French
Au clair de la lune, mon ami Pierrot
Prête-moi ta lume,* pour écrire un mot.
Ma chandelle est morte, je n'ai plus de feu.
Ouvre-moi ta porte, pour l'amour de Dieu.

Au clair de la lune, Pierrot répondit
Je n'ai pas de lume, je suis dans mon lit.
Va chez la voisine, je crois qu'elle y est
Car dans sa cuisine, on bat le briquet.

Au clair de la lune, l'aimable Lubin
Frappe chez la brune, elle répond soudain
"Qui frappe de la sorte ? ", il dit à son tour
"Ouvrez votre porte pour le Dieu d'Amour"

Au clair de la lune, on n'y voit qu'un peu
On chercha la lume, on chercha du feu
En cherchant d'la sorte je n'sais c'qu'on trouva
Mais je sais qu'la porte sur eux se ferma.

English
Under the moonlight, my friend Pierrot,
Lend me your light, so I could write a word.
My candle is out, I've no more light.
Open your door for me, for the love of God.

Under the moonlight, Pierrot replied,
I've no light; I'm in my bed.
Go next door, I believe that she is in,
For in the kitchen, someone lit a match.

Under the moonlight, friendly Lubin
Knocks at the brunette's door, she suddenly replies
"Who's knocking this way", he says in his turn
"Open your door, for the god of love."

Under the moonlight, little can be seen
The light was looked for, fire was looked for
Searching this way, I don't know what was found
But I do know that the door, on them was shut.

*In modern versions, this word is "plume", meaning pen. "Lume" is derived from "lumière", meaning "light".
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Au_clair_de_la_lune

This should be the last post about my recent trip to London. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I visited Westminster Abbey. Photographs were not allowed inside and I'd previously taken some photos of the outside on another trip, so I only took one on my visit there this time. It would probably be better to post this on Monday or to have posted it on Thursday, but this photo is a portion of the wall above the main door at Westminster Abbey displaying the statues of 9 "martyrs," according to the tour guide. I've captured 3 of them here, the one in the middle being Martin Luther King, Jr.:

( Cut for photo )

I think I mentioned in my last post, too, that I'd gone to the Novello Theatre Saturday night, which was the closing night, to see whether I could get a return ticket for Hamlet, but there were none to be had by the time I arrived. So, I wandered around central London fairly aimlessly on Saturday night (coffee shop, bookstore, etc), but returned to the Novello Theatre, which really was on my way back to the hotel anyway, at the time the play was due to be over.

( Read more about chasing David Tennant )

If there is anyone reading this who might like to see Hamlet on DVD, please sign this petition. (For those on Facebook, joining the group on Facebook isn't the same as signing the petition. I think the Facebook group is mainly for updates. According to the latest update there, though, Michael Boyd, the artistic director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, has been in contact with the petition's author and is reading the petition with interest.)

Sunday, which was my last full day in London, I went to see Twelfth Night. This is the story of a twin brother and sister who are shipwrecked and find themselves in an unfamiliar land, each thinking the other is dead. The sister, Viola, passes herself off as a boy to work for the local duke, Orsino, and is sent on his behalf to court Olivia. Unfortunately, Olivia falls in love with Viola (as the boy, Cesario) while Viola falls in love with Orsino. There are several other characters in the households of Orsino and Cesario involved in side storylines, one of which involves making Olivia's steward, Malvolio, believe that Olivia is actually in love with him. (A mean trick, I thought, but I guess it would have played well to people who were victims of a class system.) It turned out that my ticket for Twelfth Night was very good, row K in the stalls, and I really enjoyed it.

( Read more about Twelfth Night )

Overall, the Shakespeare audience seems tougher than the musical theatre audience. Neither of the 2 Shakespearean plays got a full standing ovation, but Oliver! did.

Sunday evening, I was sent to a French restaurant at the Covent Garden Market for dinner by the hotel's concierge, who was French. As I was looking around the Market area for the restaurant, I came across a sextet who were performing in an open area of the Market near a pub. (Some of the pub's patrons were actually eating and drinking outside, despite the cold.) I sat and watched them for a few pieces (something by Mozart, "The Can-can", and the opening of Carmen) and gave them a couple of pounds. I also took a picture:

( Cut for photos )

This is my tree, showing all the ornaments.  I finally got all the gifts wrapped and put under the tree this afternoon.  You can also see part of the lighted garland I have running up the stair banister.  Like lunas_ceiling , I thought I'd show some of the other decorations in my house, too.

There's a building on the corner where I get off the freeway that's been falling apart for years. ( Read more... )

Continuing from this post, I thought I'd update my vacation photos. I selected and uploaded photos from Orkney last night.

I was hoping to be able to write "Orkney" in runes for this post, but unfortunately it seems that the standard fonts don't have runic characters. That may sound a bit random, but while I was in Orkney, I bought a T-shirt that says "Orkney" on it in the Roman alphabet and, underneath, it has something in the runic alphabet. norbertha's hobby is looking for runes and she can read them pretty well, so I asked her what the T-shirt said. She replied, "Orkney," to which I said, "I can read that, but what do the runes say?" Of course, they say "Orkney," too, as norbertha then patiently told me. *blush*

( Cut for photos and descriptions of Orkney... )

We were on the road by 8:00 am, but I'll save the details of the roadtrip (stops at Fountains Abbey and Snape Castle) for another post. This one is already too long!

( Cut to comments )

Orkney is a very quiet place, so I thought I'd take this opportunity of having an early night back in the hotel room to post about my trip, so far. After 12 hours of traveling, I arrived in Edinburgh early on Saturday morning, where I was to meet alisel_kat at the hotel. Her flight was coming in several hours later, though, so I took a nap for an undetermined amount of time. I didn't use an alarm and was so disoriented when I woke up, I couldn't figure out how long I'd been asleep. But, it was before alisel_kat arrived and still early enough for us to do some sightseeing around Edinburgh.

( Read more and see pictures... )

It's bad, I know, but I just couldn't wait until I got back in 2 weeks to see the new Doctor Who episode broadcast in the US on Friday, "Turn Left", so I watched it on YouTube last night. I'll pretend I haven't seen it when I get back home and watch it on video with my Dad. *evil* (Sadly, it seems that Doctor Who is not available for purchase on iTunes here...) Anyway, I thought it was a very interesting episode with an even more interesting ending, but I didn't enjoy Rose as much as I was expecting. I think this is because I didn't really understand her presence. She obviously knew a lot about what was going on, but I didn't understand how. Hopefully this will be explained in the next 2 episodes. Also, I didn't feel like Rose was given enough to do in the story.

It did make the following exchange from "The Fires of Pompeii" (episode 2) very interesting, though:

Lucius: And, you, daughter of London, there is something on your back.
Donna: What's that mean?

*squeamish*

I got back from the fireworks not too long ago. It was a very nice display and the weather was perfect. There weren't even any mosquitoes, which is unheard of for the 4th of July around here!

The day began with me driving up to my uncle's lake house for a barbecue. My parents, my cousin and her new boyfriend, and a few of my uncle's friends were also there. I was the last to arrive, which is pretty typical. My uncle's dog was most excited to see me because no one else who had arrived wanted to play with her, but she was to be disappointed by me, as well. Play with a soggy ball soaked in dog spit? I don't think so... So, the dog had to entertain herself, which she did to our amusement. She took a squeaky toy and laid down with it. She then proceeded to bite down on it every few seconds to make it squeak for a good 3-4 minutes. It was very funny! She also ate a bone. I didn't realize dogs actually ate bones - I thought they just chewed on them to...I don't know...exercise their teeth or something. Then, later, she was given a dog biscuit and buried that. The dog biscuit was bone-shaped, but I'm not sure the dog would pay any attention to that. I've heard of dogs burying bones, but not dog biscuits! *lol*

After dinner, my cousin, her boyfriend, and I walked down the road to the lake and took a walk on the beach. The lake was pretty warm and the weather was great. We walked down to the lake house our grandparents used to own and inspected it, then continued up the beach to the point we always used to walk when we were kids. We'd taken our flip-flops off and left them on a platform with benches leading down to the beach. When we got back, there was this completely gorgeous guy sitting right where we'd left our flip-flops under the bench. He was reading a book and listening to an iPod. So, we had to disturb him to get our flip-flops and got into a short conversation about how far we'd walked and landmarks along the beach. I really wanted to talk to him longer, but having nothing to say and no reason to continue being there, we left. And so, life continues to pass me by...

ETA:


The Lake.