dual personalities

This weekend, daughters #1 and #2 were together! Saturday was a sister day, complete with hip lunch menus and draft kombucha, manicures, guacamole, and lots of gabbing.

The ladies dined on gourmet bread and butter and simple salads. DN ate fancy toast.

Not our best angles or lighting, but what can you do.

One of these is a faux-marg. I took this picture to highlight the fresh mani!

We mostly took it easy, but it was very fun to have a guest visit now that we live in our new neighborhood (and have a guest room). Now daughter #1 is at a conference in town, and I spent the rest of the weekend relaxing and scoping out the hype of Netflix’s Cheer documentary. 

Of note: on Saturday night, we watched Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, and I have to say, it holds up! We laughed a lot.

There are so many lines that we quoted throughout my adolescence, like “I have a whole bag of ‘sh!’ with your name on it,” “You shot me! You shot me right in the arm!,” “Evacuation complete,” and “I’m having difficulty controlling the VOLUME of my voice.” Can you remember the scenes from each of those quotes? I bet you can.

*Dr. Evil

I’m feeling mighty discontented at the moment.  I had most of my post completed when Edge crashed and I lost everything (why does that keep happening to me?). That, coupled with my laptop’s snail-like speed and apparent unwillingness to complete tasks, has damaged my calm. But I will fare forward!

Yesterday’s snowstorm dumped a good foot of snow on us — ugh. In the event that readers are also getting tired of winter I have a few suggestions to restore morale.

a. Watch 1970s reruns of The Match Game in honor of long-time panelist Orson Bean, who died yesterday when hit by a car. He was still going strong at 91. 

My DP and I spent many a long, boring summer day watching that show and yucking it up over Mr. Bean’s witticisms. Rest easy, sir.

b. Bake something wonderful and take it to work to share. Food is a great morale booster. One of my colleagues brought this cake in last week. A friend had made it for her birthday! Can you imagine?

It was as delicious as it was beautiful!

c.  Pamper yourself. I bought these face masks hoping, if not to improve my hag-like appearance, then at least to hydrate my skin. I’ll let you know how it works.

I also  bought these little ‘Fit Kicks’ to wear to Tai Chi, where the floor is super cold and (let’s be honest) not the cleanest. They come in jazzy colors and prints, but I’m an old fogey so gray trim is as wild as I get.

d. Do some light reading. Reread a favorite book, find a new series or peruse a picture book. My BFF recently sent me the first book in a series by Imogen Robertson.

A murder mystery set in 1780s England, the book seems to be historically accurate, is well-written, has good characters, and held my interest throughout. I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of volume two which I ordered as soon as I finished the first one. The series seems perfect for my current mood. Right now, I need books that I can depend upon to (1) keep me engaged, (2) have consistent, likeable characters, and perhaps most important (3) NOT use the historical setting as a political platform. Okay, the main female character falls on the anachronistic side of authentic, but the author is not too heavy-handed and did not annoy me. We’ll see how volume 2 goes.

e. Try something entirely new. Many universities have online classes available for anyone to take. Yale offers some interesting looking ones. If you want something more hands-on, why not take up knitting, embroidery or sewing? YouTube has loads of how-to videos. I know that finding the time is hard, but I am a great example of how all work and no play makes us dull!

Writing this post has restored my calm and I am now ready to start my day. I have three sets of committee minutes to type up and the 2nd Punic War to master. You know, the usual….

For the past couple of weeks, this book has been calling to me from the shelf:

It is a wonderful annotated selection of Emerson’s works that is as pretty to look through as it is inspiring to read. If I recall correctly, my DP aunt sent it to me the first Christmas that I was in graduate school.

Reading a paragraph or two of Emerson is always a good idea. Without further ado…

What I must do, is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

–From “Self-Reliance”

Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. What is the right use? What is the one end which all means go to effect? They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world of value, is, the active soul, — the soul, free, sovereign, active. This every many is entitled to; this every man contains within him, although in almost all men, obstructed, and as yet unborn. The soul active sees absolute truth; and utters truth, or creates. In this action, it is genius; not the privilege of here and there a favorite, but the sound estate of every man. In its essence, it is progressive. The book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with some past utterance of genius. This is good, say they, — let us hold by this. They pin me down. They look backward and not forward. But genius always looks forward.

— From “The American Scholar”

Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus. From the mountain you see the mountain. We animate what we can, and we see only what we animate. Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them. It depends on the mood of the man, whether he shall see the sunset or the fine poem. There are always sunsets, and there is always genius; but only a few hours so serene that we can relish nature or criticism. The more or less depends on structure or temperament. Temperament is the iron wire on which the beads are strung.

— From “Experience”

Well, it’s Tuesday night and mid-MO is in the midst of another will-it-won’t-it Winter Storm. I left work at noon to run to Schnucks to restock my wine and chips because of course the predictions that previously called for winter weather Wednesday/Thursday shifted it to Tuesday/Wednesday this morning. I should never have less than a bottle in stock the way this winter is progressing.

As I’ve mentioned, one of the best things about my job is getting to see small Missouri towns and learning about what is important to the people who reside in them, the history of those towns, and the sometimes bizarre stories that become town and state lore.

It was a brisk day. 

Last week, I travelled to Warrensburg, home of the University of Central Missouri Mules. This was a work trip and we had glam box lunches in a board room so we didn’t get to partake of the local dining in the town square. No palonzas for us in Warrensburg. However, our host insisted we make a pit stop to see the statue of Old Drum, Missouri’s Historical Dog.

Old Drum was a good dog who was shot by a neighbor angry about his dead sheep. A famous lawsuit and speech ensued, going all the way to the Missouri Supreme Court. I’m definitely not a dog person, and speeches like this make me want to roll my eyes, but I did like the statue.

I hope you click on that link and read the dramatic tale that is truly a story of love, betrayal, and revenge. Also, the drama did not begin and end with the dog–please also note that the lawyer who made the tear-jerker, made for tv movie speech about the dog, left Missouri to support the CONFEDERACY. You can not make this stuff up.

It could be a Reba McIntire song. That was the night the lights went out in MISSOURI.

Any excuse for a Sugarbaker Woman gif.

Did you have a good weekend?

View from the Kennedy Center rooftop

The highlight of ours was seeing the Sleeping Beauty ballet at The Kennedy Center Opera House. We had given tickets to the show to DN’s parents (and ourselves) for Christmas and seeing the matinee was a genius choice. We had a lovely afternoon out and could still change into pajamas at home by 7 p.m.

We really loved the ballet — the Tchaikovsky performed by the house orchestra was a treat, and the National Ballet of Canada dancers were superb, from what I could tell. Everything seemed classic (no 21st-century updates, here!) and the sets were simple but quite impressive. I was happy to see lots of little girls, dressed up, who seemed to be taking it very seriously that they were at the ballet. For once, the crowd did not make me think, “People are the worst.”

As mentioned, we were in pajamas by 7 p.m., and I convinced DN to watch Chariots of Fire. While I’ve seen it many times, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it as an adult, capable of paying attention (and appreciating it) the whole time.

Not surprisingly, it was so good! I knew DN would love it, since it is about running, though of course it is more than just a “sports” movie. I was struck by how well the movie tells a story and develops characters who share a common goal but have different motivations. In that way, it reminded me a bit of Ford vs. Ferrari, or even Moby-Dick. Well, I enjoyed it. Plus, you know, you can’t beat the 80s synth music.

Now onto another week — in a new month! Hang in there. Run swiftly.

*Eric Liddell in Chariots of Fire

Those wonderful Romans of the late Republic and early Empire were a sophisticated lot. They had artistic talent

Garden fresco from Livia’s villa at Prima Porta

or at least the taste to recognize it.

Garden room detail

Although it was a turbulent time, some people had their priorities straight. Take Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC), for example. An old-school intellectual and statesman, he understood the importance of reading,

“Read at every pause; read at all hours; read within leisure; read in times of labor; read as one goes in; read as one goes out. The task of the educated mind is simply put: read to lead.”

and of books.

“For books are more than books, they are the life, the very heart and core of ages past, the reason why men worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.”

He also realized that if the Republic were to last, its citizens must know their history.

“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?”

I could quote on and on, but you get my drift. Aside from technology, there’s nothing new under the sun — or at least not much new since Roman times. Unfortunately, the classics are no longer considered ‘relevant’ and have dropped out of most school curricula. Did they fill the resulting void with something equally wise and useful? I think not.

Why not get curious and read some of the Latin classics? There’s so much to choose from, including The Aenead, Caesar’s Gallic Wars, Catullus’ love poetry (not my thing), Livy’s History of Rome (wonderful, wonderful storytelling), Ovid’s Metamorphosis (kinky myths), Plautus’ comedies (middle Republic), and loads of stoic philosophy. In other words, there’s something for everyone. But if you don’t have any literature handy, you can always watch Gladiator, which, though not historically accurate, kind of gets the flavor right.

In any case, have a wonderful weekend!

*Cicero