Fuzzy
The mourning cloak again. My camera batteries died immediately after this shot, so I wasn’t able to get a better focused one, alas. Almost such a great shot!
Archive for May, 2011
Whimsy
May 15, 2011 @ 11:28 am | Filed under: Nature Study, Photos
This little fellow gets more sprightly the day.
Comments are off
Ripening
May 14, 2011 @ 7:10 pm | Filed under: Photos
Our seventeenth wedding anniversary was mellow and nice. The piano recital was lovely; the girls did quite well. It was held out in Jamul, where the yellow-brown hills lift themselves up to the sky. I love it out there, all sere and windblown and smelling of sage, where the land seems to ripple like waves. Scott would like a house up on top of one of those hills, with that enormous view that takes the breath out of you. I’d rather one at the foot of the hill, where the mountain rises up above you, and you can look out your kitchen window while you wash dishes and watch the cloudshadows swim over the slopes.
I forgot to take my camera. But the tomatoes are what’s happening here at home.
Why I don’t play poker
May 14, 2011 @ 7:49 am | Filed under: Geek
Scott: You know Terrence Malick? Directed Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek in Badlands in 1973—What’s the matter?
Me: Nothing. Sorry. I was trying to resist the temptation to belt out “Coal Miner’s Daughter.”
Scott: It’s okay. You can go ahead.
Me: I didn’t want to derail you.
Scott: Um. Then next time, don’t grimace.
I just never get tired of watching them.
May 13, 2011 @ 1:24 pm | Filed under: Nature Study, Photos
I would give up my cellphone for you, little friend.
Into the void, blather.
May 13, 2011 @ 7:58 am | Filed under: Assorted and Sundry
Ohhh, Blogger-blogging friends, I miss you dearly. I hadn’t realized how MANY of you there are. My reader is woefully quiet this morning.
If only I had something interesting to say! Look at the opportunity I’m squandering—all those word-hungry readers out there refreshing and refreshing in vain! Now is the time for WordPress bloggers to speak and be heard!
Alas, I got nuthin’. That is, nothing I can dash off in a hurry for the morning-coffee crowd. I have all these enormously wordy posts languishing in my drafts file, the thinky ones, the long book-musings, the anecdotes-in-progress. But that doesn’t help right now, when all I’ve got are a few stolen moments between breakfast and “quiet painting time,” i.e. Rilla’s most frequently requested activity. Quiet being, of course, a relative term.
All I have time for now are tidbits. Jane devoured the entire eight+ years’ worth of Girl Genius archives in under a week, so I guess you could say it was a hit. I got a review copy of Astronaut Academy: Zero Gravity in the mail, a new middle-grade graphic novel by Dave Roman, and Beanie was begging to read it even before the jiffy-bag-filler dust had settled. Later, when I thought she’d finished, I swiped it back—and was almost immediately hunted down: “Mom, PLEASE tell me when you’ve finished because I need to read it AGAIN.”
So, yeah, maybe today I can hide in a closet and read it by flashlight or something. These kids, man. I’m pretty sure Rose has hidden the new Penderwicks in her bed—the top bunk, a dread packrat’s lair where no mother’s eyes dare peep.
In other news, something is eating my sunflower seedlings. Eating them! This is unacceptable. They are the joy of my life. Well, I mean, one of them.
I’m posting this picture because his pose looks EXACTLY like a painting of a cherub (with lute, I believe? but cheek definitely resting on palm) that my friend Lisa has in her living room, and I’m hoping she will confirm with a photo.
In other other news, tomorrow is Scott’s & my 17th wedding anniversary. (Seventeen, right? 1994?) I had this plan to upload a bunch of photos but that means scanning, and scanning is boring. But my marriage is not. It is many things, but boring has never once been one of them. Good decision, marrying that guy. Good decision.
Tomorrow is also Rose and Beanie’s piano recital. Rose’s song is Music Box Dancer and Beanie is playing Bach’s Minuet in G, which, because I am a child of the 80s, will always and forever take me back to this:
Which tells you more about me than you ever wanted to know.
North American camels? Who knew?
May 12, 2011 @ 7:13 pm | Filed under: Links
• Solving Jigsaw Puzzles in Museum Basements
“I hope to finish working out the history of North American camels before I die.”—Posting this one mainly for Jane; I found it an utterly captivating read.
• Mo Willems Doodles: Video Advice for JJK
“Let me say, for the record, I certainly wouldn’t want anybody to see a previously funny, but now obviously not funny video of an author mispronouncing Judy Blume’s name and wearing a tuxedo without pants.”
• What Your American Girl Doll Says About the Rest of Your Life
If I’d been young enough, I’d have wanted a Felicity. OKAY I STILL WANT A FELICITY. What? What?
• Dialect Blog | Accents and Dialects of English
A new-to-me blog, very much up my alley.
• Author Jody Hedlund: 10 Simple Ways to Support Authors You Love
Garden elf
May 12, 2011 @ 10:22 am | Filed under: Nature Study, Photos
A Lily of the Nile blossom about to unfurl. I think I might like this whimsical bud stage better than the flower in all its glory.
I need to read
May 11, 2011 @ 7:51 pm | Filed under: Books
As long as we’re talking about The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, I thought I’d mention a few other books on my I’m-eager-to-read list:
Can I See Your I.D.? by Chris Barton, author of the hilarious Shark vs. Train
“From the impoverished young woman who enchanted nineteenth-century British society as a faux Asian princess, to the sixteen-year-old boy who “stole” a subway train in 1993, to the lonely-but-clever Frank Abagnale of Catch Me If You Can fame, these ten vignettes offer exhilarating insight into mind-blowing masquerades.”
Sounds way fun, eh? As does:
Emmy and the Home for Troubled Girls by Lynne Jonell
I flipped over this book at ALA Midwinter—the concept, the art, everything about it—but haven’t curled up with it yet, nor its predecessor, Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat. It struck me as likely to have very high Rose-and-Beanie appeal.
Plus I still haven’t read the first Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place book by Maryrose Wood, despite having drooled over the cover months ago, and now the second one is out. Eek! Alexander, Cassiopeia, and Beowulf, I can’t wait to meet you.
And you know I need to read Wendy McClure’s The Wilder Life! Why do I not have a copy of this book yet?
Of course this is just the tip of the iceberg…as usual my TBR list stretches to Saturn. I keep rechecking The Beak of the Finch and After the Ice out from the library: two nonfiction titles that piqued my interest, and which I despair of getting to anytime soon. Especially if any of the above hit my doorstep.
Have you read any of these? Would love to hear your take…