Friendship, an owl, piano lessons, and kayaking

National Women's Friendship Day has been observed the third Sunday in September since 1999.  So today, as the name suggests, is our day to express gratitude for all our women friends.  Let's share some names (it's okay to share only first names).  Who is your best friend?  Or which woman has been your friend the longest — and still is?  Ginny is the one I thought of first.  I met Ginny in August 1955, when I started high school by attending marching band practice at City High School (CHS).  Officially, CHS means Chattanooga High School.  Ginny was a year ahead of me in school, and we are only the same age from April until August, when she gains a year.  She has visited me here in St. Louis, and I've visited her in Tallahassee.  Let's see, 1955 to 2021 is ... wow! ... 66 years that we've been friends!  Love ya, Ginny!

A gorgeous owl ~ Someone shared this photo of an owl on NextDoor, our neighborhood group.  Those who chimed in seem to agree that it's a barred owl, after arguing that it is not a barn owl (which is smaller) or a great horned owl (which is larger and "has feather tufts on its head — the so-called horns").  Anyway, I think this is a beautiful picture of an owl, whatever kind it is.

Learn to Play Piano in Six Weeks or Less ~ by Dan Delaney and Bill Chotkowski, 2009, self-help, 111 pages.  

I've made the photo small because I'm not happy with this book.  It is not really a beginner's book, but a fake book.  Do you know what that is?

fake book /fāk bo͝ok/ noun = a book of music containing the basic chord sequences of jazz or other tunes.

The first sentence in the Introduction even admits that it's a fake book:

"Throw away your bass clef and give your left hand a break — melodies in the right hand, chords and rhythms in the left hand."

This looks like a beginner's book, and in one sense it is.  But the women who bought it so I can teach them how to play the piano will be learning only half of what I expected to teach them.  It's something.  It's a beginning of sorts, but I feel like I'll have to either come up with a way to teach them how to play with the left hand or get us "real" piano books that teach fingering for the bass clef.

My daughters have taken up kayaking.

No, I wasn't out on the water with them. 

One of them took this photo of the other.

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz hosts The 

Sunday Salon.  Bloggers gather in the 

Sunday Salon — at separate computers 

in different time zones — to talk about 

our lives, our books, and our reading.