If music be the food of love, play on...

Twelfth Night and Shakespearean quotations aside, tonight I managed to fall in love.

With the lute.

Marym and Markous brought their extremely-wonderful-close-amazing friend Jack (mild as they come and patient as a saint) with his lute in response to my interest in the instrument. I'm pretty much hooked. It has all the wonderful qualities of flamenco guitar that I admire with all the pretty exoticisms of the mandolin. The problem is buying one: I think my enthusiasm is enough to keep me practicing for now-- and there's a music shop down the street that I pass every morning with lutes in the front window...and I stop and stare every morning.

It was a nice night-- stayed in most of the day, took care of a lot o laundry that's been piling up...danced around to very loud Billy Joel (which as been keeping me pretty sane, in fact), though I didnt get a chance to sit in my cafe for the last time. Ramadan begins tomorrow, and I think I'm going to keep the fast, just for the experience and to win the respect of the old men in the coffee shop. I feel tomorrow's migraine coming on already. I want to decorate, but can't find anywhere that can sell me lights or a lamp-- call me tacky and caught up. The streets are filled with streamers and lanterns (the place is quite festive, and I'm told every night's a party).

Tomorrow's the end of the week-- we have a different weekend here of Friday and Saturday. Probably will try to visit the mosques in the afternoon before dinner with Markous and Marym's parents.