Aimless Daze

Again I have no direction.  I am adrift like a leaf in a gutter, a mast-broken ship in a storm.  I've gone to the Farmer's Market to get tomatoes for Durwood and zucchini, golden beets, and baby patty pan squash for the week's veggies, hosed the cottonwood fluff off the air conditioner vanes and have the soaker hose running on Durwood's raspberries.  I finished another preemie hat and took today's Photo a Day picture.  Figuring out what to take was tricky.  The theme's "building" and since I'm not building anything capturing the verb form of the word is out.  I do live in a building (it's called a house or more precisely a duplex) so I went out to see if I couldn't capture an unusual angle of that oh-so-familiar building.  I think I did okay.  This is the patio door, the soffit and gutter, and my "menopausal goddess" sculpture.  I like it, like it all.  Now I think I'll go downstairs to rewind a skein of yarn so that the colors I want to knit with are in position in the yarn ball, then I think I'll sew up a couple more zip bags.  I haven't made the largest size yet and I was thinking that a set of them would be a good thing to have on hand.  I made a brilliant discovery the other day... I have a crapload of remnants of outdoor and upholstery fabrics that are stiff enough on their own that I don't need to use interfacing so I can skip one big step PLUS I don't have to go buy more since I'm running low.  Genius, no?  I didn't manage to get any motel rooms reserved for our trip home from Yellowstone yesterday so that can go back on the list for today.  For some unknown reason I plunged into a funk yesterday and haven't had much luck clawing my way out yet.  I doubled up on St. John's Wort last night and this morning, hopefully that'll help.  I was feeling so down that I skipped yoga & knitting last night, the first time I've done that in months.  Oh, I am a puzzlement.  I downloaded my 2 free Audible books yesterday, one I know I like and one I've never read, and once again I had to call tech support to get them up and running on the Kindle Fire.  I'm always so embarrassed because it's usually the simplest thing that I don't understand or figure out, like I had tapped the Audible app on the Kindle but didn't know to tap the "refresh" circle arrow and, poof, there they were.  Bah.  Ah well, at least I'm smart enough to call before my frustration level hits the stratosphere.

July 14--Georges Seurat, The Forest at Pontaubert.  At dusk the fireflies rose and filled the dimming forest with their lights.  The wind died, the cicadas song diminished, and the tree frogs and crickets took up their tunes.  Eloise sat in the old yellow metal chair in the shade of the catalpa tree watching the red gold rays of sunset pierce the darkening woods.  The day's last hummingbird buzzed the honeysuckle blooms and then darted to her nest in the brier rose thicket.  She had sat all through the afternoon reading, or trying to, keeping an ear cocked for the sound of tires on the gravel drive.  Michael was to have arrived on the afternoon train.  he had refused her offer of a ride, saying he wasn't sure when he'd be able to get out of the city, but it was getting dark.  It must have been nearly eight o'clock and he hadn't come or called.

That's it for me today, chickens.  Enjoy your Saturday.

--Barbara

Happy Birthday, DD!

Oh, our best baby girl is 31 years old today.  I wish I was near her so I could make her cupcakes and peach ice cream, take her on a picnic in a park, then fly kites in a sunny field.  I'd hug her and smooch her until her cheeks were chapped, then I'd make all her troubles take the weekend off.  Thinking about how much I love her makes a little warm, butterfly place right below my heart.  She's my dream daughter.  I love you so much it'll never go away, DD, no matter what.  Always remember that.  (not that anything's going on that might change it, I just wanted to lay that out there in case you ever wonder)  Now I've made myself cry.  Silly.  Hey, I dreamed that we were on our Wild West trip (DD was along too) and we shopped at Goodwill then rode horses out of the Liberty St. backyard to get there.  Oh, and we shopped at a casino too for socks and cigarettes (none of us smokes anymore).  Don't you love dreams?  There's nothing I "have" to do today and I'm kind of drunk with the freedom of it.  My mind is flitting from pillar to post with all kinds of ideas--sit on the patio listening to the fountain and watch the birds, sew up a nest of zip bags or ten, knit while I listen to an audiobook...   Hey, do any of you get Audible books?  I've signed up so I can get 2 free books this month (I'll cancel before I have to pay) and I'm kind of stuck what to choose.  Part of me wants to get books that I know I like and part of me wants to take a stab at one I'm not familiar with.  I think I'm spoiled by the free Kindle books and borrowing them from the library so I'm having the devil of a time choosing.  Help me!

July 13--American, New York, Secretary Bookcase.  It was too ornate.  Its gilt and painted surfaces were busy with decorative painting and carvings.  It sat there in Meemaw's study buzzing with energy like a generator.  Clarice hated it.  She felt like the secretary didn't like her either.  She knew that it was a piece of furniture, that it didn't have feelings.  But she couldn't pass by those hairy paw feet without expecting it to reach out and snag her then devour her.  She was sure it would decorously suppress a belch as it swallowed her down.

That's what happens when you stay up too late.  Oh, today's Photo a Day them is "open."  Here's a Stargazer lily that opened yesterday.  It smells as pretty as it looks--and I'm not a fan of pink but I love these.  Love them.
--Barbara

Thusday Is My Friday

Since it's my last work day of the week so today is like crossing the International Date Line of my week, tomorrow I get Friday again.  Good deal, huh?  I try to treat Friday as my "day out of time" and not have a string of errands and chores to do, all that can wait for Saturday.  Once again I'm hoping to go diving on Sunday with Kev & Deb.  (fingers crossed)  Last weekend he had a gig on Saturday night and didn't get home until the wee hours so they didn't get moving until after noon and by then I was embroiled in other plans, plus it was Suds & Cinema night.  Can't miss that, ya know. Ah well.  It's all good.  I woke up with that scratchy feeling behind my nose and pressure in my sinuses.  I'm totally blaming the wacky weather we've had so far this summer.  If this is a cold I'm not accepting delivery.  No way.  No time to be sick, there's too much fun stuff to do.  The weather was absolutely perfect at the City Band concert last night, warm with a nice cool breeze that kept the mosquitoes away.  They played a mix of marches, waltzes, Gershwin tunes, and a little opera with a wonderful tenor who teaches at the local university singing.  Man, I love that stuff.  It peeves me no end that it's been so beastly hot this month, too hot to go sit in the park.  Oh good, I just checked the schedule for the rest of the summer and I'll only miss the last concert (if the weather cooperates) being out West.  I am a good person.  How do I know?  I just went out into the gorgeous morning sunshine to tie up Durwood's tomato plants.  Oh, wait, it only took ten minutes and it was my only chance to be outside today until nearly sunset, I got to do a little weeding, and my fingers smell great with tomato leaf scent.  Hm, not so selfless now, am I?  I prefer to think of it as looking on the bright side.  (Pollyanna, anyone?)  DD called me yesterday to say that she couldn't wait until tomorrow and opened her Happy Birthday package when it arrived yesterday, and she loved it.  She wanted a darning egg to fix the holes in her handknit socks.  I didn't have one and I don't think Mom did either, at least I didn't find one there and that's the sort of thing I'd have kept, so I went down to Ralph's Antiques.  The place is a maze and a fire hazard and Ralph's a little "handsy" (but he's old and you can distract him, I have for years) but if you're thorough you can find goodies.  I searched and searched and finally found one tucked in a case behind a gate with a "no admittance" sign on it.  While Ralph was distracted by 2 younger and shapelier girls, I breached the gate and nabbed the egg.  Victory was mine!  It's got the patina of the ages, but I washed most of that off with a little Murphy's Oil Soap, and I knew she'd love it.  Then I sewed her up a little zippered bag to keep her darning supplies in.  When I think of it, it's not much but it took some effort and risk (remember those old man hands) to get and I thought of her while I sewed.  Now every time she darns socks for the rest of her life she'll think of me and how much  love her.  That's a gift for both of us.  Today's Photo a Day is "texture."  I took pictures of dried corn on the cob, the felted and fluffy pencil cup holder on the table, but the winner is the chicken wire and rattan basket of peaches in the sunlight on the kitchen counter.  Have a day.  Gotta run.

July 12--Franck, Canal St. Martin.  The drips were a constant rhythm as Marie slid along on the brick edge of the tunnel.  Way far away sunlight poked into the dark where the canal joined the river.  La rive gauche they called it, the Left Bank where artists and musicians lived and drank.  Marie worked in a little tabac on a side street.  She had done a bit of modeling but she was too plain, not exotic looking enough for the latest crop of visionaries to haunt the galleries and cafes.  She probably shouldn't be down there walking home but it was cool down there and the traffic up top was murder.  Taking the shortcut through the canal shaved nearly fifteen minutes from her walk.  After spending ten hours on her feet behind the cash register she was in a hurry to get to her apartment and put her feet up.

Oh, honey, turn back now.  But she won't, you know she won't, and it'll be bad.  I can already hear the music, can't you?  Adios, muchachas.

--Barbara
 

Another Red

Today's Photo a Day is "letter" and I'd like to have an actual, hand-written letter to show you but I don't.  My first, very first thought when I read that yesterday was what we used to teach DS & DD their letters--the big, red K for K-Mart.  It's about a mile from our old house where the kids grew up and we made many a pilgrimage to K-Mart.  I'd pull out of the driveway and tell them to keep watch to see who'd be the first to spot the big, red K.  In the olden days (30 years ago--gah!) the sign on the pole was just that, a big, red K all by itself standing tall and proud.  In the intervening years they've modernized it and changed it, of course; Sears bought them and duded them up (or tried to), and they've struggled to keep going with the tanked economy and the depredations of Wal-Mart.  They're still there, still hanging on, so I thought they deserved pride of place today.  Here it is--the big, red K, with a side order of Lambeau Field (home of the GB Packers, you know, that football team?) in the background.  I'll bet you didn't know that the Packers' stadium is smack dab in the middle of a neighborhood.  It is.  I pass it at least once a week, it's been a fixture of my whole life here in good, ol' Green Bay, Wisconsin.  Enough about that football team, my white lilies are blooming!  They are so pretty and perfect, they look fake.  But they're not and they smell like heaven.  I'm almost tempted to open the front windows to let in the hot, humidity and fragrance but I won't because that also brings in mold and mildew which makes it hard for Durwood to breathe... and he's not getting out of taking me to see the bubbling mud and geysers in Yellowstone next month.  We're going if I have to truss him up and toss him on the roof rack.  (oh, not really, you know how I exaggerate, sheesh)  Yesterday afternoon I spread the map out and post-it noted the sights where we want to stop along the way to figure out our stopping places.  I made a reservation at the NoDak Motel in Dickinson, North Dakota and one for Room 11 at the Silvergate Cabins in Silver Gate, Montana, where Doug informed me that they have a "Wisconsin Cheese Tariff" in effect.  We have to bring Wisconsin cheese, our choice of variety; he even instructed me on the wonder that is dry ice for transporting said cheese to Montana in good condition.  Too funny.  As a side note, I just noticed that motel rooms get progressively more expensive until we get to the Super 8 in Gardiner, Montana which is a whopping $140/night.  Naturally we're staying there the longest, but Durwood found out in the AARP newsletter that he can buy a Lifetime Senior Pass from the National Park Service for ten bucks that's good for entry in all of the national parks and attractions we want to visit.  Score!  I'm not old enough to qualify but I can get in on his as long as I'm in the same vehicle, which I plan to be.  I feel tons better about the trip now that I have some reservations made.  I'm going to see about getting a room in Yellowstone so we don't have to drive back and forth to Gardiner every day but if they're all filled up (which it looks like they are) we're good.  Whew.  On the way home we're going the southern route through the Badlands and all the things we want to see are clustered around Rapid City, South Dakota (Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse monument, etc.) so I'll leave one day/night for the drive from the park and find us a place to stay for a couple nights.  I want to be home on Friday August 24th so we can gear up for Family Supper night (the Wiener Off!) on Sunday the 26th, when we can bore the lot of them with tales of our exploits.  I'm looking forward to July 28th when we'll be at JZ & HZ's in Shawano for Family Supper to hear all about their 2 week Baltic adventure.  (Man, I hope they have pictures, even postcards are good.  I love hearing about people's trips.  I think I'm the world's best audience.  I love hearing about people's good fortune and I'm never jealous.  Never.  Oh, I might envy their ability to afford to do something I can't but I never begrudge them.  Not ever.  Ask my kids.  In that (sole) regard, I am a paragon.)  Better get a move on.  It's a work day, you know.

July 11--Paul Signac, Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde (La Bonne Mere), Marseilles.  Luisa stood watching the boat burn.  The men were silhouetted in the smoke and flames as they fought the fire.  She wondered why the boat burned at all.  Yes, it was wood and canvas, both flammable, but it was a boat, surrounded by water.  The timbers must absorb water.  How could it burn?  She had seen Parkes drying out wood for the fireplaces by leaning it around the great stove in the kitchen.  Maybe that's what made the boat fire so smoky.  The fire wasn't making any noise, neither were the sailors fighting it.  No one shouted orders, no one called for help.  The boat was lower in the water now and the fireboat had just rounded the point, bells clanging.  It made its way through the thicket of sailboats to come to the aid of the stricken craft.

How come no one on the sailboats or on shore were moving to help?  That's what I want to know.  Ah, well, you know the French...  Adieu, mes amis.  At least until tomorrow.

--Barbara

Do You Have A Favorite Color?

Or favourite colour, as they say in the Antipodes?  (That's what those in the British Isles call Australia.  The blog that publishes the Photo A Day lists is from Australia.)  Do you surround yourself with that color?  Array yourself in it?  I do.  I use it as a barometer of my moods in clothes, socks, and shoes.  Shoes!  I love shoes in my favorite color.  I have lots of them.  The uncertainty lies in the fact that I wear them both when I'm in a funk as a mood elevator and when I'm over-the-moon happy, so an observer (Durwood) doesn't know whether to tiptoe or grin... and that's the way I like it.  (hee)  If you don't already know, my favo(u)rite colo(u)r is red.  Red, glorious red.  Ahhh, I love it.  I have red roses (thanks, Dad), and a red car named Beverly, I have red shirts, red bags, red socks (socks, socks, I love red socks!), red shoes (we already know how I feel about red shoes), red reading glasses, a red massager, even my camera is red though I couldn't put it in the picture and still take the picture, red all manner of stuff, I even have a red parka for winter wear.  I don't have red hair (darn it) but I do have a friend (Lala) who does and my Grandma A had it so I have red hair genes, they're just recessive.  Maybe I'll have a red-headed grandbaby someday.  Wouldn't that be cool?  I like things red--strawberries and beets and cherries--but not red sunburn and not red blood... on the outside, I mean, inside I'm in favor of it.  Totally.  I even like Red Hots candies.  Are you redded out yet?  I'm winding down this paean to red so I can get on with my day.  I'm off to Wally World to invest in ingredients to make some DIY 100-calorie packs of snacks we can take on our Wild West adventure next month.  We'll need car snacks and Weight Watchers had a list of them in last week's email, so I'm making some to see what we like best.  I'm so sharp I cut myself.  Okay, descending into oddball territory.  Time to wind this up.  Or down.

July 10--Manohar, Painter; Mir-Ali, Calligrapher, Shah Jahan Album.  "Oh my god, I hate this wallpaper."  Julietta flung her hands up as if to ward off an attack.  It was all Beth could do to keep from rolling her eyes.  "It's a copy of a page from the Shah Jahan album from seventeenth century India,"she told her client. "It's been written up in Country Living, House Beautiful, and The New York Times.  Beth knew that Julietta's tune would change when she heard those names.  "Oh.  Well perhaps I can live with it," Julietta said with a sniff.  I'll just bet you can, Beth though, and you'll dine out on that for a solid week.  But she just smiled at her problem client and aimed her at the view from the expanse of east-facing windows.  Fifty-seven showings and the woman still can't make up her mind.

Well, that took off on an unexpected tangent.  I noticed that often my first impulse is to write in quotes, to make this little prompt writing a conversation.  That's not all bad, do you think?  Okay, I'm off to cash my (smaller) paycheck and buy some snack-makings.  See ya.
--Barbara

A Bag Jag...with Hat

I've really been getting into sewing lately, what with the quilting Block of the Month (BOM) I signed up for over at Craftsy (if you think you'd ever like to make a quilt you should sign up, it's free and forever, you can jump in whenever and play along) and the instant gratification aspect of sewing.  One of the quilters I'm following on Craftsy is applekrisp whose blogs as Sister of the Divide so I cruised over to her blog and, lo and behold, she made some zipped bags I liked the look of.  I thought, hmm, I have fabric, a bale of fabric.  I have zippers.  I have fusible interfacing.  And off I went.  

By bedtime I had 3 of the medium size made and finished.  I will be making more, small and large ones.  I'm already thinking of the fabrics I have in the armoire... and zippers will be 50% off at Hancock in 2 weeks.  Uh-oh.

Speaking of instant gratification, I went downstairs and resurrected the yarn and pattern to make preemie hats on Friday before Friday Night Knitting.  I had to have something yarn-ly that would finish quickly.  I love making these little hats in this bright variegated yarn.  Babies need color, don't you think?

Better

I'm in better spirits today.  When Durwood got up from his nap yesterday afternoon I went out and mowed all the front and side yards and the backyard around the garden and patio, and I swooped over and mowed down one tall, big-leafed weed but the rest of it I left.  If odd paths show up in the weeds I'll go out and deal with them then.  Once I had that done I lit the grill (charcoal, not gas) and grilled some country style pork ribs.  Oh yum, I love pork.  We need to not have it often because I just gobbled up my serving.  Durwood microbaked a tater and boiled the golden beets I bought at the Farmer's Market.  All delicious.  Going to the movie was a good idea.  It was National Lampoon's Summer Vacation.  I'd never seen it.  I don't have to again.  It was okay, but then I'm neither a slapstick fan nor a Chevy Chase fan so I might not be the target audience.  It was funny enough and it had pretty scenery, just not my cup of tea.  I did like spending the evening with Cookie and her folks.  Having a big root beer and an order of sweet potato fries helped too.  In two weeks the movie is The Big Lebowski.  I've never seen all of that one and I wasn't sure I liked what I did see, but it's DS's all-time favorite movie so I'm looking forward to it.  I finally delivered the last of my 2011 "Facebook Pay It Forward" promises last night.  I had every intention of accomplishing that in 2011 but then Mom pulled her little stunt in late October which threw the rest of my year into a cocked hat.  I kept the note on my bulletin board and I've been gradually nibbling away at it.  I made Lala a lap duvet at Easter, I made DD prayer flags in June, and I made Cookie a zippered pouch on Saturday.  All done, all delivered, now I can cross that off my "should" list.  Whew.  (I'd thought about making a painting for each of them but I mostly suck at painting so it might have been a good idea to not do that.  Sewing's something I can do, sometimes well, plus I have all that fabric...)  Today's Photo A Day theme is "big."  I was wondering what I had that was big (besides me, although I'm almost 2# smaller than I was last Monday... !!!) and I thought of my Maple Tree Scarf.  It's my own take on the Sky Scarf idea--you pick an hour to look at the sky (or in my case the maple outside my window) every day and knit 2 rows of the colors you see.  I love the winter part with its infrequent snowy white rows and the brown/black/variegated bark rows.  Since summer's pretty much one long green I put all my greens, solid and variegated, into a bag and I'm changing them out at whim.  I like it--and it's 62" of scarf as of today.  That's 28 weeks worth of really looking at that maple tree, 28 weeks of one row down and one row back each day.  I'm looking forward to the autumn colors but I can wait, don't want to hurry summer.  It's already one big scarf.

July 9---Albrecht Durer, Adam and Eve.  The shop smelled like old paper.  There were books and posters everywhere.  Prints were hung on every bare wall and pinned to the ends of the ranks of shelves.  Tilda loved the place.  She loved books and old prints.  She was even charmed by the drifts of small bits of paper that covered every flat surface like dandruff.  She imagined, like Charles Schultz's Pig Pen said, that it was the dirt of the ages.  That maybe Shakespeare or Ovid or King Tut had touched those paper bits.  Monsieur Michel sat under the buzzing light behind the antique cash register, paging through journals and reading the obituaries to see who might have libraries to sell.  Behind him in the place of honor was a Durer engraving that Tilda would have given more than she was worth to possess.  Every time she saw it another creature revealed itself to her.

Don't you just love old book shops?  I do.  They smell great, all musty and papery, and there are treasures to discover on every shelf.    Ah, books.  Oh, look at the time!  Gotta get ready to keep the world safe from SCUBA diving.  It might be a red shoes day too.  I'll see.  A bientot, mes cheries.
--Barbara