music ups and downs

 It seems like Mother Nature has had us on a weather roller coaster for the last several days here in Fort Wayne with thunder storms and snatches of sunshine.  This evening the Fort Wayne Philharmonic took us on a similar musical journey.  The evening opened with Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem performed by the orchestra, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic Chorus, the Purdue Fort Wayne Choral Union and soloists Katie Van Kooten and Benjamin Taylor.  The choirs were wonderful, the whole performance was brilliantly performed, The soloists were excellent, but it was very somber, thoughtful music.  Good to hear once but not something I would return to over and over.

After the intermission everything became much more up-beat and, I must admit, more to my taste.  Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op 74 Pathetique (considered his best and I believe it) was lyrical and lively and a sheer pleasure to listen to, and the quieter 4th movement was blissful.  This one I would listen to over and over.  

Actually, the intermission turned out to be lots of fun too.  My son and daughter-in-law had unexpectedly come for the evening and we got to chat with them.  Then 'my' oboe player happened to be coming up our aisle, spotted me and stopped to talk.  We had been tenth floor neighbors when I lived at Three Rivers Apartments and his wife and I were involved in theater together.  It was so nice to catch up.  All in all, a lovely roller coaster evening.

a numbers game

Today, April 4, is 404 Day and Jeep 4x4 Day, two days which I admit I have never celebrated.  I got this information from my west coast brother who also informed me that it is "World Rat Day," a day which I will also not be celebrating.  When I was a tiny tot, and we lived in an old area of town, my mother checked on me while I was playing in my sandbox (my father always built sandboxes for us wherever we lived) and discovered a (in her words) 'giant rat' sitting in the sand with me.  That was the end of my unsupervised sandbox time.  This may be why, a couple of years later, I enjoyed the sandbox in my kindergarten classroom so much.  It was really a sand table, filled with lovely white sand.  I loved that sandbox.  There is a similar sand table at Science Central which, when you pile up the sand, takes on the colors of a topographical map.  I would love to play with that but there are always so many little kids around, and I really can't push them out of the way.  Well I could, I am bigger than them, but I probably shouldn't.  It would tarnish their image of grandmas.

As for 404 Day, which is only celebrated in Atlanta, and 4x4 Day which celebrates the virtues of Jeeps and urges one to 'get out in the open air' and go for a ride, I won't be celebrating those days either.  I will wait for 5-5 and celebrate by enjoying a good Mexican dinner.  

sounds yummy???

 My west coast brother has informed  me that today is "Fish Fingers and Custard Day."  My immediate thought was "Goody, let's go to Culver's for supper."  There is a Culver's conveniently located less than a mile from our house, and they certainly do have fish and custard, which you do not have to eat together.  But then I got to wondering jf Culver's has fish fingers? For that matter, what are fish fingers anyway?  Do fish have fingers?  They can't be very big.  So I checked their menu on line.  They have walleye and cod and shrimp, but no fish fingers. Then I dug a little deeper (I do love Google) and discovered that fish fingers is a UK term.  Here in the US we call them fish sticks.  Well. every mother knows what fish sticks are.   The dish 'fish fingers and custard' (soft custard, not frozen) was evidently made popular by the 11th Dr. Who.  My friend Alice would probably have known this since she's a real Dr. Who fan.

Not surprisingly, writing this blog has made me hungry, and it's almost supper time.  I guess I'll see if my spouse would like to go to Culver's.  He doesn't eat fish but he does like their burgers and frozen custard.  

Rain, rain go away...

 If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring?

Pilgrims!!!

This is a favorite joke of many second graders I have known.  It seems appropriate today.  Everyone knows that April brings rain. However, with all the rain, wind, thunder, lightening and more rain that we have had today, I'm pretty sure Mother Nature is trying to get all of her April showers over with in one fell swoop.  Does this mean that the rest of April will be sunny and warm?  Maybe????

After I wrote the above paragraph I started to wonder what is a 'fell swoop' anyway?  And where did the phrase come from?  A little research gave me the answer.

Blame it on Shakespeare, who else?  When Shakespeare's wrote "Macbeth" 'fell' meant cruel and he compared the sudden murder of Macduff's wife and children to a hawk swooping down on its prey. One fell swoop.  Now it is used to mean suddenly, or all at the same time, but not necessarily in a bad way.  So now you know.  

Coincidentally, my west coast brother had informed me, earlier today, that today is "International Fact Checking Day" which I did before I wrote the previous paragraph.  He also shared that it is "Global Day of the Engineer."  This pleased my wonder spouse who is an Electrical Engineer.  He thinks it is fitting that engineers get a "Global" day rather than a mere "National" day.  I don't begrudge him his special day, especially since I, who am not an engineer, won our Scrabble game this evening by 100 points, an all time record.  Not exactly one fell swoop, but a victory worth mentioning all the same.   

good salesmanship...

 This evening my spouse and I were watching a show on the History channel about South and Central American pyramids, and that reminded me of an experience I had on my first ever Caribbean cruise about sixteen years ago.  Coincidentally, I had recently come across the paperwork that came with my jade cross that I purchased on that cruise.  As you might expect, on a western Caribbean cruise, we stopped at many costal cities in Cancun, Belize and other countries but the place I remember most fondly is Guatemala.  The contrast between that and other places we called on was amazing.  In most places we were almost overwhelmed with vendors trying to get us to buy their wares as soon as we set foot on land.  I was traveling with two girlfriends and between us we certainly bought enough to help support the local economies, but the shopping was not always pleasant.  Guatemala was different.  No harassment as soon as we stepped off the ship.  We were simply put on a bus and taken to the site of a very impressive Mayan pyramid.  I'm sorry that I don't remember the name of it.  Also at that site was an archaeological museum and jade factory and, of course, a lovely display of jade sculptures and jewelry for sale.  No pressure at all, simply availability.  I enjoyed looking and bought one simple piece that I knew I would wear.  What a pleasure and the reason I will always remember Guatemala with great fondness.  

A little side story.  I was wearing the cross one day when I was substitute teaching at a Catholic elementary school.  One of the students commented on the necklace and I said that I had gotten it in Guatemala.  Another student then said "My father is from Guatemala."  When I told her how much I liked it there she just smiled and smiled and said she would tell her father.

My little jade cross, one and one half inches tall.

A yarn about yarn...

 Most Mondays from 3 to 5pm a group of ladies gather in a large room on the third floor of our church's classroom wing to enjoy FFF (Faith, Fiber and Fellowship).  We each work on our own projects.  Mine is weaving or stitching, others do beautiful crochet and knitting projects.  Some items are for personal use, others are donated, usually to be given as prayer shawls for those who are sick or grieving.  Needless to say, where there is yarn work, excess yarn accumulates and accumulates and accumulates some more.  Today we were tasked with the job of cleaning out the years of accumulated yarn (not all ours) from a large storage room across the hall from our meeting room.  Our head custodian is feeling the need for more storage space.  I hate to tell him, but when the yarn is gone, it will just fill up with other stuff.  You know this happens at home, and just as surely at church.  So ten of us gathered, pulled out all of the yarn from the storage space, took what we wanted for ourselves, friends and family members and sorted through the rest of the stash to decide what to donate, what else we wanted, and, alas, what should be thrown away.  I came away with a fairly large bag of yarn for my next few projects, a few things for my granddaughter and granddaughter-in-law and two large containers of stuff to donate to the Dove's Nest, one of my favorite local charities.  If none of this gets put to good use, i really won't care.  I did my bit to get it out of the church.  

old new tech....

 My west coast brother surprised me with a visit this evening.  Not in person.  I think he would have let me know if he was coming to visit from Spokane, but it was a pleasant surprise.  He Zoomed in to see us, and he brought my favorite sister-in-law along.  He has acquired some new equipment that allows him to Zoom from home.  He knows that I attend some meetings by Zoom so he tried it out on me.  First on my phone, which didn't go to well, then computer to computer which went smoothly. I'm very pleased that he decided to use me as his first experiment.  I can't initiate a Zoom meeting but I can, evidently, respond to anyone who Zooms me first and provides me with the necessary access numbers.  I suggested that my brother try to include more of his family sometime so he may try it on his second son's birthday next week.  It is kind of funny though how I reacted when I realized I was being seen as well as heard.  My first thought was "I look so colorless without lipstick" even as my brother was saying that my sister-in-law would join us as soon as she brushed her hair.  While Zooming is fun sometimes, I realized that I am not ready to be seen any time I'm on the phone.  Definitely not early in the morning.  Maybe I'm not as ready for high tech as I think I am, but it really was more fun than just talking on the phone.