Juggling and a guitar

We had fellow Fulbrighter Rich Cairncross over for dinner last night. He'd had us over to his place the week before. Turns out in addition to being a biodiesel expert and an all-around nice guy, Rich has also been a juggler for the past twenty years. He brought over his diabolos and gave us a very impressive demonstration and a lesson. A diabolo looks like two toilet plunger cups mounted back to back on a short common axle. The object is to keep it spinning on a string that connects two sticks you hold in your hands, while you do crazy tricks. I'm working on flipping the diabolo in the air and catching it on the string. Like so many things, much harder than the expert makes it look.

I wanted my mother-in-law Basilia to see Rich do some "conventional" juggling as well, but he didn't have any jugglable objects with him, so I gave him three pairs of my (clean) socks, and he went to town. Good show, Rich. Basilia the younger seems to have a knack for the diabolo and is interested in getting a handle on juggling as well.

Rich Cairncross (clad in his official Fulbright t-shirt) juggles socks in our living room

I tried to contribute something to the talent show by getting out my guitar. I have to say I'm having a harder time than I used to remembering entire songs. Now that I'm done with the teaching part of my project, I hereby resolve to spend a little time playing guitar every day so I can knock some of the rust off.