At the Pond

We took a bottle of bubbly and some herbed brie and crackers down to enjoy the early evening at the pond. The scent of the wisteria was intoxicating.

Along with the wisteria, the yellow flags (irises) are putting on a show.

Many years ago, before the property next door had anyone living on it, I pulled up a couple of yellow flags growing in a boggy spot just past our fence line and transplanted them to our pond. They have done well.

It's such a beautiful and peaceful spot. There were butterflies and red winged blackbirds. As we sat there, sipping the wine and enjoying the surroundings, the thought came to me that the pond would be a perfect spot for my ashes to be spread someday. And a minute or two after I'd silently entertained that thought, John said, You know, I think this is where my ashes could be spread someday.

When you've been with a person well over sixty years, this kind of simultaneous thought happens quite often

The pond is a fine respite from the news of the day.

                                                    

                                   We'll be back.

 

Oh, Robert!

As I continue going through our many bookshelves, deciding what to donate to our library book sale, sometimes I just have to re-read a book before consigning it to the pile of donations.

I have a bunch of Robert Heinlein's novels--mainly well-worn paperbacks but a few hardcovers. I think I started reading him in junior high. I was a big fan of YA sci-fi. Heinlein could tell a good story and imagine so many futures. I was hooked.  Farmer in the Sky, The Rolling Stones, Citizen of the Galaxy, Double Star, Time for the Stars, Starship Troopers, and many others are still quite enjoyable to me.

Stranger in a Strange Land came along when I was an adult--and I loved it. But at some point Heinlein's adult fiction took a turn. Still interesting plots, for sure, but the main characters began to seem all alike. Alpha males and perky yet submissive females. Lots of casual nudity, a touch of incest . . .oh, nothing truly awful, but kinda annoying. (If the male protagonist threatens to spank his girlfriend one more time . . .)

I found on rereading these two that my reaction was much the same that caused me to toss my James Bond books. I'd really enjoyed those stories fifty years ago but time, social mores, and I have moved on.

These two will go to the library sale. Job has an interesting, if confusing, premise, but it revisits so many old Heinlein tropes that it had me groaning. It does, however, have an fun take on the Rapture, Heaven, Hell, and various gods. (Who knew that Jehovah had a Jewish accent?)

The Door into Summer was written earlier, before Heinlein got so repetitive. (He wrote 32 novels and 59 short stories so one sees how this might happen.) It has a great twisty plot with corporate theft, the "long sleep" (suspended animation to allow the sleeper to skip thirty years,) and time travel which allows for the righting of wrongs. It was a quick fun re-read, but I don't foresee wanting to read it yet again. Into the library pile with it.

You can see why this de-accessioning is taking a while.

 

In Iris Time

 

Things Left Undone

I've wrestled my workroom into a cleaner, neater, more organized place. But in doing so, I've been confronted with an embarrassing number of unfinished projects. 

There are a bunch of quilt blocks that were demonstration pieces, back when I taught quilting at our local junior college branch. And there are leftovers from larger projects. 

Like these 9 large squares--leftover from my niece Amelia's wedding quilt. Well, hell, thought I. I'll use them to make a quick pillow cover for that pillow form that's taking up room on my cutting table.

And I did. And it felt so good to have finished something--and to be sewing again -- that I determined to do some more.

This was an easy one--a basket block with the handle and heart needing to be appliqued.

I'd forgotten how much I enjoy hand sewing.

Done! I'll put it with a few other red/blue/yellow blocks I discovered and maybe someday put them all together in a little quilt. Maybe. First I need to finish some unfinished quilts.

Like this one. I think I made the blocks in one of my classes, using fabric reproducing Civil War era colors and patterns. Unfortunately, I really don't much like the muddy colors which may be why I never finished quilting it.

All but one block were quilted and the binding was on, but back then I'd begun an ambitious scheme of lots of quilting in the borders. Now, older and wiser, I thought about it and decided it wasn't needed--the three layers were already stable with the quilting in the blocks. So I picked out the one line I'd begun (20 years ago,) finished the unquilted block, and pronounced it done. Now I just have to figure out what to do with it.

But it feels great to finish these orphans. And though my quilting isn't what it once was, I was delighted to find I could still thread a tiny quilting needle.

Now I'm working on a House block which I evidently had intended to embellish with embroidery. So out comes the long diused embroidery thread and hoop.

As I began work on the cross pieces in the windows, I thought ahead to doing some vines and flowers around the door, some shrubbery, smoke coming from the chimney . . . And then, I thought, maybe I'll embroider Home Sweet Home across the top.

Then I looked more closely at the piece. There, in faint pencil across the top, I'd already written Home Sweet Home--twenty years ago. 

Better late than never. 

 

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!