Welcome!
The usual disclaimers apply. This is a community open thread diary. It's being posted to the Street Prophets group but we've got no membership requirements in the comments. All are welcome to join in, relax, have a cookie. You don't have to react to my blithering; it's an open thread. You can decorate the comments in your own style.
|
Beyond is just more of my usual blithering and photos from another week.
Sunday some of the family got together to celebrate my birthday a day early. I wrapped some tasty things in tortillas and we took them over to my sister-in-law's home. Had a very purple cake with one candle. I think I've passed a secret milestone in my life where putting one candle for every year on a birthday cake is too much work. It's not quite enough candles to be the sort of challenge just to light them all before the first candle melts. It's also more than enough to force a nicely decorated cake to end up looking like a pockmarked battlefield. Nobody is entertained by 46 candles.
Monday I enjoyed my actual birthday by doing just what I wanted to for most of the day. I curled up under a blanket with a warm drink, with a new CD of old music playing and a good book. Both the music and the book I'd received the day before. The music: REM's Accelerate:
The book was Terry Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters. The warm drink was coffee. I received another gift-- an angle grinder. In my years I've managed to destroy two angle grinders. I wonder how many other people mark time by the power tools they've worn out.
Oh, and I repaired a sprung spring in my mattress.
Tuesday I engaged in a rare activity for me-- driving in Prague. I much prefer the excellent public transportation system but I needed to help an aunt with a broken foot get to a funeral. I circled her block for nearly 20 minutes looking for a place to park-- even managed to find myself going the wrong way on a poorly marked street-- well, I suppose the signage is fine-- just a bit hard to see with huge delivery vans parked on the sidewalks.
I wrote about the artist the funeral was for last week. The ceremony itself was held in a little Catholic church nestled behind one of Prague's more attractive graveyards. The church is famous for the gingerbread nativity scene that is made fresh every year and displayed in the nave. We make something of a pilgrimage to the church every year, just after Christmas to visit the family plot in the cemetery and visit the church to smell the gorgeously decorated gingerbread and find surprises among the hundreds of figures. The priest that conducted the funeral was from Poland and a bit hard to understand at times. It had been a long time since I'd been to a Catholic event and was almost glad to be standing at the back where I needn't bother with all the up and down and could just enjoy the beauty of the church-- and read the notice board. At the last meeting they'd agreed that the man who took over the baking of the nativity scene from the woman who started the tradition would indeed again be making this year's aromatic masterpiece. I was granted a bit of a behind the scenes peek at the pallbearers as they wheeled a cart up to the base of the steps leading to the door. I wondered about these men and what else they did for their livelihood. They hadn't yet put on their grim professional faces. I guess this was the first funeral I'd been to here where the casket wasn't swallowed up, behind some door, to await cremation. There was a nice bit of organ music played and a young man with a lovely soprano voice sang. And then the four men came in and carried the coffin out and trundled it across the cobblestones on the cart a short distance to the grave site:
Wednesday actually found me working on a seemingly never-ending graphic design project. I managed to find some time for a bit of work on my latest painting-- not nearly as much as I had wanted to get done this week but progress was made. I've spent some time this week doing little character and costume sketches for the foreground figures:
And started blocking them in; trying a new technique that I'm hoping will leave the figures looking a bit like they're taken from a comic book.
That afternoon I made a double batch of brownies and then my step-mother and my mother-in-law both came over to visit. Oddly enough, going quite against stereotype, they're both among my favorite people on this little planet.
Thursday I took my still unfinished book with me and went off to a nearby physical rehabilitation clinic to arrange some appointments. Then hopped on a bus that conveniently connects my neighborhood to my aunt's neighborhood and dropped off some things that my step-mother had left at our apartment the previous day-- just too heavy for her to have lugged back across town. Then enjoyed my walk through Prague Castle that my route to my next appointment happily bisected. Unfortunately my remembering to bring my camera was for naught because the battery was dead but I had managed to leave myself with plenty of time to sit in the splendid gardens and read a few chapters. Prague is one of Terry Pratchett's favorite cities and his work is extremely popular here. In fact, I was introduced to the Discworld novels by a student of mine from back in my ceramics teaching days-- one of my first students as it so happens and someone that I'm still in contact with and once every few years or so we get together and catch up over a few beers and perhaps a bite to eat. Among the birthday wishes that appeared on my Facebook page was a clever greeting from another student of mine from back in that era and a mutual friend. Thanks to the magic of being able to link people into your conversations over there all three of us are hatching plans to meet and quaff (like drinking but you spill more-- a line from Wyrd Sisters) next week. My next stop yesterday was to help that friend of mine that I keep mentioning in other diaries. He had some furniture to juggle around and try in various spots and after a couple of hours we'd left him feeling like we'd stumbled upon a workable solution. Slowly starting to look less like a warehouse and more like a cozy apartment. With promises of beers later we walked up the stairs and across the square to the apartment where a dear, deceased friend of ours (and particularly of his. He introduced me to her) lived until just over a year ago. Her son was there and my friend and he needed to discuss the new gravestone for the family plot. My friend had agreed to help pick out the stone and lettering because the rest of the family is off living in other countries. The son fortified us with Becherovka before he had to get ready to leave and sent us on our own way. We meandered down the hill to a pub and shared a table with a pleasant couple that cuddled and smoked away the evening at their end while my friend and I had a nice dinner of fried cheese, boiled potatoes and a few glasses of fine Czech beer. I'm blessed to have such a friend here. Someone that can unload a recent family visit debacle on me and receive tales of my own struggles with compassion and just the right amount of encouraging boot kicks to my furry butt.
I'm looking forward to next week.