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| Every year the fall crocuses come up straight out of fairyland... |
* 1 *
Huckleberry picking:
I am a fair-weather camper nowadays—and we had the fairest weather imaginable for mountainside forest. Sunshine, but not unbearable heat; cold nights, but no frost or tent-chilling wind or rain. Just firm breezes in Douglas fir treetops—made me think of Spyri's Heidi sleepwalking in Frankfurt—and all of us getting light sunburns in scrubby berry fields, and temperate evenings and mornings filled with the lush quiet of the woods.
For once, I didn't even want a shower badly enough to want to leave.
* 2 *
Maia wrestling an imaginary toy in her favorite chair:
I gave her such a dignified name... and yeah, no dignity. She gets called "Goober" a lot.
* 3 *
Este semana, decidí aprender el español. Hace diez años, estudié en un clase de doce semanas, y hasta ahora, no había estudiado. Hoy, leo un Nuevo Testamento en español, miro los vídeos con mí computadora, y aprendo orar en la lingua bonita. Escribo no con ayuda del traducción de Google o mí diccionario; perdona por mis errores.
Traducción: This week, I decided to learn Spanish. Ten years ago, I took a class that was twelve weeks long, but haven’t studied much since. Today, I’m reading the New Testament in Spanish, watching videos on my computer, and learning to pray in the beautiful language. I’m writing without help from Google Translate or my dictionary; forgive my mistakes.*
* 4*
This week in harvest themes: Italian seasonings hanging to dry...
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| Oregano and garlic |
"There's a lovely jam closet... I thought you'd want one."
Pat's eyes flickered.
"Of course I want one. While I live and move and have my being I'll want a jam closet."**In my own case, it's more like a jam cabinet. But close enough:
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| Thanks for the extra shelf space, Mom and Beth. :) |
* 5 *
"We'll have a garden... with columbine for the fairies and poppies for dancing shadows and marigolds for laughter. And we'll have the walks picked off with whitewashed stones. Slugs and spiders and blight and mildew will never infest it, I feel sure. You've always been a sort of half-cousin to the fairies and you ought to be able to keep such plagues away."**I do have columbine, but am apparently not of fairy blood enough myself to keep spiders away; I can't walk outside right now without walking through a web (and subsequently flailing away from the resident spider). But the fair folk are welcome in my garden, and maybe as they find their way in, the spiders will find other gates and pathways to spin their webs over.
* 6 *
Because I didn't get it done earlier this week: Today with Masha at Piękno! Today I am...
Feeling... tired, but wide awake. I was up till three last night, thinking. It happens.
Seeing... my Rose of Sharon finally in bloom. Wish it wasn't so windy out; all my pictures turned out blurry.
Smelling... cool breeze, and later there will be lots of cleaning agents.
Tasting... coffee. I shouldn't have, but I have to be alert and cheerful till at least nine tonight, so I caved.
Listening... to train horns blowing down along the bay.
Grateful... for Antoinette Tuff.
Reading... 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson (excellent and awful... should be an interesting review) y él Nuevo Testamento: Salmo 51 como en la Liturgia de las Horas viernes por la mañana.***
Loving... all the St. Hilaires—the ones who came to huckleberry picking, and the ones we missed.
Hoping... that I can stick to my Spanish this time and become conversational.
* 7 *
Music of the week: Yesterday was the memorial of Mary's queenship, so here's Spanish composer Tomás Luis de Victoria's Salve Regina.
* * *
Happy weekend!* Not that there wouldn't have been errors with Google Translate and the dictionary. And as a matter of fact, I did use Google Translate to double check a couple of words, and was wrong just once. But I only checked what I was really guessing on, so the real mistakes are hidden in all the things I had some degree of confidence in. Experts, feel free to set me straight. :)
** Both quotes come from Mistress Pat by L.M. Montgomery.
*** "...and the New Testament: Psalm 51, as in the Liturgy of the Hours for Friday morning."
I like your comment-posting-directions so much that I feel compelled to leave a comment. It is a friendly one. I shall await my unicorn.
ReplyDeleteHere it is! Thanks for commenting! ;)
DeleteThanks! ... and it's under a full moon, too!
DeleteAh, Spanish. Another language I've lost for the most part. My biblical Hebrew is mostly non-existent. Koine Greek is short of slightly passable. Latin is a bit less than that. I can be polite in German & not much else. And I still remember two words of modern Greek. Four now as I just remembered how to say good morning & good evening.
ReplyDeleteMaia is so adorable. And "Goober" translates into cat as "O Precious One Whose Beauty & Intelligence Far Surpasses Our Mere Humanness..." :)
Ha, you sound like me. A few words of Russian, a small vocabulary in both French and Italian (both of which keep getting mixed up with the Spanish), beginning ecclesiastical Latin comprehension that comes almost entirely from chanting, and about five words each in Hebrew, Mandarin and Quenya. Oh, and two words in Arabic. Among the many reasons for picking Spanish was the little fact that thanks to that old class, I was far nearer conversational in that than anything else.
DeleteAnd yeah, cat language. Which is universally, inherently flattering to the cat. ;)
I love the jam cabinet and the quote from Mistress Pat! I enjoyed that book! I really love all her books!
ReplyDeleteHuckleberry's are the best berry ever, in my opinion. Blueberries beware.
Good luck with the Spanish. I have found that it has done nothing but get all tangled up in my Italian... ha!
I love those books, too!
DeleteAnd yeah... hahaha! I've got all kinds of French and Italian and Latin trying to mix themselves into my Spanish! I only know enough of any of them for it to be good and confusing. :)