common sense

 My west coast brother informed me that today is "National Make Up Your Own Holiday Day." Considering all the strange holidays that I have come across while writing this blog, I think every day is a make up your own holiday day.

When asked for his idea, my wonder spouse promptly said that today should be "National Left Handers Day" but my brother said that that is already celebrated on August 13.  We will have to remember that.

Meanwhile the weatherman has issued a severe storm warning. it is pouring down rain outside and the wind is picking up. so I am going to declare this "Use Your Common Sense Day" and head for the basement where we can puzzle until this storm blows over.  Stay dry everyone.

Happy New Year???

 My west coast brother began his text to me today with this information - today is Old New Years Day.  Of course that piqued my curiosity.  Hasn't January 1 always been New Years Day, at least in western cultures?

Evidently not.  Until 1752, England and British dominions including  those in America, celebrated March 25 as the first day of the calendar year. 

In case you're wondering what happened in 1752, I looked it up. In 1752 Great Britain and the American colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar with a loss of 11 days.  September 2, 1752 was followed by September 14 to align with European dates, and New Years Day was legally moved from March 25 to January 1.

In the Catholic church March 25 is Annunciation Day, when the Angel Gabriel told Mary she would be the mother of Jesus, which is why it was considered the beginning of the year.  You may have noticed that that makes December 25 Jesus's probable birth date.  

In everyday life the Julian calendar has been used since 45 BCE.

According to tradition, during his reign Numa Pompilius, the legendary second king of Rome after Romulus, who reigned from 715-672 BCE  revised the Roman calendar so January replaced March as the first month. This seemed appropriate since, in Roman mythology, Janus was the god of all beginnings while Mars was the god of war.

And that is probably more than you ever wanted to know about why March 25 is not New Years Day anymore.

another sign,,,

 As many of you know, I've been suffering from EOSF (Early Onset Spring Fever) for several weeks, but now that we are actually five days into spring I must admit to simple spring fever.  And I'm evidently not the only one.  Yesterday, when it was sunny with a high of 45 degrees we saw a man out walking around the neighborhood in shorts and a tee-shirt.  It seemed a little chilly to me but he looked happy.

I will admit that the changable weather does make it hard to know what to wear.  The high tomorrow will be about 60, then on Thursday 70, then Friday back to 45.  And the moral of that story is keep a jacket handy.

But enough about the weather.  Another sure sign of spring in our area is the opening of the Zesto ice cream stands.  One of them opened as early as March 1, another near us opened on March 15.

Today my wonder spouse and I agreed that It was definitely time to visit Zesto's, so we had a creamy good lunch - a turtle sundae for me (lots of nuts so it must have been good for me) and my spouses favorite butterscotch yogurt malt.

It was so good.  We may have to celebrate spring frequently.

What day is this?

 A friend recently commented to me that, now that she is retired, she has trouble remembering what day of the week it is.  Then today my west coast brother, who is also recently retired, sent me his daily text which began with 'happy Tuesday.'  Not an unusual greeting, except that today is Monday.  

Lucky for me, I always know what day of the week it is.  Not because I'm a genius or anything but simply because we have, on our bedroom wall, a truly magnificent clock.

Here's a picture of it.  It's about 6x8 inches. My wonder spouse has had this clock for a long time (since before we were married).  It not only shows me the day, the date and the time, it also has these nifty little messages like morning, afternoon, evening and pre-dawn.  It's also light enough to be easily read in the middle of the night.  Those of you of a certain age will understand why I might be looking at the clock in the middle of the night.

In case you're interested in owning a whoopy doo wonder clock of your own, my spouse did some research for my friend and found this model available: La Crosse Technology C86279 for $32.67 through Amazon. It's actually one step better than ours because it will 'spring forward' and 'fall back' automatically.  Obviously "new and improved."

More music...

 I guess this was our weekend for music.  After the Phil last night my wonder spouse and I spent two hours this afternoon listening to a piano concert.  Today's concert came with a free lunch which was nice.

The artist was Jeremy Filsell and he was amazing.  He has been playing piano since he was ten years old, won many, many awards and traveled the world performing.  His bio filled a page and a half of the program in very fine print.  He's done it all (at least in the world of piano and organ music).  One bit I found interesting was that he lived in Windsor Castle for nine years as an alto lay clerk in the Queen's choir at St George's Chapel, Windsor.  

His recordings are widely available but I like to see my music as well as hear it.  I would much rather sit in the audience seeing and hearing a musical performance than simply listening to a recording.  That's why I enjoy going to the philhamonic so much.

In the case of Mr. Filsell, part of my joy and awe came from realizing that he was playing the entire concert from memory, no sheet music anywhere.  And we are not talking easy little ditties here.  He entertained us with selections from Chopin, Debussy, Leighton and Liszt.  My favorite selection was Liszt"s "Piano Sonata in B minor, S.178."

All in all, a remarkable end to this very musical weekend.

an evening at the Phil....

 This evening's philharmonic concert had several interesting parts.  It opened with a fun little five minute piece by Lili Boulanger called "D'un matin de printemps."  I'm pretty sure that is something about an evening in springtime but my high school French is quite rusty.  It was a lovely piece.  I was sad to read that the composer died when she was only 24.

Then came Edgar Meyer's "Violin Concerto."  The solo parts were performed by violinist Eric Silberger who was absolutely sublime. This was definitely my favorite part of the evening.

After the imtermission we heard "Rondes de printemps, No.3" from "Images" by Claude Debussy and a Piano Trio by Ravel adapted for full orchestra.  Both pieces were beautifully performed (I especially enjoyed the harps) and my spouse said that the Ravel piece was his favorite part of the program.

I guess you could sa there was something for everyone this evening.

Spring time

 Happy first day of spring.  Spring officially began at about 10:40 this morning.  My west coast brother made sure I knew that in addition to being the first day of spring today is also "Alien Abduction Day," "Snowman Burning Day" and "National Ravioli Day."

My wonder spouse and I had noodles, but not ravioli for supper and I wasn't able to find any aliens to abduct.  I wouldn't mind a little green ET running around the place but, alas, no such luck.  

I would never attempt to burn a snowman, although the 70 degree, sunny day we enjoyed today did a great job of melting away the last lingering little piles of snow around the neighborhood.

We did however put our snowman away, wrapped carefully and put on a shelf in the basement.  He has been standing on the table in our foyer since before Christmas.  He will be back again next winter, but right now all my thoughts are on spring.  I must find something springy to take his place - maybe an Easter bunny???