Yours 'til Niagara Falls

The Tudors

  My latest favorite thing is watching episodes of The Tudors. I have discovered the all-too-convenient Netflix "watch it now" feature.  Since discovering it last week I have spent ten hours watching Season One.  Unfortunately I like to view it in the wee hours of the morning resulting in a bad habit of sleeping in til past eight the next morning.  I think the major draw for me is the exquisite costuming.  All the intrigues of court are interesting, but the detail on each of the garments has me pushing the play button even when I know there are better ways to use my time.

One Man's Opinion

Sunday's New York Times had an opinion piece wherein Nicholas Kristof gives his opinion of what books are indispensable reading for the elementary school set.  Find the column here.  The writer also opines that children shed I.Q. points over summer vacation but cites no research to bolster this claim.

Anyhoo... I find his book choices interesting.  A little heavy on British kid lit, but they all sound like worthy reads.  He also seems to favor series of books.  It might be fun to read some of his suggestions which I missed as a child.  And it's always a good idea to re-read Anne of Green Gables.  

One book I never understood was The Little Prince.  I attempted to read it to my children, but I found it unpleasantly weird.  I also never enjoyed the Tales of Narnia. I would however,recommend  Babar, despite the mother getting rubbed out in opening scene. I think it's the snappy green suit Babar wears.  The best books for very small children, in my not-so-humble opinion is anything by Beatrix Potter. 

Summer is Off to a Slow Start

The weather around here has not been conducive to summer activities.  It has been raining a lot and the temperatures have been way below average.  In spite of this, my garden is coming along nicely.  In the craft department, I've been doing a little bit of spinning, namely a couple of ounces of buffalo down.

From what I've read, the wool is gathered from the field the buffalo graze on after they molt in the spring.  But sometimes it is obtained from animals killed for meat.  I choose to believe I purchased the former.  Anyhoo... the yarn is amazingly soft.  It has a very short staple but I was able to spin a fairly even yarn.  I don't have much yarn, so I'm on the lookout for a lacy little something to knit.  The mat under my modest little ball of yarn merits an explanation.  I picked it up ant an estate sale for cheap (maybe a quarter?).  Yesterday I washed and blocked it.  I can't even imagine how much time it took to make.

 

Each of the raised rose motifs are the size of a dime.  The history of this crocheted lace is interesting.  It was taught to poor Irish women and children by Ursuline nuns to give them a source of income.  Originally workers specialized in different parts of the design; one person would do only roses, one would do the leaves and yet another would do the background netting.  This mat is in pristine condition and I really like it.

Although I need more fiber like I need to fly to the moon, I did acquire this huge amount of hemp.  It is prepared beautifully and absolutely luminous. I need to do a little research and practice to do this beautiful stuff justice.  I'll put it on my ever-growing list of summer projects.

Shopping Cart Voyeur

 I must confess...  I am a shopping cart voyeur.  I suppose it started innocently enough; my eyes would skim over the contents of another person's cart and something in it would jog my memory and I'd run back and pick up the dish soap or what-have-you that I had forgotten.  That innocent activity soon turned me into assessing the choices the shopper in question had made.  Not to judge, mind you, I think I'm past using my mental energy in that direction, but... some food products are just beyond my comprehension. 

Michael Pollan of Omnivore's Dilemma fame has a general rule regarding food.  If your grandmother wouldn't understand it, you should think twice about consuming it.  Fair enough, I think.

I'm not sure Grandma would have understood Texas Toast.  Big slabs of flabby white bread smeared with some margerine-based concoction.  It seems to be a popular item where I shop - people buy five or six boxes at a time.  It goes without saying that Grandma would have scratched her head in the bottled water department.  I don't get the concept and I rarely buy it.  Not too long ago, an adult at the elementary school where I teach  was mortified when she saw me filling my glass at the drinking fountain.  "You drink that stuff?' she asked in a shocked voice.  I replied that if it was good enough for the kids, I'm sure it would be fine for me.  "But they sell bottled water in the vending machine," she chided. 

A related product which I don't often purchase is bottled iced tea.  Do people not understand the recipe?  What would you estimate the difference in price for a gallon of commercial ice tea and homemade?  I'd have to guess it to be a mind-blowing percentage.  Anyhoo... I plan to be making my own this summer.  I have a pretty extensive collection of regular and herbal teas which ought to keep me nicely hydrated through the season.

Old Songs Festival

 

I loved the Old Songs Festival.  I had about five hours of shape note singing, took in a couple of concerts, listen to some Appalachian story songs, heard some traditional ballads and enjoyed some great banjo music.  In addition to the shape note singing class I participated in, I took a class wherein I learned old-style Connemara reel dancing.  That one nearly killed me.  The group I went with were really nice family people with a total of about ten children who were also nice to spend time with.

I slept in a tent for the first time in a hundred years.  I can't say I'm a natural born camper.  I had an air mattress, but when it comes to sleeping comfortably, there's no place like home.

The festival was in Altimont, New York, right near the Catskills, one of my favorite parts of the state.  The weather was very unstable all day Saturday - one minute it would be pouring buckets, the next minute it would be dazzling sunshine.  I ended up not staying for the third day.  I had seen everything I had wanted to and I wasn't in the mood to sleep rough again.

I plan to go next year, probably tacking on a trip to Saratoga Springs and/or Cooperstown.

Today kicked out my summer movie watching.  I watched The Road to Perdition this morning and Billy Elliot this afternoon.  I got half a mitten knit, so I'd consider it a productive day.

Across the State to Old Songs Festival

Bright and early tomorrow morning I will leave to drive toward Albany to enjoy the Old Songs Festival.  I'll be doing some shape note singing and enjoy concerts by the likes of Pete Seeger.

I will be camping for the first time in probably ten years.  I'm also bringing a stack of magazines to enjoy. 

Today was also the last day of school.  I'm hoping the ten week break will be loads of fun.

Long Day, Short Night

Today was Summer Solstice .  I celebrated not with a trip to Stonehenge, but by walking my dog in daylight after 9:00 pm.  It really was a beautiful day.  It makes me wish I could find a production of Midsummer's Night Dream.  Maybe I'll netflix the movie that was released not all that long ago. 

Reading, Weeding and Spinning

 I've been nibbling at Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Mineral, Miracle for a couple of months, but this weekend I seriously began to read it.  I'm really enjoying it.  I also plan to spend some time on the companion website.  It's been a very long time since a book has really made me take a hard look at how I am going through life.  The last book that made me reflect to this depth was Julia Cameron's Artist's Way .  Anyhoo... Animal, Mineral, Miracle is the story of Kingsolver and her family as they endeavor to eat in a responsible, sustainable and delicious manner.  Kingsolver's 19-year-old daughter and husband also contributed to the book with interesting essays and recipes.

  I alternated chapters with weeding duty in the garden.  Here is a picture of my sage. Some varmint ate my cucumber right to the soil line. Happily, it is not to late to replace it.  Along with the weeding, the book inspired me to use an eggplant recipe included in the chapter entitled "Late June".  It was good. 

Yesterday it rained all day.  I was watching a movie and spinning my natural fleece mix from the Happy Family event at Raveloe last March. I really debated the question "to ply or not to ply".  I finally decided to ply two singles together.  It's enough yarn to make a pair of gloves and I have just the pattern in mind.

 

I watched the Clint Eastwood movie Grand Turino this afternoon.  I liked it, which surprised me because I generally don't like Clint Eastwood (Space Cowboys being an exception). I wish I could have seen some close ups of the Hmong needlework on some of the actors.  Beautiful stuff.

This coming week marks the end of the school year.  Whoopeee!!!!!!

Summer Reading

Now that I've made up my mind about the Kindle (for the time being, that is) I made a big whopping Amazon book order.  It should tide me over for the summer.  I got two Persephone Classics, Kitchen Essays and Someone at a Distance.  I also ordered An Omnivore's Dilemma, which I've been meaning to read for a while. I felt compelled to get the fourth Maisie Dobbs mystery because I love reading all the books in a series.  I also got a book about regional cooking.  The last one was a bit of an accident because I meant to get the book which was written using essays written during the Depression about food.  We'll see if it's a keeper.

One oddball thing I do is to save up change for a while and then take it to one of those change-counting kiosks in the grocery store.  The ones around here give you the option of getting a coupon good for different retailers, Amazon being one of them.  If you choose this option you don't pay the 9% counting fee.  Anyhoo... I have a smallish candy tin that usually holds about fifty bucks in change and that really takes the sting out of ordering.  I also choose the cheapskate free shipping which generally takes ten days or so.  Which neatly corresponds to my last day of school.  Happy Reading!

P.S.  My day began with a fright.  I went to use my not-all-that-old hairdryer and something was horribly wrong with it.  Smoke and sparks shot out of it.  If I had had it up too close to my lovely tresses, I'm sure it would have been an awful scene.  Lucky me!

P.S.S. That picture at the top of the post is not really me, in case you were wondering.

Weekends Sure Do Fly By

This weekend my-favorite-little-boy-in-the-world had his first sleepover with us.  A twenty-two month old boy can really keep things hopping.  He gave us a good laugh at dinner last night.  We had asparagus from the farmer's market.  His little portion was cut up and he enjoyed that.  When he was done, he reached over to his Papa's plate and picked up the spears on his plate one at a time, nibbled off the tip and put the stalks back on Papa's plate.

He didn't get much coloring done but he really enjoyed dumping the crayons on the floor.  He also had a blast with his new T-ball set.

The farmer's market around here is superlative.  It's a mix of farmers and hucksters selling all kinds of fabulous produce, plants, sausage and cheese.  The strawberries are starting to come in and I have it on good authority that if you are not at the market very early in the morning - no berries for you.

I stopped by three different estate sales yesterday.  Slim pickins, let me tell you.  I did buy a few things, mostly dishes, but there were no good textiles, sewing equipment or books.  Maybe I'm getting too fussy in my old age.

One thing I've been cogitating is buying a Kindle.  My daughter has one.  My friend Mags has one.  They both like them a lot.  Here is what gives me pause; I had a palm pilot when it first came out.  Then I attended a conference where I was given the next generation palm pilot.  I used both of them, even learning the graffiti you needed to use with the little stylus (which was very easy to lose).  I tried to become one with the palm pilot with limited luck.  I downloaded a book or two on it and didn't completely enjoy reading from the screen.  I also think about how many lovely actual books I can have on the shelf for the price of the Kindle plus the downloading costs.  One thing which really annoys me is how quickly the devices we buy become obsolete.  The final thing which made me decide to hold off was an article in this week's Time magazine.  The article stated that more companies will be getting into the e-book device business soon.  That ought to bring the prices down and really enhance the range of choices.  So, I'll wait for a few months and see what news Christmas brings us.