Hello, all around….
I seem to have missed 2 or 3 weeks worth of news and have enjoyed catching up this morning! Judith’s Incredible Weekend. Candace’s Little Cat rescue mission. Jo’s “unpacking & getting settled” stories. The reunion at Oslo. Kindle Owners’ experiences with trying to find books. Guess I’m glad that I’m using my Kindle mainly for classics — more now than I’ll ever live long enough to read — but it’s there.
Last weekend Rosy (youngest daughter) and I went over to Nashville to celebrate Ariel’s (eldest adughter) birthday. It was HOT. Nashville abounds in ethnic restaurants and we went to Turkish and Japanese this time. Her end of Nashville is the old grounds of the Belle Meade plantation of yore — so that is the name of highway, malls, restaurants, etc. The plantation house itself is open to the public (at an admission fee) and has had a lovely tea room/lunch room in the old stables — featuring wonderful old-time Southern food. We planned to lunch there one day but found it closed now — they will locate on a nother part of the grounds.
Ariel retired two years ago after 30 years in the library system. She’s hugely enjoying retirement. Always was a craftsman — and now it is quilting and knitting. You should see her stacks and shelves full of quilting material, Jo! SHE will never live long enough to use it up! But what beautiful things she’s made — not only full size quilts (not many of those) but also smaller gorgeous projects.
One of my birthday gifts to her was Carol Ann Duffy’s “The World’s Wife.” Even my librarian daughter had not yet heard of Ms Duffy — who was named as Britain’s newest Poet Laureate last month, following the hallowed footsteps of Wordsworth, Tennyson, etc. Y’all may have seen articles and book reviews of this book — Ariel does not take the paper, and not having been daily at the library lately hadn’t heard about it. The book (poetry always comes in “a slim volume”) contains poems about the wives of famous men down through the ages. The easiest one to remember is a purported diary entry by Mrs. Charles Darwin. Something like this:
Went to the zoo today.
I said to Charles, “Something about that chimpanzee reminds me of you.”
That’s it! Of course all the other poms are longer, much longer — and some tend to run to darkness rather than humour.
Well, this is enough to bend your ears — or eyeballs for this time.
Cheerio, all!