Friday Orts and Blurb

1. All who know that I am a lifetime aficionado of barbershop music will not be surprised to see that I'm leading with a video clip that's making the rounds these days. Although saying that I am a "lifetime" fan is an exaggeration--during my youth I was not such a fan when my father's Sunday evening quartet practices at our house meant that we had to HOLD IT DOWN, KIDS and were banished from any of the areas of the house where we might disturb those good ol' harmonies so as a teenager I was not so crazy about men's quartet singing. Now if Justin Timberlake had been in my father's quartet, I probably would developed my taste for SPEBSQSA a lot earlier. (Little known fact: One of our earliest disagreements about how our dream wedding would unfold was when Husband put his foot down about my father's quartet singing "Till There Was You" during the ceremony. I huffily agreed they could sing it during the reception instead, but that was only a little tasting sample of the dozens of ways in which two people in love could disagree about what their dream wedding should be.)

2. And speaking of dream weddings...guess who arrived late last night at the House on the Corner? Lovely Girl! I felt like Mama Bear eating my breakfast this morning, knowing that Goldilocks was asleep upstairs. It felt juuuuuuust right.

3. Oh, also Boy#4 arrived late last night. We are definitely in the new normal, when two Boys are still away at school and the house feels full. (Come home, Boy#2 and Boy#3!)

4. Despite last week's snow, two days of warm weather make me feel spring is here. Tra la la! I can't wait to plant some tomatoes, even though I know that is the path that leads to heartbreak. And blossom rot. And hornworms, which surely are one of Mother Nature's mistakes. But tomatoes!

5. And finally, the product placement of the week: The first night Boy#1 was home on spring break he talked to me while I made supper. We chatted about all sorts of things but when I started to prepare the fruit he stopped mid-chatter for an accusation. "We're only having pineapple so you can show off that gizmo, right?"

Thank you, Amazon.com, for loaning me this image

He knows me too well. Those aren't my hands, but that's my pineapple slicer/corer/peeler, and it ROCKS. Zip, zip, zip, done. Four stars.

(I believe it is UNICEF that requires bloggers to add a disclaimer when we are compensated for product endorsements, to which I reply "Ha! Ha! If only!")