Your sunny someday will come soon to you

Ahhh, what nice weather we're having now. It's been in the mid-sixties for the past couple days, and the sun's been shining. In fact, it's been a very nice winter so far, especially after the snowfest that was last year; no appreciable snow, lots of warm days, reasonable amounts of sun. Please, February, don't dump a blizzard on me now that I've said all that. ;)

Have some weather-relevant pictures:

( The first crocus )

( An amaryllis from earlier this month )

Finally, a picture I took before Christmas and forgot was on my camera, of a hawk that visited the yard. It had just caught a bird in this picture, so while it's not gory, there is, well, a body, so if that squicks you don't click.

( Hawk )

It's fairly grainy because I was standing about forty feet away when I took the picture, and my zoom was as zoomed as it would go. I think this is a sharp-shinned hawk.

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In other news, between writing spurts on my space pilots story (5,500+ words! Though the estimated final word count ballooned up to 10,000, so that's kind of a wash), I've been reading the first of Robertson Davies' Deptford Trilogy. It was sold to me as being heavier on the magical realism than it is, but that aside, it was decent. I'm hoping the next two books delve deeper into the narrator's academic work on myth and religion, as that's the most compelling part. Though the narrator himself isn't bad. Here's the most amusing line:

"I was foolish and conceited, I know, but I was also a happy goat who had wandered into the wondrous enclosed garden of hagiology, and I grazed greedily and contentedly."

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Finally, have yet another music rec: Pink Martini, a twelveish-member "little orchestra" that plays an eclectic set of tunes that seem to range from Italian torch songs to American jazz standards, but mostly appear to center around Cuban salsas and rumbas and French-sounding ballads. I admit, I don't like everything, but I like these two:

Hang On, Little Tomato - The first time I listened to this, I could've sworn the instrumental first half was used on Northern Exposure. Since the song came out in 2004, that seems unlikely, but it does bear an uncanny resemblance to the "Alaskan Nights" track on the first soundtrack, which makes frequent appearances in the show. (It's that track with a clarinet melody and guitar and bass backing, with infrequent bell-like accents; trust me, if you've seen the show, you've heard it.) There's a clarinet playing the same kind of lazy, strolling melody, and the bass-centric background is very similar. Anyway, if you liked the music composed for NX, you'll like this.

Lilly - Fun salsa beat, horns, and it's about a stray dog. How can you go wrong?