Yesterday's singing lesson saw a whole new world of complicated.
Starting something like this:
"What did I give you for homework last week?" asked Heather after our first round of scales to see how far I've come along since I first walked into her house five weeks ago afraid of my own "la la la".
"You asked me to work on my register switches, so that I sing middle C in my second register and you wanted me to make the switch into my lowest register more smoothly".
"I can't tell where you're switching into your lowest register, it's seamless. Sounds like you did your homework perfect, I'm impressed with your improvement. I guess we don't need to do any more register work for now."
Clever teacher, using such big words to distract me from her nefarious torture schemes.
It didn't take long for me to catch on, though, when she started asking me to sing my scales with strange little "h" sounds and faster and "bumpier" and all sorts of strange little inflections.
When she opened my Vaccaj book to page twenty eight, twenty eight! My self-preservation finally kicked back in and she blithely ignored my stuttered protests while she explained what a "Coloretta" is.
I'm supposed to learn how to do one for next week.
We all know the real reason that I'm taking singing lessons.
It isn't for the sheer, innocent, noble purpose of no longer torturing my friends during particularly raucous renditions of "happy birthday" as sung by the perpetually tone deaf.
It's all about abs, baby.
As for the tulips, there's twenty purple ones in the ground so far, if we're lucky the yellow ones go in tomorrow, along with the blue crocuses, and a handful of the nefarious daffodils.
Daffodils and I have a tenuous relationship.
They ignore me completely as is my wont, and I spend my time trying to decide if I hate them for their bright and delicate beauty, or if I admire their yellowy jonquilness.
Maybe when they suddenly become my daffodils, I won't be so jealous of their exotic peculiarities.
After that, I'm going to try not to stare at the base of the tree and bush too long, because that little square in the front yard really doesn't need landscaping.
It doesn't need little white and green clumps of tranquility peeking out from their beloved shady spots underneath the branches.
Nope, definitely not.
What I need, though, is a storm-window-dust removing shower.