Monday, Feb. 27

Up at 6:30 a.m. to get ready to go to water aerobics. The pool was warm today, and about 20 of us enjoyed the session.

Today, I thought Hubbie's daughter planned to come to our house to go to lunch and visit, before she had to travel back to her town, about five hours away. She'd spent the week visiting her Mother about two hours east of us.

But she was late getting around and decided she couldn't get over her in time for lunch, so she planned to leave after lunch to go to her home, since she knew I was scheduled to meet my student in the afternoon, and we had tickets to go to a performance of the Harlem Gospel Choir this evening.

But I suggested to Hubbie that he call Daughter to see if she could come sometime today, join us for supper, go to the performance with us tonight, and then stay overnight and leave in the morning. She agreed to do that. I'm glad, because I didn't want her to think we are so busy that we don't have time for her!

I fixed a pan of noodles to go with the leftover beef stew for supper. I knew if I had everything prepared ahead of time, Hubbie and Mother could handle heating the food, and making a recipe of cornbread, while I was gone this afternoon.

I met my student at 2:30. Today, I taught her several simple songs (which was part of the lesson plan). We sang "You Are My Sunshine," "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow," "The Bear Went Over the Mountain," and "Daisy, Daisy." The student noted that "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow," is also sung in Venezuela, and she sung it for me.

She also learned to use sentences using "before/after," and "ever/never," as well as using "it" for identification. "Who was it at the door." "Who was it on the telephone."

We spent time today, too, with reading comprehension: I read paragraphs, and she repeated back to me what she could remember of them. I didn't expect her to repeat verbatim, but only to tell me the sense of what she'd heard. She did very well on the exercise.

After that, she read a couple of fairly long stories from her workbook and answered the questions relating to them.

Daughter had arrived a few minutes before I got back home. She seemed to enjoy our simple supper.

Later, we went down to the college, a couple of miles away, to attend the Harlem Gospel Choir concert. This choir consisted of nine singers, along with musicians on keyboard and drums. The choir is 60 strong, but for expediency's sake sends small groups to perform on tours. We were told by the choir's founder that the 26-year-old choir is the only gospel group ever invited to perform in China.

The choir is lively and talented. Usually, during concerts, Hubbie and Mother nod off. Not tonight. The audience fully participated, standing up, clapping and raising their hands heavenward. Mother was not able to stand for long periods of time, so we all sat.

We are all used to quieter music, and this was totally spirited. But there were two songs that we thoroughly enjoyed: "Total Praise," which was sung softly and then swelled in volume, and then receded again...reminded me of the waves of the ocean.

The other song was in memory of the late Whitney Houston: "I Will Always Love You," sung by a choir member who sounded so remarkably like Houston that the audience became completely silent, and some folks were even brought to tears.

Back home, I accompanied Mother to her house, and then Hubbie, Daughter, and I enjoyed slices of apple cake with cups of chai tea, while we watched a couple of one-hour shows.

Bedtime after that, and I was plenty ready. It was a busy day!