Stacey Schiff, Erin McKean, Laura Kasischke, and Connie Willis

Over the last couple of weeks, I have read four books: Stacey Schiff's Cleopatra: A Life, Erin McKean's The Secret Lives of Dresses, Laura Kasischke's In a Perfect World (link is to a podcast), and Connie Willis' To Say Nothing of the Dog.

Quick notes about each of these:

I read Cleopatra solely because it was the book picked by my book club this time around. I had no interest in the period, the people involved, or the general topic. I know this marks me as an uneducated hick, but there you are. The book is carefully researched, written in a lively fashion with careful notes about what is known, what is hinted at, and what is merely speculated. If you are interested in the period, the people, and/or the general topic, this book is very much worth your time. I found it tedious, but I know that much of that feeling probably had more to do with everything that was going on around me in real life, and that this was "assigned" reading.

My "reward" for getting through that book was The Secret Lives of Dresses. As a long-time fan of Erin's "A Dress a Day" blog about dresses, fabrics, and patterns, I was eager to read this novel. It is essentially a coming-of-age novel about a young woman who is figuring out who she is and what really matters in her life. The story is told in the context of her grandmother's collection of vintage dresses, and the stories they hold. The novel moved along at a nice pace, the characters were well developed, and the story line was believable. I will be giving copies of this book to various nieces and friends.

I followed up with something very different. In a Perfect World takes place in the middle of an apocalypse. When I was nine, I sneak-read my father's copy of Pat Frank's Alas, Babylon, and that was the first of many apocalyptic novels I have read. A novel that has been persistent in my brain is Earth Abides, about a measles outbreak. Of course, in high school I read Nevil Shute's On the Beach, and I have read various comet-hitting-the-earth books, etc. (There is a certain strangeness in my character.) So, I came to this book with these big novels with their sprawling casts of characters, some omniscient view of the big picture, and a sense of closure and hope at the end. This is not one of those novels. This is a novel about a new stepmother trying to feel her way into an uncomfortable role at a moment when the world is coming apart. Laura writes sparingly, with a lot of information indicated between the lines. She gives the reader enough information to see the world from the point of view of the main character, but all of the things that character doesn't know, the reader doesn't know either. I loved this book, and I didn't want it to end. I so much wanted to stay with these people and keep on living inside their lives that I actually couldn't sleep after finishing the book because I kept spinning out various scenarios for the next several chapters, and even when I slept I dreamt of this book and its characters. Read this book. Period.

Right now I am near the end of another novel by Connie Willis. I can't believe I didn't hear of her until I was almost 50. If you like reading novels about time travel, just pick up her books. Sigh. If I weren't sitting here right now, I'd have finished the book.

What I'm Watching - Washington Edition - Final Notes

To wrap up the notes about the trip to Washington, I want to share this picture of a pair of ducks who ignored all of the signs about staying out of the pools. (This was at the Korean War Memorial.)

I kept taking pictures of the Washington Monument, and my sister pointed out that I was getting some great sky pictures. So, here are a couple of sky pictures:

Yes, that's Hubby at the front (he IS dressed casually).

The final picture is of a building the name of which I never learned but that I thought was insanely ugly - total mashup of styles and eras. If anyone knows what this building is, please let me know. I simply forgot to cross the street and find out - okay, two streets with four-to-six lanes of traffic lay between me and this building - simply not worth it.

While on the trip, I packed my bamboo knitting needles, some cotton yarn, and a simple pattern (along with a paperback book) into a small purse - this configuration got me through security areas with no problem. The only time I had a security issue was when my migraine medication (packed in foil) set off an alarm. When the guard saw what it was, I got waved through. (That's your handy tip of the day.) Anyway, I finished off one dishcloth (on metal needles on the road) and made another on bamboo needles. Here they are:

I made NO progress on the EveryWay Wrap. It's almost half done, and I'm bored.

What I'm Watching - Washington Edition

We were in town during the Cherry Blossom Festival. Dear readers will recall that these trees were thank-you gifts from the Japanese in the early part of the last century. As I walked among these magnificent trees, I thought about how the cherry blossoms are significant to the Japanese because of their ephemeral beauty - such a brief period of pure loveliness - and how that must be playing out in Japan right now.

Then, as I walked along, I started noticing that most of the trees have been pruned, some rather severely.

See all of those bulges on the tree? Those are pruning scars. Then, I started noticing......

and

Do you see the new shoots coming out of the "killed" parts? Life is persistent and will find ways to push itself forward. Even those parts of ourselves that we thought were dead may turn out to be just dormant if we allow ourselves to be open to change and growth. I look at this tree, and I see the beauty of a living organism that has survived.

Finally, I want to share this picture of a tree wearing a lovely plume. This enchanted me.

As I moved along the Tidal Basin, I came across the Franklin Roosevelt memorial, which is set up as a series of "rooms," one room for his pre-presidential life, one room for each of terms as president, and then a summation room. If you follow the link, you'll see a picture of the statue of President Roosevelt, and you'll notice his index finger appears to be gold. Well, the day I was there, children were crawling all over the statue, and most were rubbing his finger and petting his dog (who had a gold patch on top of his head). I think that the president would have been charmed. Two pictures:

My mother was 13-going-on-14 the spring that the president died. Her father was an autoworker, her mother a housewife, and her older brothers were away at war. She was in the house when the radio announced the president's death. She took the news out to the backyard where her mother was hanging laundry. My grandmother slapped her face, screamed, "Don't say such wicked things!" and burst into tears. That's who FDR was, and that's why he still matters and will matter for generations to come.

What I'm Watching Wednesday

Last week, my husband had a business meeting in Washington, DC, and I tagged along. While he was at work, I went and played. Here are some pictures from my trip.

At the National Gallery of Art, on my way to the Gauguin exhibit, I wandered through the Modernist area, turned a corner, and saw this:

I had seen pictures of Henri Matisse's cutouts, and I hadn't been impressed; however, walking into a room with these massive pieces stretched across huge walls just about blew me off my feet. I kept looking and looking and looking. Here is a close-up of one of the sections:

You can see the brushstrokes where his assistants painted the paper! I wanted to spend the rest of the day in the room, but I also wanted to see the Gauguin exhibit, which I then did. Truth be told, I've never particularly liked Gauguin, and after seeing the exhibit, I still don't; but at least I gave the guy a chance. I did really like the Venice exhibit, which is across the hall from the Gauguin exhibit. (No picture taking was allowed in either exhibit.)

The following day, I went to the African Art Museum, and if you get to Washington any time soon, please be sure to see the Artists in Dialogue exhibit. This was an exhibit where I wanted to just sit down and touch with my eyes all I could. Again, picture taking was not allowed, and I was fighting the urge to touch the pieces. On Saturday, when Hubby was able to play hooky, I took him to this exhibit, and he, not normally one to get excited about conceptual art, kept saying, "Thank you for bringing me here!" and kept looking and looking and looking.

On Saturday, Hubby and I walked up hill about a mile and a half from our hotel to the Washington National Cathedral. It is well worth a visit, but the only pictures we took were on our way out of the grounds (which are shared with St. Albans School - the school Al Gore attended). We had a lot of fun speculating about the backstory behind this:

I think it's safe to say that kids are kids wherever you go. In my next post: cherry blossoms!

Cone Nebula Quilt - Section 7

I went to the quilt guild meeting yesterday, with the first six sections of the Cone Nebula quilt in tow. I laid it out and showed it to a few people, including the person who had taught the kaleidoscope quilt class I took a few years ago. She was very gratified to see a student progress in this way, and she gave me some helpful suggestions. It was very funny that as I was laying out the quilt on the floor, someone came along and gasped, "Whose pattern is this?" I answered, "Umm, mine!" The questioner gave me a funny look and said, "It's just very complex looking." "Thank you!" I am SO not a kit person!

Anyway, here is the seventh section all sewn together.

In case you are wondering how this piece fits in with the rest of the sections, today's piece sits to the right of this piece:

and right below this piece:

I'm going to take a little break from this project. The next few weekends have stuff going on that may preclude serious sewing room time. Also, the speaker at the guild meeting yesterday showed a couple of pictures and said a couple of things that led me to an idea of how to pursue a project I've been noodling around in the back of my brain for about two years. I'll post some pictures as that unfolds.

It's been a couple of weeks since I posted pictures of cats, so this week, I have two. First, I provoked the Brat Cat and got this picture:

Ooohh!! Look at those scary claws!! (I LOVE her SO much!)

Second, here is the Princess on patrol in the front yard on a GORGEOUS spring day:

It's good to have a guard cat!

Thank you for the very kind comments after my most recent post. I think I was in a state of serious freak-out that morning. One of the things I have to keep telling myself is that numbers may be indicators, but, in the end, they're mere things, and they are not the be-all and end-all of life. My husband would totally snort if he read this as I have been obsessed with numbers like this:

Yeah. I wear a pedometer, and I have let it take over my life. I signed up for a first-quarter million-step challenge - that's an average of 11,111 steps per day. I have seriously been going out of my mind trying to meet this goal. I've been on a 10,000-step-per-day program for the last three years, and it's been good for me. I can go out and walk for five and six miles at a time without very much effort; what's doing me in is the focus on a significantly higher goal. As of this minute, I'm within 64,000 steps of the goal. In order to get this far, I've taken to spending a couple of hours a day on the weekends just walking vigorously around the neighborhood. That's fine and wonderful, but there are art projects I'm not doing, dust bunnies I'm not chasing, books I'm not reading. (Okay, this paragraph feels like something out of a support group meeting. "Hi, I'm Liz, and I'm a pedometer checker.") What I think is hilarious (in a sad sort of way) is that I have put on five or six pounds during this challenge! Must remember Liz' Rule Number Three: "Moderation in all things, including moderation." (from James Hilton's Lost Horizon)

In case you were wondering, Rule Number One is "In order to live fully, you must love people and use things, not love things and use people." (John Powell's Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am?) Rule Number Two is "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds." (Ralph Waldo Emerson, read in a George F. Will column back in the 1980s) It's amazing how often really complicated-seeming problems become clarified when I stop and ask simple questions, "Which is the person? Which is the thing? Am I focusing on one aspect of the problem and ignoring other parts of it? Am I acting out of habit or in response to the actual situation? Am I getting overly concerned with this?" Usually, by the time I get to the last of those questions, I've come to a decision point. When I've not asked those questions, that's when things have gone very wrong.

Work in Progress Wednesday - #31

Before I get to my stuff, I want to remind everyone that this is part of a ring that is centered at Tami's blog. Please be sure to check out all of the cool projects over there.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, a period of reassessment and revitalization for people in certain segments of Christianity. (Several years ago, a friend who is deeply engaged in another branch of Christianity came to me and asked me where Lent could be found in the Bible. That was an interesting conversation and showed both of us that we were coming from very different points of view within this faith tradition. I so appreciate the fact that there's so much variation and room for so many different kinds of people.)

Anyway, I got on the scale. This is not something I do very often, mainly because I don't like being governed by numbers, etc., etc., etc.; however, there is diabetes in my family, and it usually hits in the decade in which I find myself. So, because of the number I saw, my work in progress for the foreseeable future will have to be making the number smaller. It was a seriously scary number.

Moving along, my house is another work in progress, and this weekend with company coming over, I fixed the bathroom. I had two paintings on the wall: Summer and Winter. So, I painted up Spring and Fall. Here they are individually and as a group:

This is not great art, but it suits the purpose, and I'm pleased with these.

Work in Progress Wednesday - #30

I am so sorry I missed three weeks of Tami's WIPW! I'll be playing catch up for a while, I see. Everyone has been SO productive. To see what I mean, follow the link above and watch all sorts of interesting projects in process.

I've been working on the Cone Nebula quilt. Here is a numbered map to show you where we are:

I don't do conventional, so the numbers are all over the place. I was afraid of having too much of one thing in one area, and not having it evenly spread through the rest. Anyway, here is Section 5:

and Section 6:

(Yes, I know that I need to get up on a chair and point the camera down - Section 5 - instead of backing up and hoping - Section 6.)

I've also been working on the Every Way Wrap. It's 15 rows bigger now than this picture, but you all have imaginations:

Last week, I got discouraged at how slowly this is coming along that I put myself on a schedule - at least one 16-row repeat every week by Friday. It's Wednesday morning, and I am seriously considering aiming for a second repeat by Friday... I had a really complicated cable row last evening just before I went to bed. This is a row where each cable is a mirror image of the ones on either side of it (hold the first two stitches back instead of front). I was falling asleep, Hubby had a PBS thing on about the battle of Stalingrad, and I simply screwed up. I dropped stitches, lost count, had to rip back the row, had to go to the back side to find my errant stitches. I got it all cleared up, and by then I was wide awake and knew a whole lot about the Eastern Front of the Second World War.

The transition at work is in process. The official date for the changeover is April 4, but a gal in the building retired last week, and some of her duties have come to me. My new supervisor-to-be has me writing procedures for various tasks (this happens to be something I enjoy doing and have done on nearly every job since starting as a very low-ranked clerk nearly 30 years ago). My current supervisor is telling all of us to do whatever we can to make the transition go smoothly, and she's going around to each of us with virtual hugs and pats on the back. I have been SO fortunate to have worked for her for the last 15 years!

Have a good week everyone and check out the other projects at Tami's blog!