dual personalities

Well, happy Wednesday, friends. I’m home from three arduous days in Columbia at another Unclaimed Property Auction. I wrote about an earlier auction in July. The office did two this year because we didn’t do any in 2020 or 2021. We’ve got to clean out some space for new items that are turned over beginning November 1. Oy.

Anyway, the auction was a big success, with high attendance. I tend to think everything we sell is interesting because it was valuable enough to someone that they wanted to save it. Even if that item is a collector’s set of American Chopper PEZ dispensers. One interesting item we had this year–a thousand dollar bill from 1928! It features Grover Cleveland and was discontinued in 1969.

It was a hot ticket item and sold for over $3,000.

In other news, I’ve transitioned from summer Rose back to the red blend. And from sandals to slippers in the house. My windows are open and the heat and air conditioning are off. We’ve had some beautiful weather and I hope it holds so we can go to the winery this weekend. Monday is Columbus Day so I don’t have to work! Quelle treat.

I’ll leave you Ephesians, which is where I am in my year-long quest to read the bible.

“Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you might be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers, the authorities, against the cosmic powers over the present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” –Ephesians 6:10-12

*I thought I’d throw it back to the good old days when Brooklyn-99 was on Hulu with the blog title.

My car windows were all frosted up this morning and the drive to work was misty and cool. The leaves are just beginning to turn; Fall is here. I’m afraid the last couple weeks have passed by in a blur. The DH and I have been suffering from the dreaded lurgy (i.e. croaky voice, runny nose and cough — not Covid) and it has put a damper on our seasonal adventures. All I want to do is transport myself to a John Singer Sargent painting and languish on an autumn river.

Or sit wrapped up in muslin or silk and just stare into space.

I’d even be willing to shroud myself in a black mosquito net if it meant I could lie still for a while.

You’ll notice a theme here. It all looks so comfortable, so cozy and so, so quiet. Like Virginia Wolff, “I want someone to sit beside after the day’s pursuit and all its anguish, after its listening, and its waitings, and its suspicions. After quarrelling and reconciliation I need privacy – to be alone with you, to set this hubbub in order.” That is, in fact, what the DH and I do every evening, at least until I go into our family room to watch TV. We relax and attempt to recharge. I’m quite sure that’s what everyone else does too. Perhaps all we need is some time to look at JSS paintings of ladies reclining. What do you think?

Have a good weekend and good luck recharging!

*Ray Bradbury

Well, happy Wednesday, readers. I do not have a lot this week–my mother already covered my exciting weekend adventure. On Sunday (thru Tuesday), I’ll be up in Columbia for the Unclaimed Property Auction. Not going to lie, I’m pretty excited to see this.

Check out what passes for a clever headline in the capital city newspaper. I mean, talk about a news flash. Sometimes, I really think I am becoming the facepalm emoji.

In other exciting news, check out the fog over the river I spotted this morning on the way to work.

I am also on the hunt for cute Christmas fabric to make a dress for sweet Katiebelle. I’ve hit the minimal options in Jefferson City and have been pretty uninspired.

Finally, I finished John Adams, and I’ve moved on to reading about Theodore Roosevelt’s childhood. McCullough makes the case that Adams was one of the most important figures in early American history but who doesn’t get much credit for everything he did. His critics painted him as vain and emotional and that’s how history has remembered him. As an old man, in a letter to his son John Quincy, Adams wrote, “Rejoice always in all events, be thankful always for all things is a hard precept for human nature, and in my religion a perfect duty.” He wasn’t wrong. A good reminder for the middle of the week.

While looking for illustrations of Greek myths, I came across some wonderful Pre-Raphaelite paintings, and I thought I would share a few of them this morning. Greek myth was the perfect subject for the overwrought Pre-Raphaelites. It’s full of pretty, half-naked nymphs and twisted plots. Take, for example, John Collier’s take on the mysterious Oracle at Delphi as she sits with her laurel branch over her hallucinogenic fumes.

John Roddam Spence Stanhope’s (that’s a mouthful) Orpheus and Eurydice is also darkly effective, though Orpheus’ drapery is unusual to say the least.

Much as I like the other two, this painting by John William Waterhouse of water nymphs charming Hylas takes ominous to another level.

The Oracle at Delphi and Orpheus and Eurydice are subjects that require a certain dark mystery, and the artists manage to convey that well. But Hylas and the water nymphs is deceptive. At first glance it seems pretty and romantic, but if you know the story and look again, something else emerges – the nymphs have a certain inhuman, predatory quality that is unsettling. Poor Hylas was a member of Jason’s expedition. One day he encountered the nymphs when he stopped at a pond to get a drink. The nymphs beguiled him and he disappeared never to be found. Hercules refused to continue with the Argonauts and spent a lot of time looking for Hylas without success.

If you are at all acquainted with Greek mythology, you’ll know that the ones depicted here are among the most straightforward and least twisted. Let’s just leave it at that. Have a wonderful weekend and do not let beautiful but soulless things beguile you!

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A sad Friday update: my son just shared that Hilary Mantel, the author of the incomparable Wolf Hall and its sequels, as well as the excellent Place of Greater Safety, has passed away. She was a visionary writer who knew how to approach history and imagine a world beyond the present.

The BBC obituary quotes her:

“The essence of the thing is not to judge with hindsight, not to pass judgement from the lofty perch of the 21st Century when we know what happened,” she said.

“It’s to be there with them in that hunting party at Wolf Hall, moving forward with imperfect information and perhaps wrong expectations, but in any case moving forward into a future that is not pre-determined, but where chance and hazard will play a terrific role.”

She will be missed! Rest in peace, wonderful Hilary.