blossoms, marcia normale, and a bit of print

The last two days have been very sunny ... lovely birthday dinner last night with the equally lovely R & R team ... and today, we can't decide if the petals on this tree are arriving or leaving:

But they are pretty, and a sign of spring: all is well, there. In my journal I found a reference to the autostrada signs in Italy ... marcia normale is the lane of the Italian highway that drivers should travel in ... and this tree doesn't care whether I understand its efforts or not ... it is all marcia normale for the tree.

The world can be just as hard as this tree is beautiful, though, and in an effort to counter my feelings about its nastier moments, I worked on a print today, a corner of which is here:

It is still unfinished ... Picasso said that art was a weapon against the brutality of the world.  Yes.