A Long Day's Journey

I went shopping at Wal Mart. My cart was only about half full when I checked out, and it had taken me half a day to find that much. There were shoppers with carts piled high, and I felt like asking them if they started yesterday. It takes me forever to find anything in that store, unless it's fabric, and then when you find what you're looking for, they don't have your brand. I'm wo' out, as Mable says.

My right hand is swollen and numb. I didn't feel like quilting today, anyway. I think I'll just take a long nap, and when I wake up, I'll start cleaning up and cooking for tomorrow's dinner.

A Quilt Called Q

Taking a break from working on the leaf quilt. If that thing ever gets done, I'll call it the Main Quilt that I've ever made, even more tedious (and ultimately satisfying) than my old Broken Sash quilt, that has over 6,000 tiny pieces.

But I expect the Bear and Geese (at right) will still be the prettiest; it was easy and simple and a joy to make. But that was when I was young and nimble-fingered. My fingers are still nimble at typing; it's holding those tiny quilting needles that has got so tedious.

I remember Betty Lou telling about how she and Bobbie used to finish a quilt in a day. Maw Maw made quilt tops in squares cut from worn-out men's clothing, flannel underwear, or anything that was warm and available. Bobbie and Betty Lou would hang one from the ceiling, take huge old needles and coarse thread like crochet yarn, and just sit there and stab in inch-long stitches until it was done in a few hours. 

I've got to start preparing for Sunday dinner. It's a little late, but sometime this evening or tomorrow, I'll get enthusiastic about it.

***

I, Mechanic

I often talk about some appliance or other "healing itself" after it wouldn't work for a time. Actually, what happens, I guess, is that I keep punching, kicking, and fiddling with the things until sometimes they go back to the way they were. Anyway, both the printer and the camera seem to be working now.

One of my UFOs was a drawer full of fabric rosettes that we quilt people call yo yos. I got tired of that project so quick it was funny. Yesterday I was about to throw away the remains of an old crocheted rag rug that was coming all to pieces from the center out. Instead, I tacked some of those yo yos over the holes. So it can be a rug again for a while.

I count this as a UFO Bust, because I stuffed the rest of the yo yos in a pretty tote bag that I'm going to donate next time the EC truck comes around, and I'll never have to look at them again.

I've only been awake for about an hour and I still feel dopey. Need more coffee. After I get limbered up, I'll try to work on the book. Or the leaf quilt. Or something.

Getting Somewhere

Spent a couple of hours this morning on the manuscript, clearing up some junk. Thanks to Ramey for the article on agents who accept queries. I explored three of them, but 2 of the urls go to websites and I couldn't figure out where to send a query. The third one only accepts queries by snail mail. Don't know yet just what I'll do about it, but I'm glad to have the information. The trouble is, I can't quit making changes, and buckle myself down to writing the end of the novel, not yet.
*
After I got the cars started the other day, I went down every few hours to start them again. The second time I tried to start the Lincoln, it wouldn't. I guess it needs a new battery, among all the other stuff it needs.

On Sunday (January 30) I've invited the sisters and their entourages here for Sunday dinner. We've decided to take turns feeding each other on the last Sunday of each month.

Joe W. has started a poetry critique group at his home in Odenville to meet once a month. The first meeting is set for February 20, a Sunday afternoon. Seems it will be a small group, and I'm looking forward to it. We're supposed to bring a poem we're still working on or have recently completed, to discuss any problems and/or ask for comments.

So, in 2011 I'll have somewhere to go/something to do at least twice a month, to get me out of the house and into human contact.

China Court

China Court is a novel by Rumer Godden. In my opinion, she was a second-rate novelist who wrote one first-rate book. China Court is not about China, and it's not about a law court. It's about a house on the Cornish coast of England that is not haunted except by voices.


Since we sisters started the book club in--was it 2003? Gad! Every month when it has come my time to host the meeting, I have longed to select China Court for the discussion. But I always pick something else. I remember the first time I read it, in 1968 or thereabouts, and how I was confused by all the people and voices. You have to read it over a few times to remember who everyone is, to get so involved in it that you cry over almost every page--not because it's so sad, but because it's so beautiful.

China Court is like one of those medieval hand-illuminated, painted, gilded manuscripts or page borders: The more you look at it, the more beauty you discover. The book isn't medieval; it's about an English family, a couple of 20th-century wars, and a funeral. But most of all, it's about books, which may be the reason I like it so well.

A few days ago, I ordered some cheap copies from Amazon.com, thinking I would definitely select it for this-coming April, and make sure everyone has a copy well ahead of time. But it's hard enough to get all the book club members to read one book a month. I'm sure most of us wouldn't consider reading a single little book more than once, especially when, to quote Jane Austen, "it's only a novel."

But I feel sort of sorry for any home-loving reader who will never read it. And a bit envious of those who haven't read it yet but might someday.

Giving Thanks

Thanks for my three wonderful children: the Star, the Dreamer, and My Good Right Hand.

Thanks for my loving (and much loved) sisters, nieces and nephews.

Thanks for sweet Cookie, who passed away last week.

Thanks for dear Jackie, and frail Leon who calls out in the night to friends on the Other Side.

And thanks for all my loved ones and friends Over There, whom I hope to meet again.

Thank you for the food we eat,

Thank you for the friends we meet,

Thank you for the birds that sing,

Thank you Lord for everything.

Something There Is That Doesn't Love a Writer

Or doesn't want me to be one. One such something is Mo the Cat. Well, if it isn't one damn' thing after another, it's something else. I strove all week to have a day when I didn't have something urgent to do, so I could have a whole day to write. It came down to Friday, which is hardly ever a good day to get anything done. I paid some bills and a few other such nuisances, then was going to the P.O. or somewhere, and both--BOTH cars had dead batteries.

I got the Murray's guy to come and jump-start the cars. He said the cold weather could make batteries lose the charge, but I asked him to check the truck to see if I was leaving something turned on, and sure enough, the light switch behind the rear-view mirror was turned on.

I backed the Lincoln out and left it running in the driveway while I drove the Tracker around on my errands. Then I drove the Lincoln to the Chevron to put air in the tires, so I could drive it to Moody to the tire store. But the Friday, school bus and going-home-traffic was so heavy, I came on back to the house.

I turned on the computer and the doorbell rang. With that dreadful "What Now!" feeling, I answered the door, but it was just a bunch of school kids wanting a contribution for something or other. After I dealt with that, it occurred to me that I was hungry. (So was Mo, but he's always hungry.)

After I ate something--leftover mushroom pie, but that's another story--I made that pie Wednesday, and had 2 dishwasher loads to clean up after it. Anyway, I got mad and finished binding my Una quilt; I even sewed a hanging tube on the back of it. The camera hasn't yet healed itself; you'll just have to imagine a 1/4-inch dark red binding around it.

This took what hours remained of the day, pulling out all that tangled thread and dealing with the (expletive deleted) sewing machine, and a thimble that wouldn't stay on my finger.

And then I didn't sleep well or long. So that's what I plan to do today. I ought to take the Lincoln and get those tires fixed, but when didn't I ought to do something I don't feel like doing?

I am proud to have the quilt finished and off my mind.

Fortune Made His Sword

This book is excellent reading. However, the author, Martha Rofheart, made one big mistake in her history. It's in chapter three, with Henry, later to become Henry V, narrating, so I guess you could take it as the boy Henry's mistake. But he is portrayed as intelligent and alert, so he ought to have known the English kings back a couple of generations.

Rofheart has Henry say that the father of Richard II was the Black Prince, so called because he wore black armor. This is true, but she also says that the Black Prince was King Edward III. This is not true. The Black Prince's name was Edward, and he was the crown prince to his father, King Edward III. The Black Prince had two sons; the elder died in childhood, and the second was Richard. The Black Prince died while Richard was a young boy, leaving Richard next in line to the throne. A short time later, King Edward III died, and Richard became king. So Richard succeeded his grandfather, not his father, as king. His father never was king.

I caught this error when I read it, but doubted my memory. I didn't look it up until I finished the book this morning, but all through the book, because of that glitch, I didn't quite trust her history.

Anyway, it's very good, as a novel.
*
I just cooked and ate three small biscuits. Should have stopped at one or two, because I feel stuffed. Maybe another mug of coffee will help.

Funny How Tastes Change

Strange change. For a while I was so hooked on "Without a Trace" on TV, I couldn't stand to miss an episode. I would even watch a "Criminal Minds" episode if it wasn't too gory. Now I can't stand either one of them.

I started watching "Without a Trace" because Anthony LaPaglia is in it. I had seen him as a gangster in "The Client," the movie where Susan Sarandon is a lawyer with a little boy as a client and Tommy Lee Jones as a disapproving lawman. LaPaglia plays an FBI section director in WaT. He's a good actor, but I've seen enough for now.

Marianne Jean-Baptiste is the best actor on the show. When "Viv" appears, the liars and prevaricators sort of curl up and spill their guts.

Good Eats

Yesterday I baked some baby carrots with butter and spices and dumped them on a bed of rice.  It was so good, I'm doing the same today with some rutabaga chunks from the freezer. I love rutabagas. I used to get those cans, Busch's I think. But nowadays the canned ones all seem to be from the core or stem end, like trying to chew pieces of cork or cane. So now I buy fresh ones and chop 'em up.

Evvabody better stand back and give me room--I'm starting this novel over from scratch. I woke up this morning with a light bulb popping on and off over my head, about this novel. I also woke up thinking I'd give $5 for a Coke, but I didn't have to--there was an unopened carton in the basement that I bought back before Christmas, just in case. But then I had to go to the store anyway for milk and you-know-whats.
*
So many book I thought I had read, I find when I start to read them "again" that they're new to me. Yesterday I spied Fortune Made His Sword in the bookcase. Had Jed forgot that he'd already brought it back? Or did I have two copies? Anyway, I started reading it.

Being so steeped in the Shakespeare chronicle, and so many English-history books, I know that when I open a book about England, I've got another tear-jerking experience coming. All the old kings were little above savagery, but I have always loved and pitied Richard the Second above them all. He sponsored and supported Chaucer and any number of others, worthy and unworthy. And here comes this little Lancaster telling a York how to be a king. But I like Henry-the-Fifth-to-be, too; especially knowing that he doesn't have long on this earth.

Englishmen all. And women. So silly when they let their guard down. Churchill and Darwin, even Captain Bligh, can draw a tear or two. They all seem to carry the past and the future around somewhere on their persons. Like George Patton.
*
The rutabagas weren't as good as the carrots.

Baseball Used To Be Serious

"Stick it in his ear!..."

Leo Durocher was for a time manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, then switched over to manage the New York Giants. “Branch Rickey had the best description of Leo. He said, 'Leo is the only person I ever met who can walk into an impossible situation and immediately make it worse.'” I guess he was baseball's most-hated man. The players, both his and his opponents', hated him. “Durocher wanted to win through any means possible, legal or illegal. He stole signals. He screamed obscenities...from the dugout. Occasionally he ordered our pitchers to throw at the opposing hitters.



Babe Pinelli

“After Leo defected to the...Giants, he ran into two problems at the same time: Carl Furillo [the Dodgers' giant outfielder] and Babe Pinelli. Babe was the most mild-mannered umpire you'd ever see, so mild he was almost meek. He'd call a borderline strike and then apologize. ...He was as nice as Durocher was arrogant. And he was another Durocher hater.

“During one [Dodgers vs. Giants] game Durocher's pitcher, Ruben Gomez, hit Carl [with a pitched ball], and as Furillo...was standing at first base, he looked into the Giants' dugout and saw that Durocher seemed to be beckoning to Carl with his index finger. That was all Carl needed. He asks the umpire, Pinelli, for time and then bolts toward the New York bench. Durocher, who never ducked, comes charging out—behind Monte Irvin and Jim Hearn. But Furillo simply bowls those two over, grabs Durocher, and body-slams him to the ground.

"Both benches emptied...and I was on the fringes making sure I didn't do anything stupid like getting hurt. Furillo is on top of Durocher with his fingers around Leo's throat and he's choking him. Leo is turning white; I'm afraid the guy is going to die. And there's Babe Pinelli, Mr. Nice Guy—in all his umpire's neutrality—yelling, 'Kill him, Carl! Kill him!'”

Duke Snider, in The Duke of Flatbush

*

I always kind of liked Leo Durocher. Daddy and I used to listen to the games on the radio. Dizzy Dean mispronouncing everyone's name. I guess Dizzy did as well as anyone could, pronouncing "Red Schoendienst."

Nonfiction malgre lui

I mean in spite of the fact that a lot of good biographies, letters and memoirs read like fiction. I don't remember the authors of some of these, and am too lazy to look them up.

The All-Colour Book of Henry VIII, by ?
All the Golden Lads, by Daphne duMaurier (about the courtiers of Queen Elizabeth I)
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
The Autobiography of Malcolm X, by Malcolm X with Alex Haley
The Autobiography of Mark Twain
Balzac, by Stefan Zweig
A biography of Emily Dickinson, by ?
A biography of Felix Mendelssohn, by ?
The Brontes, by Juliet Barker
A Damned Serious Business, by Rex Harrison
Darwin, by James Moore and somebody else
Dickens, by Peter Ackroyd
A Distant Mirror, by Barbara Tuchman
Down the Garden Path, by Beverley Nichols
Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings, by Amy Kelly
The Elephant To Hollywood, by Michael Caine
Elizabeth the Great, by Elizabeth Jenkins
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage, by Alfred Lansing
Gerard Manley Hopkins, by G.F. Lahey, S.J.
Imperium, by Robert Harris
John Adams, by David McCullough
King Charles II, by Antonia Fraser
The Kings and Queens of England, by ?
Letters From the Earth, by Mark Twain
The Life and Times of Chaucer, by John Gardner
Loitering With Intent, by Peter O'Toole
A Lovely Light: A biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay by ?
M: The Man Who Became Caravaggio, by ?
A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway
The Mysterious William Shakespeare, by Charlton Ogburn [Jr.]
Only a Novel: The Double Life of Jane Austen, by Jane Aiken Hodge
Out of Africa, and Shadows on the Grass, by Isak Dinesen
Puccini, by Howard Greenfield
Religion in Shoes [Biog. of Brother Bryan of Birmingham], by Hunter B. Blakely
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, by Edmund Morris
Robert Frost, [a biography] by ?
Rudyard Kipling, by Lord Birkenhead (F. Smith)
Samuel Johnson, by John Wain
Schindler's List, by Thomas Keneally
Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts
Sir Thomas More, by Richard Marius
The Six Wives of Henry VIII, by Antonia Fraser
Stephen Crane, by ?
Tallulah, by Tallulah Bankhead
Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate Biography, by Fawn M. Brodie
Thomas Wolfe, by Elizabeth Nowell
Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana
Virginia Woolf, by Quentin Bell (or Clive Bell)
W.C. Fields: His Follies and Fortunes, by Robert Lewis Taylor
We Shook the Family Tree, by Hildegarde Dolson
We Took To the Woods, by Louise Dickinson Rich
The Weaker Vessel, by Antonia Fraser
*

Tallulah Bankhead before the Hollywood makeup artists (and cocaine, booze, etc.) changed her image. This may have been the black wig she was wearing when a monkey who was part of the stage play snatched off her wig and jumped down into the audience waving the hair in the air. What did T. do? She turned a cartwheel.

"Daddy, that's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen in my life."

[Daphne duMaurier to Gerald duMaurier, seeing Tallulah at a play]

Some Favorite Movies

Advise and Consent, 1962
Amadeus, 1984
Anne of the Thousand Days, 1969
At Play in the Fields of the Lord, 1991
A Beautiful Mind, 2001
Becket, 1964
Beetlejuice, 1988
Beloved, 1998
Ben Hur, 1959
The Big Country, 1958
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969
The Color Purple, 1985
Contact, 1997
The Crucible, 1996
Cyrano de Bergerac, 1950
Dances With Wolves, 1990
The Dead Zone, 1983
Dirty Dancing, 1987
Doctor Zhivago, 1965
The Education of Little Tree, 1997
A Few Good Men, 1992
Gaslight, 1944
Ghost, 1990
The Ghost and the Darkness, 1996
Giant, 1956
Gone With the Wind, 1939
Great Balls of Fire, 1989
The Haunting, 1963
The Homecoming, 1971
Iceman, 1984
The Inheritance [TV movie], 1997 (Thomas Gibson, “Hotchner” in “Criminal Minds”, was in this movie. It's based on an early Louisa May Alcott novel.)
Julia, 1977 (About Lillian Hellman, Dashiell Hammett's friend--starring Jane Fonda and V. Redgrave)
Julius Caesar, 1953
The Juror, 1996
Last of the Dogmen, 1995
The Last Samurai, 2003
Legends of the Fall, 1994
A Man For All Seasons, 1966
The Manchurian Candidate, 1962
Meet Joe Black, 1998
Mercury Rising, 1998
A Midsummer Night's Dream, 1935
Misery, 1990
My Fair Lady, 1964
Out of Africa, 1985
Places in the Heart, 1984
Rebecca, 1940
The Reivers, 1969
The Robe, 1953
A Room With a View, 1985
The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1934
Seabiscuit, 2003
Searching for Bobby Fischer, 1993
Sense and Sensibility, 1995
The Shadow, 1994
Shakespeare in Love, 1998
The Sixth Sense, 1999
Soylent Green, 1973
Starman, 1984
The Sting, 1973
Sweet Dreams, 1985
A Tale of Two Cities, 1958
The Third Man, 1949
The Thirteenth Warrior, 1999
Thunderheart, 1992
Titanic, 1997
True Grit, 2010
The Uninvited, 1944
The Way We Were, 1973
Wuthering Heights, 1939

***

Notice that I only liked a few movies—The Homecoming (about the Waltons), Soylent Green, The Sting,  Julia, and The Way We Were—that were made in the 1970s. And I wasn't wild about any of these except The Homecoming. The best thing about The Sting was Robert Shaw, and Ray Walston reading the racing tape. After 1980, the movie industry got back in the groove.

As for art and cult movies, I don't care for them. Not that I've seen very many. I've seen a little bit of Rashomon and two or three Charlie Chaplin films, and as much of that Crouching Tigers thing as I could see before going to sleep. I loved Groucho Marx and his TV show, and the book Why a Duck?, but the Marx Brothers movies are boring; I'd rather watch the 3 Stooges.

***

UFO Bust: I haven't finished anything. It must be that this cold weather has frozen my sewing machine as well as my camera and printer. The printer rattles and buzzes and spits out blank sheets of paper, and when I ask what's wrong, it says, "Disable wireless." The sewing machine tangles up all the top thread in the bobbin thread. The camera just gives me a blank look.

Book Club Today: At least the Tracker still works (knock on wood).

50 Or So Favorite Novels

I keep thinking of books I've left out. Those listed by Mark Twain, Rex Stout, Patrick O'Brian, and a few others, just represent the body of their works, as it's hard to pick a favorite. Most of these, I've read more than once--the asterisks indicate the ones I've read the most times.

Advise and Consent, by Allen Drury
Ahab's Wife, by Sena Jeter Naslund
All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren
Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy
Beloved, by Toni Morrison
*The Black Cauldron, by Lloyd Alexander
The Black Stallion, by Walter Farley
The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Call for the Dead, by John Le Carre
*China Court, by Rumer Godden
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, by Mark Twain
Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton
*David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens
*The Dead Zone, by Stephen King
A Distant Trumpet, by Paul Horgan
The Dollmaker, by Harriette Arnow
Dreadful Hollow, by Irina Karlova
*The Education of Little Tree, by Forrest Carter
Fer de Lance, by Rex Stout
The Goblin Reservation, by Clifford D. Simak
*Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
Green Mansions, by W.H. Hudson
The Harvester, by Gene Stratton Porter
*The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson
Heidi, by Johanna Spyri
The House of the Spirits, by Isabel Allende
Kim, by Rudyard Kipling
Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
The Once and Future King, by T.H. White
One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Pathfinder, by James Fenimore Cooper
Peachtree Road, by Anne Rivers Siddons
Post Captain, by Patrick O'Brian
Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
Quo Vadis, by Henri Sienkiewicz
*Random Harvest, by James Hilton
*The Razor's Edge, by W. Somerset Maugham
*Rebecca, by Daphne duMaurier
The Robe, by Lloyd C. Douglas
Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe
The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy
The Shining, by Stephen King
The Sign of the Ram, by Margaret Ferguson
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski
Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge, by Ramey Channell
*A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
Taran Wanderer, by Lloyd Alexander
Tess of the D'Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy
The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas pere
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
True Grit, by Charles Portis
Way Station, by Clifford D. Simak
A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle
*Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
Youngblood Hawk, by Herman Wouk (resembles the life of Honore de Balzac)

(Add on Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, and Buffalo Girls by Larry McMurtry.)

Cold and Lonely

Seeing the numerous squirrels' nests in the bare oak trees makes me sad and sorry for the little fellows. Wonder why they don't nest in the pines, where they'd have a little bit of a wind-break. I guess they're just not as architecturally savvy as the intelligent hawks, whose nest is in the highest crook of one of the pine trees.

Yesterday, driving around, I saw pure-dee flocks of what I thought were hawks, but I decided they were just the crows who have grown so huge around here. "Pure-dee" reminds me of Don Snow, who once told an inquiring client in the Social Security office, "Whah, SSAh is pure-dee ol' welfare!"

Speaking of snow, we're still getting flurries when one of those fleecy clouds passes in front of the sun. And cold--I mean!

Mo' Snow

I went to the bank and the store a few minutes ago, and it was snowing lightly. The roads were pretty much OK. But now it's snowing heavily, and it looks beautiful coming down. I was most careful walking up and down the driveway to check the mail. Thanks to my sink disposal, my trash cart only contains a couple of bags, so I didn't push it up to the curb.

Last Thursday when I went to the courthouse, I came out of the parking deck in the middle of the block. I walked down to a traffic light instead of up, and the other side of the street was much steeper. An icy wind was blowing in my face, and I was thoroughly winded by the time I climbed to the CH and the top of the marble stairs. So since then, I've cut down on the cigarettes and made an effort to exercise more. But the next time I go down there, I'll remember to walk up to the traffic light so I can walk down to the courthouse.

At the store today, I looked for a Mrs. Smith's apple and raisin pie like the one we had Christmas, but there wasn't one. That was the best pie I've ever had in my life, I think. But today I just bought a plain apple pie, which is good enough in a pinch.

Yesterday I bound the sides of my Una quilt, but the sewing machine messed up when I tried to sew on the top and bottom bindings. So I'll work on that this afternoon. I've got a frozen lasagna baking in the oven for my late lunch.

TCM or one of those channels has shown the old "True Grit" movie several times lately. Watching it, I decided that the new one really is better, saving John Wayne over Jeff Bridges. I like the Big Lebowski/Starman a lot, but in the movie he tended to mumble at strategic moments. It goes without saying that Matt Damon is a real actor and a much better Texas ranger than Glen Campbell.

***

I was surprised Thursday to notice that the courthouse steps are not really marble. They're either granite or some kind of composite rock. I guess I was remembering the steps at the capitol in Montgomery, that I believe are real white Alabama marble.

Snowed (or iced) in with no new books

My camera is completely pffft. I put new batteries in, forgetting that I had done the same about a month ago. No picture, no flash, not even a streak like the last one I was able to snap.

I'm reduced to reading old books. I may have to start searching--is it Kindle? I've momentarily forgot the name of that online job. Or pretty soon I may read Moby Dick again, or Gone With the Wind for the 24th-plus time.

R. Kipling before he got old and ugly.

Sea-Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick, and the wind's song, and the white sails' shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking...

John Masefield

England's Poet Laureate 1930-1967

*

John Masefield was not a great poet, but he understood what makes great poetry. It has been many years since I read Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. I have never completely read Dante's Divine Comedy or Aeschylus's great trilogy. I have always thought that Macbeth is the greatest of Shakespeare's plays. These are the four great poets Masefield discussed in his bound lecture, Poetry, which I re-read today after many years. The man really understood why we write, and how we succeed or fall short.

**

I'm hungry for baked sweet potatoes, and I happen to have some in the veg. drawer. Hope they're good and not pale and stringy.

***

The sweet potatoes baked up perfectly. I ate one, and thought I'd save the other to make something by a recipe. But then I ate that one, too.

Impossible Blue

Snow, huh? Am I scared? Of snow?

I got through the 1993 blizzard when the house attached to my apartment annex burned up because the residents had fled and left the thermostat turned up and the gas on or something.

I mean to go in a few minutes and stock up on the four basic food groups--coffee, creamer, cat food and cigarettes. Plus some Great Divide ice cream, milk and--and--bread, I guess, although one shelf of the freezer is stuffed with bread, buns, croissants, all kinds of bread. I've got bowls of soup in the freezer, and in the pantry cans of soup, veggies, chili and different kinds of fruit. If I'm snowed in for a day or two, maybe I'll hit a few more licks at the novel.

Thursday when I went to the courthouse, I was almost distracted on the way home by the most beautiful sight I have ever seen in my life except my babies' faces. The sky was the most perfect Tiffany-box blue--even softer and bluer than that. With little snow-white puffs of cloud scattered about. If a painter could achieve that impossible blue, he wouldn't have to paint anything else to please me.

P.S. The Tracker is a joy to drive.

Ta-dah!

If I should ever take up dealing in "pharmaceuticals," and got caught one day with a hundred grand in the car, at least I wouldn't be ashamed to show my driver's license. I'm not saying it's a pretty picture, that would be a lie. But at least it looks like me instead of like the plucked chicken on my old DL.
*
Having read and enjoyed True Grit by Charles Portis, I started reading it again last night. One of my favorite passages is where Mattie goes back to buy a pony from Col. Stonehill for less than she sold it to him. That poor sick browbeaten gentleman tells her that he heard a young girl had fallen headlong into a 50-foot well and died. He had thought it might be Mattie.

Pepper and Vinegar

Woke up this morning feeling peppy, eager to get at some of those UFOs. I've put them all in the cedar chest, and hope to get it emptied out sometime in the future. But I can't think about them now; I've got to use this burst of energy to get myself down to the courthouse and take care of business.

I need a picture of myself sitting at the computer, my hair all wild, and Mo invariably in my lap waiting to be squeezed.

2011 Goals

1. Finish this here novel

2. Get rid of the Lincoln and clean the basement

3. Clean and organize all my closets, including the laundry

4. Paint and redecorate my bedroom and bath

5. Get the house pressure-washed

6. UFO Bust - Finish binding my Una quilt

and finish quilting the patchwork leaf quilt:

 I'll probably add a couple more unfinished projects to the UFO (Un-Finished Objects) list.
*
4:45 p.m.: I've decided to come clean and list all my UFO projects. My camera is disabled right now--I think the battery needs replacing--so I can't photograph them all. But I will later on.

1.-2. The two quilts mentioned above
3. Yo Yo Table Runner - Sew all those yo yos together.
4. Log Cabin Quilt Top, made by me, to be quilted
5. Basket Quilt Top, made by Mama (MER) and me, to be quilted
6. Jacob's Ladder Quilt Top, made by Jenny, to be repaired and quilted
7. Hands All Around Quilt Top, made by MER, to be quilted
8. Christmas Star Quilt Top, made by MER, to be quilted
9. Log Cabin Quilt Top, made by Jenny, to be repaired and quilted
10. LeMoyne Star Quilt Blocks, made by MER, to be sewed together and quilted.
11. The Lord's Prayer Embroidered Sampler, made by Jenny, to be framed
12. Persian Horse Quilt Blocks, made by Jenny, to be put together and quilted
13.-19. Cross-Stitch Pictures, made by MER - To be outline-stitched with black, and framed. There are two parrots, two irises, two tulips, and a raccoon.
20. Broken Sash blocks sewn in strips, enough for a quilt, made by Jenny, to be sewn together and quilted

At least there are not very many that I started myself and left unfinished. I was sure I had made more quilt tops; but I sold a brown Irish chain, a blue Dresden plate, and a multicolored Sunshine and Shadow top.

Counting Coup

I have to count over the things I've done since Christmas to assure myself that I haven't done nothing. Hard to believe it's been nearly two weeks. There are so many things I should be doing (that's a line from my Cleopatra poem) that I keep putting off. Putting off going to Birmingham, because by the time I can get ready to go, it's always too late and I'd have to drive back after dark. But I'm going tomorrow for sure.

I mean to join Susan's UFO Bust, but haven't got my list ready. At least I've got the decorations down and packed up. Got my new dust buster charging--I thought it was charging yesterday but I didn't have it quite right. Maybe by the end of January I'll be charged up myself.

Ghost Oysters In the Sky

The [Am] sun was shining on the sea

[c] Shining with all his might

He [Am] did his very best to make

The [c] billows smooth and bright

(repeat: He [Am] did his very best to make

The [c] billows smooth and bright)

And [f] this was odd, because it was

The [Am] middle of the night

Yippee yi [c] yay, Yippee yi [Am] yo

The [f] middle of the [Am] night

The moon was shining sulkily, because she thought the sun

Had got no business to be there after the day was done,

"It's very rude of him," she said, "to come and spoil the fun."

The sea was wet as wet could be, the sands were dry as dry;

You could not see a cloud, because no cloud was in the sky.

No birds were flying overhead--There were no birds to fly.

A Walrus and a Carpenter were walking close at hand;

They wept like anything to see such quantities of sand.

"If this were only cleared away," they said, "it would be grand!"

 "If seven maids with seven mops swept it for half a year,

Do you suppose," the Walrus said, "that they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it," said the Carpenter, and shed a bitter tear.

"O Oysters, come and walk with us," the Walrus did beseech;

"A pleasant talk, a pleasant walk along the briny beach.

We cannot do with more than four to give a hand to each."

The eldest Oyster looked at him but never a word he said;

The eldest Oyster winked his eye and shook his heavy head,

Meaning to say he did not choose to leave the oyster bed;

But four young Oysters hurried up, all eager for the treat;

Their clothes were brushed, their faces washed, their shoes were clean and neat--

And this was odd, because you know, they hadn't any feet.

Four other Oysters followed them, and yet another four,

And thick and fast they came at last, and more and more and more,

All hopping through the frothy waves and scrambling to the shore.

The Walrus and the Carpenter walked on a mile or so,

And then they rested on a rock conveniently low,

And all the little Oysters stood and waited in a row.

"The time has come," the Walrus said, "to talk of many things,

Of shoes and ships and sealing-wax, and cabbages and kings,

And why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings."

"But wait a bit," the Oysters cried, "before we have our chat,

For some of us are out of breath, and all of us are fat!"

"No hurry!" said the Carpenter; they thanked him much for that.

"A loaf of bread," the Walrus said, "is what we chiefly need;
Pepper and vinegar besides were very good indeed.
Now, if you're ready, Oysters dear, we can begin to feed."

"But not on us!" the Oysters cried, turning a little blue;
"After such kindness, that would be a dismal thing to do!"
"The night is fine," the Walrus said, "do you enjoy the view?

"It was so kind of you to come, and you are very nice."
The Carpenter said nothing but, "Cut us another slice--
I wish you were not quite so deaf--I've had to ask you twice."

"It seems a shame," the Walrus said, "to play them such a trick,
After we've brought them out so far and made them hop so quick."
The Carpenter said nothing but, "The butter's spread too thick."

"I weep for you," the Walrus said, "I deeply sympathize!"
With sighs and tears he sorted out those of the largest size,
Holding a pocket-handkerchief before his streaming eyes.

"O Oysters," said the Carpenter, "you've had a pleasant run;
Shall we be trotting home again?" But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because they'd eaten every one.
*
Sung to the tune of "Ghost Riders In the Sky," this makes a very scary song. Sing it at Halloween. (This is what I was thinking or dreaming when I woke up this morning.)