Spring planting

The weather last Sunday was perfect for gardening - sunny but cool and breezy - so after a lot of raking and digging up we planted flowers (annuals) to add to the existing perennials in our little flower garden.  We bought marigolds (yellow and orange), petunias (red and purple) and lantana (the tiny red and yellow flowers towards the back of the photo below).  It's going to take a few weeks for them to fill in so that we see more plants and less soil, but the colour and sheer prettiness of the flowers have already made such a difference to the front yard.  The bright green leaves in the middle (left) of the photo belong to a hydrangea bush that Bruce and I were given as a gift for our 10th anniversary last year.  It has flower buds sprouting, as do the three hydrangeas Bruce planted in the side yard a couple of years ago.  However, there is a lot of work to do in the side yard before it looks as good as it did last year - a bunch of weeds and ivy have sprung up there, so I need to start digging.  Unfortunately, we haven't had many April showers so I've had to do a lot of watering to ensure we have May flowers.  We also bought a couple of bags of potting soil that I'll be adding to the existing soil in the garden in the hopes that will keep the flowers blooming for several months.

Moonlight Sonanade

That would be an odd title/subject line for anyone who was not at the American Classics concert Bruce and I went to last night, but I chose it because that was the highlight for me.

We had a lovely but busy day yesterday.  A few days ago, Bruce read about an upcoming performance by a Chamber Music group in a town called Calhoun, which is about 1 hour and 40 minutes north of where we live.  Since that seemed to be a little far to drive just for a concert, we decided to add a hike to the day's program and take the dogs with us.  Bruce found information online for a hike to a waterfall that was about a half-hour drive from Calhoun, so we drove there after first going to Calhoun to find the Gem Theatre, where the performance would be that night.

Leaving Atlanta was a bit of an adventure in itself because of bad traffic conditions caused by roadwork and road closures, but we finally made it out of the city and were soon in the mountains and then at the park where the waterfall hike would take place.  I was rather ill a couple of weeks ago (I think it was the 'flu) and am only just beginning to feel a little more energetic and less lifeless, and am finally having less difficulty breathing, so that hike was far more challenging for me than it would have normally been (a couple of steep sections and uphill all the way), but it was so nice to be outdoors in cool air again (we have had a very mild winter with far too many warm days for this time of year).  There were thunderstorms and tornado warnings here on Friday night, so seeing the sun and feeling the cool air was refreshing.  This was quite a deserted spot (we only saw four other people), so the dogs got to run off-leash, which they love.  There was a stream running alongside the trail for much of the hike, which delighted Beau, so all in all it was a good hike.  And the fact that it was downhill all the way back to the car made the second half of the hike much easier on my lungs.  It was a good day to see the waterfall, because all the rain from the night before made it more powerful than it might have otherwise been.  Apparently it can sometimes completely dry up in the summer if there is no rain, so our timing was good.

We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant (the food was really good) and then found a place to park a couple of blocks from the theatre.  The dogs were fed and tired out from their run, so they settled down to sleep while we walked to the theatre.  It's a small theatre (not surprising, since Calhoun isn't a very big town), and there weren't very many people there for the concert, which was a shame because the music was so good.  The conductor, Dr. Sam Baltzer, who is also a composer and arranger, chose music by Aaron Copland and George Gershwin because he says they best embody American music.  The first piece was Hoedown from 'Rodeo' by Copland, and then the musicians performed Appalachian Spring Suit, also by Copland, which is one of Bruce's favourite pieces of music.  We learnt a couple of interesting facts - that the music was commissioned by Martha Graham for a ballet, and that she chose the name Appalachian Spring (except that she meant the source of water rather than the season).

Before intermission, the musicians played my favourite piece from that night - Moonlight Sonanade, which was an amazing, brilliant blending of two pieces of music - Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata and Glenn Miller's Moonlight Serenade.  Dr. Baltzer did an excellent arrangement of the two pieces and I now want to find out if there is a recording of it available.  I love it when people do unexpected things like that with music.  As much as I enjoy listening to performances of well-known, well-loved music, a concert becomes far more interesting when something unexpected, like Moonlight Sonanade, takes place.

After the intermission, they performed Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (which the pianist jazzed up a little too much) and then performed the second surprising piece of the evening for their encore - a delightful blending of parts of Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Irving Berlin's Putting on the Ritz.  It was so good and a wonderful way to end the performance and what had been a fun day.

A couple of weeks ago, Ranee and Roshan came to visit us.  Unfortunately, it was when I was feeling very ill so I wasn't a very good host and didn't feel up to doing very much, but at least we were able to entertain Roshan a little.  Bruce took Roshan for a ride around the neighbourhood on his motorcycle, and Roshan enjoyed it a great deal (after a little trepidation at the beginning).  On Saturday night (they got here on Friday evening), we went to the circus and I think Roshan enjoyed that as well.  It certainly made it more fun for us to see it with him - children make a lot of things more exciting and interesting.  The circus was in Atlanta and traffic as well as parking would have been chaotic, so we took the train and I think that ride added to the overall fun of the evening for Roshan.

Those are the highlights of the year so far.  Bruce's younger son, Jonathan, is getting married to Claire in June, so there is that to look forward to, among other things. My company finally gave us the go-ahead to hire Allyson, my department's intern for the last two-and-a-half-years, as a full-time employee, which will hopefully make it easier for me to take time off from work in the future.  I would say I hope that will lighten my workload a little, but that's doubtful - our department seems to be taking on more projects (to justify hiring a second person, which is rather ironic because there used to be three people in the department doing the same amount of work we currently do, but that seems to be the way things are in this economy).  One very nice thing that happened recently was a complete surprise to me - the president of my company writes what he calls the President's Post every once in a while, and in his most recent edition, there was an entry about me.  It was a little embarrasing but also very nice to read, especially because work has been so crazy recently.

This is what he wrote:

Prema Jesuthasan, Kellen’s Unsung Hero

Everyone knows that we live in a 24-hour news cycle. From broadcast television to newspapers to millions of websites, blogs and social media outlets, there can be a hurricane of news and information activity around any topic. But, when a topic reaches crisis level the outpouring of news coverage and analysis can be nothing short of monumental.

Kellen’s IRC Department, led by Prema Jesuthasan, tackles that every day. Specifically, Prema has developed expert skills in combing through incredible amounts of information to keep Kellen’s clients informed, often times in real time as news is breaking. For those who may not work with Prema, her efforts seem to occur at all times of the day, often long before the sun comes up, as she anticipates coverage from around the world. Given the technical and scientific specifics of many Kellen clients, her breadth of keyword understanding and identifying truly relevant information benefits the staff teams, client leadership and the entire industries they represent. It is a truly remarkable effort.

From food safety to building and construction, there is a lot written, broadcast and posted on the Internet. We appreciate all the efforts of Prema and the IRC Department to keep us informed and up to speed in these times of intense activity and throughout the year.


I liked it mostly because it explains a lot of what I do and reminds me that there are people who know how hard I work.