Moving Right Along, or So We Pretend

I've safely, if wearily, returned to Pittsburgh. Ms. Spots and Orion were well rabbit-sat and looked very sleek, although Ms. Spots was miffed about my absence and had to be placated with extra-solicitous petting and rubbing of the ears. Orion merely indicated he was glad to see me, and showed me how gigantic he can look in the right poses. (Rabbit who ought to weigh about 6 pounds wishes to emulate those giant rabbits the Germans are sending to Korea...)
In the wake of last week's intriguing horoscope, I feel I should be paying close attention to this one's, which is:

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The feats you're pulling off may not appear spectacular to a casual observer. But in my view, they are some of the most interesting accomplishments you've enjoyed in a while. Here's a brief description of some of your subtly glorious breakthroughs: 1. You've made yourself less susceptible to being manipulated by guilt or pushed around by bullies or fooled by phonies. 2. You're getting smarter about how you treat the people and things you love. 3. You're at the peak of your ability to discern the difference between rash risks motivated by fear and smart gambles driven by authentic intuition.

I don't know yet whether I've truly accomplished any of these things, but they sound awfully good.
Now all I need to do is learn to play kecapi, which judging by today's lesson (the first) will be considerably harder than learning to play the average gamelan instrument. It is a plucked instrument, so I thought I might already have some usable skills, but no. Our visitors from Indonesia wanted to know whether I preferred to learn something in slendro or pelog, but it is really immaterial which scale we tune to until I start getting a sense of which string is which and get that multi-finger, two-handed coordination going. I suppose I must have gone through something similar at my first piano lesson, except that I had at least touched a few pianos by then whereas I've only admired the kecapi from a distance. It's somewhat unsettling to feel like I'm five years old again as regards motor coordination.