Signs of Spring

Wonderful walk today, by the pond, and spring really has arrived.  Smell of the water on the wind, the honey scent of the blossoming trees, the shout of the first redwing blackbird across the water and a sole goldfinch, our state bird, in fact, in full brilliant yellow mating plumage, flitting around my head.  

All kinds of birdsong, some of which I could recognize -- phoebe, robin, Carolina wren, blackbird, and various twitterings that served as a ground bass for the singers. Kayakers having fun on the water, their shouts and arguments blending right in.

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So, for your viewing joy, I took a few pix.  Click to see better.

Afternoon delight, freecycle style, that is, I can't think what you thought I was going to say...

 

Anyway, or "so" (have you noticed this is the new way to start every sentence?) I was gloomily perusing the freecycle site this morning, thinking oh well, there's nothing I'm going to need and want and oh well, taxes due to the township next week, very broke right now, and there it was:  slipcovers in creamy white with sort of pink flowers, Ikea, for three seater sofa.

Just when I realized there is no money whatever in the budget to replace my old green cover which I'm so tired of that even the cats don't like it much, here comes a lovely new one.  So I was invited to go pick up, I guess I was an early responder for once, and brought home a BRAND NEW slipcover set, complete, which FITS my sofa, in a nice loose shabby chic fit.

So once in a while the universe thinks, so, let's send her a treat for being such a Good Person, So Nice, So Kind, So Thoughtful, No Matter What Anyone Says, and here it is.  Totally clean, no need to do anything but put it on.  And take a picture as a brag unit.

So the old green tie on slipcover thingy from Target can move to the loveseat at right angles to this sofa, and the ancient quilt ,currently covering it and tending to be hard to sit on, since it ditches the sitter gently onto the floor, will be retired to the spare bed or something.

See, or so, things is good.

One foot in front of the other

I think I'm in a kind of secondary phase of recovering from the stresses of earlier years.  Eighteen months, and I am still not quite there yet.  Big waves of loneliness, and being at a bit of a  loose end, while still being busy.  I try to remember that I have a lot of physical recovery to get through, too.  

This too shall pass.  Meanwhile, art proceeds inexorably, life making little or no difference to the creative energy, in fact the work is pretty good all things considered.  If you'd like to see what's up at the moment, take a look here 

Latest DVD watching that has helped a whole lot with the loose endedness:  Call the Midwife, brilliant series, Your Sister's Sister, very complex and funny and sad and appealing and just good, Dalziel and Pascoe, two latest seasons, great drama.  And tonight on the menu is Mr Selfridge.   

Any other recommendations that I might get on DVD at the libe, gratefully received! 
 

SAASA2013

This is the South Asian student group at one of the local high schools, and the annual bash, of student written script, dancing, staging, organizing, including a great dinner, was last night, despite terrible torrential rain.  

The slightly damp audience had a great Indian dinner, served in the school commons, just like being back at school except the food was great, then we trooped into the auditorium for an evening of music, dancing,skits, and general great stuff.  Tarang J. my honorary grand daughter was the person in charge of the whole event this year, as president of the association and what a great job she did.  

She organized the whole thing, dinner and concert, wrote the script for the skits, organized the program printing, danced and sang in the event. Gosh do I sound like a proud grandma or what!

 Handsome Son came with me to visit his old high school for the first time in the many years since he graduated and had a weird experience revisiting it in a different part of his life.  The auditorium we were in for the concert is newly built since his time, which made him feel quite, um, mature!

Since the students we know are now seniors, we won't have any connections with next year's cast, but I think we might go again anyway, just to support a nice event.

Pix are not great because the lighting was pretty low, but you get the gist!

 

New Tiny Toy

See that little gizmo, slightly bigger than a postage stamp, attached to my music stand?  my new metronome.  For them as don't do music, it's a device meant to assist in playing at tempo, and makes various sounds to enable you to do this.  You set it at the number you need, it ticks or beeps or flashes or whatever you want, to keep you on track.

It's great for practicing solo the pieces you play in a consort, so you don't get to be the person dragging behind or trotting ahead (that's my besetting sin, always too alert), and though it's not something to use all the time, it has its value.

This is amazing, new to me, so tiny and with all kinds of functions, meter, value, volume, you name it, shipped to me from Betty Lao, if I remember rightly, in Singapore.  Anyway, this is a great new toy, very portable.

It used to be that only your music teacher had a metronome, which in the early medieval period when I learned piano, was a triangular wooden thing with a removable front behind which lurked a pointer that could be set to tempo to tick and wag back and forth, little tyrant.

One of my recorder friends, a very firm lady, now long gathered to the recorder group in the sky, used to whip her old wooden metronome out when we played at her house and insist on using it.  She lived in an old house with a wonky wooden floor, and when she set down the metronome, not only did the clicking echo loudly, but it clicked out of rhythm, as the machine swayed a bit on each iteration on and off the floorboard.....like tick,tick,tiiiiiiiiiickticticiticiticit,tick, tick.  

But all my protests were in vain.  She insisted that it MUST be accurate because it was a MACHINE!   So we sort of blundered along, but we weren't very good anyway, so I guess it wasn't much loss.  I think I play better now!  We always hoped the metronome had been tidied away and we 'd assure her that it was no trouble, we'd manage without it.  She was loads of fun, most of it unconscious on her part.

Daffodils, spring, and remembering

Finally the daffodils have sprung officially, and I made a couple of pix of the 9.11 memorial area Handsome Son, Handsome Partner and I planted in the fall of 2011 in memory of the people who died on that day.  Each spring we are so thankful for life and how it returns, and all the daffodils people planted to celebrate the life of Handsome Partner, all over the world, are there dancing along to the melody.  I added in a picture of giant daffodils in front of a garden chair -- I planted these long ago on the patio when I was overhauling it,  at HP's request for "those great big ones, the REAL daffodils".  He meant the King Alfred variety, so I was happy to plant them and see them come up faithfully year after year.

Once in a while there's a jarring note -- as this morning when one of my neighbors ran out to the 9.11 plantings in the trees and forcibly stopped a woman from digging up entire daffodils, bulbs, foliage, the lot, and then to the woman's amazement, made her return the bucketful she'd taken, so we can replant!  the culprit insisted that these were "public flowers" that she could dig and take.  Yeah, that'll work.  And said she planned on reporting this to the HOA.  My friend happily encouraged her to do so!  then perhaps she will learn that there's a difference between common areas and free for the taking areas!  so some of these daffodils will be in another home soon, when we replant after they've recovered from the shock.

Meanwhile my friend investigated and found that this woman had already stolen a few and planted them around her home!  I guess in the end they can be seen and enjoyed by everyone but dang it's annoying to have larceny of this barefaced sort.  I understand gardener's larceny, having appropriated a few little cuttings of my own, but the ethics of the situation are that you do nothing that stops the growth of the plant.  In fact my little prunings are good for it.  I don't dig up the entire thing!

And then I remember that this kind of incident is one of the rough dark threads in the shining shawl of life, and we move on.

The Last of the Harvest of 2012

Here's the very last of the 2012 farmshare about to become a lovely soup, with the addition of carrots (farm doesn't do carrots, our soil not very good for them).  So, since the new season opens in mid May, I'd say this was a terrific investment -- farmfresh veggies from mid May to mid April, and that's only what I froze for myself.  It doesn't count what I gave to friends.  And ate fresh, and cooked right away.   All I had to buy was a few potatoes and a couple of carrots, aside from the potatoes I grew in containers on the deck, that is.

Smug.  that's me.  Also the Big Wall is nearly finished....stopped before I reached a place where serious furniture and glass ornament moving will be needed.  Anyway the tray was empty of paint. This is a very sane way to redecorate!  I have a painting date set for a few days' time after other obligations are met.

So now I can get on with my current lovely embroidery, a biscornu designed by one of our embroidery chapter members.  This is while I think and plan about goldwork, in anticipation of the book's arriving. and practice my trills on the recorder and other pieces.  

It's all go!

How doth the busy bee, or stitcher..

Blogistas who would like to know how I improved the shining hour today, can go here and turn green with envy at What I Did!

I definitely think that joining the Embroiderers' Guild was one of the nicest things I've ever done for myself.

Chop Spring Wood, Carry Spring Water, Paint Walls

Just so tired of waiting for actual Spring weather, so I decided I couldn't be pestered waiting any longer and I set to work to paint the living room this morning.  One wall at a time, my usual policy, so that I've finished the plan before I'm worn out and regretting getting into it. And I use cheap old rollers and toss the sleeves promptly. Also swathe the paint tray in a plastic bag which I invert and toss after the painting session, thus avoiding boring cleanup.  I just think the whole world should follow my method, it's that good.

Full disclosure:  I've been glancing up at this particular wall, between living room and kitchen, the dining area, focal point, for about two years and idly wondering if I would ever regain the strength and the balance and the interest to actually paint it.  I do have the paint in the house, a mix I made for myself of a semi gloss white and a flat yellow, which gives a lovely low sheen in palest yellow.   Well, anyway, there it was waiting.

Then suddenly, today was the day to test my strength.  And I found that an hour and a bit was enough to do a very nice job on one wall -- and I went over the next a bit just to use up what's in the tray -- so this is good.  I was amazed to find I was very steady on the steps, no problem at the ceiling level, or the floor level, equally a challenge.  This is where I brag that my weight training is, too, useful, neener!

Now I won't have to cringe at the drips down the wall where dear little kitties knocked stuff off the pass through.  Or the fingermarks left by the installers when the thermostat was replaced.  All that.  Not to mention that the old color was a very nice pale dusty pink which looked terrible against the newly painted adjacent hallway and opposite wall which I painted last year in this nice yellow, very mildly sunny.

So there you are, after all the highflown musical and art adventures of recent times, it's back to chop wood, carry water, paint walls. You have to take my word for it that the wall in the pix is in fact pale yellow, a shade that refuses to register on my camera.  Just imagine pale primroses nestling in the glen. Yeah, that'll work.

And the rollers are tightly wrapped in plastic to bring out in the next day or so to do the Big Wall, the biggest in the house, in fact.  After that most of the room is more or less accounted for.  Smaller walls, corners, we'll burn that bridge when we come to it..

No foolin! late breaking March news in April

This is virtuoso recorder playing in action! to be exact, a celebrated member of our Recorder Society chapter, and well known early music performer,John Burkhalter. John marked March as Play the Recorder Month 2013 in characteristically generous style, playing solo free "popup" performances around Princeton on Friday March 29th and Saturday March 30th.

He played selections from The Beggar's Opera and music of the Netherlands to audiences in Princeton University Art Museum, the Music Department Woolworth Building, in the lobby of Princeton Public Library, and, specially for children, on the third floor of the Library. At the libe, a small dancer suddenly joined in, an unexpected bonus! He also played at the Firestone Library and Labyrinth Books.

These were all short concerts, all in walking distance one to another, played solo to different audiences at each location, as a series of spontaneous events. This was such a gift to the community, in honor of recorder playing and his own belief that though he himself is a virtuoso player, respected in the world of early music, anyone may enjoy, listen to, and play music at their own level. You've heard me banging on about how art is for everyone, and now you see a musician doing likewise, putting it into action. Couldn't resist showing you here!

He encourages everyone to try, and the conductors he engages to lead our monthly Recorder Society meetings, themselves well known performers, are very much in agreement with this approach! Thank you, from all of us, John, all year round.

So that's our entry into April, with a tribute to the end of March!Please note that the photo credit goes to Darryl Kestler, recorder player and, as you see, photographer.

The Recorder Society gets it on!

Yesterday was the annual day long workshop of our Recorder Society, where great conductors come and run sessions for amateur players like me, well, better than me, all day long, great fun, great meeting up with old friends you only see at this event, experts on hand to sell music and instruments and advise on their care and feeding.  No playing in these pix, since I was too busy playing to make pix during workshops, so you just get a glimpse of the down time! 


On a completely different subject, go here to see what I was up to today at the Museum of the City of Trenton.  In heaven once again.  Nice weekend all in all.

Spring Equinox is knocking!

The daffodils are struggling to get through the ice and bitter winds and sleet to greet what is, officially anyway, Spring.  Happy Spring all.

Meanwhile back on the patio, I'm just sayin.....it's now Squirrels 4, Boud ONE ONE I tell you!  they have tried mightily with teeth and all four paws to wrench open the suet holder, with zero success. And as of today, a nuthatch and a couple of chickadees have been happily chowing down.

And it might be that a couple of mourning doves, who have been scouting out the plant hanger I put out in the hope of attracting a nest, might just move in.  I've seen them testing it out, sitting in it, flying in and out, and yesterday the male was out tugging out bits of grass, looks like a housing start it on its way.  I hope so.  They're wonderful neighbors, very calm. Even their babies are calm and will let you climb up and look without panicking.  We'll see.

This Means War! aka it's all about suet

The local squirrels and I have had a sparring relationship for years now, they determined to ravage all my attempts to feed local birds and encourage them to nest on the patio, and I trying all means known to deter them. The suet feeder is the current source of disagreement. I put out a block of suet and seed in the hanging thing, which snaps firmly shut.

At first they just ate from it like everyone else, then one day they figured out to to snap it open and let the suet fall down, and eat it there. Then they realized that this meant sharing with the birds, so they hauled the suet off to some hiding place, leaving the birds wandering around rustling in the leaves and looking for their suet treat, and wondering what had happened to the service at this restaurant. So I tied the hanger shut. And they learned to bite through any string or rope and open it etc.

 Then I wound paperclips around the locks and they learned to unwind them etc. then I wrapped a string artwork which was over with its hanging life, and soaked it in peppermint oil, hated by squirrels. They stayed away one whole day. Then they came back and bit and tore the string work off and made off with the suet.

Up to now it's Squirrels 4 Boud 0. So now I've put snap rings around the locks and we'll see if the squirrels hire a parrot or someone to snap them open....for now it's one day and the birds are still able to get their suet. We shall see.

Happy Pi Day, and hippo birdies Einstein, too

To get why this is Pi Day, you need to be in a culture which expresses the month before the day, so that March 14 reads as 3.14 etc. etc. etc. out to many many digits. The Dollivers are annoyed that I made soup instead of Pi today, but I explained I'm still using up the freezer veggies before the new season arrives. This soup is a wonderful mixture of cabbage, tomatoes, split peas, lentils, garlic onions and all kinds of interesting spices. It may be shared with friends, too.

Meanwhile, the Ds decided to write up a nice wish for Einstein whose birthday it is, or would have been, and to celebrate their mathematical knowledge of Pi. The i of friends got into the pi, but what's a lost eye among friends....

ou sont les livres d'antan....plaintive misquotation from Villon

Which really refers to the snows, not the books, of yesteryear.  In this case, a little expedition to the Cranbury Bookworm, for decades a destination of choice on wintry afternoon weekends, or warm weather before walking around the village, or any old excuse really, came to a skidding halt.

Turns out that after all these years, the building is to be sold, the owner wanting to retire, and the business has had to move down the street to tiny quarters, no resemblance to the huge and interesting building it used to house.  Still in moving progress, in both senses.

This was the scene, the Dollivers point out, of their very first photo shoot, and of many happy hours spent among old books, long ago when the building had an open staircase to the furnace, you could huddle in the warmth and read their magazines, in ancient comfy armchairs.  And there were two floors and a porch, all jammed with interesting items, artwork up the stairwell walls, and a general sense that anything might turn up.  And the modern day issues of the recession, small business woes, the introduction of the accursed ereader, and buying and selling via internet, all of today's reality, for better or worse, and this is for me, anyway, a sad result.  Oh well.  I did promise to go back to the new location

This is now, and the following were then:  

March of time, not sure if it's progress.  But then I wasn't ready to wave the old Bookworm, with its great parking, goodbye. But it occurs to me that the photshoot was of the only two Dollivers in existence at that time, three years ago..so maybe there's progress, if multiplying Dollivers can count as progress.

Music, amateur style

I've been busy in real life lately, what with one thing and a thousand others, but there's been time to play recorder with more than one group.  I have one that's more sociable than musical, old friends from decades back, and one that's seriously musical and friendly but not old friends. And then there's the big group, the official chapter of the Recorder Society, conducted by pretty much famous conductors, great learning.  And a daylong workshop coming up soon, a test of stamina among other things but a great reunion of friends in music, too.

Here are most of my family of recorders -- in size order from small to large, soprano, alto, tenor and bass. I also have a sopranino (that plays up in the stratosphere, like the bird sounds in Magic Flute) and a better soprano, wooden and handmade, lovely.  So this is all you need to have a full life in amateur music of the early medieval all the way to baroque eras.

My favorite is the Elizabethan  era, full of mournful songs of love gone wrong.  Very much like country western today, except then it's the man complaining that his woman done him wrong, leaving him to die of a broken heart.  After partying on for a few years, though.

Two certainties in life: Dollivers and taxes

That time again, and my federal and state taxes are done, all filled in, in ink, and waiting only for me to organize the money to send to them again.  I don't so much mind owing at the end of the tax season, since it means I didn't give a free loan of my money to the feds for them to graciously return it to me without interest. I've had the use of it, and now it's going to be theirs.

The Ds of course, not sure of my abilities in this area, insisted on checking all the instructions and wielding their mighty pen.  They  thought you wrote in and asked for money and nice people in Washington would say oh? how much? okay, your check's in the mail. I explained that it's actually the other way around.

I don't mind doing this stuff, have done my own taxes, and Handsome Partner's, too, in recent years, for many years, with all sorts of complications, including the NJ Inheritance Taxes,  the Homestead Rebate, the Senior Freeze, which leave the feds standing for complication, since they count income differently, have different exemptions, and well, it's a challenge.  Never one to run away from a challenge, me. I'm not too thrilled at the young neighbors kindly offering to do them for me, good as their hearts are, because this is an annual thing to just do, in order to feel you're part of the place, so to speak.

One of these fine days, when my brain cells start to age out, I'll get Handsome Son roped in, but for now, I'm fine managing my taxes and other inevitabilities.

Disregard strange emails!

My account was hacked, and I thank all the many people who let me know. Evidently, judging from the number of calls and emails I got this morning, my entire address book received a scam email involving Cyprus and wandering about wringing my hands over it or something! I am quite safe, in the usual place, just annoyed that all these nice people were bothered by a scam and some were quite concerned in case there might be something to it. Nope. But now that I've done the usual remedies,I have to rebuild my entire email contact listings, huge, which were all wiped, along with saved emails in the first half of the alphabet. Soooooo, be aware that unless you email me, I might not be able to be in touch. The Dollivers point out smugly that yarn don't crash, so I'm ignoring them.

The Dollivers organize a Valentine greeting

We Dollivers, and one visiting Annie, wish you all a happy Valentine's Day today in the southern hemisphere and tomorrow in the northern one. Boud has been under the weather for a few days, and we thought we'd better set this up ourselves. Well, we did our best to find red, and flowers and cards, and then we all fell down, and we started again, and then we thought, nah, we'll just stay down here and see if that works.

Boud wanted to know what heather was doing in there, and we explained,well, it's about friends and family and red, so she qualifies on all counts. As do all you blogistas out there!

Footnote from Boud:

I was down with a nasty virus, well, I don't know what would be a nice virus, which included scenes from the Exorcist, plus collapsing and doing a Hillary, hitting my head and every other bit that caught on something in the bathroom, but things are going better now, and will continue that way. Ribs still complaining, but I'm not any more. One of those illness where it comes on lightning fast,you think you're going to die, then you wish you could, then finally you're amazed you didn't. I couldn't believe I was baking then shoveling out my car from a foot of snow, humming happily, then stitching and then -- It Struck!

Happy V Day, it's about friends, and for antiV friends, it's about green nail polish!!

Hope Springs Eternal

Bitterly cold weather, dry and cutting winds, snow now and then, gah. Grey skies do me in. But there in the kitchen, reminding me that the days are lengthening even if I haven't noticed all that much, and the light is getting stronger, the begonias are singing and dancing and showing their best pink dresses. Yay.

Freeform Stitching by Free Women!

For the latest shenanigans, aka caper, of the embroiderers, go here

Stitch in Public Day! Stitchers Rule!

The first Saturday in February is the official national Embroiderers' Guild of America's Stitch in Public Day, when stitchers of all kinds explode on their communities with stitching, displays of finished work, and general encouragement to the public to come and watch and maybe decide to try their hands, and learn, or relearn, the art of embroidery. Today the Princeton Chapter of EGA went forth to preach and teach, and here we are, having a fine old time stitching and laughing and generally illustrating why we like doing this, and why you should all join us! Hospitality came from the Mary Jacobs Public Library of Rocky Hill, NJ, and their patrons who stopped by, admired, exclaimed, and maybe will join us at some time at our regular meetings. And here's us!

Well, there were more, and there was more work on display as the afternoon went on, but I got engrossed in talking and stitching and my photography kind of fell off a bit.

The Bells! The Bells!

Very cold weather followed by two warm days then high winds made an interesting walk by the pond this morning.  There were stretches of open water, driven by the wind under thin sheets of ice.  I noticed an odd clanging noise as I walked down`the path, like church bells in the distance,  and realized it was the music of water under the ice, bumping and flowing.  The sound changed as the wind did, and the sun changed the ice by the minute, so I think this was a shortlived performance of nature.  I was lucky to catch it.

One Snowdrop, Spring Everywhere

Here she is, the first snowdrop, blazing away all alone until her friends fight their way through the pachysandra to get some light and air.  Difficult week, old friend died two days ago, so this was a welcome sight this morning.

The Dollivers Celebrate a Glorious Twofer

Inauguration Day of an African American president, for his second term, showing it was no fluke the first time around, and Martin Luther King day both at the same time.  Martin must be singing happily in Heaven over this one!  well, a lot of us are.

Including the Dollivers, who have been patiently set up on their bleachers awaiting the parade for a while now.  Attempts to explain that the parade will not actually be coming up our street all failed, and the Annies joined them in their insistence that they are too part of the parade.  Ooooookay....and Elton has been thumping the ivories for ages, with all the best Sousa renditions, including the Washington Post March, and on to My Country Tis of Thee, and America the Beautiful, not to mention Oh, You Beautiful Dollivers.

They all insisted on wearing their fancy New Year's kit, with the addition of special hats, in honor of Aretha Franklin's iconic one, last time around.

Happy Day, Everyone!  from all of us to all of you.