Bad Cold

 A non-post just to say that I have a bad cold and a stuffy head and nothing more to say.

Looking East

                                                                                   

                                                                                             

 

Waiting for the Galactic Bus

 

                                                                                 

  

Once again embarked on cleaning, de-accessioning, and generally bringing order to long-overlooked parts of the house, I've moved on to my workroom. Oh, boy, what a challenge! All my various past enthusiasms have left their clutter--lots of writing, painting, quilting, sewing, and other craft stuff to deal with, including an embarrassing number of unfinished items.

As I began clearing away odds and ends that had accumulated on my cutting table, I came across a book that I didn't remember and premised that perhaps it had been intended as a gift for someone. 

Nope, it was a book Mario and Jayna recommended to me back in 2015. And I bought it and read it and, if my blog post is to be believed, really enjoyed it.

I said:

The premise is that two teenagers from a very long-lived alien race were stranded on Earth at a time when apes were the most advanced form of life. The teens experimented with giving the primates a bit of a push (a la SPACE ODYSSEY 2001.)  

As time passed and the primates evolved, the two aliens came to be regarded as gods  . . . and when, much, much later, an anguished St. Augustine realizes the truth and asks what remains, if his beliefs are based on a mistake, he is told:

 "A great deal remains, you relentless man . . . that splendid mind I gave you. Though it's very like building a magnificent car for someone who obstinately refuses to learn to drive."

Waiting for the Galactic Bus is a wonderful, thought-provoking romp through time, history, theology, and philosophy!

With a glowing review like that, I had to read it (again.) And I'm enjoying it all over again. And finding it fearfully pertinent to 2024. 

Promises...and a Snowdrop!

 

Dramatics with Esther Simon Brown

                                                             

Back when I was a gawky, shy, orthodonture-wearing early teen, my mother did her best to make me into something I wasn't. Ballroom dance lessons--private, unlike the group classes I endured later on, visits to the beauty parlor that left me with hairstyles from the Forties, anything that would make me more attractive and socially acceptable.

I hated most of that but when I was signed up for Dramatics lessons, that was okay. A bunch of my friends were in the same class and it was within walking distance of our junior high.     The walk was always punctuated with a stop at a grocery for snacks--my favorite being a sleeve of three chocolate cupcakes covered with a continuous strip of thick white icing.

Our classes were at the home of our teacher--Esther Simon Brown. A small, dumpy woman with an amazing voice, ESB had been, before she contracted polio, an actress. Now she taught Dramatics.

As beginners, we had little 'pieces' to learn and perform, with the appropriate movements.  Like this:

What’s worse when you’re eating an apple (hands on hips)

Than to find a big fat worm? (hands open outspread)

Noe doesn’t it make you shiver? (Hug self)

And doesn’t it make you squirm? (Squirm)

Well, I’ll tell you something that’s worse than that (Hands on hips)

And I know you (point at audience) will think so too

It’s to find, when you’re eating an apple (Look at pretend apple in hand and make a face)

A worm, bitten in two (big face, toss pretend apple over shoulder.)

(I also remember the ten ballet positions from my brief experience with ballet class in the first or second grade. But I digress.)

So, not great art, but a beginning. We progressed, over the two or three years we 'took,' to monologues and recitals. (I did Vera Cheera's Purple Pills for Pink People--which had its moments as the speaker got increasingly tongue-tied. And I was the 'ghost in the green gown' in a very dull play of that name about a group of girls spending the night in a haunted house.

But my favorite memories of that self-improving time, were when ESB would send me and my best friend Lynn upstairs to 'practice.' (An embarrassing memory: we would slip into the kitchen and filch a couple of dill pickles from the big jar on the counter before heading upstairs.)

Our practice was perfunctory. What we did was to improvise silly skits. All that creativity is lost to memory, alas, except for the finale of one about the courtship of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett:

RB: (passionately) Marry me, Elizabeth, and go to Italy!

EB: (wailing) But, Robert, I want to be with you!

We were very proud of the humor. 

So did dramatics help me be more self-assured? Maybe. A little. I learned I could stand up in front of an audience and nothing terrible would happen. I learned to, as ESB taught us, to 'speak from the diaphragm,' with the result that my voice is sometimes so low I'm mistaken for a man on the phone.

And when I became an author and had to speak to audiences, I found I was pretty good at it. Thank you, Esther Simon Brown. And I apologize about the pickles.

                                                        

Winter Trees and the French Broad River

 

Early Morning Flotsam and Jetsam

                                                                                 

Jenny wakes around six, flaps her ears whap whap whap and moves about the room, making little whining noises. She wants to eat and go outside but I am determined not to let her out till seven. So I say NO! Go night-night! And she sighs and goes back to curl up on her bed.

Then I lie there, half awake, and the oddest thoughts float through my head. One day it was two words—eleemosynarary and sublunary, o,r more specifically, dull sub lunary lovers. Later, when Jeny had achieved her goal and was outside howling and I was having my coffee, I looked them up. Eleemosynary pertains to charity and sublunary lovers (ordinary, earth-bound folks) is from a famous poem by John Donne.

I am fascinated by the stuff my half-awake mind comes up with, like seaweed, driftwood, and assorted flotsam and jetsam left on the shore of my mind by the unending waves of thought.

                                                                             

A Message from the Kittehs

                                                                                  

Three dog day? Please, give me a freakin' break. So, what are we, chopped liver?

                                                          

The woman says all we do is lie around all day and that doesn't make for very good pictures.

This is true. We are busiest at night with all the little toys to bat around. 

Perhaps she needs to explore the night capabilities of her camera. 

As if. She doesn't wake up even when we jump on her.

Our public will simply have to take it on trust that we are active and agile, especially between 2 and 4 am. 

An aura of mystery never hurt anyone.

                                                  

At the Beach--Long Ago

More from the trove of old pictures that didn't make it into my grandparents' albums. This first one, probably from the Twenties, puzzled and then startled me. The bulky fella on the left is identified as a Mr. Anderson, next to him, looking demure, is my grandmother, and on the far right is surely my grandfather. But who is the long-legged armful stretched across his lap? Mrs. Anderson? I know that my grandparents had friends named Anderson--but just how friendly were they? I know things loosened up a good deal in the Roaring Twenties but my grandparents?

Finally, I realized--that babe is my mother, probably in her mid-teens. Mrs. Anderson was likely behind the camera.

I zoomed in on my grandfather. When I knew him, he was mostly bald with a fringe of grey/white hair and a tidy little mustache. A distinguished gent. But back in the day, he was pretty darn good-looking.

When I showed this closeup to Josie, I asked if she knew who it was and she immediately said, "My daddy." Yep, there's a very strong resemblance.

Fast forward to the Thirties and my mother and a group of friends--probably at Indian Rocks, the favorite beach of Tampa folk. I love the beach house and actually remember visiting either it or one like it. Alas, all replaced by high rises now.

 

Three Dog Day

                                                                           

                                                                                       

The Cunning Man

                                                                          

Davies is one of my favorite authors, to whom I return again and again, always finding something new to think about, always enjoying his keen perceptions about humanity.

This is the second book in his (unfinished)Toronto Trilogy, but it reads like a standalone. The narrator is a physician with an uncanny gift for diagnosis and an unusual methodology. Humor, high jinks, a possible saint, a possible murder in a very high Anglican church and all the convoluted relationships among a certain set of Toronto's intellectual/artistic crowd are grist for Davies' mill--which grinds exceeding small, indeed.

An utterly delightful re-re-read!

NOTE: Regarding the caduceus --the physician's symbol of two serpents twined around a staff--Davies (through his characters) has this to say: 

". . . the warring serpents of Hermes--Knowledge and Wisdom, balanced in an eternal tension."

"Knowledge being science and all the accumulated lore you have pumped into you at medical school; science which keeps changing and shifting all through your lifetime, like a snake shedding its old skin--"

"And Wisdom, with which you have to apply and temper the whole business, and fit it to the patient who sits before you, so that it too has a serpentine sinuosity and of course the wisdom which snakes are--quite mistakenly--supposed to possess."

I've been fortunate to have known a few medical providers who seemed to try for that balance.

Snow Days and Imagination Exercises for Meema

                                                                          

First of all, look at this! No front teeth! (But there are new ones coming in.)                                                        

Monday and Wednesday were snow days and I stayed with Meema. I found lots to do.

                                                      
I had a remote learning packet with stuff to do. It was all pretty easy.                                                     

Meema kept asking me questions, so I went and got her spatula for her to play with. I am good at schoolwork. And on the last Awards Day, I got an award for Expressive Reading. Meema was very happy--she always tells me how good it is to read with expression. I sometimes do different voices too.

                                                          
The babies love the story about baby dragons.                                                          

All that was on Wednesday. On Monday, Meema and I worked on putting together a kaleidoscope and she kept looking at the directions. I told her to use her imagination and she kept saying we needed to follow the directions. (There was glitter and little tiny stars and little purple balls EVERYWHERE.)                                                      

We finally got the kaleidoscope together and then I decided to give Meema some Imagination Lessons.

                                                                                

I made her an Imagination Mask to help her use her imagination. (There is a back part with brown hair but you can't see it.)

                                                                             
                                                                             

             Then I made an Imagination Trail for her to follow. (Editor's note: Coins are good for playing with but haven't the importance they once had.)

                                                            

 I showed Meema how I used my imagination and put the leftover glitter in some play dough. I also did a song about imagination. 

The we took turns doing puppet shows. I think Meema's imagination got better. But I will keep working on her.

                                                         

                                                     

Rabbit, Rabbit

                                                                                    

Trying something a bit different. Apologies for the lack of drawing skills--I thought I'd have time to do a better version, but life caught up with me.