finishing

 

This little piece of whatever is almost done. It might not look bad in the spare bedroom, under a lamp.

I suppose you would only know about Baker & Taylor if you were a library worker, but they are a large book distributor in North America. Where I work, we've always gotten our books from them; now, they are going out of business, and my boss has had to find another company. 

Baker & Taylor had two Scottish Fold cats for mascots. If you went to a library conference, you could get a paper shopping bag with their photo on it. And other things. They passed away years ago, but the B&T bags, and calendar, kept going. In fact, they would ask for photos of library cats for the calendar - I had almost forgotten that. 

The cats lived at a small library in Nevada, but were obtained for the library by B&T, who thought it would be a cute PR thing. They never expected them to be such a hit. Anyway, this book was written by a librarian at that library, and I couldn't resist when I heard about it. I don't know how a company can go from the largest distributor to libraries, to having to close up shop, but it's sad. My boss was faithful to them till the end (and a cat lover, I might add). It's not a gripping story, but under the circumstances I'm interested to know the story. 

a happy accident

 There were some cranberries in the freezer which I decided to use up, and looking through my pinterest recipes, I found a cranberry bread with orange juice in it - sounded good. I mixed it up, but then noticed it looked funny in the oven; it didn't rise up the way it was supposed to, and I knew I hadn't forgotten the baking powder. Well, it turns out I'd put in one cup of flour instead of two. What a waste! I picked at it, thinking I'd have to chuck it when it cooled, and I was suddenly reminded of what my mother used to refer to as cottage pudding. But it was getting late, so I stuck it in the fridge. That was days ago.

Today I pulled it out, and while I pondered the situation, I had another bite - it really was pretty good. More dense and moist than regular cake, but nice and tart from the cranberries and OJ. I cut it into thick pieces and put it in the freezer. And, just like that, I know what's for Easter dessert! All it needs is a sauce of some sort - maybe I'll splurge on lemon curd.

a bit of snow

This looks like a good snowstorm, right? Well, the predicted six to ten inches ended up being -
not quite four. Honestly. 

Of course, we weren't longing for a load of snow, but they hype it up so - and the drama on the weather sites - there are terrible earthquakes all around the world, volcanoes erupting - snow in New England is to be expected, for heaven's sake. So I made a little cake, with spices and pumpkin. And some dark chocolate pieces. 

"I have tried to make life a creative art... Happy homes are very important, I think, far more important than you realize, and God knows how many of them have been built up by the sacrifice of private longings. I am inclined to think that nothing so fosters creative action as the sacrifice of feeling. It's like rain coming down upon the corn."

                                                                -      Elizabeth Goudge, The Bird in the Tree

the case of the missing pattern piece, and other things

Not the temperature they predicted, but Monday was sixty-five:  mild, hardly breezy and wonderful for a day off. Now we have finally gotten into the forties for the daytime. Outside, everything is burnished. That's November.

I picked up a biography of Samuel Adams, cousin to our second president, John, and according to British officials of the time, "the most dangerous man in Massachusetts". Considered by Paul Revere, John Hancock and cousin John Adams as their "political father", and called "truly the Man of the Revolution" by Thomas Jefferson; it's a young adult book, but full of information and interestingly written. I really knew very little about him; now I know he failed at every job he undertook. He only seemed good at "talking and writing about the rights and liberties of the people". I love reading about this era.

I have returned to a dress I was planning to sew a year ago; I don't remember what happened. I had started on the bodice, and - ?  So, now I'm ready to attach the skirt part, but I soon realized I hadn't cut them out. Okay, there's plenty of fabric there, so I looked for the pattern piece. All the pieces were there, except for that one - it was nowhere! But, looking at the shapes from the layout examples, I am sure I can just make a guess. There are center seams front and back, so - four pieces, and they're a-line. I just have to figure out how big the tucks should be and how much fabric to allow for them.

My brother had a birthday. I gave him a book of the meditations of Marcus Aurelius. He is liking it, and surprised at how interesting the observations are. 

The Christmas cactus at work is setting buds.

Things are getting more intense in Tolkien's The Two Towers, with Gandalf and Pippin flying away on Shadowfax, his tail flicking in the moonlight. Then he leaped forward, spurning the earth, and was gone like the north wind from the mountains.

a civilization of death

 Last Sunday at mass, probably during what we call the general intercessions, Fr. T. mentioned the attempt on Donald Trump's life the day before. He wasn't getting political, but he had something to say. 

He spoke of a "civilization of death". He said an assassination attempt was a kind of blasphemy, to try to take the life of another, as if the sacrifice of Christ was not enough - that the death of someone would be necessary to make another person feel better. It was strong language - between his thoughts on this and the peaceful chanting of the visiting priest, it was a lot to digest.

Mother, now that the need is
at its greatest and the powers
of darkness seem to have free
rein, we come to you with
childlike trust and implore
your powerful aid. We
consecrate ourselves to you.
Preserve us in the love of
your Son, protect us from the 
evil of this world and lead us
safe to the heart of God.
Amen.

- from Aid to the Church in Need

praying, mending and reading

I am working on mending a favorite shirt of my brother's; he likes button-down collars and the button pulled away from where it was sewn to the shirt front, leaving a tear. I cut a small piece of fusible interfacing and ironed it onto the back, stabilizing the tear. 

But I feel it should have more support, not to mention it would be nice to cover the white patch on the inside. And if I sew something onto the back, the stitches will show on the front. Or will they? The button will then be attached, and the collar buttoned up. 

This is the front after interfacing it -

No matter what I do, it's not going to look perfect, but I think if I keep my stitches small, it won't show. And he'll be glad to extend the shirt's life.

I am still liking the book on Christina Rossetti. It tells of how the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood began. I guess they were frowned upon by some for seeming to disparage Raphael. I have to say I like their style of art. The medieval flavor, the detail - much of it appeals to me. I came across this Annunciation recently

Click on it to enlarge - the purple wings! What a scene! Of course, it wasn't really like that, but neither was it like Giotto. Art is an interpretation. 

Anyway, to get back to Christina Rossetti, now I'm in a chapter which is including many excerpts from her poetry, and I think I'll have to get a book of some of them. 

I've also been moving through Shakespeare's Cymbeline, which I never read; I'm still trying to finish the Literary Life's reading challenge, and maybe I won't make it, but it's not a race, just a way to enlarge one's reading horizons. And for some reason, earlier today I was remembering the final Brother Cadfael mystery that Ellis Peters wrote before she had the stroke. I don't know if she was planning any more, but this was the twentieth, and I think any other kind of story would have been an anti-climax. I was remembering how beautiful the ending section was, so I took it off the shelf and read it, getting choked up. (no, he doesn't die) I don't want to spoil anything, but he had to leave the monastery for an extended period, and he returns in the middle of the night and goes into the church to pray and wait for morning and the abbot.

He lay down on his face, close, close, his overlong hair brushing the shallow step up into the choir, his brow against the chill of the tiles, the absurd bristles of his unshaven tonsure prickly as thorns. His arms he spread wide, clasping the uneven edges of the patterned paving as drowning men hold fast to drifting weed. He prayed without coherent words, for all those caught between right and expedient, between duty and conscience, between the affections of earth and the abnegations of heaven: for Jovetta de Montors, for her son, murdered quite practically and coldly to clear the way for a coup, for Robert Bossu and all those labouring for peace through repeated waves of disillusion and despair, for the young who had no clear guidance where to go, and the old, who had tried and discarded everything; for Olivier and Yves and their like, who in their scornful and ruthless purity despised the manipulations of subtler souls; for Cadfael, once a brother of the Benedictine house of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, at Shrewsbury, who had done what he had to do, and now waited to pay for it.

I guess maybe that is a bit of a spoiler. When the book came out years ago, I took it home and then got sick with something; I was in bed, with no obligations, no one expected me to do anything, and I was able to immerse myself in the story. And when it came to this ending, it was so moving to me, I still feel that emotion every time the memory returns. 

It's a good prayer list. Especially for "all those labouring for peace through repeated waves of disillusion and despair" and for the young, who have "no clear guidance where to go". 

a garden saga

 The very rainy weather pattern we were in seems over, and it's actually been September-like at times, in the high seventies and how eighties. Amazing! And very welcome. But all my plans for the backyard garden were foiled and now I just have to learn from this and forge ahead. 

Do you see the long grasses in there? Just one week ago I went in to pull up some weeds after the weather had changed. There was standing water in there along the edges, and the weeds I pulled up were not only in muddy soil, which I expected, but sopping, dripping mud. There was really no point in continuing. I realized that raised beds are what I need to think about. I don't know if today, one week later, it was much drier, but today we're having a very rainy day, rain on and off all day, so there is really no point. The rain today is normal for summer, falling straight down, cooler breezes coming in the windows - it's nice. But that area down there doesn't need any more water, unless I want to grow rice. 

My brother had told me in the spring that he wanted to focus on the side garden - he works long hours and doesn't have so much time - so I said I'd work in the back garden. 

His MO for the garden was always to rototill, and then plant everything close together, so the plants could help prop each other up to a certain degree. He would incorporate some compost with each plant he put in, and then use MiracleGro for fertilizer. He told me that the point of growing your own veg is to spend as little money as possible, to make it worthwhile. And, to be fair to him, he had to make good use of what little time he had to spend on it. But I have different ideas (and probably less realistic than his).

I told him not to till, that I didn't want to weed seeds to be turned up by the tiller. I was just going to try and keep up with them as time went on. When I began in mid-May, it was kind of muddy in there, but I bought a few savoy cabbage plants and onion sets and put them in, along with some mushroom compost from the garden store down the road. I had no idea of filling up the space, as it is a good size and I didn't want to overwhelm myself; I thought I'd buy plants a little at a time, and compost as needed, clearing weeds as I went along. I developed a vague memory of a weeding implement, dug around in the basement and found my cape cod weeder - a fantastic tool for weeding! When the ground is dry, there's nothing like it for cutting those weeds out entirely; when the ground is moist, you can usually just pull them up by hand. 

So, time went on and I bought the rosemary plant, a garlic chive, and some oregano, just whatever caught my fancy when I was at the garden place, and I got some chicken manure fertilizer, the dried sort. I took care of my plantings, the cabbage was growing nicely and I also got an heirloom tomato called Black Russian - I do love the heirloom tomatoes. My plan was to see how things went, and maybe cover parts of the garden with cardboard if I thought I wasn't going to plant there, to keep down the weeds. I was going out in the cool mornings, watering and spreading grass clippings around the plants.  I had a plan. Then it started to rain. 

At first, I just waited, but it would shower every day, it seemed, and more like a downpour. And at times when I couldn't go out. Then, it was all so wet, there wasn't much point, and I thought it would pass. But it lasted three or four weeks, along with steady excessive humidity, the whole time. The cabbages were ruined. The tomato was, too. I didn't think to put them in pots - I didn't know it would last so long. 

I read somewhere once that Leonardo had many failures; he kept going. There isn't much point in my being mopey - I just want to learn from this episode. I was telling my brother at dinner that I'm going to get raised beds. He can't see putting out any expense for them, considering how they need to be filled, etc. But there are a lot of helpful gardening channels on youtube - like Huw Richards, an amazing young man who's had a channel since he was a child, really, and he has frugal and sensible ideas for gardening. I don't mind the expense in order to establish things.

We'll see how it goes.

gradual and silent encroachments

 "There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

                                            -  James Madison

long sentences and short memories

 It's Veteran's Day.

I'm still with How to Train a Fox, and I do want to finish it, even though it's dry and I haven't picked it up much lately. Jane Eyre is going to take me a while (am I kidding myself? all books take me a while), since it's so fat; I have read it before, but I recently went back to an earlier podcast of Close Reads where they had a great conversation about it, and I determined to first watch all the modern versions of it I could get, which was pretty easy, since we have four at the library! (wasn't it Hemingway who wrote over-long sentences? I haven't read Hemingway yet, but I know that sentence was too long.) While I was in the midst of this, somebody dropped off unwanted books and this paperback was there for my taking.

The Year of Our Lord 1943 is subtitled Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis, and I've only just started it. The author is talking about the failure of the churches to hold back the decline of society, their failure to be enough of an influence on young people. Then he (Alan Jacobs) mentions a book published in that year by Amy Buller, Darkness Over Germany, and she says: "I record these stories (of conversations with young Germans) to emphasize the need for youth and those who plan the training of youth to consider carefully the full significance of the tragedy of a whole generation of German youth, who, having no faith, made Nazism their religion." Then Alan Jacobs says: "But Buller insists that even this wholesale ecclesiastical collapse would not have been sufficient to ruin almost the whole of German youth if the universities had not been equally complicit in the Nazification of the country." This, I fear, is happening all over again.

I'm also working on a skirt, with a bit of light blue corduroy that Cyndi gave me long ago. I'm using Amy Butler's (not the above-mentioned Amy Buller - funny!) Barcelona skirt pattern.

It has layers, but not gathered, and they have raw edges - so, we'll see how that looks in corduroy. I do like my frayed edges.