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| ©smck 19 October 2013 Chrysanthemum |
I'm not a big fan of modeled plants but this really caught my eye.
"With Mirth and Laughter Let Old Wrinkles Come."
What a great day this birth day was
– Carol made my usual lucky man’s Saturday breakfast for me, then came the
nicest present, a small neatly decorated packet with an accompanying birthday
envelope with a card that read “Birthdays
are good for you – the more you have the longer you live” then a little hug
and snog from me to she. Next I opened
the little packet and there it is, a two CD set (and I had thought it something
else because it was too thick for a (single) CD – Verdi – IL TROVATORE. In my younger years I could barely listen to
classical music other than Tchaikovsky's First
Piano Concerto and Mussorgsky's Night On Bald Mountain, with Opera a strange
screaming by large women and strange looking men and only good for singing
insanely profane made-up lyrics about management at the rocket factory. The opposite side of the coin, Pop music,
left me cold also so I listened a lot to jazz, blues, and those singers that
even though they hit the pop charts occasionally were generally part of the 70s
protest area. Along about my 40s I
developed an abiding interest in Gaelic music and a few more easy listening
classical things like Gershwin. Well
life has led me on gradually tutoring me into a semblance of an educated man,
peeling away my inherited conservative tribal convictions in favor of having a
common interest in the common man that many liberals seem to do so easily. So my favorite radio station 91.5 is on a lot
at my house during the day – an have to slip in an aside here about the old
20/80 rule that applies to everything in the universe I think i.e. you listen
to 80% crap looking for the 20% great (I guess this might even apply to Pop
music although it seems to me that the 20/80 rule become 2/98 there) and on
Saturdays there is an afternoon devoted to Opera. All this stuff written down to give you my
background of eventually in my late 70s finding I am liking Opera more and more
and have been talking about it with Carol and She (yes Caps) bought me this
great set of a great opera – did I mention that if has Andre Bocelli. Carlo
Guelfi, Veronica Villarroel, and others – which we carried out to the car as we
set off to Longwood Gardens for the afternoon, and listened to it for the hours
drive up (CD 1) and for the hours drive back (CD 2) BUT the best part is that
after I had opened the CD package after breakfast and was amazed that she had
bought this for me, Carol somehow slipped a neatly folded envelope with only
the large open window facing up within which I could see wording to the effect
of 2 tickets to the opera at The Grand in Wilmington next spring. 79 years to finally go to my first opera – which
same is Verdi
– IL TROVATORE that we listened to in perfect agreement as
to the quality of the music for our introduction to opera. Our journey around the grounds, the pleasant
greatness of my new camera and the nice lo-key late afternoon meal at Hanks
Place a few miles away just north across the Brandywine seemed a pre-ordained
part of this perfect day as did the black walnut cake and vanilla ice cream
dessert when we came home. I have eaten
homemade black walnut cake for my birthday for as long as I can remember and
Carol’s was superb.
And now to top it off, some
lovely 10 year old Laphroaig Straight From The Cask (at 55.7 Alc/vol) – this is
indeed a malt to test your mettle.
Snag
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| 18 October 2013 ©smck |
trying out the zoom on the new camera - this is a zoom on the scene from the previous post
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