Well, it is September and officially candy corn season. Maybe you are one of those people who can resist it. Well, I cannot. Mea culpa.
In other news, I hired the College Hunks to come and haul away our old sofa, which they did heroically and pleasantly and in a very timely fashion. It was not cheap, but what a relief. I think my “new” vintage sofa looks very nice.
I am pleased.
September is shaping up to be a busy month. There’s the Labor Day weekend, followed by daughter #1’s birthday. My women’s Bible Study group starts up along with other volunteer activities. Soon, you know, it will be Thanksgiving, and then…Christmas. Zut alors. Let’s try to keep our focus.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
I have been laboring this week to put our new built-in entertainment center in order–not an easy task.
We have collected a lot of stuff over the nearly 41 years of our marriage–mostly books, DVDs and CDs. (Not to mention all the VHS tapes still in the basement along with my parents’ LPs.)
I make no apologies for this. We spend a lot of time at home, especially in this room.
So we feathered our nest and made it more comfortable. I realize CDs (and DVDs too) are obsolete, but c’est la vie. I like owning movies–who knows when they will start canceling all my favorites. And, yes we will probably upgrade our television at some point so our children will stop laughing at us.
Anyway, I am making progress and my alphabetizing skills are sharpening.
Since going to Bent’s Old Fort a few weeks ago where we met the nice old couple who had owned the Best Western in Las Animas where “all the movie stars stayed” during the filming of the 1978 miniseries Centennial, I thought it would be interesting to watch it again.
I first watched it when it premiered on television, originally shown on the NBC network in twelve separate episodes, with the first and last each running three hours and the ten in between at two hours each (with commercials). I was in graduate school at William and Mary at the time. As I recall, it starts out strong and loses steam–at least I did watching it. I don’t think I watched the whole thing. The early part would have interested me then as it does now, especially since our “Cousin Richard” plays one of the leads. Yes, we used to refer to Richard Chamberlain as “Cousin Richard” and a few people in college were convinced that he was, indeed, my cousin. There is a certain family resemblance.
We have watched four episodes (about 9 hours worth) and we are enjoying it, although Richard Chamberlain’s character has died. It is still interesting to see the landscape and note the places we were a few weeks ago and to see the actors who make an appearance.
(Is that a very young Mark Harmon?!)
Anyway, it is something to watch–TV is such a wasteland.
“A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock, (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”
–T.S. Eliot, from The Waste Land.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
Finally, I have to say how touched I was by William Shatner’s emotional response to going into space. It seemed very sincere and not what I’d expect from that old smoothie. “I hope I never recover from this,” he said. He tries to explain what nobody else seems to have experienced, including Jeff Bezos.
One of the nice side effects of having a party, is all the leftover flowers…
(We also have a lot of leftover food!) But we miss seeing our loved ones and that “and then we were all in one place” feeling. Sigh.
Well, moving along, I read Redhead by the Side of the Road, Anne Tyler’s latest novel. NPR said that it “is heartwarming balm for jangled nerves.” Well, maybe. It is an easy read, but there just isn’t much there. Tyler wrote a few masterful books back in the 1980s and some good ones followed, but she is yet another example of someone whose editor keeps goading her to write one more novel because the publisher knows it will make some money. Anne, you’re 79 years old, it’s okay to retire.
Now I am reading The Only Woman in the Room, a fictionalized telling of real life “glamour icon and scientist” Hedy Lamarr’s escape from Nazi Austria and transformation in Hollywood. She was, no doubt, quite a woman, but in the hands of this author, it’s all pretty dull, re-hashed material. The book was a gift, so I will read the whole thing and hope that it picks up.
To celebrate the 200th birthday of the state of Missouri, I watched Across the Wide Missouri (1951).
(This photo must be of lunch break on the set, because look at that cowboy in the background!)
Directed by William Wellman, the film stars Clark Gable as a fur trapper and mountain man in the 1830s. Gable is a bit old for his part (typical for Hollywood) but I enjoyed it. Beautifully shot in Technicolor in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, there is a lot of action and nary a dull moment in this movie. Gable’s stunt double Jack N. Young was particularly impressive. The final action scene where our hero’s baby son, attached as a papoose to a horse that bolts, is quite exciting. The supporting cast is excellent and includes the usually suave Adolphe Menjou playing against type as a French trapper as well as Russell Simpson and James Whittemore.
Although romanticized, the plot and the depiction of the Blackfeet Indians seem fair. There are plenty of “good” Indians to balance Ricardo Montalban’s “bad” Indian. According to Wikipedia, the 31-year old Montalban was seriously injured during the making of this movie and had back problems for the rest of his life. I don’t doubt it. (You can rent it on Amazon Prime.)
Well, I hope everyone is keeping cool. We are experiencing a typical August heat wave.
Things could be worse.
I was happy to see this. You go, Isaac. You were always a favorite of mine.
Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favor, and further us with thy continual help; that in all our works, begun, continued, and ended in thee, we may glorify thy holy name, and finally by thy mercy obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ Our Lord.
Friday again. What are your plans? This weekend I will be finishing Mr. Churchill’s Secretary written by Elizabeth Nel in 1958. She was one of Winston Churchill’s secretaries during WWII working tirelessly behind the scenes from 1941-45.
A friend at work loaned it to me and I have been enjoying it very much. It is full of intimate details only a woman would notice.
It was a new experience to travel in a battleship. It seemed like a floating city, and we were glad to see notices for our benefit: THIS WAY FORWARD, TO THE WARDROOM, etc., which must have infuriated the proper denizens. Ham and I shared a vast cabin astern; it seemed right over the propellers, and the shaking and roaring was continuous. The office was a little farther forward, but the Prime Minister’s quarters were just under the bridge and miles on toward the bow. To walk there took at least ten minutes. Four flights of steps had to be mounted, and the continual updraft was an embarrassment to one’s skirts, particularly as Royal Marines were stationed on duty at every turn.
Times have changed so much since this hard-working, patriotic young women worked so diligently for her country and for a man who liked to work in his pajamas in bed in the morning. She didn’t begrudge him this eccentricity because she knew how hard he worked. She thought nothing of it. And, of course, there was nothing to think about it.
I also have to pick out wallpaper for my dining room–an exciting prospect!
Obviously, I am leaning toward the chinoiserie…
Also, I forgot (!) to wish the boy and daughter #3 a happy 4th anniversary! A belated happy anniversary to a lovely couple!
And, hey, another lovely couple is getting hitched–daughter #2 and Nate! Date TBA, but probably a year from now.
Yippeeee! Lots of good things to look forward to in the months to come.
Sometimes the Apartment Therapy blog drives me crazy with their You Need to Do This and Right Now posts, but this and this were right on I thought.
I have been re-using my candle jars–the pretty ones at least–for quite some time.
And in my humble opinion there is nothing so special that you should save it, except maybe that one bottle of Dom Perignon that is waiting for some special announcement down the road.
When you go to as many estate sales as I do, you know how ridiculous it is to save the good linens, starched, tied with a ribbon and still in the original box, for a special occasion. Basically, you are saving them so your children can sell them at an estate sale!
The same goes for your china and all those things you received as wedding presents. Use them! Enjoy them! Everything tastes better on Wedgwood! If you break a plate every once in awhile, so what? C’est la vie.
As Emerson said, “Even in the mud and scum of things, something always, always sings.” It might be those pillow cases you finally sleep on!
dual personalities 