When I have had two glasses of my father’s Pinot Grigio on a relatively empty stomach, I can play Bach’s first solo cello suite with remarkable skill. Go me. (Yes, it’s all about getting the inner critic tipsy. And mostly off-topic, I have recently discovered that my inner critic is a sad pathetic self-defeating Muppet monster like one sees on Sesame Street.) And damn, those new strings really, really sound smooth. Honestly, everything I’ve read about steel strings and everything I’ve ever learned about how my cello sounds in the past eleven (eleven!?) years completely and totally contradicts how remarkably smooth and even they sound, particularly in transition from one string to another. It takes less effort to pull good sound out, and the strings respond almost immediately. It makes me wonder how I worked with my last synthetic set for so long. Of course, they were also two years old, so they’d stretched and lost some of what makes them work they way they’re supposed to, and since I hear the instrument all the time I don’t notice the gradual loss of quality. My intonation is more accurate with these new strings, too, a precious little bonus for which I’m deeply grateful.

Liam tripped and (a) bit the inside of his lip and (b) cut the outside on something this morning. First blood! He’s fine; now the lower lip’s a little swollen and both cuts are visible, but after the initial “my mouth is full of blood and it stings!” he forgot about it. As a treat I put his special Sunday oatmeal (with a whole grated apple stirred in and cinnamon sprinkled on top) in his Nana’s Bunnykins porringer.

Liam, of course, was more interested in the dish than in eating what it held.