Grey is my favorite color. I love the variations: nearly white, silvery, heathered, oyster, granite, ash, slate, almost black. It reminds me of the skies where I grew up: the beautiful high clouds that raced across the sky in the spring winds, low and overcast like a down comforter snuggled around the earth in the fall, heavy with rain unspilled by the passage over the Olympics in the winter, making the light soft, a dramatic background for the dark green firs and pines, the whitecapped blue and grey of the Sound, and the wooden houses on the hills. I wear grey almost exclusively at home when I'm lounging in sweatpants and sweatshirts. My new jeans are a light grey. Grey looks good with almost everything. It's definitely my preferred neutral. I feel safe and comfortable and stylish in grey.
So I'm coloring Aries Moon a soft, Pacific Northwest cloud grey for the month of December. Feeling a bit nostalgic, I guess. I wouldn't want to move back, it's all built up now and everything's changed, but I miss a lot of things about the area. Most of all I miss the sky.
This has been such a pleasant weekend. I got astonishing news on Thursday which still has me blinking in amazement and pleasure. It's not quite a done deal, so I'll hold off on announcing it, but I should know sometime next week. Friday night John and I met friends in Half Moon Bay for drinks at the local brewpub. I didn't think at all highly of the beer but the setting was superb; we looked out over the harbor at sunset and listened to the seagulls. We adjourned to Mezze Luna for fresh whole crab (it's crab season, hurrah!), salmon ravioli, and osso bucco. I bored everyone senseless talking about piano and classical composers and choral singing. Well, perhaps not, but I was my usual obsessive self about whatever I'm most interested in at the moment. I think my dinner companions were lucky I didn't feel like sharing everything I know about California Ethnic History.
Saturday I practiced and it went very well. I also finished my reading and doing my definitions for my upcoming History test and emailed those to my study buddies. Denise Rehse came by for the first time in ages. She pulled up in her restored 1940 Ford truck (I may have the date wrong. It looks like something Tom Joad would drive, that's for sure). It's got enormous orange and yellow flames painted on the front, a gorgeous grill, and a motherlovin' loud motor. Every vato in South San Francisco gave us the thumbs up as we cruised down El Camino; heeeeey, check it out, two chicks in that cherry truck, man! Little did they know we were on our way to visit a wool shop. Denise has taken up knitting as a hobby and she wanted me to pick out some wool for a scarf. I found a beautiful coppery chenille but she also got a green, black, maroon, and grey skein which would match quite a lot of my closet's contents. So I don't really know which I'll get for Christmas. I have no interest in it myself, I have never been able to get beyond knit and perl, and I can't cast on or off although my mother tried to teach me, but I admire others who can do it. And it is nice to look at all the interesting textures and colors in a wool shop.
Sunday's plan is to practice more, clean the rest of the house, pick up some seasonal candles at Illuminations for next week's recital, and eat pizza while watching my new Fellowship of the Rings Special Extended DVD Edition at some friends' house. As it's now over three hours long I'm thinking of wearing my pyjamas to save time when I get home. It is a school night, after all, but it's my only chance to watch it with other Lord of the Ring fanatics before the final crunch of tests and recital and finals.
I am getting calmer each day as I tick off the things I have left to do. This week it's a History test and my recital. Next week I've had to schedule a lot of appointments for December 14th, fitting in vet visits, a teeth cleaning, and hair coloring on the Saturday before my finals, but that's the only time any of those professionals could see me. There will be some performance in Piano, we're learning Pachelbel's Canon for fun, and a regular History class. I need to buy Christmas presents somewhere in there. The week after that is the end of the semester: two finals, two days off, a movie I've been waiting a year to see, and then a five day holiday culminating with Christmas. I can feel everything in motion, no more waiting and worrying. Time is sweeping past like the scudding grey clouds heralding a rainstorm. I am relaxed at last. Not long now.
The Index
Next Incarnation