Skittle Bowl

Watching one episode of Downton Abbey, we gasped when we saw the family playing Skittle Bowl.  "Hey!  We have that!"

It belonged to my cousins, and it came to us when my aunt (Katie's godmother) was moving and thus decluttering.  Seeing the game in the show reminded Maggie of its existence.  She hauled it out and has been playing a lot.  She's figuring out how to "roll" the ball to obtain better scores.

And she's learning to score bowling.  Tsk tsk tsk -- the kids these days don't get to learn how to keep score in bowling because the computers do all the work for them.  But she seems to be figuring it out nicely this week at home.

I love the clatter of those wood pins falling -- it's such a pretty sound!

Snow

Snow-mixed-with-rain every day this week.  But we've comforted ourselves with "At least it's not sticking." 

And this morning, middle of April, I look out the window ...

and it's sticking. 
It's not deep enough to shovel yet.
But the grass, the deck, the neighbors' roofs -- snow.


Intellectually I know that I'll be leaving the house without a winter coat in, oh, say, a month.  But in my gut I don't believe it will ever happen:  I'll be wearing a winter coat for the rest of my life ....

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Well, I sure was schnookered by that review.

The reviewer wrote that "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" was a movie about an unconventional school teacher in Scotland in the 1930's; she wanted to inculcate in her students the love of "goodness, truth, and beauty."  Hmm.  Sounds kind of like me.   And yet there were niggling remembrances from my childhood that this was a "bad movie" that grown-ups whispered about.  Really?  It was "bad" because she was an unconventional teacher?

So we ordered it from Netflix.  Put it in the DVD player.  And began to wonder if the movie might be going somewhere in spite of how it was stacking up. 

After 30 minutes, I turned it off because the "unconventional teacher" was having multiple affairs with men and brainwashing the girls with liberal politics.   Not wanting to Give Up On It Too Early, I checked Wiki.  Sure enough, this teacher's "unconventionality" is worlds --universes-- different from my "unconventionality." 

Yeah, the DVD is back in the mailbox even though I didn't see the end of the movie. 

And for those of you who know how much I hate stopping a book or magazine or movie or lecture in the middle, you know that's a drastic step!