The Beer Garden

At what feels like very long last, I finished sewing the last of the trim on the last T-shirt early this afternoon.  As you can imagine, that gives me a considerable feeling of accomplishment!  8 T-shirts, with hand-tatted trim around neckline and sleeves … there were a few times I felt like calling it quits and going back to something simple and fast like bookmarks (or Christmas ornaments when I feel like playing with beads), but right now, I’m glad I persevered.

Still … WHEW! 

Looks like it’s about time to get back to studying Esperanto.  I dug out a book I’d gotten about half-way through earlier (the Esperanto edition of Harry Harrison’s A Stainless Steel Rat is Born), and was having some problems.  Not with the grammar — I don’t seem to have lost any of that — but my vocabulary’s slipping, so I need to do at least some reviewing, and preferably improve it as well while I’m at it.

Why Esperanto?  Well, I like learning things, and I like languages, but the national languages take so darn long to learn enough to read anything except kiddy books!  Esperanto is a good compromise (as well as being the language spoken in my Terran Empire stories, though I admit to starting out with Imperial English), with a simple, very regular grammar I could actually read at grown-up level after about a month and a half of studying.  Also, my patron deity keeps urging me in that direction, though I haven’t the slightest idea of His reason or reasons!