 120 pounds and has even run a marathon. For that reason, I think he probably really understands the obesity epidemic in America and how it is bankrupting our health care system. He is very supportive of arts education in public schools. Also, he's pretty conservative, and his views cover the issues I disagree with Barack on (few that they are). He also seems to be the nicest of the Republicans and most willing to work with people from the other party.

Since both of these men have that quality of unselfish bipartisanship, I think that if/when they win their respective party's nomination, they should pick each other to be their running mates. Obama/Huckabee 08 vs. Huckabee/Obama 08! Obama was on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart several weeks ago and said a lot of nice things about Huckabee, so I can see it happening. :)

Lenny's List

In honor of Lenny's latest culinary exploit with the DO NOT EAT packet, we compiled a list of everything he's ever eaten that he shouldn't have, since he came home with us back in January 2004.

Digital camera (teeth marks)
Cell phone (teeth marks)
Chuck's conducting baton, the day before his Curtis audition
Scented candles
Crock of margarine
M & M's
Candy bars
Lindt truffle chocolates
Reese's Peanut Butter cups
Coffee grounds
Chewing gum
Breath mints
Cigarette
Plastic bag
Stuffing from plush dog toys
Fish food
Cat food
Doo-doo - goose variety
Doo-doo - deer variety
Dead mouse
English muffins
Milkshake
Crickets
Jigsaw puzzle piece
Mayonnaise packets (just the mayo - he sucked on the packets until they were flat)
Chuck's favorite fancy granola from the hippie store
Honey roasted peanuts
Chapstick
Ginger snap cookies
Beer

That's all we came up with, but I'm sure there are more that we either forgot or don't know about. I think we're actually pretty lucky. It could be a lot worse - he could eat furniture! And thankfully, he's never gotten too sick from eating forbidden food.

By the power of Greyskull...and the local paper

Chuck's concert next Saturday with the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra was previewed in the local paper, the Bloomington Herald-Times. (I think I should change the name of my blog to "Newspaper clips about Charles"!) He was categorized with two other conductors as "MASTERS OF THE BATON!" Click below for a larger image of the article.

Our exciting weekend

Friday evening after work started out like any other evening. After dinner I started doing some laundry, and I noticed that Lenny was chewing on something. He managed to swallow it before I could fish it out of his mouth, but not before I realized it was one of those silica gel desiccant "DO NOT EAT" packets. Of course. What followed was not pleasant, but Lenny is feeling much better. It turns out it's not really a big deal if you eat one of those packets, but you shouldn't eat a bunch of them. And some of them have small amounts of pesticides in them - you can tell because the stuff inside turns blue when wet. Smurf blue, as we discovered. Lenny was pretty cranky during his recovery. Yuck.

And here is my victorious finish at the Jill Behrman 5K on Saturday! Well, not really. The picture didn't save to the camera phone, unfortunately. But I was victorious and ran the entire way, which was my goal. I told myself that I didn't care about my time, but I was a little embarrassed to learn that I ran just faster than 12-minute miles. My average pace is about 10 1/2 minute miles. But I took my own pace and finished successfully. It really helped running the course a few days before so I knew what to expect. It was very different running with all the other people around, and hard to keep my own pace. Next time will be faster! The next 5K race will be a Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot in Toledo! Chuck also ran the race successfully, and all of our Jacobs School of Music runners crossed the finish line. It was a lot of fun. And congratulations to Jen and Alex for running a 10K this weekend! Wow!

Today I'm going to get my eyes checked for glaucoma, which I'm a little nervous about - I have to go through all of the eye dilation and a bunch of tests. I ordered a new pair of glasses, which hopefully will arrive soon because my old ones are getting progessively more blurry. I had a very hard time watching football this weekend because I couldn't read the score or the names of the teams - I had to guess from their uniforms. It doesn't help that our TV is slightly on the fritz as well. I did discover kind of a bizarre method for improving my vision. If I close or cover my right eye (Chuck's pirate eye-patch comes in handy!) and wear my glasses upside down, I can see more clearly. Too bad I can't go out in public like that. :)

And congratulations Ohio State Buckeyes - ranked #1 in the BCS standings!!!!

Only 250 days until my sister's wedding - check out her wedding website! I am very excited because on Thursday I am flying out to see her and the rest of my family and go gown shopping! The place where she was getting married was where some of the movie "Meet Joe Black" was filmed, so Chuck and I rented the movie Saturday, despite warnings from my parents that it was bad. Not just bad - terrible. And 3 hours long! And you couldn't really tell much about the building from the screen. Two thumbs down!

Chuck's in the news again

The Maestro is in the news again. Last weekend, he conducted Mozart's "Linz" Symphony with the Columbus Philharmonic, and yesterday, the performance was reviewed in the Columbus Republic newspaper. Now, in addition to being "super-charged," he is "simply wonderful." But we already knew that.

Click on the image to enlarge it. Enjoy!

5K tomorrow

I am a little bit irritated with my iPod. You may notice on the right that it says I ran 0.51 miles yesterday. This is completely incorrect. I actually ran about 3.5 miles, but when I hit the button to hear my "power song" (Gonna Fly Now from Rocky) it decided to cancel my workout instead, and not record it. I was MAD!

It's also frustrating because I set my running goals on nikeplus.com, and if it doesn't record my miles, it gets me behind on reaching my goals by their deadlines.

Anyway, tomorrow is the Jill Behrman Run for the End Zone 5K, for which I am the team captain of the Jacobs School of Music team. My goal is to run the entire way without stopping - it will be my first "complete" 5K ever! I am feeling good because on Wednesday I ran 3.8 miles (5K is only 3.1 miles) and yesterday I actually ran the course for tomorrow's race. It is a little more hilly than I expected during the first 3K - I am used to running in the woods on relatively flat trails, so the hills will be my biggest challenge. I will post victorious pictures after the big event.

Congratulations Scott!

My cousin Scotty's successful college football career is still on a roll. Last weekend, Washington & Lee (his school) played Catholic. My Uncle Gary reported that "The GENERALS won 28-21. Scott had an outstanding game with 9 tackles, 1.5 sacks, and a forced fumble, and just missed an interception on a deflected pass."

Here are links to two articles about it:

Washington & Lee University
Roanoke Times

His team is 3-1 now for the season. My parents got to go to one of his games a couple of weeks ago, so hopefully I will have some more pictures to post soon.

Blessing of the animals

Yesterday was St. Francis of Assisi day, patron saint of animals.
One of the local churches just up the street from us had a blessing of the animals, so I brought Lenny after work for a blessing.



There were a lot of nice dogs there, and it was much less chaotic than the dog park because every dog was on-leash. We ran into two greyhounds we'd met before - they belong to another Jacobs staff member.



The service included readings from Genesis about the creation of animals in the Garden of Eden and about Noah's Ark. The guy standing next to me started to crack jokes under his breath about cats when "unclean animals" were mentioned in the verses.



The minister is the lady seated with the blue shirt on. She blessed each dog with some holy water. The dog in front of Lenny was kind of a devil dog and was not happy when the water touched his head, and I was worried Lenny would react the same way and hiss or melt or something. But he was very happy and very receptive to the blessing.

He tried to drink out of the holy water, though.



It was a very nice little service and I'm glad we went! Hopefully Lenny will have a happy, healthy, blessed year.

Hello Dalai!

The Dalai Lama himself is coming to Bloomington this month, and Chuck and I are going to see him! We just got tickets for a speech he will be giving in IU's Assembly Hall called "Compassion: the Source of Peace."

You might know that Bloomington is home to a Tibetan Cultural Center. It was founded by the Dalai Lama's oldest brother, who taught at IU for many years and still lives in Bloomington.

Bloomington also is home to not one, but TWO Tibetan restaurants. We have been to one of them. Chuck ordered tea with yak butter. Guess what I thought of the food...

Anyway, we are very excited about hearing His Holiness speak!

Last chance!

Registration forms are due TOMORROW for the Jill Behrman Run for the End Zone 5K on October 13th - please email me ASAP if you are interested in running or walking. If you don't want to run, you can also be a "Spirit Supporter" for the Jacobs School of Music team for $20.