Last night was the "Classics and Cinema" concert at Christ Chapel, and it was wonderful! What a talented orchestra the church has been blessed with! I heard a new - to me - Russian composer, Reinhold Gliere, who was a contemporary of Rachmaninoff. And they played Prokofiev's Symphony No. 1, "Classical" Op. 25. Louis Harris, the music director, said that one of the orchestra members had inquired whether he (Louis) was aware that this particular symphony, though short, is regarded as the most difficult one to play and is frequently used by symphony orchestras for potential member's auditions. In fact, a woman who plays the clarinet is shortly to audition with a symphony in Alabama and she's to play this symphony, so she was quite pleased to get the practice. ;^)

Here is a video of two of our flautists, Jennifer and Hollie, playing a duet on a single flute:

[plaintively]  Y'know, a person could get a complex.  At Facebook the ads come fast and furious, a surprising number with a common theme:

• Learn the secret of a mom who combined two products to eliminate her wrinkles for good.
• Learn the teeth whitening secret discovered by a mom to turn yellow teeth white.
• How do some people look so much younger than they actually are? Click here to learn the secret discovered by one mom.
• Read how a busy mom erased over $20,000 of debt in 3 easy steps!

For crying out loud, I'm a "mom" of six and I've never discovered a darned thing. 

This morning I went first to pick up darling Bridgette, then my Bryson
bunny, taking them to Kirstin's house for a few hours while their
respective mothers worked.  When we arrived the cleaning people were
there, and Bridgette was fascinated by them, following them around:

Apparently last night Kirstin and her family did the Mardi Gras thing,
for some of the goodies were left behind.  Bryson made a dandy King of
the Kloesel Krewe:

Once I got home it was to find that Joe had gotten the "new" (to him!) truck he'd had his eye on:

It's got pipes, boy.  It's loud, and Joe positively revels in it.  I've
warned him to not drive the way the truck sounds, if he gits muh drift,
and he promised he wouldn't.

Here are Dmitry, Joe, and Elena (with Max the MegaDog pulling a
"Charles" by darting off to the side and refusing to be included):

And here are the above three plus Viktor, with Dmitry's Russian flag:

Their friend, Elveera, came by and they're headed back to the "Russia
store", then will collect Elena's remaining stuff from Dan's (she spent
last night here, and will stay again tonight, as I'm going to take her
to the airport in the wee hours of the morning, as her flight leaves
from DFW at 6 a.m. and I'm a good bit more familiar with the airport
than any of the Russians).  It's been a pleasure having her, that's for
sure! 

This afternoon was the Festive Lunch at the Taste of Europe in Arlington.  Ummm.....!

As I said on Facebook, any day containing borscht and pelmeni is a good day. 

Elena was in seventh heaven as her Michigan hometown doesn't have a
Russian store like this.  She declared she was going to return home
broke due to buying so many Russian goodies;  here are her and Joe
checking out the CD and DVD section:

Here are Zhenya, Dmitry, Elena and Joe, and I've no idea why Joe was looking sideways at Dmitry like that.  ;^)

Dan took the day off so as to be able to attend, and dearest Sarah joined us too, which was so nice:

Sarah and I drooled over the amber and garnet jewelry.  The store has
an exquisite collection!  Alas, what with not yet having a job plus a
severe plumbing issue to be dealt with, I could not justify purchasing
jewelry that odds are I wouldn't wear anyway.  It was too funny, at the
checkout stand Sarah held out to the owner two rings, seriously
informing him she was paying for one of them.

That rather took me aback.  She was taking two rings but only paying for one of 'em?  Wow.  I ought to try that myself.  "Here, I'm taking this, this, and that, but am only paying for that."   Sarah chuckled as she nudged me, explaining that Dan was buying her the other one.

Ah, okay, that makes sense.  It was quite amusing - well, to me, anyway - the way it was originally put. 

And this is just a photo of them milling around the store:

We had a lovely time, and I took Kirstin some frozen pelmeni and meat
blintzes (plus some pelmeni for our freezer, too) when I picked her
kids up from school afterward.  I hope she and her family enjoy Russian
food as much as do I!  I love it. 

Here's Elena (who found the Russian hat that had been in Don's closet and gleefully appropriated by Dmitry) with Joe:

And with Zhenya:

Elena and Dmitry:

She was stunned at how much taller he is than when she last saw him!  Couldn't believe she now looks up at him.  ;^)

Dmitry and Joe:

A couple of pix of the four of them together:

And one of the two of us, taken by Dmitry:

Tomorrow's going to be fun!  The sweet children urged me to go with them to the Russian restaurant in Arlington for lunch. 

Won't have to crash it, after all.  

Mom and I went to this afternoon's Van Cliburn Piano Competition auditions (really hope the Taiwanese guy gets chosen) and when I got home, to my pleasure there was Sarah, Dan's sweet babboo, and then my eyes fell on Elena, one of the girls from Shumerly that was adopted around the same time as Dmitry by a family in Michigan!

She flew down this morning and Dan picked her up. Bless her sweet heart, she insisted on hanging at my house until I came home so she could see me.

Newcomers (comparatively!) to this blog won't know this, but the summer after Dmitry got home he and I - along with Dan and his parents and another couple of girls from their orphanage and their father - drove up to Illinois because of an adoption camp featuring girls from Shumerly, and Elena and Julia (who couldn't spare time from college to come with Elena, darn it) came from Michigan. Anyway, that's where I met her, and we've been Facebook friends for a while now.

With Elena, Dmitry, Dan and Zhenya, the sound of Russian filled the living room. I loved it. ;^) Next Viktor showed up with yet another Elena - she's a girl from Dmitry and Dan's Bright Futures' camp; like "Svetlana", "Elena" is a common girl's name in Russia). They took Max to the park, then headed off to Dan and Zhenya's apartment.

I rather feel for Sarah, being the only non-Russian-speaker in that bunch. I'm accustomed to listening to the kids chatter at each other in Russian and not knowing what's being said, but she's not.

Tell you what, it's amazing to see these beautiful children (well, they are to me, though Dan turns 21 this summer, which is hard to believe) and recall that they used to be in orphanages in Russia. Praise the LORD for His generosity in sharing them with us, and bringing them into our lives.

Zhenya's over here and looking at a Russian version of Facebook and has told me he's in contact with Vitaly....remember? The boy who came over with the same Bright Futures group as Joe, Zhenya and Reagan? But was never adopted?

Oh, how I've fretted and prayed about him, so what an enormous relief to learn he's doing well as a construction worker in Moscow! Turns out he inherited an apartment in Cheboksary from his birth mother, only the Cheboksary economy has really tanked so I suppose he has to live where the work is.

Still, what a joy it is to hear a good report about him. I've asked Zhenya to give him my love and assure him he's always been in my prayers. ;^)

This afternoon I was at the grand opening celebration of a friend's insurance office when Dmitry called to tell me the power lines were down.

Turns out it was the cable lines that fell off the pole instead of the electricity, thank heavens!

What's frustrating is that Charter says tomorrow's the soonest they'll come to fix it. Mind, the lines are laying across both the shared driveway and in front of my garage, and of course the internet connection was going off and on, so I got fed up and told the Charter people to cancel my internet account.

She didn't argue (I daresay she looked at the service record and figured this particular account's more trouble than it's worth), and said she had canceled it, but here it is working!

Doubtless it'll go off shortly. I called AT&T UVerse and darned if their administrative and sales sites aren't down for maintenance until Monday, and in any event it'll be a week or two before anything gets installed, which will be a real bummer.

Guess I need to learn how to get the laptop to work at a Wi-Fi place.

I have the sneaking suspicion I might turn into the living replication of Jenny Nelson, the class-taking widow of one of my favorite movies, "The Glass Bottom Boat" with Doris Day.

To voice lessons I've now added line dancing on Saturday afternoons at UTA, suggested by a friend in my Sunday School class.  She says that in addition to being lots of fun they're great exercise.

Being highly appreciative of fun - and respectful of, though not quite as appreciative, of exercise  -  I figured I'd give it a whirl. 

The session begins on March 7.

Remember that "Empty Bowls" activity at Achevez! back in the end of January?  Turns out the ceramic place that provided the bowls posted some photos, including one of my table and one that has my duded-up bowl in it:

To be honest, I'm not completely enthusiastic about the red dots around the rim.