300

Three hundred.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Safe as Houses.

Dear Concerted,

Here is the song for today, and it's long been a favorite of mine.  Try another version, too. 

Beyond the three r's

 

Dear Everyone,

Of course, changing your wheels is fine, but I prefer to have skates set up for all eventualities:  The rink, the ramp, and the road.  Actually, I would add the porch, too, because I like my trucks a little sloppier (looser) in small spaces, and I like them tight when things are faster, rougher, scarier.

I thought I was doing all right with six pairs of skates, but I sold one, and so that leaves only five, and really, I don't wear two of my pairs of skates much at all, because I have become so used to the heel on my high boot skates.  What is reasonable, you might ask?  Well, six used to feel that way.  Many years ago I saw an image of skate's sofa, with many pairs, maybe nine, under it.  Recently, I saw an image online of a shelf with over 12 pairs.  I mean to say, I feel pretty puny about my 5 now.  Is 12 my new goal for reasonable?

I have always loved the way these look, and these, and these, and now there are these, too.  Would I want to add these?  Or some of these?  Just like Betsy Ray, in the Betsy-Tacy Books, I dearly love the 'choosing.'

first flower(s)

Dear You,

Here is First Flower, a Molly Burch song you can enjoy while you look at these images. 

Until the next flowers, then.

 

 

 

 

The A, B, C of it.

Dear Print-Readers and -Makers,

Oooh, such a lot of good things to see and watch and read and think on.  Here are the three I am considering today:


One.

Two.   Or, this, if you don't like paper.

Three.

Play to Me Only with Thine Straw.

Dear Project-minded,

Oboe, and I am not sure if I have already mentioned it to you, is one of my favorite words.  I also love 'bassoon.' 

Some time ago, I found this recipe for straw oboes, and just lately, I discovered a character making them in a book I am really loving:  Mrs. Miniver.   Which is how I knew it was time to send you the instructions for making the oboe.  In the book, a young character desires grown straw, but is in a place and time with the wrong kind of pasture grasses available.  (I wonder if the insides of our house of straw would have been suitable for making billions of oboes instead of walls?  I might hear some of their unmet potential if I listen carefully to my own walls talking).  As cultivated straw is unavailable to this young person, she gets a box of the manufactured kind of straws (as the book was written in 1939, I expect they were paper straws), and eventually gets the openings cut just well enough to play Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes, which shall be our song for today. 

Once the song is over, and the oboe is made, I encourage you to read Mrs. Miniver- it's filled with fabulous words I enthusiastically looked up:  minims, crochets, piquet, mesembryanthemum, tumbril, woodcraft, tourbillions, skewbald, pyridine, post-prandial, boak, tricoteuse, eupeptic, billeting, vieux jeu, subfusc, dactyl, widdershins, trochaic, secateur, and degringolade. 


Here is the book, right here, if you want to read it this very instant.  I think maybe you should skip all the stuff there at the beginning, just for now, you can read later about Mrs. Miniver and the author.  Go right on to the first chapter, and let them both speak for themselves, even after 80 years.

Hey, Girliecakes.

Dear Feminists,

Today for you a song, and a place to go to play at mixing color and shop.  It seems to me that a custom shade of lipstick would make a mighty fine party favor....  Or maybe custom cosmetics could commemorate all kinds of events: quinceañeras, book publishings, record releases, births, matrimonial ceremonies, and maybe deaths, too.  One thing I hope they add soon is nail polish!








PS
I adore the clattering rhythms of Peek A Boo, and you might want to hear it again, too, here.