And Then Some

Sunday, October 10, 2004

Glimpse of an Ivy
I went to Yale this weekend to visit a friend from high school who is working on her doctorate in musicology. Saturday night we went to the symphony. Well, I went to the symphony; my friend was on stage playing the bassoon with the Yale Symphony Orchestra. The music was wonderful. My favorite part was the third piece, Sibelius' Fifth Symphony. (Sounds almost like I know what I'm talking about, doesn't it?)

All the other students in the symphony are undergrads, so after the concert we had a reception in the common room of one of the residential colleges. It looked more like a medieval cathedral than a college dorm. "It looks like Harry Potter," my friend said. (She lives off campus.) "No, it looks like Harry Potter mixed with a hunting lodge." (There were several dead animals mounted on the walls.)

What's in a name?
My great-grandfather on my dad's side owned a wine shop in Chicago after he immigrated from Croatia in the early 1900s. His last name was Rubein. At a family reunion this weekend, my father discovered that the name was originally Rubeinic. But some one told my great-grandfather that if he was going to sell wine, he would do better business with the Jewish population if he had a Jewish name. So he changed his name and dropped the "ic." So I guess this means I have pseudo-Jewish heritage. Perhaps this is why I've had several people tell me I could pass for Jewish.

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