Learning, more or less

-When playing the violin, one must keep the bow parallel to the bridge in order to avoid sounding like a dying cat.

-On a similar note, no one will believe that breaking a string really can be painful unless they actually witness your finger turning purple.

-Gender-specific nouns make a language infinitely more difficult to learn, particularly when there is no apparent rhyme or reason to them.

-I should never wear orange.

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Also, I bought a little rose bush. 'Tis a "Louis Philippe" cracker rose to be exact, colour unknown. It is either red or white. Let's hope I can keep this one alive, as my last (and first) rose attempt didn't end well.

Cheerful

Mostly, it's little things that make me happy. Noticing that the jasmine is starting to bloom. The lettuce that continues to grow and thrive despite my deficit in the gardening talent area. Crocheting a doily (another vintage pattern; I can't seem to stop). Someone spelling or pronouncing my name correctly.

Simple things. Life.

But then, on Monday we went to Sea World. That's a big thing, and it made me happy also.

And we were part of a special group, so we got to go in through the education gate, and go behind the scenes a bit.

Above the shark tunnel... don't get too near the edge!

Nostalgia for a bygone era

Finally, the long-overdue hat alluded to in a previous post, which everyone had probably forgotten by now. I've called it "A Different Era", because it looks like it came from one. And in a way it did.

The pattern I found in that same Needlework magazine from the 1950's. They called it a "tailored  cloche" and, though the photograph was in black and white, it originally used three different colours in a sort of tweed-like arrangement. But the more I looked at the picture, the more I thought of how nice it looked in the grey. (Of my photos, only the second and fourth are in greyscale.) I still like it that way, reminiscent of a time when ladies wore hats more often and the silver screen was still silver. (Also, it was a gift, and she likes it.)

Is it possible to be nostalgic about things you've never seen?

Where all is sweetness and delicacy and harmony

May I now introduce the newest addition to my musical menagerie: Sherlock the violin. After years of sitting at the top of someone's dusty shelf (or the back of their closet, I don't know for sure), he has come to live with Brontë the piano, Morrigan the organ, and Nienor the clarinet (that I can't actually play yet), and me.

Isn't it lovely?

After a grand total of two lessons, I can now play the theme from Dvorak's "New World" Symphony. Which honestly is not as difficult as it sounds, but I'm still proud of myself.

(You may recognize the title phrase from Sherlock Holmes' description of "Violin-land" in "The Red-Headed League".)

UFO: Unidentified Flowering Object

 

Define "weed"...

It was all wonderful and I can't even prove it

Easter was lovely. It always is. I, however, neglected to put the memory card back in my camera, so I have no proof other than my word.

Church in the morning, then off to a friend's house to eat some chocolate, have a wonderful dinner, and play a long game of Trivial Pursuit. During which other players were asked questions like "What type of crop failure caused the Irish Famine?", "What Harriet Beecher Stowe novel is about slavery?", and "What is the brightest star in the night sky?", while I was asked questions like "On what lake is Sheboygan located?", and things about sports and hippie actresses...

And yet my team won.

Chocolate bunny did pose for some glamour shots in a bunch of daisies, but the blog insists upon showing them sideways.