View from the third floor window
It’s killing me, it really is. There is so much going on here, so much getting done in a flurry of bright colors and x-acto knives and embossing powder. But it’s top secret, and good elves never tell, so I photograph the progress but keep it all to myself for now. The only camera angle I can share is the one that tilts up and out of the evidence spread across the floor. Luckily the shot up is a great one, and I’m enjoying my afternoon in this new room, down the hall from my not-quite-napping girl who is nonetheless entertaining herself in relative quiet. We had a marathon rehearsal this morning for the Christmas musical and she now has a speaking part after writing such a nice letter to the musical director requesting one. She hasn’t actually spoken it out loud in front of the group, but we’ll get there. So as I cut and mount and paint and wrap and assemble I’m enjoying the stretches of silence that are occasionally punctuated by the humming of some Peter and the Wolf motif, a little clarinet in A strain of her favorite character the cat, or the phrase “What kind of a bird are you if you don’t swim?” in her best imitation of Sting who narrates the story in our version. Quiet again, and then the orders of a choir director are handed down to the animals in her bed. “Stand up straight and use that big muscle in your stomach, papers down and watch me, that means you too, Caesar Gus.” I pondered this new name, having never heard it emerge before in the list of animal names she uses. After a few more orders to this name, and some repeating of the lines of the play, it dawned on me that she was talking about Caesar Augustus, who is in fact mentioned in the story-telling portion of the play. And that would also explain the words Quirinius and Syria. I think the whole menagerie is getting an exotic name change. At least she seems to be putting Ol’ Caesar in his place. We’ll just see who’s really issuing the decrees around this house…
and Friday night at the bookstore is my kind of Friday night…