Animal House

Cannoli helps Josie with her reading. The Babysitters Club is a big favorite.

Angeline is not impressed. She prefers T.S. Eliot.

 

1925 and Beyond

"Rainbow Fairies"  It's 1925 and my mother is seven. She's the tall one second from the right --- and I've unearthed yet another scrapbook in my workroom cleanup. My grandmother was a meticulous recorder, and I'm enjoying this look at my mother's past.

                        First grade-- look at the clothes and the Very Serious expressions. There are samples of my mother's schoolwork in each grade but I'll spare your those.

Wilson Junior High in Tampa, Florida. My mother's alma mater . . .and mine and John's as well. What's more, the same principal (Miss Bush) was still in charge.

Girls just gotta have fun--even during the Great Depression.

                                                                     

A Breathing Place

Find a spreading tree... 

Lose your Self in its branches...

Breathe deeply . . . Ah, peace!

 

Dear Sirs,

 The inhumane conditions in the privately run concentration camps that house the victims of ICE are a disgrace to our country. The mere fact that the USA has concentration camps is a disgrace.

I beg you to visit the camps, to see for yourself, and to act to change this deplorable situation.

And I fervently wish that you would not continue to ignore the deteriorating faculties of POTUS. He is a loose cannon on the ship of state, causing irreparable damage to our democracy and to our reputation in the civilized world.

Your unhappy constituent

Bluebells and Ramps and a Spring Galette

I went to check on the bluebells behind the house. (I have visions of a bluebell wood, such as we saw in England but it's not there yet.)

Still, their numbers are increasing. And so are the ramps in my little ramp patch. 

The ramp patch is the result of my buying and planting freshly harvested ramps. I only harvest a few blades from my ramps, rather than the whole pungent plant.
                                                                     

But they added a garlicky whang to the asparagus and mushroom galette that was our supper.

                                                                  

Oh, What a Beautiful Morning!

And now you have an ear worm . . .

 

Like the Cat Ate the Grindstone

Little by little I'm working my way through the repository of my past.  There is so much to look at and so many memories . . . The picture above is one I'll keep as it is one of the few I have in which my mother looks truly happy. (She and I are on the left. I was probably three.)

I have always loved dogs. Here I'm at my Aunt Mamie's in Troy, Alabama. My grandmother and I rode the train from Tampa to attend Mamie's daughter's wedding. I was a flower girl. The ring bearer was a red-headed little boy named Rusty. At the reception I asked the piano player to play "Home on the Range" and he did.

Kindergarten at Seaborn in Tampa. And my brief ballet career.

1959. Senior year at Plant High in Tampa. John and I were "going steady." He gave me a ride to school every day in his Model A.

I had to save out this picture of Justin to show Josie (who scored another goal in last Saturday's soccer game.)

And then there was a whole mess of materials from the quilting classes I taught back in the early 2000's.  Not to mention patterns and instructions for the many group quilts I helped with.

 I've heard of people's lives flashing before their eyes when they were in a perilous situation. Well, I'm not in such a situation; my life is crawling before my eyes at a slow and crowded pace. It's so much information and so many memories that I can only do a small amount at a time--like the cat ate the grindstone.

                            

Oh, Spring! Oh, Joy!

 

Woo Hoo!!!

What good news! The autocratic Orban and his "illiberal democracy" have been handed a huge defeat. Unlike Someone, Orban has accepted defeat and conceded. 

Orban had pledged fealty to Putin, and our own president, who is securely in Putin's pocket, endorsed Orban and sent the despicable JD Vance to Hungary to promise financial support from the USA. (This, when we supposedly can't afford health care and the forestry service, and, really, anything that makes life better for us non-plutocrats.)

I have to admit that along with being happy for this defeat for a far-right government, I take pleasure in seeing Vance coming back with this defeat added to his failure to negotiate  a treaty with Iran. Couldn't happen to a more deserving sycophant.

I'd like to believe that this is a tidal shift that will propel a Blue wave at the midterms.

Fingers crossed.

 

Silent Sunday

                                                      

Twenty-Two Years Ago . . .

I continue in my purge of my workroom. After recycling the manuscripts of my Elizabeth Goodweather novels, I turned to the stack of notebooks that contained the printed material of  ten years or more of writing classes, publicity pieces, interviews, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Out with them! But I'm conscientious enough to want to recycle all that paper which means removing it from the plastic page protectors and also tearing off any staples. And in the course of this, getting a nostalgic trip back in time. Lots of good classes, good students, good memories.

Then I hit a notebook with printed out emails from my early efforts in 2002 to find an agent--and a representative sampling of rejection. There had been around sixty but I only kept the positive ones--the ones that said nice things about my writing while gently turning me down.

Then there was the excitement of an offer from an agent, my acceptance, and her attempts to sell that first book. More positive rejections and finally the decision to put that first novel aside and try again with what became Signs in the Blood.

It was like reliving that roller coaster of emotions when, a year later, my agent began trying to sell SIGNS. And oh, the joy and edge-of-my-seat tension when the agent let me know that Kate Miciak at Bantam Dell was interested!

The rewriting, the adding a subplot, the tweaking the ending, as emails flew between Kate and my agent and me. At last, the contract! A modest two book deal!

And then all those memories went into the recycling. It was nice to remember the excitement, and my agent's great sense of humor. And I still got a thrill at seeing Kate's encouraging words.

But, the nice thing is, I don't miss any of it. It was all a fine experience and I'm glad I had it. But I'm happy not to be writing into the wee hours, trying to make a deadline. 

Been there. Done that. 

They're Back!

Such a delight to see the swallow-tails rioting amongst the azaleas!

 

Memories . . .

                                                           

Fifty-some years ago when we lived on a lake in Odessa, Florida, we frequented a small country store called Fox's Corner. It was run by a grumpy feller and his bad-tempered little feist dog.  One day we were outside the store with our elderly beagle cross, and the feist took exception to her presence. He came boiling out of the store to launch an attack. 

His owner came running after him, yelling, "Get back in here. What do you mean, comin' out all stiff-legged and agitatin'?"

Pure poetry. We still use that phrase.

Another memorable usage is 'Flehmensing.' Moving to the farm and acquiring cattle, we became aware of the characteristic behavior of a bull around cows--he rolls back his upper lip and sniffs at the cow's lady parts to determine if she's in heat. We eventually discovered the technical term -- "Flehmens response" and shared it with friends. Not long after, we heard one of those friends describing an unattached fellow at a party-- "You ought to have seen old _____, he was flehmensing round all the women."