Literary Leos

I'm getting ready to leave town for a brief foray into the Mississippi Delta with The Loved One. He will be playing golf. I will be doing girly things like swimming and maybe getting my nails done. I would like to do something really girly such as try skeet shooting, but I'm being discouraged. Perhaps rather than ask, I'll just tell him about it later.

I would be wrong to neglect mentioning the birthdays (today and tomorrow) of Hilaire Belloc and Beatrix Potter, he in 1870 and she in 1866.


I don't often wish to change my place in life with anyone, but I think that if I could be anyone who ever lived, Beatrix Potter would most likely top my list. Besides being a brilliantly-creative woman, she was forward-thinking, independent, imaginative, forthright and stubborn--all qualities I prize highly. Too often dismissed as "merely" the author and illustrator of timeless books for children, she was also an ardent champion for the preservation of farm communities in England's Lake District, and spent much of her life, earnings and inheritance in the pursuit. Her love affair and brief engagement with Norman Warne is the stuff of true romance...real love against all odds. Had he lived, who knows how her life might have ended up differently, but I suspect he might have seconded her just as stoutly in the causes she chose to support.


The Loved One gave Dear Daughter a copy of The Beatrix Potter Journal for Christmas last year. This is a lovely book, containing extracts from her journals from childhood to adulthood. One can trace the evolution of her art and writing page by delightful page. As Dear Daughter teeters on the edge of teenagerism, it makes my heart so glad to see her pulling out this book from time to time and curling up in her mushroom chair to read again the tale of a Most Remarkable Woman Who Loved Rabbits.

Long Black Veil

I'm too tired to blog. I still have lots to say--just no energy to say it right now.

In a nutshell-- the Loved One is home, Dear Daughter is getting contact lenses, I made a seriously good batch of eggplant parmigiana for dinner, and I'm still in deepest mourning for certain characters of the Harry Potter series. I understand why these things happened in Deathly Hallows, I just still can't believe it.

I know. I need to get a life. Or a nap. In one order or another.

Baggage

I did it again. I stayed up until 3:30 a.m. reading the newest Harry Potter novel. My eyes look like Platform 9 3/4s this morning.

I'm not going to reveal any secrets about the book, but will merely comment that two girls I know are going to be quite saddened by some of the events.

But it's all over now.

Sucked into the Swirling Vortex...

I have so much to blog about--the trip to New Orleans was, as always, interesting. Dear Daughter completed some amazing projects while at art camp. I STILL have more photos from Hawaii to post and discuss, and who would have thought to observe such artistry in a Waffle House in Ponchatoula, LA? Oh, and best of all, the Loved One is already in Fairbanks, waiting to board a plane that will take him first to Anchorage, then to Minneapolis, and finally home!!!

However, I'm suffering a huge setback in that a good friend bestowed upon us today his already-read copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. He cleverly ducked into a Kroger at 12:10 a.m. Saturday morning and nabbed a copy from a stack beside the frozen foods. While most of the die-hard fans were stuck in the cashier line at Border's Books waiting to be rung up, he was at home on chapter five already. So now, we have the book, and all of my momentum and plans for everything else have fallen by the wayside. Together, Dear Daughter and I have read three chapters. By myself, I've snuck-read up to about chapter nine. I can't stop now! It's only 10:30 p.m.!

I can't believe the Potter saga is coming to an end...

More when I resurface, I promise.

Crescent City, Here I Come

I'm leaving in a few hours to drive to New Orleans to fetch Dear Daughter home. She's been in the Crescent City for the past two weeks, visiting my sister, bonding with my dog-niece and dog-nephew (Zadie and Eli) and Siwon the Giant Orange Cat, going to art camp at New Orleans GlassWorks Studio, and basically perfecting the art of cool, as practiced by a 'tweenager. We've had some interesting phone calls, at all times of day, and some text and photo messages of NOLA-area restaurant menus. The latter were to tauntingly remind me that she was down there eating her fill of seafood and local favorites such as Crabby Jack's po-boys, while I was stuck here binge-eating chocolate-covered pecans and instant Thai peanut noodles.


We discovered art camp for DD last summer, in the wake of my dad's death. The entire year of his illness and on-and-off hospitalization, followed by his sudden-but-not-unexpected collapse and death had left us all rattled, but especially made a profound mark on her. She needed to get out of town and stay busy, and New Orleans was the perfect destination. My sister has lived there since 1978, so we've visited a lot, both pre- and post-Katrina. It's almost like a second home.


I had read the brochure on GlassWorks when I signed her up, but I really wasn't prepared for the depth and extent of what she would be doing. I read "building a kaleidoscope from a pre-fab kit and then making a metal stand" to be something like "gluing some pieces together." I was totally unprepared for Lena the Warrior Bunny (photo to come).

When I picked her up, my anxious and grieving girl had been transformed into a confident, paint-spattered and solder-scorched artist, who immediately begged for a welding machine to be installed in our garage.


Just having a baby should prepare you for the miraculous, but even 11 years later, Dear Daughter never ceases to amaze me. Often it seems like she will never cease to drive me up the wall, but that's to be expected when you have two redheads living in close proximity.


This is the longest time we've ever been separated in her life. We've both done pretty well, but I have to admit, I'm at my best when we're under the same roof. She brings out good things in me, and makes me want to be a better person, even in those moments when I'm failing most miserably at that goal.

Film Noir

Oh man, this movie is so good. I mean, good like Prizzi's Honor good. The writing, the direction, the casting, the costuming, the locations... You Kill Me is the total package.

Okay, it's about a man who kills people for a living. And he's a drunk. So bad a drunk even his Polish mob friends wanna see him in rehab, because, as he puts it, his drinking is "starting to interfere with the work." There's some language. There's some violence--both real and implied. There are also redemptive moments, both spoken and gestured. Sir Ben Kingsley is a giant. Tea Leoni is luminous and darkly comic. Dennis Farina still makes the best celluloid gangster of our time. See if you can spot Steve Buscemi in his brief, non-speaking role.

I am so happy I went out of the house to see this.

Notes on Bird-Watching

On a day so hot
the crows were walking
open-mouthed beneath the pear trees --
skipping, hopping, plotting
who-knows-what destructive mayhem--
the mockingbirds were having
none of that
and harried them in noisome, angry pairs.

Astonished at the hubris,
Unbelieving,
the giant crows gaped in wonder,
cawing aloud to one another
"Come and see! come and see!"