Tales from the Towers: Smiling at the day

Sometimes I get up in the morning and the day smiles at me. Usually it is the other way around which means I try to smile at the day so that we become friends. I don't succeed every time, and when I don't, I get out of bed anyway and put on a pair of socks because it's winter and I just don't want to get cold feet. Not literally, nor figuratively, nor any other way...Warm socks really improve my mood!

So this morning the day smiled at me and the socks warmed my feet. Then I suddenly remembered that my phone is out of order, and the day as well as I myself stopped smiling. But then I saw the sun coming up in all its red-golden glory and whether I liked it or not, I smiled again. Still a life without a telephone is only half a life, so I called Eli, he came up did something - I don't know what - and life was good again because I had a working telephone.
 
Noga is a nice young woman who plays the piano at many of our concerts, mostly together with Vladimir who plays the violin. Last Saturday night however Noga came in, carrying a big wooden cane, taller than herself, which she informed us was a 'fagotte'. She played it for us.

I realize that I may not be quite fair, because I have no affinity for wood wind instruments except, yes, I do love good jazz on the saxophone. In some old films which I've seen a long time ago, here and there a lonely sax player stands on the roof of some building playing plaintive melodies to a world full of faithless lovers. What's more, many years ago I was a Satchmo addict. But now back to this fagotte...oh, well, it sounded to me like an elephant with a toothache, and I am sorry if I hurt someone's feeling with this statement. Well yes I know I am reaching because I don't see elephants very often and even less often elephants in distress.
 
Then one night before fagotte night we had a singer whose name is Moshe and whom we like. He usually brings along video presentations which relate to the songs he sings. So last Friday his program was about Tubi Shvat. For people not in this country who don't know about Tubi Shvat, I'll explain that it's the birthday of the trees. I am not sure that any other country celebrates a trees' birthday but we do. So Moshe brought along a lot of pictures of trees, especially almond trees who are starting to bloom now in all colors. But there was a hitch. All pictures which he wanted to show on the screen, arrived ..upside down. Moshe who is himself an engineer, checked his computer and the other equipment again and again. We phoned maintenance. We had several people coming in to check the video, the DVD, the microphones and all the buttons which could be switched on and/or off, but it was no good. The photos still remained upside down.

Moshe asked us unhappily: "If I show you an almond tree with its top down and bottom up, will you still be able to see how beautiful it is? I took the photos myself and it would be a pity if I could not share them with you!"

Well, we didn't want to see upside down almond trees, so Moshe sang Tubi Shvat songs netto...
 
"It's very cold here, I tell my son who lives in Germany, we have 12 degrees!"

"Are you talking about plus or minus?" he asks.

"Stop kidding", I tell him, "aren't you an Israeli?"

He is still laughing while he puts down the receiver.

I wish you all a very happy trees' birthday filled with color, laughter and good cheer.

Lucca
 
Before I forget:

I haven't received any feedback from any of you for a long time! Could it be that my weekly musings get lost in cyberspace?