Thanks be to God. I am literally on my last Longmire book and imagined that soon I would be descending into a deep post-Longmire depression. But, hey, a stay has been granted!
Thank you, Amazon, for your daily email alerting me to important things!
When summer’s end is nighing
And skies at evening cloud,
I muse on change and fortune
And all the feats I vowed
When I was young and proud.The weathercock at sunset
Would lose the slanted ray,
And I would climb the beacon
That looked to Wales away
And saw the last of day.From hill and cloud and heaven
The hues of evening died;
Night welled through lane and hollow
And hushed the countryside,
But I had youth and pride.And I with earth and nightfall
In converse high would stand,
Late, till the west was ashen
And darkness hard at hand,
And the eye lost the land.The year might age, and cloudy
The lessening day might close,
But air of other summers
Breathed from beyond the snows,
And I had hope of those.They came and were and are not
And come no more anew;
And all the years and seasons
That ever can ensue
Must now be worse and few.So here’s an end of roaming
On eves when autumn nighs:
The ear too fondly listens
For summer’s parting sighs,
And then the heart replies.
–AE Housman, XXXIX (from Last Poems)
August is nearly over–can you stand it? It is getting darker earlier and the sunrise is later. Have you noticed?
We have had lovely weather this month–amazing for August! I feel kind of guilty enjoying it with all that is going on in Houston. Our prayers go out to everyone down there and to all those teams of disaster relief volunteers who are heading to Texas. Vaya con Dios.
Still, enjoy these last days of summer if you can. Maybe these paintings will help!
Paintings of summer afternoons are (from the top) by: Franz Bischoff, Kawase Hasui, Andrew Wyeth, Herman Henry Wessel, Childe Hassam, Georges Seurat, Winslow Homer.
Recently I bought a used copy of Novel Interiors by the blogger Lisa Borgnes Giramonti.
It is subtitled “Living in Enchanted Rooms Inspired by Literature,” so you can see that it is right up my alley. (My DP recommended it when it was published back in 2014!)
Anyway, one thing she wrote that caught my fancy right away was: “A kitchen windowsill is a revolving art gallery for favorite treasures.”
Amen to that. I mean, who doesn’t collect interesting things on the windowsill over the kitchen sink? Of course, not everyone has a window over the kitchen sink–the house I grew up in did not–but everyone has a windowsill/catch-all somewhere…
The welsh dresser in my Florida room also serves as a catch-all for favorite things.
Everything can’t be a perfectly curated tableau, right?
Quelle lovely, quiet weekend! I had no plans so I caught up on my house/yard work, read a lot and watched several movies. Our wonderful weather continued and I spent a lot of time in my Florida room, which is usually off-limits in August because of our flyover heat.
Meanwhile, daughter #2 celebrated the Rocky Mountain wedding of her oldest bff in Denver.
Three of those gals are now old married ladies–hard to believe!
Since I am in-between Longmire books (and waiting for #12 from the library) I read Fair Land, Fair Land by A.B. Guthrie, Jr. This is the third and final book in his trilogy of historical fiction on the discovery and settling of the American West. Written when he was in his eighties and published in 1982, Mr. Guthrie had rounded out a life’s work that began in 1946 with the highly acclaimed The Big Sky. In this book he resolves the fates of two of his most famous protagonists, Boone Caudill and Dick Summers. (As you know, Dick Summers is one of my favorite characters in fiction.) Although not as strong and polished in my opinion as The Big Sky and The Way West, I enjoyed the book until the end, which was needlessly abrupt. I get it that Guthrie was “mourning the passing of the West into the destructive hands of the white man.” He made his point–and it is a good one. I just wish he had tied up a few loose ends. And did Dick have to meet so meaningless an end? No, he emphatically did not.
I then started Precious and Grace, the next in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series. Funnily enough, it also has a main character who, like Dick Summers, is frequently looking back to better days.
She was remembering what Gabarone had been like in those days of greater intimacy. She thought of it as the quiet time; the time of cattle; the time of bicycles rather than cars; the time when the arrival of the day’s single plane was an event; the time of politeness and courtesy.
Sigh. Aren’t we all?
I watched several good movies including The Undefeated (1969) starring John Wayne and Rock Hudson and a score of fine supporting actors. This is the movie that Hudson always claimed saved his foundering career. He was eternally grateful to John Wayne.
I remember seeing this movie when it came out, but I had not seen it in a long time and it was immensely enjoyable. The script by James Lee Barrett is darn good and there is a lot of action and smart repartee between the two stars. Hudson was 44 years old and way to young to be put out to film pasture.
I also watched two movies I had dvr’d starring Simone Signoret: The Deadly Affair (1966), a John Le Carre spy thriller, and the star-filled Ship of Fools (1965). I enjoyed them both.
I had never seen The Deadly Affair, which stars James Mason in the George Smiley part and Maximilian Schell as–big surprise–the communist agent. It is a dreary British movie, typical of the mid-1960s realism school full of “shocking” characters like Mason’s nymphomaniac wife. But it is well done and I enjoyed it, mostly because I could imagine my parents going to see it at the movies and enjoying it. They loved those “sophisticated” cold war films.
I had seen Ship of Fools and read Katherine Anne Porter’s book, which was a bestseller in its day.
I always found Oskar Werner very appealing in this movie even as an adolescent–so sad and sensitive. Lee Marvin is pretty hilarious as the American ballplayer, and Vivien Leigh in her final film is spot-on perfect. There is a lot of “acting” going on in this movie, and the message is pretty heavy-handed, but Ms. Leigh is terrific and worth watching the film for.
The wee babes came over for dinner on Sunday night with their parents. I gave Lottiebelle her first cherry accessory from the Women’s Exchange.
How cute are they/is she?
Now it is back to the salt mine. Have a great week!
*Col. John Henry Thomas in The Undefeated.
Whew! Another busy week has come and gone. Son #1 moved home from DC, unpacked his stuff, and then threw out his back lifting one last piece of furniture. Poor guy. I feel terrible for him. Back pain is the worst. I’m afraid I don’t have any photos of the move or the sufferer just yet. Picture his brother’s move from a couple of weeks ago, but in reverse and without the cat or girlfriend. That’s right, my house is complete chaos and there’s stuff everywhere. I don’t mind at all — James is much more fun than a tidy house!
Meanwhile, although the attic clean-out has been temporarily suspended until we remove the monsters (probably a stray squirrel masquerading as a demon horde), I did uncover this splendid prayer that my DP wrote down and framed for me back in the day.
This is a good one to commit to memory. I’m going to hang it by my back door, where it will send me safely into the world and greet me upon my return. Also, doesn’t my DP have cool handwriting?
In other news…I turned off the news. That’s right. I did not visit a single news site all week, and since my remote is out of batteries, I watched no TV. Even then, I found it impossible to avoid hearing something about terrorist attacks and threatening hurricanes, but I must say that I found life greatly improved. It’s like an information stay-cation. Why not try it?
I am NOT suggesting that ignorance is bliss, but face it, the news is not exactly impartial and reliable these days. If you want spin, take dancing lessons.
This is the end of summer for me. Classes start on Monday. Sigh.
Have a great weekend!
*Don Henley, “Boys of Summer”
Friday at last! Huzzah!
As today is the birthday of one of our favorite Scotsmen–Sean Connery,
who is turning 87!–I think it is appropriate to watch (at least) one of his movies. I suggest The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
or Time Bandits (1981)
or The Wind and the Lion (1975)
You could also watch the early Bond movies or The Hunt for Red October (1991) or others, but don’t watch The Untouchables (1987) which, coincidentally, I watched the other night. Sean Connery won his only Oscar for this movie, but it is really pretty bad. It boasts a handsome young Kevin Costner, but every time Kevin opens his mouth, I cringed. He may look a little like Gary Cooper, but he doesn’t sound like him! What a terrible voice. Anyway, even Robert de Niro as Al Capone can’t save this movie, which is just a lot of mobster violence and bad music.
On another note, the wee babes visited their dad at his store the other day while their Nonnie (other grandmother) had to be somewhere else.
They had fun in the stock room and were, of course, precious.
A few days later they were sitting up by themselves!
Brilliant!
I hope your weekend is brilliant too.
*Peachy Carnahan in The Man Who Would be King.
I have had a very busy month, and, indeed, a busy summer. Work has been especially stressful. I prefer my summers more low-key, but sometimes we don’t have a choice and we try to go with the flow.
Neal: Oh, I know. You just go with the flow. Del: Like a twig on the shoulders of a mighty stream.
When I was in high school and college a busy social life was a sign of popularity. I was never very busy back then, so later, when my life got busier, I embraced it.
But last week Joyce Meyer reminded me that we are not called to be busy. We are called to be fruitful.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness…(Galatians 5:22-23)
So how are you doing with the fruit?
Are you triggered by many things these days? I have to say, this is a favorite and oft-used emoji on my group text these days. I need to work on that.
Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control. To these I commit my day. If I succeed, I will give thanks. If I fail, I will seek His grace. And then when this day is done I will place my head on my pillow and rest.”
― Max Lucado
The Cheyenne Nation warmed to the old man. “What did you do? For a living.”
He gestured toward the book lying on the counter to our left, Herodotus’s The Histories. “I taught world history at Black Hills State.”
“‘Men trust their ears less than their eyes.'”
He nodded and looked sad. “He is rather one-sided, but he’s still the most reliable historian of the ancient world.” The old scholar considered me. “I find it hard to believe that a Wyoming sheriff quotes Herodotus.”
“It’s a magnificent book.”
He placed a wrinkled hand lovingly on the tome. “I read it periodically to convince myself that we live in more civilized times.”
“Yep.”
–Craig Johnson, An Obvious Fact
(The picture is of Virginia Woolf’s retreat at Monk’s House)
Well, we lived through the eclipse and, truth be told, it was pretty cool. My assistant and I went up to the roof of the garage at work and stood around with other flyover university employees while the sun waned until it was, indeed, totally eclipsed.
And I have to say, I love it that my son-in-law made one of these.
It’s a wonderful world we live in, right?
(The photo at the top is from stltoday.com.)
Another whirlwind weekend involving a speedy trip to central Missouri has come and gone.
The OM and I moved some more stuff to daughter #1’s new apartment in a rented pickup truck. Her partial moving van-load from NYC had arrived on Friday, so her apartment was full of boxes, but she was grateful to get more.
We had lunch at the Flat Branch Pub
and then left her with her work cut out.
On Sunday we went over to the boy’s house to see the wee babes and to get some baby-holding-time in.
Good therapy for what ails you.
I also moved on to Longmire #12, An Obvious Fact,
which is full of wonderful things like:
In the great balancing equations of Dog’s mind, there are two things he cannot resist–ham, and me holding open a vehicle door. I’m pretty sure that ham is first and the only reason me holding open a vehicle door is in the running is because it might mean that we are going somewhere to get ham.
Walt makes me laugh and that is also good therapy for whatever ails you.
The total eclipse finally happens today and I will be glad when all the hoopla is over with. The media run-up to this has been wild. Enough already.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
dual personalities 