I promised Mom a Maple post, and here it is.

The following picture, and some others on here, are misleading. She is usually sleeping, not playing. Be that as it May:



Here's a picture Nate took once. Now this is the quintessential May.



This also is pretty typical:



If we could only all be so blissful all the time. Or retreat from the world so well:



May likes to sleep on things (I think most cats do). Here she's not actually on the books, but she has clearly claimed the Baroque anthology for her own:



And, talented and musical cat that she is, she even enjoys reading Schenkerian graphic analyses:



I'll finish with a short video. We recently found that there's one thing she'll consistently play with. Here it is:

Holy cow, it's beautiful out! Above freezing and sunny....

One of the things I love about this school is the neat projects one can put together and participate in, if one makes the right contacts. Two days ago I sang in a Latin mass at a Catholic church in Ellettsville. A friend of mine in the Early Music Institute apparently sings there sometimes, and when they decided to put together a Latin mass (and got special permission to do so, of course) he contacted me and several other people and we sang several motets by Victoria, Lassus, and Pergolesi. Fun stuff! Now they're putting together a Latin high mass for the end of the semester, with a full mass by Josquin or some other such person.

I also got an email a few days ago about a conductor friend's project: he's putting together a group to do a concert that will go for a more "total" experience, involving lights and some choreography. He's putting together William Grant Still's oratorio "And They Lynched Him on a Tree." So I suspect it will be a pretty intense concert, but sounds neat.

Finally, I'm putting together a group for the Graduate Theory Association recital in April. We'll sing some Gesualdo and Zarlino--some really dense counterpoint, and that should be really fun.