06 February 2011
Munch Ado About Nothing
06/02/11 14:16
Marsha has been very busy this week. Between Superstore, and getting things set up for H&R Block, and her volunteer activities she's been just going all the time. One night she didn't get back from the office until after 9:00. But I think she's been enjoying it. Setting up the office for H&R Block especially. She's been calling her staff, setting up their schedules, compiling contact information, that sort of thing. It's been a lot of work but she even said that she's having a lot of fun with it, which is the important part.
I have been trying to help her whenever I can. Doing chores around the house. Taking over some projects. Making dinner, something I'll be doing more and more of over the next couple of months. However, I gotta be me. Some of the things I've been doing have been, shall we say, less than helpful.
OK maybe slipping "1 8oz can bagnappes in mosutto sauce" onto the shopping list just to see if she was paying attention wasn't the nicest thing to do (there is no such thing in either English or French) .
And then there was the time Marsha and I were talking about music that's lost it's identity. Like the William Tell Overture. Nobody thinks of the Swiss uprising to throw out the Austrians. No, to nearly everyone it's now The Lone Ranger theme. Or Abblasen by Gottfried Reiche, a baroque piece that most people only know as the theme music for CBS Sunday Morning. We'd come up with several examples when I casually said the following.
Me: And of course there's the Verdi Aria: Guano Tutsi con Pasta-Ziti. Nobody remembers where it came from, just how it was used on TV.
Marsha (after a bit of a pause): Um, I'm not sure I know which one you mean. How does that one go?
Me: Lets see. I used to know it. In fact in high school I learned it in Italian.
Marsha: Italian?
Me: Yeah, I was really into opera back then. I learned a couple of arias in the original language. Lets see, how did that start again? Oh yeah I think it went like this.
Me (Singing): Daniel Boone was a man, was a biiiiig man…
This was when Marsha realized that she'd been had.
But likely the worst thing I did this week was to introduce Marsha to Angry Birds. Angry Birds is a silly little computer game that is seriously addictive. Now because I did this, rather than Marsha playing Solitaire, or watching TV, or doing stuff around the house or trying to squeeze in a much needed nap in the little free time she has right now, I'll see her playing Angry Birds. Fighting with a particularly difficult level. Cheering the demise of the digital pigs. She's hooked and it's my fault.
But on the other hand I'm hooked too so all is fair.
Doug & Marsha
PIX: So one morning Marsha called me just after she got done at the Superstore. "I'm coming to pick you up. Grab the camera. We're going to watch the sunrise." We went down to Piper's Lagoon park and this is what we saw. Now I want to emphasize, we did not adjust the colours, we don't even own Photoshop. These pictures are exactly as they came out of the camera. The swirls of colour reminded us of the background in Edvard Munch's The Scream, though he used the same red sky in several paintings. In person the colours were even richer. It was certainly worth playing hooky from work for half an hour.
I have been trying to help her whenever I can. Doing chores around the house. Taking over some projects. Making dinner, something I'll be doing more and more of over the next couple of months. However, I gotta be me. Some of the things I've been doing have been, shall we say, less than helpful.
OK maybe slipping "1 8oz can bagnappes in mosutto sauce" onto the shopping list just to see if she was paying attention wasn't the nicest thing to do (there is no such thing in either English or French) .
And then there was the time Marsha and I were talking about music that's lost it's identity. Like the William Tell Overture. Nobody thinks of the Swiss uprising to throw out the Austrians. No, to nearly everyone it's now The Lone Ranger theme. Or Abblasen by Gottfried Reiche, a baroque piece that most people only know as the theme music for CBS Sunday Morning. We'd come up with several examples when I casually said the following.
Me: And of course there's the Verdi Aria: Guano Tutsi con Pasta-Ziti. Nobody remembers where it came from, just how it was used on TV.
Marsha (after a bit of a pause): Um, I'm not sure I know which one you mean. How does that one go?
Me: Lets see. I used to know it. In fact in high school I learned it in Italian.
Marsha: Italian?
Me: Yeah, I was really into opera back then. I learned a couple of arias in the original language. Lets see, how did that start again? Oh yeah I think it went like this.
Me (Singing): Daniel Boone was a man, was a biiiiig man…
This was when Marsha realized that she'd been had.
But likely the worst thing I did this week was to introduce Marsha to Angry Birds. Angry Birds is a silly little computer game that is seriously addictive. Now because I did this, rather than Marsha playing Solitaire, or watching TV, or doing stuff around the house or trying to squeeze in a much needed nap in the little free time she has right now, I'll see her playing Angry Birds. Fighting with a particularly difficult level. Cheering the demise of the digital pigs. She's hooked and it's my fault.
But on the other hand I'm hooked too so all is fair.
Doug & Marsha
PIX: So one morning Marsha called me just after she got done at the Superstore. "I'm coming to pick you up. Grab the camera. We're going to watch the sunrise." We went down to Piper's Lagoon park and this is what we saw. Now I want to emphasize, we did not adjust the colours, we don't even own Photoshop. These pictures are exactly as they came out of the camera. The swirls of colour reminded us of the background in Edvard Munch's The Scream, though he used the same red sky in several paintings. In person the colours were even richer. It was certainly worth playing hooky from work for half an hour.