Time Bandits

              Small flowers with a big name; Chionodoxas or Glory of Snow.            
These blue flowers have attracted bumble bees, wasps and other insects and are
past their glory. This speaks of incoming warm temperatures. Glory be! I am partial to them because they bloom early and usually through the snow. Their tiny seeds germinate in new nearby spots and this habit prompts me to try and connect the "spots" into a carpet. A foolish task which keeps me from Bingo.

Where will Scrabble lead me?

To the garden of multiple vowels where fellow pedants stroll? A womb is a room I am willing to stretch to uterus but uteri. I don't have latin roots; not even mandarin. Just scratching on the surface, when I was aghast to encounter the word "arenose", on the scrabble board. Compulsive as ever, I had to look it up and it is not in the dictionary. Well ancient learning came to my aid and I remember a sugar, mannose, and became more disposed to it. No not right, the thicker dictionary gave the meaning of "arenose" as sandy. That's the Romans for you.
Another Anglo-saxon word "whore" is pegged as "hetaira" in my Scrabble world, for when I am given too many vowels. Hetaira sounds elegant and is not run of the mill. Into this, could be addictive, online scrabbling I was able to put in "anaconda" which earned me an extra 50 points. A snake always up the ante.    

Hyperbole

On April 15 the temperature was up to 14 degrees C. The tundra is gone, at least around my place. April 22, Earth Day and there are noticeable attempts at dressing up:

Emerging Daffodils recall Wordsworth's lines, a little dated, the lines not the daffodils.

 On the low hills, the leafless branches of the hardwoods look like grey hairs among the tufts of green
from the conifers. Grey and Green and temperate sunshine do not make April a cruel month.       

Post Winter

These two photos were taken on April 2, 2014. And they speak volume. We are limping into Spring.
Today, April 6, the cleared driveway and dirt paths are sucking wet but chickadees are flitting around. Robins are hopping on the ground, though it is too early for earthworms to appear. The resident partridge showed her flock, in a flutter, of 6 young adults. They came through the winter. No, Roald Dahl we do not bait them with raisins. Dahl's books entertained the kids through winters such as this one. This March I was introduced to David Mitchell"s "Cloud Atlas"and am grateful to have read it and will visit it again. Another most compelling book is Chang-Rae Lee's "On such a Full Sea." Both  books carry a musicality; that's what I felt.  In the latter the plot is narrated on a symphony of words. " Cloud Atlas" feels more akin to modern and contemporary music. Both books are such treats. I do have a house to clean.

Pathetic

I was sick. There was rebellion, in my open ended central tube, which was a rare occurrence. After the violent commotions were over, I had to lay down. In this shaken state I was pleased to get an email from my brother, who said that he was doing all right at 20 degrees F. We were then at -7degrees C. Who was colder?
Degrees in Fahrenheit and Celsius, unlike oranges and apples, can be converted as they are different markings within two fixed facts; the freezing point (FP) and the boiling (BP) of water. In the Fahrenheit scale the FP is 32 and marked in a total units of 180 to reach a boiling point of 212. In the Celsius we go from 0 to 100. A unit in one scale is not equivalent to that in the other but 180 units in degrees F is to 100 degrees C. 180:100 or 9:5                                              
So what is 20 degrees F in Celsius. It is below the freezing point by ( 20-32) 12 units F.   9 units F : 5 units C                                                                   
               1 unit F   : 5/9 unit C                                                               
            (-) 12 units : 5/9x-12= -6.6 degrees C                                            
There is an app in my ipod touch but I needed the time to heal; by counting degrees. Pathetic but I was entertained.  

Raring to go.

These are the bulbils of the garlic plants from the last season. These, unlike the cloves we eat, are formed above ground and each will grow into a new plant. They are ready, but I am not, and so to slow down the enthusiasm, I better put them in the dark. There is a northeaster coming for February 12.                                                                                                                                      
The cats are pacing restlessly. Are they speaking for us?

Tea, fruit cake and more for the Lunar New Year

A clear and bright morning this January 30, 2014. Grateful acceptance after such  rough winter days, from Christmas onwards. And this evening, if it is not cloudy, I shall look out for the crescent new moon; the first of the year. Then a slice of cake, made by Jane. Ian has been looking forward to a piece. In addition we shall enjoy looking at photos of our Blond daughter, as presented in Idiot's Delight, a play directed by Albert Schultz. 

 Idiot's Delight, a play by Robert E. Sherwood and staged by SoulPepper. A quote from the Toronto Star:

“Poor lonely old soul. Sitting up in heaven with nothing to do but play solitaire. Poor dear God. Playing ‘Idiot’s Delight.’ The game that never means anything and never ends.”

The card game may be meaningless, but Idiot’s Delight the play has a great deal to teach us. It’s at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts until March. 1.