Honesty, the Rarest Quality

This gorgeous tea set was listed on eBay as "old Wedgwood," but if it isn't brand new, I'm not Eleanor Roosevelt. And except for a suspicious saucer, it is not marked Wedgwood, or anything else. However, I suspected as much when I bid on it, as I was the only bidder, and it cost next to nothing. But I wouldn't trade it for a bona fidey Wedgwood dinner service.

From now on, my only dealings with eBay will be getting money instead of spending it. This cures me, although I do love the set. The little crocheted doilies came with it, plus the beautiful little drawn-work hankie. The tray, the lamps, the 1950s tall glass and the pink Depression glass plates didn't--I've had those for many years. All in all, I'm satisfied. In fact, I'm ecstatic, and I plan every afternoon to serve tea to myself and anyone else in the vicinity. That is, after I get some kind of order restored to the rooms I've been busy wrecking.

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Actually, yesterday I started what I thought was going to be a quilt, but I've decided to use my old Log Cabin quilt in the guest room, so I'll make it a throw.

Bad Poems

1>
Joel Chandler Harris
Remarked one day in Paris
(While dining on Br'er Terrapin),
"French cuisine is larrupin'!"

That's a kind of a poem that's called a Clerihew, because the first ones in this style were written by Edmund Clerihew, about Christopher Wren, who designed St. Paul's Cathedral ("...If anyone calls, /Tell them I'm building St. Paul's."), and this one, which was better:

Sir Humphrey Davy

Abominated gravy.

He lived on the odium

Of having discovered sodium.

2>
Mr. Edmund Clerihew
Was just a man like me and you;
The only difference, evidently:
Clerihew's surname was Bentley.

3>
Knocking on Emily Dickinson's door was never any use--
She'd whisper through the keyhole, "Pardon me, but I'm busy
being a recluse."
The importance of this occupation may be lost on
Anyone not born in Amherst which is much like Boston.

4>
Christina Georgina Rosetti
Went abroad, and discovered spaghetti;
She liked it well--she ate it raw
(She had a sturdy British jaw).

5>
The poet, William Butler Yeats,
Hated desserts containing dates;
Annoyed, he'd mumble to the chef,
"Don't we have any of that deep dish apple or
maybe some plum pudding or
baked Alaska lef'?"

#s 1-5 written by JRC ca. 1993

Life Exuberant

Why can't I paste anything into this blog? Well, I can't. I even turned Rod McIver's Heron Dance column into a picture so I could upload it from Pictures, but it didn't work. Anyway, Rod was writing about the extremes of emotion and the effect they do--and can--have in shaping our lives. He's quoting an Arctic explorer here:

We learn most from our suffering and the changes and the challenges.... You don't learn much if everything goes great. Or if you are not scared s---less by bears. ...We learn by our confusion. That fear of dying--trying to let go of that fear. The terror that this is such a scary place.

Rod says, "I've been wondering what I can learn about myself and my life when I experience extreme emotions. I've been wondering if or how I can take that energy and use it in my art.

"...When we experience extreme emotions, we are encountering the limitations that define us--encountering the things that scare us. We encounter the things that are asking us to grow--things we would rather avoid....

"...I've been thinking about how depressed I got on last year's fall canoe trip--alone, way back in the Canadian woods, paddling through grey, dark, icy, snowy weather--alone, alone. Cold waves crashing around me and the howling wind, day and night."

He doesn't say how he reacts now, remembering the canoe trip, or what it taught him. It seems to me that the scene he describes would be exhilarating to someone who knows from experience that he can take care of himself. But Rod is still learning. Learning himself and his art. Maybe he isn't the kind of person who gets along OK (emotionally) by himself. Even an artist can be a social animal.

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LATER: I wrote the above before I found my credit card and driver's license folder, which I thought I lost yesterday on my rounds of the service station/grocery store/Sonic's. So now life is even more exuberant.

There are two big blank walls (adjacent) in the guest room, so someone on the bed doesn't have anything much to look at. I'm thinking of doing a great big arrangement facing the bed, using some or all of my black and pink plates. The oval prints and wall shelves will probably go over the night stand. Does anyone know how to clean gold leaf? The sconces came from Hanna Antiques a long time ago, and the oval prints were a gift from my dear Mama when I was just a young thing.

I made better pictures, but they would only upload sideways.

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This is just to warn Jed that the next time he occupies the guest room, he'll see a lot of rosy scenes. Maybe the black will help to masculinize the view. At least one lamp shade will be black. It's the smallest room in the house, so a little clutter will go a long way. Too much clutter? I'm working on it.

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I'm reading--or trying to read--Waverly, by Sir Walter Scott. About every third sentence is Latin or a Latin phrase, so it's a pretty good review.

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I don't have anything to pack or mail today, so I feel rather lost, or at loose ends. I may doll up and go up to Ruby Tuesday for an early dinner, if old Abe will make it there and back.

"The Big Country"

During the thunderstorm today, I persevered in watching this fine old movie, even though the power kept going out and I had to keep fiddling with the TV. I think this is the movie that made me love Gregory Peck, many years ago. It almost made me love "the big country," too--all those rocks! Charlton Heston was pretty good, too, and Chuck Connors, Burl Ives, Charles Bickford, Jean Simmons and Carol Baker. For some reason, I flinched every time they threw a gun away or dropped one in the horse trough; I thought they must have been very rich to be so profligate with their guns.

Left Behind

Yesterday and today I read Left Behind by LaHaye and Jenkins, and thought it was a good story. It would be interesting to find out if, in other books in the series, the writing improves--It isn't bad in this book, just somewhat better than a high school book report or a small-town newspaper. It isn't weak enough to distract you from the story. I didn't like the repeated comparison of the bad guy's looks to Robert Redford.

It's Heeeere!

Ramey's book, Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge, is now available online (Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, etc.). Now she's a celebrity, with her picture in the news and everything. I'm too excited to figure out how to post the link to the Leeds Herald article, but it's there, all right! Can't wait for her book signing.

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I'm also excited because tomorrow Susan and I are going to ride up to Vinemont, Alabama to see Mr. Bond and possibly bring him home to Leeds.

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It just now occurred to me that I'll need money to close this transaction. I haven't asked the Fairy Dogmother lady, but I bet it'll be quite a lot. If it's more than $1.365, I haven't got that much in one place, so what'll I do?

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"What'll I do, with just a photograph

To tell my troubles to?"

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I've got to june around and figure out something.

A Favorite Poem

Crossing the Bar,
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson [1809-1892]

Sunset and evening star
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

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I love Tennyson. Although something of an agnostic, he was a really good person, and wrote flawless poetry, more intricate and skillful than others of his time except, perhaps, Robert Browning. His long poem Maud is a bone-chilling tale, and the source of the verse lines,

I hate the dreadful hollow

behind the little wood;

Its lips in the field above

are dabbled with blood-red heath,

The red-ribb'd hedges drip

with a silent horror of blood,

And Echo there, whatever

is ask'd her, answers "Death."

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And near the beginning of Maud:
...

There has fallen a splendid tear

From the passion flower at the gate:

She is coming, my dove, my dear,

She is coming, my life, my fate. . .

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Tennyson was descended in the paternal line from King Edward III of England. That made him one of the "last Plantagenets."

Beautiful china plates--Old Copeland Spode

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If your sensibilities are susceptible to china patterns, some of these will take your breath away. This is the one I pined for in my bridal days: Red Fitzhugh, made for Tiffany's (but it was too expensive even in 1957):

This is the one I like best now -> (called "Florence," as in Italy).

All of those above and right, I copied from eBay. I don't own them. The one at top left is called "Pink Camilla," top right "Patricia." I forget the names of the two in the second row.

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Some time ago I bought seven of these black-bordered Copeland Spode bird plates (9-inch). I bought them for resale, because some innocent soul sold them cheap, but I think I'll keep at least one.

I don't know why some of my pictures will enlarge when you click on them, and some won't.

Whistling

I just spent a few hours reading The Whistling Season, by Ivan Doig. This is the book club selection for this month, I believe Mable's choice. It's a good book, in that I couldn't stop reading until I finished it. Nothing spectacular, but good reading. Good writing.

Last night I sent a brief, casual email to the dog lady, asking if she had made any arrangements yet for Mr. Bond. Today she emails me saying, "I remember you--you talk to animals!"(which she had gleaned from my application). And that I could come up there and, in effect, bring him home. Now it dawns upon me, "What if he and I don't like each other?" But alea iacta est, I guess. Gretchen and Sophie seem to like me OK, Gretchen more than Soph. So I can probably get along with a little dog.

Tomorrow I have to june around and mail two dolls to an eBay customer, and my stack of bill payments.

My big feral tomato plant looked droopy this morning, like it needed water--imagine! With water standing in puddles and swampy places all over the back yard. It has clusters of blooms all over it. I'm anxious to see if it grows a real tomato, or just a bunch of little tommy-toes.

A Light-Bulb Moment!

It suddenly occurs to me what a comical (not to say pathetic) figure I must appear--always mentally scurrying around, trying to accomplish something, getting nowhere except back where I started.

Perpetually cleaning and adorning whatever living space I'm in, hardly noticing that it's always (and probably always will be) a total disaster area.

Perennially "writing a novel," with never anything to show for all the scribbling. Year in and year out, wondering what would be the best thing to do with my hair, and never making much of a change, while it grows wilder and thinner.

Forever examining and planning which church congregation I would best fit in, yet spending my Sundays and other days mostly alone. Wrestling daily (in my mind, at least) with my gnarled up finances, confident that tomorrow everything will even out--which it never does.

It really makes me smile. And I don't want any patronizing compliments to make me feel even sillier. I'm sure my road, to wherever I'm going, is and will be paved with my good intentions. Maybe they'll earn me a C+.

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Last night I put three fat frozen chicken drumsticks in the crockpot, and today re-cooked the meat in a casserole with some good old Golden Rule barbecue sauce. Lunch was two little barbecue-and-pickle burgers, and it still makes my mouth water to think about it.

A Good Day

In my slow-pokey way, I have scrubbed and rearranged and put away a lot of stuff today. Even though it's just another small dent, at least it's done.

The main reason this has been a good day is that I had visits from my two sisters and one beautiful, sweet niece (Andy). (My sisters are right good-looking, too, and sweet most of the time.) Susan and Andy were slurping up the last drops of Chick-Filay (sp.) milk shakes, so they were acting good and cheerful. I hope they'll all come back more often and stay longer.

We had another hard rain shower a while ago. This morning it was dry enough that I could walk to the back of the lot to see what that big round thing is that the last flood washed up, and it's a smooth-sawn section of a log about 2 feet long, looks like a piece of somebody's log house. All this wind and rain has been hard on my newly-transplanted peony plants; one of them is broken. But I hope and trust they'll all recover.

Another Gully-Washer?

Looks like we're about to get one.

I woke up this morning determined to make a major dent in this dirty house. I wish I could be like the ideal Capricorn: "Her house always looks in perfect order, without much effort," or something like that. I think I must be afflicted in my house-keeping house.

Today I filled a big trash bag with gew-gaws and dishes to take to the thrift store next time we go. That only made a minor dent, and now I'm tired. And bored. Sometimes I think, if someone would only clean the place up completely, from top to bottom, and get rid of nine-tenths of the stuff, maybe I could keep it nice. But who knows? Why did I accumulate all this junk? Who in her right mind needs 6 sets of dishes, and pieces from maybe half a dozen more?

I think it's advancing age that makes me no longer appreciate pretty possessions. Tell you one thing for sure: If I ever get all the rooms straightened up, scrubbed, decorated, and dusted, one way or another I'll get rid of everything I didn't use or won't use in the next month or so.

This place was Rowan Lake.

Joe cut the grass yesterday, and a couple of hours later it started raining. And a few minutes later the whole back and east side of the lot was under water. It even floated that cross tie out into the yard. I put everything else back, but couldn't lift that thing. I'm really glad it kept the garbage can upright, instead of tumbling it around and strewing trash.

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Rue McClanahan
February 21, 1934-June 3, 2010