Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.
~ William Shakespeare
(A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
summer tales and dreams
Tag: gardens
gathering kindness
I hope to have gathered
To repay your kindness
The willow leaves
Scattered in the garden.
~ Matsuo Bashō
(The Narrow Road to the Deep North: And Other Travel Sketches)
at the herb farm
Last weekend we took a ride out to The Salem Herbfarm. It was a hot and humid day so we didn’t last too long. Took a few pictures and bought a moonflower and a bamboo pole for it to climb on. Fortunately the weather has cooled off for now, after a wild evening of violent thunderstorms, which produced devastating tornadoes in Springfield and Monson, Massachusetts…
This weekend Tim has been working from home and a kind of lethargy has set in, in spite of the delightful weather. This past week I got a lot of work done on my garden and the living room. Janet and I are making plans…
No more house centipede sightings and yesterday I finally got up the nerve to sit on the couch again…
Reading a fascinating book: A Time for Everything by Karl Ove Knausgård. It’s an unusual piece of historical fiction, based loosely on the lives of characters from the Bible. But it gets into their heads and reinterprets the ways Cain or Noah, for example, might have experienced Biblical events. The author’s descriptions of the natural world of pre-flood times are detailed and vivid. The book is supposed to examine the nature of angels, too, but I’m only a little less than half way through.
virus two
After more than a week of concentrated and intense work on our family history and my garden, I sat down yesterday to catch up on this neglected blog and to visit the blogs of my friends. First I took my turns on Scrabble on Facebook, though, and while playing had my laptop attacked by another virus – apparently the same one (or similar to the one) that infected it when I was playing Scrabble back in March. In spite of my faithfully installing every virus protection update sent to me.
Tech Support (Tim) worked on the situation yesterday and more this morning and then decided to take my laptop to work with him. I’m using his computer for now, again with no access to my word or picture files! But I do have some quote/painting posts scheduled ahead of time that will appear now and then. Feeling a little lost and disconnected…
Typhoid fever! A school child in Connecticut has come down with typhoid fever. Wonder how he or she got it? Hope he or she will be all right…
Decorated for Midsummer this morning…
cat cataracts
Tim took a picture of my new tulips (above) yesterday. I suppose I might have planted them a little closer together…
5.2.11 ~ Woodbridge, Virginia
This sweet little cat is Meems. She used to be named Tibby, but after she gave birth to Tibette her family started calling her Mommy. (And Tibette became known as Baby.) But Mommy’s favorite human, our niece Erica, calls her Meems. She is a Munchkin (breed) who was born in Italy about fifteen years ago, if memory serves. She was a stray who adopted the family we just went to visit, and she was pregnant with Baby when the family moved from Italy back home to Virginia. Baby is not a Munchkin, however, and is larger than her mother!
So Meems is still sweet and petite but is now elderly and suffering with cataracts, it would seem. She dislikes cameras so the only way I could get her to hold her head up was to scratch her chin with one hand and hold the camera with the other. 🙂 She keeps pretty much to herself, so I was startled to find her eye looking like this because my sister Beverly’s cat, Bernie, has the same problem. And it is supposedly rare. But Meems’s vet thinks hers was caused by an injury, and Bernie’s vet thinks his are caused by a virus.
7.29.10 ~ Storrs, Connecticut
Cataracts are not as common in cats as they are in dogs; in fact, they are very rare. Most cataracts in the cat develop secondary to inflammation within the eye, from trauma, or some other eye problem. Rarely, cataracts in the cat may be inherited, may arise with abnormal development of the lens, or may occur in association with nutritional abnormalities in the young cat.
~ PetDoc
It seems to me cats, like people, are living longer than they did when I was a child. Long enough to be plagued with more of the infirmities of old age.
a full weekend
Saturday: Autocross is a hobby Dan and Erica (above, the birthday girl with her sun-screening parasol) share on weekends and for this event they took Tim along with them. Tim got a sunburn in spite of applying sunblock and wearing a hat, but he had a great time riding shotgun with his brother and his niece, who were taking turns driving in their shared little blue Miata.
Meanwhile Fran and I went to see African Cats in the morning, had a lovely long lunch, and then went to see Water for Elephants in the afternoon. Both movies were very good. I read Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen a couple of years ago and thought the movie followed the storyline pretty well, but I wish they had included a little more about the elephant’s mischief with the circus lemonade stand. African Cats was especially wonderful, the cinematography was spectacular and the stories were unforgettable. Fran and I found ourselves crying and laughing and cheering for Sita the cheetah and Layla the lioness. The true story was touching without being sentimental – what sacrifices mothers will make for their little ones! If you see how Layla plans for her daughter Mara’s future you will know beyond any doubt that animals do love and understand loss. I’ll be buying this one when it comes out!
Sunday: Five of us went into Washington D.C. to visit the Eastern Market. First had lunch at a fine Italian restaurant, Acqua al 2 (Water for 2, place-mat above). There are three of them, the original one in Florence, Italy, one in San Diego, California, and this one in D.C. Tim & I were teased a little – they said we looked like the couple pictured on the place-mat! We had a nice window seat where we could people-watch at the market. (Below, our view) The food was delightful and very satisfying.
After shopping, Dan & Fran bought some Italian food at the market to cook for our dinner. I gained 5 pounds on this trip! Back to moderation for me!
We were parked on North Carolina Avenue and admired the charming townhouses (above) and gardens (below) along the street.
Monday: Train ride home was pleasant and uneventful. We were wondering if security would be tighter or changed in some way after learning about Osama bin Laden’s death late Sunday night. While Tim was off getting coffee and I was sitting with our bags at Union Station in D.C. a bomb-sniffing dog and its handler checked out our bags and then moved on to the next person’s bags with no comment.
It was a wonderful weekend and I feel so refreshed after reconnecting with Fran and having some good conversations. Today I’m puttering around unpacking and doing laundry, etc. Had a can of sardines for calcium and Vitamin D. Went out on the balcony at noon for my fifteen minutes of sunshine, and gave myself a little Reiki while I was at it. The birds were sweetly singing, too! Maybe I’ll put some flowers out there this year…
a little trip to the movies
Tim was on call last night so I didn’t think we’d be going anywhere today, but he wasn’t called too often and he got enough sleep, so we took a little trip to Madison, which is a 45-minute drive from here. I badly wanted to see Jane Eyre and the only place it is showing around here is the Madison Art Cinema.
We stopped at When Pigs Fly for brunch and then braved I-95 southbound to reach our destination. We usually wait for movies to become available on Netflix, but we were told the cinematography was amazing in this one, so off we went and I was not disappointed.
After the movie we strolled around the center of town and photographed some of the sculptures. The weather was lovely so we got some ice cream, sat in the car, and watched a squirrel busily foraging for food as we enjoyed our treat. We discussed the various versions of the film we have seen.
Fortunately for me I had read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, and all her other books, long before seeing any of the film versions. The story is so long it is difficult to tell in the space of a two-hour movie. For this 2011 version, directed by Cary Fukunaga, I felt the most important parts of the story were included and I actually liked the way it was told with flashbacks.
My favorite production is the 1983 BBC television mini-series of Jane Eyre. I bought it on two video tapes and wore them out just in time to replace them with the new DVD. It follows most of the book and was great to watch in the winter when I had four hours to curl up with a cup of tea and a blanket…
When I went to see the 1996 version, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, I remember being disappointed because it didn’t cover all that I thought it should. But that was about fifteen years ago so perhaps I should give it a fresh try.
The 1944 version with Orson Welles was terrible, in my humble opinion. I found Welles’ portrayal of Rochester about as frightening as it gets. It was like a melodramatic horror movie and not a deep and moving love story. But then I’m highly sensitive and I’m sure there are others who didn’t feel as repulsed as I did.
But I think all the versions I’ve seen have had the heartfelt words that Jane Eyre uttered to Edward Rochester, which sum up what I feel is the main message of the story:
Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! I have as much soul as you, and full as much heart! … I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh; it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal – as we are! … I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you.
~ Charlotte Brontë
(Jane Eyre)
To be released in October – a graphic novel, Jane, by April Lindner.
bits of stellar matter
We are bits of stellar matter that got cold by accident, bits of a star gone wrong.
~ Arthur Eddington
(Our Place in the Universe)
We’ve all got stardust in our bones.
~ Ben Harper
♫ (Get It Like You Like It) ♫
Our planet, our society, and we ourselves are built of star stuff.
~ Carl Sagan
(Cosmos)
We are stardust, we are golden
We are billion-year-old carbon
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
~ Joni Mitchell
♫ (Woodstock) ♫
opening the door
♥ Happy Valentine’s Day ♥
by John William Waterhouse