Singing, Shopping, and Losing My Blankie

OK, now I can answer Suna’s question in one of her comments. She was wondering what the song was I needed translated. I had to wait till I had my hymnal in the house, because I keep confusing it with another song. It was Gaudeamus Hodie. Which looks to me as if it’s about a Most Gaudy Hoodie, but I’m pretty sure it’s not.

I’ve been confusing it with Laudamus Te, from Vivaldi’s Gloria. We did that song in the Tapestry fall concert, and I truly hated it. Hated it, hated it. Never quite learned it, and now I can’t get it out of my head. And just to make it even more fun, the church choir is doing selections from Gloria for our spring concert. I am now quite certain that I am not a fan of Vivaldi. Fortunately, we’re not doing the actual Laudamus Te, which was written to be a duet, though in Tapestry we just did it in two parts, sopranos and altos.

Speaking of Tapestry, many of us have decided we don’t like the French Canadians. This goes against my natural instinct. Generally I like Canadians, even if they do talk funny. But we had a French Canadian song in the fall concert which was hard and not fun. About half our songs in that concert were not in English, including the Canadian one. But I can actually pronounce French – I took two years of French in high school. French is really easy. You put a self-righteous sneer on your face and swallow all the consonants. But this song was really, really fast. For the spring concert we have some odd kind of song (I forget what it’s called), but it’s written in almost all sixteenth notes, it goes pretty quickly and – just because we managed the French, sorta, I guess – there are no actual words, French or otherwise. It’s all nonsense syllables. But not just *any* nonsense syllables. No, since we’re a group of between 30 and 50 women, we need to be doing the *same* nonsense syllables. It’s even harder than the last one and even less fun. I think many of us have decided we dislike French Canadian music!

Cute kitty story: yesterday afternoon, the Kittens of Chaos were loose in the house. Simba decided he had an attention deficit and came to me in the front room and asked for attention. So I picked him up and we were just settling in with Ray came into the room. He saw what was going on, and uttered some long sentence in Kitten, which I took to mean, “Hey! That’s *my* grandma you’re molesting there!” Simba and I ignored him, so he jumped up on the back of my chair and uttered another long Kitten sentence, which evidently meant “Un-paw that Grandma, sir!” And the next thing I knew, the two cats were chasing each other down the hall. I thought, why, if I was being fought over, was I without feline companionship? Sort of like a girl who finds two guys fighting over her, only to realize that the whole thing is more about their bond than it is about her.

I went shopping today. Clothes shopping. I don’t particularly like clothes shopping. When you’re my size, the selection is limited and the prices are high. To make it worse, I have an idea what I want. DH and I are taking a quick trip out of town at the end of the month. (Housebreakers, don’t consider this an opportunity. We’re leaving the young, strong DS at home, along with the attack cats.) Anyway, I figure I need a couple of somewhat nicer than normal outfits for eating in nicer than we normally eat in restaurants.

I’ve been eyeing an outfit on a woman in a pretty new commercial. The actress, who is probably wearing about a size 2, is wearing a swirly tiered skirt and a cute top. I don’t need exactly that outfit (especially since the top is a sweater and it’s already too warm for sweaters around here), but I like the skirt. So, between appointments today, I went shopping. I found a couple of skirts and tops that I thought would be good, but they just didn’t fit well. The first one, I kept wondering why that elephant was wearing pink. (It was the right size, just the wrong skirt.) The second one I liked the skirt of, but there were no sleeves. There was way too much of my arms hanging out. Way too much. I did find one shirt, though.

So, tomorrow I go out again. I looked at Lane Bryant on the Internet and it looks like this style is in, so I’m gonna try Lane Bryant. I never know with them. Some years they seem to be aiming at large size 12 year olds; others the styles seem like something I could wear. This time there seem to be several things I’d like. Wish me luck!

I’m just not a good clothes shopper. Or really a good shopper at much of anything except yarn. Most women seem to think shopping is sort of a game or an entertainment. They’re sort of gatherer types. “Let’s go see if there’s something I like!” seems to be the idea. I’m much more of a hunter. I want to find what I want, shoot it with an arrow, and drag it home. Shopping for me is a chore, not fun.

I’m afraid I’m also going to need shoes to go with the new outfits. Goddess help me!

I saw my first bluebonnets of the year today! I didn’t get a picture of them – the only camera I had with me was in my PDA and besides, it was not a good spot to stop the car and take a picture. But I’ll look for more.

I’m not completely happy that spring is here. It means I have to give up my blankie. Again.

Back when my body first started flirting with menopause – which I wish it would just go ahead and embrace already – I discovered that I was suddenly more sensitive to temperatures than before. Not just heat, which I already had a problem with, but cold, too. Generally, I like cold. But at night I found I was having trouble getting to sleep, because my legs were cold. The only solution seemed to be either an electric blanket – which they don’t recommend you use with a waterbed. But DH remembered a blanket he gave me years ago. It’s reversible, with a cute picture of kittens frolicking on each side. One side has a dark brown background, and the kittens are in cream and gray and light browns. The other side has the same picture, but with a cream background and the colors all opposite. The side with the dark background looks better. However, if you put that side down, it holds in the heat better. So now, when it starts getting cold, we put that blanket on my side of the bed, pretty side down, and my legs don’t get cold. And the cats love that blanket. The colors match Angel, which he appreciates, and Simba likes it, too. So we’ll all mourn it, but it’s about to be too warm to keep it on the bed. I hate giving up my blankie!