Frittering Away a Sunday

This evening T. took the family, a family friend, Aunt K. and Uncle Pu to dinner at a Pakistani restaurant, in celebration of the pleasing results in her university examinations. I had a bronzy bowl of fish curry, which was I thought agreeably subtle, and we all spooned delicate, slender rice out of a dented coppery bowl and forked a salad of iceberg lettuce, pickled cabbage, shredded carrot, and trickles of yoghurt and cranberry sauce onto our plates. Most of the others drank mango or coconut lassis, or tea, whilst T. and I had "Jogi" tea, which resembles cappuccino, has a satisfying layer of honey at the ground of the glass, and tastes of clove and (or so I thought) cardamom. We were not alone in dining at the restaurant, though at first there was only one pair of diners, who were looking in our direction and smiling (evidently appreciating our lively conversation) before they left.

At home afterwards, Papa and Pudel and I played Haydn trios, in C, D and G major. Ge. heated milk for ovaltine and other drinks, and everybody talked. It was fun to hear a heated debate on the merits of Wagner, and of course I was happy when the conversation turned to Jane Austen (Pudel and K. have been watching Austen film adaptations, which I mostly know inside out). At first I was going to do Chinese homework in my room, so I copied down a handful of characters. Then I looked for the characters' definitions in a list, and couldn't find them, at which point I felt very much like Mr. Bean trying to write the wrong maths test and crying "Mummyyy!" in despair. On the plus side, it was the perfect excuse to shirk my homework, go to the corner room, and listen to the conversation. Unfortunately my favourite perch on the stove was more or less untenable, as the surface temperature had become quite toasty.

Other than that I've been re-reading The Railway Children by E. Nesbit, writing a new lousy story set in present-day New York, and playing the piano. Then I went through Schubert's "Ave Maria," very slowly. It's still so challenging technically that any sappiness of the lyrics and music doesn't much bother me, which is not quite the case with the "Ständchen" from Schwanengesang, where I resolutely forget what the words mean and at times don't feel like singing it at all. Besides I watched a half hour or so of television (an episode of Pink Panther and Bringing Up Baby, which is a little frenetic but always nice to watch again) and read part of a book of English idioms.

Yesterday I picked up Andromaque again, and have almost reached the dénouement, despite my failure to understand why Orestes would still be infatuated with Hermione after so many excellent opportunities for sober second thought. J.'s outdoing me on the classics front, though, because he is presently immersed in a tome of Euripides' plays and reading up on ancient Rome. (c: We've already had an argument on whether Euripides is humorous or not. I remember his plays as being pretty thoroughly depressing (in Trojan Women, lots of people die, to put it baldly), but am probably confusing him with Aeschylus, whom I also had to read in university. Essentially the only thing I remember about Aeschylus is that he composed The Persians, was agreeably fair-minded and thoughtful, and had a brother whose hand was hacked off with an axe when he was grabbing the prow of a Persian ship that wanted to pull off the shore, after which said brother bled to death. But that last item may be a figment of the imagination.