June-bug

"And since all this lovliness cannot be Heaven, I know in my heart that it is June" Abba Goold Woolson (1838-1921) 

I’ve caught it…no, not the World Cup Fever (which despite all of my enjoyment and enthusiasm M claims I have not yet caught…harrumph) but June fever. I absolutely love this month. It could be because of one of the following reasons, though I blame all of them:

♥ it is the month in which the school year that has d.r.a.g.g.e.d on has finally breathed it’s final breath

♥ the days are their gloriest longest and light abounds

♥ it’s finally warm!

♥ the crickets start to sing their song

♥ and the beat goes on…

Today I took my class on our first walking trip around downtown to check out a really cool sculpture. It’s called “Man of Fire” by Kim Yasuda and it’s a dedication to Ernesto Galarza. You can read a bit about the art and him here and here but in a nutshell he was a Mexican immigrant to California in the early 20^th century and eventually earned his PhD and went on to work for the educational rights of immigrants in California. He lived in San Jose and was very involved with the public education here. He died in 1984 but this is a really cool tribute to him smack dab in the middle of downtown San Jose. The work actually is compiled of three parts all along a pedestrian paseo through several busy streets. The first element is stone “ribbons” set in the ground that have quotes about Galarza embedded in them, both in English and Spanish.

The second element is a life-sized metal sculpture of a chair and the third element is the long and slightly larger than life table at which the chair is set. The ribbons actually lead through the paseo up to the table. The table is also constructed of metal of some sort and also has a variety of pictures and quotes by Galarza embedded into it. It also has a giant hat and nails that are part of the table to represent Galarza’s agricultural roots that he remained so tied to even after immersing himself into the world of academia. I never got a chance to take a picture of the entire table since the kids were all around it but I did take pictures of the other elements as visible above. 


You should definitely check it out- there’s actually quite a bit of public art available downtown if you just keep your eyes open and even today I walked past something new-to-me. I’ll try and post on the art we’re looking at this summer since I think that it’s great to be aware of the neat-o-ness that is all around us.

In the vein of lovely summer days and nights I indulged in some local cherries from a family fruit stand. My family knows the family who owns the orchards and sells the fruit and I think that their cherries are laced with some sort of narcotic since they’re so addictive…I love the mix of colors!

I also got to check out two of my uncle’s tomato plants. They both live in my grandmother’s neighborhood (where I’m hanging out quite a bit with all of this free time during the day =) ). Tomatoes (and pretty much all vegetables) are a big thing in our family. Everyone always has at least several plants in their yard for the summer and we hardly buy any tomatoes from about late June to almost October. One uncle especially loves to garden and has a cute little raspberry plant that I ate straight off of (yum!). Living in an apartment definitely is awesome, especially being right downtown, but I do love being outside especially in this fabulous time of year and it was nice to hang out in people’s gardens today.

M and I walked to a local Great Clips so that he could get a trim before this weekend’s wedding (not ours, don’t worry!) and then we each at not one but two slices of pizza at Pizza my Heart (cheese for him and the Big Sur for me).  We walked back home and are enjoying some Law & Order: SVU (the French fries of television, according to a good friend of mine) before bed. 


Tomorrow is hopefully a day of cleaning and car maintenance before we each leave for southern California for that aforementioned wedding (no earthquakes please!). M is taking Thursday and Friday off (good for him!) and driving down Thursday AM and I’m flying down directly after my class on Friday. We’re going to hang out, go to the wedding, run a bit and drive back on Sunday and we’re both pretty excited for a little weekend get-away.

Off to bed…happy Tuesday night and enjoy this picture of someone who was ready for lights out way before everyone else!