Saturday, April 10, 2010

Peter and the Wolf


This week I was a chaperone at a field trip with Naters. We went to the symphony - downtown San Diego, to see Peter and the Wolf. The whole thing was amazing, and perfect for the kids. They narrated the whole thing slowly, and showed many many children's drawings by area elementary students, to illustrate the whole thing. They went over different parts of the orchestra and different concepts, like the "leitmotif" which was music to represent each character.
bird - flute
duck - oboe
cat - clarinet
Grandfather - bassoon
wolf - french horns
hunters - some woodwinds and some fabulous drums for the gunshots
Peter - a very chipper and sunny bunch of strings
The began by using popular and well-known music from the Harry Potter movie -the kids recognized the music representing Harry, his broom the Nimbus whatever, his friends. It was lots of fun and I noticed that Nate was smiling and attentive the whole time. I have to wonder, though, if Sergei Prokofiev meant for the wolf to be taken to the San Diego zoo at the end???

The Tea Leaves


Soooo.....this is the sweater I tried to knit. Labor of lurve. I ordered some fabulous expensive yarn (well, expensive by my tastes). The yarn is Dream in Color Classy, in the color Beach Fog. Oh, so pretty and so soft! It was a dream to knit with. After almost three months I had finally finished the sweater. Not that it took the whole time, its just that I have knitting ADHD and was setting it aside alot. Anyway, I looked at it and realised that something was wrong with the back: it is almost two and a half feet wide. Sadly, the front and arms are perfect, so I could not find a five feet wide person and just give it away. I'm sure I'll take a picture of it but its just too painful right now. Ha! I just need to remember that its the knitting I really love, not the sweater-that-I made-showing off,and refocus.
This morning Jose kindly brought me a large cup of coffee while I stayed in bed with my calculator, a pencil and paper, the pattern, the sweater, a needle, and a book by Elizabeth Zimmerman until I figured out how easily a sweater can go south by ignoring gauge issues and then skipping a whole row of decreases by mistake. Back on track now and ready to unravel the whole thing and do over! Cowabunga!!!