dual personalities

I borrowed the title of this post from an Isaac Rosenberg poem that I recently came across called “Break of Day in the Trenches” . I love his characterization of Time as a constant yet somehow irrelevant force. Time didn’t mean much to the men awaiting death in the trenches, and it seems to have lost some of its power in these Covid lockdown days. Well, I do not plan to dwell on sad WWI poetry today, and I’ve definitely had enough of Covid, so I thought we could celebrate Johannes Vermeer’s Halloween birthday by looking at a couple of his marvelous paintings.

Born in Delft in 1632, Vermeer inherited his father’s art dealer business when he was only 20. Shortly after, he married a well-to-do local woman and they went on to have 14 children, of whom four died in infancy. Vermeer himself died at the age of 43. They certainly used to pack a lot into their short lives, while we who enjoy comparatively longer lives often squander our extra time. As Amor Towles wrote, we “shell our days like peanuts”. Just how and when Vermeer learned to paint no one knows, but he sure could wield a brush!

His sense of light, color and perspective is incomparable.

Our mother introduced us to the Dutch painters early on. We had a reproduction of The Milkmaid in our kitchen and plenty of art books around.

As I have mentioned before, three channels of black and white TV and nothing else to do are enough to get anyone reading and studying pictures. Looking back, I see how my own house, our mother, and art books shaped my taste in interior decoration and preference for natural light.

Unless one’s main goal is to follow fashion, great art provides a better aesthetic model than interior decorating magazines. Each one of Vermeer’s paintings invites the viewer to create a story about the figures and scenes depicted. His paintings pique our interest in times past and exercise our senses. I think it’s time to look at some of those large art books gathering dust on my shelves!

Moving from the sublime to the practical, I will leave you with my latest household wonder discovery — vinegar! The calcium build-up on our faucets and around drains had become so bad that I had started to plan renovations. (You might think it a tad excessive to rip out perfectly good faucets, but they were horrible.) The internet provided the answer: soak rags in vinegar and cover the encrusted area. Leave for an hour or two and then simply wipe it off. My faucets look like new!

Have a Happy Halloween and don’t let the ghouls get you down!

Well, Daughter #1 here. Thank you to my mother for covering for me while out and about traveling the state. It has been a busy month, but the end is in sight, terrifying as that might be.

In my work travels, I crossed Branson off my bucket list. It was much prettier than I realized and I definitely want to go back when I can spend more than 2 hours there. I also got to spend some time in Hannibal and I was less thrilled with it. But then again, it was a grey day and the day I was in Branson was the most beautiful fall day yet. [shrug emoji]

I’ve done some more sewing–advancing to pouches with curved openings. I must say, I think this is pretty darn cute.

I’ve also spent many a sleepless night watching this series of videos on YouTube. Again, I don’t know what this says about me. Actually, I do.

Tomorrow, I’m driving up to Columbia where I intend to buy several cases of wine to tide me over through the election. Pray for us all. And pray that I still have a job on Wednesday.

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:37-39).

I have never been a huge Halloween person and have been pretty disturbed by the degree to which my neighbors have gone overboard with decorations this year. I guess everyone is in need of some catharsis? But I could do without faux graveyards on every corner. That said, I felt a real intense need to get my darling daughter into a pumpkin costume this month and I have no shame.

As I said on Instagram, this is truly the internet content we need right now.

The pumpkin beret! The booties! Her little tongue! She was feeling this costume.

After round one of photos, I decided I wanted to try to stuff the tummy so that it had more of a pumpkin feel, because this is how I bring myself joy.

Well,it sort of worked, but I guess I got less careful about keeping my own body out of the frame. And also, someone had had enough of not putting things in her mouth.

In other news, my iPhone storage problems have returned, probably because my camera roll looks like this:

The babe continues to be the sweetest “pumpkin” around. She continues to love her feet. Her thumb has also grown in her estimation. Sometimes she manages to suck her thumb and grasp her foot simultaneously — a double whammy of comfort.

We all have our coping methods — hers are just more adorable.

The title above is from the book Captain Alatriste by Arturo Pérez-Reverte and translates to something like, “…and no one can escape his own shadow”. In an effort to escape, not my shadow but the banal limbo of our present circumstances, I started watching the Spanish TV version on Amazon Prime. For those of you unfamiliar with the book, our swashbuckling hero is a Spanish musketeer turned swordsman for hire.

He has a great hat, a voluminous cape, several love entanglements who all look alike, a difficult past, and friends in high places. Naturally, he is loyal to the crown and determined to foil the plots of the evil inquisition.

The program is entertaining but it has the worst subtitles I’ve ever seen. Characters burble along for minutes and then a subtitle flashes up and is gone in a millisecond. When subtitles do stay on screen long enough to read, they obviously leave out loads of dialogue and sometimes mix two different speakers together. Strangely enough, it doesn’t really matter. The plot is so transparent (and repetitive) that subtitles seem optional. In each episode Alatriste ends up fighting five or six opponents simultaneously and then getting hauled off to prison, from which his powerful friends free him or he escapes unaided. A requisite love scene or two allows some female nudity, but in general the show is pretty tame.

The fact that I bothered to post about this show tells you all you need to know about my life at the moment. Outside of work, nothing — but nothing — is going on. And that’s perfectly fine by me. It just makes it difficult to come up with a worthwhile Saturday post. If anyone out there has discovered a great new book, movie or activity, please share it in the comments!

In the meantime, stay healthy and have a great weekend.

Happy Thursday! The post title is from a song DN has been singing to the wee babe — he sung it once and now it’s her favorite. It’s like a magic trick for soothing and smiles. I’m almost certain it was in a commercial and it’s catchy as heck, so listen at your own risk. It’s liable to get stuck in your head. Then again, idly singing “I really want to go outside” over and over is something you might already be doing after 7 months stuck at home.

Well, we are mostly keeping ourselves entertained with our feet these days. They are pretty adorable feet, to be sure!

And we continue to practice our tummy time with great concentration.

Finally, the latest in gifs: Katie moves Montessori discs from one hand to the other! Brilliant.