Category Archives: Home & Family

We are still finishing up and following up on all nine of Jessica’s
college applications. My daughter gave her first vocal conservatory
audition this morning at 9 a.m. in San Francisco. We started driving
at 7:15 a.m. She was singing two songs for evaluation by Oberlin Conservatory:

• La lontananza (Gaetano Donizetti,1797-1848) in Italian
• American Lullaby (Gladys Rich) in English

We arrived about 20 minutes early with Simona (piano
accompanist), Jessica’s resume with an 8×10″ glossy black and white
photo, and the music binder. The amount of arranging it took to
get the accompanist, the photo, and the girl to the audition
on time was tiring even though the audition itself only took half an
hour. We now have Jessica’s audition photo on-line so
we can print as many as we want. We will hear in March whether Oberlin is
interested in taking Jessica as one of their 15 vocal music students
for next year.

Carnegie Mellon school of music has already listened to Jessica’s
audition CD and declined to hear her in person. Since the audition is
80% of the acceptance decision, this means that CMU music will not take
her. She was disappointed
but still hopes to get into CMU as a regular student even if she cannot
be a conservatory student there. In two weeks, we fly to Houston, TX to
audition for the Shepherd School at Rice Univ. Next month,
Jessica sings for Lawrence (in San Francisco). Simona will
play piano again.

We have mailed out all of the audio CDs to the other schools
(Princeton, MIT, Brown, Smith, and Univ. Rochester). Jessica is
working out the remaining in-person interview dates and also
checking with each school to be sure they received everything
they need. She has already re-sent some materials to Rice.

Jessica sent her Advance Placement test scores out last month. However,
when she got the confirmation letter from the College Board, she
found they had sent a set of scores to the Massachusetts Maritime
Academy instead of to MIT. She called the College Board and got
them to send in the scores to MIT. The next day, Jessica got an
application packet from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. I guess
they liked the scores even though they were sent in error!

On top of all of this, Jessica has first semester final exams next
week. She already turned in her final project for the Great Novels
class. She composed and then recorded a CD of four songs from Toni
Morrison’s Song of Solomon (one of the Great Novels they read).
It’s a great deal of work to be a High School Senior.

John and I decided to get our family a new water heater for Christmas.
We started this project months ago, researching options in terms of
energy use, price, and longevity. Our old water heater was still going
after 12 years of service but it mostly produced either scalding or cold
water and the last one to take a morning shower had a choice between tepid
or cold water (or sometimes just cold or colder). The main problem is that
the water in our San Jose area is very hard (full of minerals), so the
calcium builds up in the water tank, lines, and in crusty deposits on the
shower and faucet heads.

Our first plan was to get a tankless water heater. We researched this
and particularly liked the energy savings. However, it took us months
to find a plumbing company in our area which could supply and install
a tankless water heater system. When we finally did and the plumber
eventually came out to look at the old water heater in our basement, it
turned out that the equipment and labor
would cost about $4,000. Worse, even though tankless systems have
been in use elsewhere for a long time, they are just recently approved
for use in our area so there is less than 2 years of history of how they
work with our kind of water and home plumbing. We regretfully decided not to
install a very expensive “1.0” system.

Our next choice was an energy efficient tank water heater. John
again researched the options and called the plumber back to talk. Again,
it turned out that the hard water made our choice. We looked into
getting a water softening system but even though this would double the
efficency, it also doubled the cost. At the end of all of our research
and discussion, it seemed that any new tank replacement would provide improved
energy efficiency if we drained it once a year to get rid of the calcium
build up. So, we might as well get the biggest model that would fit in the
space. The equipment and labor ended up costing $1,575.

Yesterday, our new 75 gallon hot water heater arrived and after much noise,
and carrying of bits and pieces up and down the basement stairs, was
installed. The old 40 gallon tank from 1994 went away on the same truck.
The water flow in
our house has increased dramatically and we are still getting bits of rust
and grit every time we turn a spigot. Apparently, because the new water heater
isn’t full of calcium, it is pushing more water through the pipes and
cleaning them out. We had a choice of temperature settings A, B, or C. (Reading
the manual would probably help but we are not desperate yet.) We
started off at setting B but that produced scalding tap water, so we
lowered the temperature setting.

I must admit as a native Californian I feel more secure having 75 gallons of
water in our house in case of earthquake or other emergency. John is from
the Midwest and feels more comfortable with the tankless option.

It is frustrating to do all sorts of research only to find that our energy
conservation choices are limited by the hard water in our very local
environment. However, we figure by the time we are ready to replace the
tank we just installed, tankless water heaters will have some history and
we can look at that option again.

We went to Christmas Eve church service with our daughter Jessica’s
boyfriend’s family. The modern Christian service featured a large rock
band, words to the Christmas carols projected onto big screens
flanking the podium, a pastor ventriloquist with a puppet giving the
sermon, and lighted candles for the congregation to hold up at the end.
It was very different from the traditional Episcopal service (with
processions, classical music and incense) with which we usually celebrate.

The next morning, our family had a lovely Christmas morning opening
presents in front of the fireplace. Jessica made waffles for
breakfast. We then cooked and hosted dinner
for 12 (plus 3 visitors after) that night. I set out all of the
china in the kitchen for John to plate then Jessica and Paul served
the courses to the table. It was fun to try that instead of everyone
serving themselves from big platters and bowls. By serving courses,
nothing gets stuck (unpassed and uneaten) at the end of the long
table or on the sideboard. I enjoyed being able to use lots of china,
crystal, and silver. We are still working our way through the leftover
food.

Jessica’s big present was an Apple MacBook Pro with Intel dual processor. This computer was both a Christmas and birthday present. She has
transferred everything from her old Apple PowerBook (which she said
was very easy to do) and has been working on it happily ever since.
John and I wanted to give her the new laptop during her last semester
in High School so she was used to it before going to college. Jessica
is also reading Terrier, the new Tamora Pierce book in her Tortall
series.

Paul has been dividing his time between his three new movie
DVDs (The Tuxedo, X-Man Trilogy, and Pirates of the
Caribbean – Dead Man’s Chest), and reading Eldest, the sequel
to Paolini’s Eragon. We go to see the Eragon movie
tonight since I finished reading it yesterday. The book was long
(needed editing!) and felt like a mishmash of four or five other
sword-and-sorcery life journey novels. Some parts were just silly
(metal armor for a dragon) but it is still an impressive first novel.
I have also been looking through our other new books: The
Complete Guide to Growing Cacti & Succulents – A Comprehensive Guide
to Identification, Care and Cultivation and The Railroad Caboose.

There has been a rain and windstorm the last few days. Plastic buckets
and palm fronds were flying around the neighborhood all yesterday afternoon. Today is cool and clear, good gardening weather.

My daughter Jessica has finished all 9 of her college applications:
hooray! She applied for admission to: Brown, Carnegie Mellon (& Conservatory), Lawrence (& Conservatory), MIT, Oberlin (& Conservatory), Princeton, Rice, Rochester, and Smith. This took an astonishing amount of work. We still need
to send audio CDs to the schools which will accept them but those
don’t need to be mailed until after Christmas. Jessica is also still
working with the alumni interviewers to schedule meetings. She
finally had her interview with Smith yesterday.

Next steps: The regional auditions
for Carnegie Mellon and Oberlin will be held early in January 2007.
If they don’t ask her to audition, she has not been accepted to those
conservatories. Most of the rest of the schools will tell us their
decisions in March 2007.

Jessica was under two restrictions until the applications were finished:
her college counsellor at school said no reading novels that weren’t schoolwork, and I said no scheduling holiday events. As soon as part 2 of the Brown application went in, Jessica immediately started reading
2 books and scheduled 5 events:

• A trip to the Dicken’s Christmas Fair
• Christmas carolling on the cable car in San Francisco with her Grandmother
• Baking fruitcake with her Grandmother (with a sleepover)
• Her 18th birthday party (at our house)
• A New Year’s Eve party (at our house)

Our party girl!

Last weekend was very full of seasonal events:

• Friday:
  
  I took a vacation day to go shopping in Chinatown. Two friends and I have gone on
  this day trip during each of the last 25 years. We take CalTrain up the San Francisco peninsula then take Muni bus to Chinatown. We walk through the Lion Gate that
  separates Chinatown
  from Downtown and proceed down Grant. There are shops we always visit plus new
  shops each year. We eat lunch at Sam Wo on Washington Street, go to the fortune cookie factory
  in Ross Alley, then come back down the other side of Grant before taking the bus and
  train home in time for dinner.

  Friday night, we joined our extended family for Hanukkah dinner, complete with
  dreidel games, potato latkes, and lighting menorah candles to prayers in Hebrew. Some of the
  toys from Chinatown were much appreciated by the smallest members of the family.
  They particularly liked the Froggy Squeeze toys and the Slinky walking coil.

• Saturday:
  
  My daughter had a wrestling tournament so we had to get up unreasonably early
  to get her there in time for weighing in.
  We put up Christmas lights on the house and did household chores most of the day.
  Jessica and Paul picked a tree at a local lot and carried it home to soak in a
  bucket before we bring it inside.

  We dropped off 5 bags of used clothes at
  Santa Maria Urban Ministry in San Jose. SMUM is an outreach ministry of
  the Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real. They distribute food and clothes and
  provide educational programs to serve those in need within 8 Central San Jose zip codes.

  That night, we took Jessica and her boyfriend to dinner and the “Frolic” show (San
  Francisco’s first CircusDragBurlesque Festival) at the
  CounterPULSE performance space south of Market. We have been to several of their
  shows this year and always have a wonderful time. We particularly looked for our friend
  Susan Voyticky who was in two trapeze dance
  pieces by Eat Cake Productions.

• Sunday:
  
  Jessica had a college interview with Univ. of Rochester. As usual, she met
  the alumni interviewer at Starbucks. I think each of the 5 interviews so far has
  been held at one or another Starbucks coffee shop.

  At 12:30 p.m. we went to service at
  Santa Maria Virgen Episcopal church in Milpitas. Santa Maria’s Vicar, Padre Efren
  Garza, offers a completely bilingual service in Spanish and English. Yesterday was
  the annual visitation by the Rt. Reverend Sylvestre Romero so we got to see our
  Bishop confirm about ten young men and women. Two of the girls were dressed like
  lovely little brides but everyone looked handsome and well dressed, mostly in white.
  There were about 175 people at the service so it was standing room only in the back.

  After church, we went to a Christmas party at some friends’ house and then came home
  to work some more on Jessica’s college applications.