Black Friday.

 Friday 13th is traditionally a very unlucky day.

It doesn't seem to get much attention these days. In fact, it now appears to be the name of a shopping day when things are discounted. Work that one out!

I haven't touched my violin yet this morning. Present me is wondering if changing my chinrest was a wise move. Well, I guess I'll find out soon enough!

I think I need a coffee.

Ah well, what's one more trip to the bathroom? I'll be back shortly.

Back.

There's nothing nicer than coffee,

When you're up but the sky's not blue.

It's good to sip the nice warm juice, but

Then it sends you to the loo.

It's a wet morning in the Nui. I bet it has been raining in Moera and Raccoontown too.

I decided to only drink half of my coffee.

For the ways of the Lord are straight and virtuous men walk in them; but sinners stumble and drink all their coffee. Hosea 14:10 & 14.11

In his latest post Rob tells us, "The more astute of you have noticed no quotation marks. The practice of using quotation marks for anything in the Bible has fullen out of fashion. Also it's likely that the writers of the Gospels didn't quote Jesus exactly. How could they? Mark, who wrote the first Gospel, did so early in the fifties. That's twenty years after Christ died and rose again. So it goes."

This is actually good news. Mark was obviously writing from memory, or what someone had told him. Imagine if he had 'fullen' into the trap of using some of the strange words that Rob uses. It wouldn't make Jesus look that smart. Better if the actual author takes the blame.

Hey, Good Friday is on April 3rd. That's a more positive name than Black Friday. Good Friday, if you're anywhere near a Catholic church, is a day when you should avoid expressions like, "Nailed it!" 

It's probably time to give that chinrest a run.

No! That's not the one!

Ah well, I'll leave you there for this morning.

Enjoy your Black Friday.

Ciao tutti.

AFTERNOON, after 3pm.

All back to where I started from. After 1 hour, 20 minutes of try out time. Right back to where I started.

Ah well, we live and we learn.

Give it a rest!

 My previous chin rest is back on.

I spent 45 minutes today fooling around with a shoulder rest and how comfortable my chin rest felt. I finished up putting my old chin rest back on and placing my shoulder rest back in my 'instrument parts' drawer. 

My old chin rest fits comfortably under my chin but doesn't contribute to holding the violin up without using my left hand. Violinists seem to like to do this as a sign of total control.

Hey, Niccolo' Paganini didn't use a shoulder rest OR a chin rest, so I know I'm following the best!

I'm going to go with that setup and play for 15 minutes more to settle that in. 

Sfortuna se la mia decisione non ti piace.

The Mission.

 

I want to get some pretty serious practice done this morning. That means that this post is going to be pretty short. I don't care about gigs anymore, though I will probably do any that come along. It's all about getting my violin playing where I want to get it to. That's the mission. I don't really care if people like my repertoire (and playing) or not. That's for them to worry about.

I'd better get on with it.

Più tardi.

It probably won't happen in our lifetime.

 Imagine waking up one morning to find that TC* has written a new post. Let's see if we can imagine a topic that might be more interesting than reading about new chairs in the computer room or golf and tennis clubs. Imagine a post like this:

I HAVE A NEW PET.

You don't see that many cats in Thorndon and dogs tend to be of the smaller varieties. Maybe it's because we all live quite close together and neighbours get tired of animals visiting their places? Hey, most of them have enough problems just finding a carpark. We have two schools near our residences, so non residentially specified parks (the ones we don't have to pay for) are always full. I went for a walk the other evening and it was quite cold, so I wore a hat.

I was quite surprised when, on my walk, three locals yelled out abuse at me. Things like, "You nasty bastard!" "That is very cruel!" "How could you do that?" and "Whose pet was that?"

After thinking about it, I wondered if they were talking about my hat. I decided that I'd have a look at the local newspaper that I tend to ignore. It's called The Thorndon Humorous Times. After reading an article titled 'The Best Thorndon Jokes', I came across an article titled 'Thordonites and their pets'. 

It appears that there is an animal that is becoming very popular with locals and it is not a native. It's the raccoon. Who would have thought it possible?

I immediately hid my raccoon hat at the back of one of the new shelves in our garage (I told you about those in a post). 

Hey, I really want to fit in around here. I'm sure that the jokes I am hearing are better than those in Wainuiomata and Moera. 

TOG wasn't keen but I went ahead anyway. I found the contact of a local man who imports raccoons as pets and now I have one. I was going to call him Davy but was advised against that, and my second choice, Daniel. I finished up calling him Brian, but not after Brian Tamaki. I think TOG is slowly getting used to having him around. When we do our Aussie trip, I'll have to try to get one of the old bloggers to look after him. Maybe someone at the tennis club could help? We'll see. Okay, I'm off to feed Brian some breakfast now.

Please be kind to raccoons.

Brian

* aka The Curmudgeon & Peter

Lawn Day.

 

Actually, it's not grass that is the problem,
it's hundreds of little yellow flowers.

In any case, it's time for a tidy up. I think it will be a busy day because I have other things to do too, including music practice.

I did fifteen minutes on the double bass yesterday. That may not sound like much, but it went well. I have to give the fingers a bit of time to toughen up. Tomorrow it looks like I'll be playing some background music at Robert's place. I'll be using the violin for that. It's an important day for Rob because he'll be celebrating his engagement to a lovely lady. All the best, Rob and L.

Well, I'd better be off.

No time for stations of the cross today.

Ciao.

Bach always tried to help his brother.

 He was always prepared to pop around if there was a problem.

When things got tough, he went to Allan Bach.

I reckon that this joke could really take off in Thorndon. Maybe at the tennis club?

I see that Robert is copying Peter's very short blog post format. Will he start wearing a raccoon hat?

You'd think that one goal of writing a short post might be to get your grammar correct. Well, after all, proofreading would not take long. 

For Rob?

Time's up.

I might do a 15 minute double bass warm up today. Just to get back into that instrument. Peter will probably throw in a Thorndon tennis club joke like, "How did Richard get inside his double bass?"

Then it'll be back to the violin. I'm playing a few tunes at an engagement party on Saturday. I like to be prepared for these playing opportunities.

I have my elder grandson coming around this afternoon. He is keen to spend time with his grandma. We're not allowed to give him ice cream because it will not be that long before his dinner time. We'd better stock up on nice biscuits. Harrison will turn 3 at the end of this month and, next month, Henry turns 1. Henry is very cute and seems to like my jokes. Hey, I am careful not to use Thorndon tennis club jokes. 

Well, that's it from me for this morning.

Robert tells us, "Have fun and go to the stations of the cross."

I think that 'stations of the cross' is a Catholic name for 'toilet'.

How did Rob know that I've just had a coffee?

Maybe Mary told him?

Cerca di goderti le tue visite al bagno.

Aeolian.

 This is the mode that the harmonic and melodic minors originate from. It is also known as the natural minor.

A B C D E F G A

The guy in the raccoon hat has set a trend of very short posts.

That helps me this morning because I have to head off to work soon.

I'll do some violin practice at work, before the students start coming.

Raaacccccooooonnnnnn! I'm off!