Friday Thoughts for 1/8/16

Hooray for the week's BEST day.

The weather here is supposed to be cold and possibly snowy for the next couple days (it is Minnesota in January, after all), and that just makes me think about hunkering down in front of the TV (like normal) and eating my way through the weekend (like normal). If someone doesn't pay me to stop putting food in my mouth, I'm afraid I'll explode here....

Last weekend it was Downton Abbey reruns leading up to the first episode of this year's final season. This weekend? Not sure, exactly, but there are so many possibilities! And I'm open to suggestions for anyone who cares to share.

That being said, here we go with today's musings. And have a happy Weekend Eve!

FIVE THINGS TO BE HAPPY ABOUT (from The HappyBook by Barbara Ann Kipfer):

1.      Old political cartoons. (And old favorite comic strips.)

2.      Grandmothers. (YES! They are so important, aren’t they? Dear God/dess, please make me an important one. Thank you.)

3.      Flash Gordon. (I’ll admit I’m not at all familiar with him, Buck Rogers, or any of the other space adventurers. Except ‘Spaceman Spiff.’ LOVE Spaceman Spiff….)

4.      Talking to yourself. (If this were an Olympic event, I’d be its record-holding gold medalist. Forever.)

5.      Baby bunting. (I can’t see the word ‘bunting’ now without immediately thinking of the delightful swags I saw in every cute English shop in Derbyshire. So ‘baby bunting’, to me, paints pictures of a fairytown with garlands of little triangles arching from one tiny mushroom tea shop to the next.)

My FIVE THINGS TO BE HAPPY ABOUT:

1.      A snack of seasoned almonds.

2.      ModPodge™ and the ideas it sparks….

3.      A robe so soft it must be made of clouds and angel hair.

4.      Pigeon tracks in the new-fallen snow.

5.      A package in the mail.

Your FIVE THINGS TO BE HAPPY ABOUT:

            (Don’t hold back. Knock yourself out!)

SOMETHING (I think is) COOL:

Today’s cool item is courtesy of online free spirit Rob Brezsny:

Slate has created a compendium of the best things that happened each day in 2015. Here are ten of the best:

1. Nigeria bans female genital mutilation.
2. HIV protection is effective in African women.
3. Hunger has become much less severe in the past 15 years.
4. States' juvenile prison populations drop.
5. Homelessness declined 11 percent in the U.S. from 2010 to 2015.
6. Reforestation effort in Ecuador breaks world record.
7. Africa has its first polio-free year.
8. New Ebola vaccine is highly effective.
9. Energy storage technology, which is crucial for solar power, is making great progress.
10. People taking pre-exposure prophylaxis are staying HIV-free.

(See the best events of the other 355 days at this link.)

Because sometimes we need some good news, right?

A LITTLE SOMETHING:

I noticed that some ‘interesting’ books have been left recently in my Little Free Library. Books with covers featuring glowering women in tight corsets and shirtless men with sculpted abs…. James and I checked them out and determined that even though they feature some suggestive art on the covers they are written for high-school aged kids. What the heck?? My library gets frequent visitors, and on New Year’s Eve alone we noticed children checking it out no less than half-a-dozen times. Were they there because of these suggestive books? Has one teen taken it upon themselves to teach me the lesson that young people nowadays aren’t at all interested in National Velvet or Where the Red Fern Grows or A Wrinkle in Time? Hmmmmm. Well! The little monkeys SHOULD be because they have no idea what they're missing. So there....

LIFE AT TUMBLEDOWN:

I finished my first ever decoupage project recently and I like it. And yesterday was tea and talk with the recipient of the decoupage project. She likes it, too. Whew!

CLOSING THOUGHTS:

Enjoy your weekend, my friend. Mix up a batch of garlicky hummus, or oniony salmon dip, or creamy guacamole. Then open the crackers and binge-watch something fun. What will you be queuing up? Please tell me all about it. :)

See you Moonday,

…me.

Well, That Might Explain It....

Start with this one.

Not long after I pressed the 'send' button last, I succumbed to whatever crud it was that'd been stalking me. Which might explain why I was so 'something' at the time. (Sorry....)

I'm still up to my sinuses in it and will spare you any details, but I do want to say that I hope whatever this is hasn't found you, your loved ones, your co-workers, or that person who sat next to you on the train and asked to borrow your pen....

Because if it has, then my only suggestion would be to stop EVERYTHING, return to your nest, unplug your land line or turn off your smartphone, brew some hot tea with honey and lemon, grab the closest 'Flavia de Luce' book, and have at it. OK?

In case you're wondering, Flavia is Sherlock Holmes if Holmes was (were?) an 11-year-old girl living in the 1950's on a once-grand estate in the fictional English village of Bishop's Lacey. She's obsessed with chemistry and poisons and death and sleuthing. She has her own laboratory! And a trusty bicycle/steed named 'Gladys.' I was first introduced to her via a library discard that I rescued for 25-cents because I simply liked the title, and it just so happened to be the first in this fabulous series. I've since gone on to read others but I'm careful not to burn through them, they're that perfect. (PLEASE, Mr. Bradley, DO NOT STOP WRITING.)

Once you've found your book (doesn't have to be Flavia, but you'll thank me if it is) unplug, brew, read, repeat until all is well once more. Because you deserve this and because I firmly believe in Time Outs for one's mental and physical health.

Shutting up now and returning you to your regularly-scheduled program and me to my regularly-scheduled Flavia and chicken soup.

Later, my friend.
(((heart)))
...

Hello Stress....

Wearing this stuff would almost beat drinking it....

Yesterday I woke up already wigged out.

Then I looked at all the Fest-related stuff that I couldn't seem to wrap my head around.

Then I panicked and went for a walk -- saw a swallowtail butterfly, found some treasure, picked a flower, appreciated the clouds, determined that it was easily the best summer day of the season.

Then I pulled prints and organized postcards and ordered more product and walked around in circles, wringing my hands and verbally beating myself up.

Then I tried downloading a library book to my Kindle. (Stressed? Grab nearest book. Hide in it until better.)

Then I e-chatted with a librarian who dumbed the process down for me and walked me through it because I make things harder than they need to be, apparently.

Then I streamed a great book to myself -- Eggs by Jerry Spinelli (a fave author who writes for children and young adults).

Then I sunk into the hammock with it until the neighborhood came home from work and turned my quiet time into Crazy Town.

Then I poured myself a glass of homemade white lilac wine.

Then I grimaced mightily before growing accustomed to it. It's like drinking cologne -- tastes more horrid with each passing year but dang if your breath doesn't smell AMAZING afterward. (I suspect that when it kills you, any post-mortem people will thank you for it....).

Then I made popcorn for supper and watched an episode of Hercule Poirot.

And then I went to bed and willed the flowery goodness to knock any thoughts of Fest out of my head.

It didn't.

The End.
...

Some Heat Wave Happiness

Who doesn't love being read to? :)

Minnesota has gone tropical!

Just yesterday the temps were 90+-degrees Fahrenheit (with humidity making it feel like 100+, so sayeth the News guy).

Yikes.

But I just now realized that I like this kind of weather.

It's because hot days like this are the equivalent (to me) of frigid winter days -- the sun may be shining but it's dang foolish to go outside.

So what do we do? We stay IN.

And we don't feel guilty about it either! (And by 'we' I mean 'me,' of course.)

These are the only summer days that I don't mind being indoors while the sun is shining, bowed over a sketchbook with a cup of coffee at my side and a magick pencil in my hand. Can't mow the grass, I'll fall over; so there. Might as well draw!

Ooooh -- and listen to an audio book. Yeahhhhh..... :)

When James is in his studio, he likes to put on a mindless movie DVD to provide background noise and something to focus on when he needs to look away from his torch flame. But I've yet to do something similar. Unless I'm pulling an image out of my head (which requires either silence or music), I'd much prefer to listen to somebody read to me.

And I find that the person doing the reading is just as (if not more) important than the work that's being read. Stephen King narrating his own work makes my ears seize, but Jim Dale is welcome to read the fine print on my bank statements to me any day, just sayin'. 

And some books I can listen to annually for the rest of my life. (I will forever appreciate the Christmas gift of Frank Delaney's Ireland on CD. If you've read the book, you know what I'm talking about. And if you've heard it, too, you'll agree the audio version's a treasure.)

That being said, what are your favorite books on CD? And why? 

I'm all ears! :)

...

Take a Look; It's On an iPad!

As I write this it's not even noon (so sayeth my computer; I know enough not to make eye contact with any other clockfaces around here) and already my day has been defined.

By rainbows.

My walk this morning fulfilled my inner spectrum requirements: spray of violets blooming curbside; electric-blue darning needle flitting across my path; green EVERYwhere honoring this first day of summer; white cabbage moth alight on some blooming butter-and-eggs; orange goldfinch trilling overhead; stands of wild raspberries....

The trip was a pleasure for my senses, but it was nice to return home and out of the heat and humidity. Once here again, I poured myself a glass of water and fired up the desktop computer and -- surprise! -- more rainbows.

They're everywhere today, apparently! And perhaps they're inspired by THIS. Dear, dear Levar Burton has apparently taken his beloved Reading Rainbow into the digital age and created an app for the new generation! -- kids like my grandbugs who can intuitively work an iPhone before they even learn to talk.

I was a young mom back when the series premiered on PBS in the early 80s. My Girlz and I considered it an instant hit! We soaked up every episode, making note of our favorite books and checking them out from our local library later so that we could hold them in our hands and page through them at our leisure. Titles like Gregory the Terrible Eater and A Chair For My Mother and Imogene's Antlers. Pete Seeger sharing his storysong 'Abiyoyo'. James Earl Jones bringing the rain to Kapiti Plain. Our love for all things 'Arthur' and the art of Marc Brown began there. And we discovered authors and illustrators and stories and titles that became old friends.

Even after my Girlz grew up and moved away, some mornings could still find me setting the alarm for an early broadcast rerun, or dropping everything to catch a later series' episode. There's just something about Levar and books and just being read to that's pure magick. And over the years I've collected our old faves from the series so that the grandbugs can enjoy them someday, too.

And now just writing about this has put the song in my head: "Butterfly in the skyyyyyyy, I can go twice as highhhhh..........!" I might just have to put the pencils down today and read a book. :)

Did you watch Reading Rainbow like we did? What are your favorite episodes? Was it the one where Levar visits a printing plant to see how books are made? Or the one where he tours Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts? How about the Star Trek episode? Or the one with the goats (you know which one I'm talking about!)?

Please share!

And (insert wave and best Levar impression) I'll see you next time. :)
...

One Child's Tribute

 Stunned....

I just learned this morning that the amazing writer Ray Bradbury passed away. Ray Bradbury! My heart is sick....

One of my earliest memories is of being read to by my young mother. She'd checked a book out from the Webster County Library (amazing place full of shadows and the smell of paper and with ladders for reaching your books down from tall shelves). The book was full of short stories, and the one she read to me made the hair stand up on my neck. I connected with those words in a way that my young self couldn't describe.

I can still recall being curled up on the green sectional sofa, gazing out the living room window at Mr. Gordon's morning-glory-covered porch across the street, my bare legs in their summer shorts feeling itchy from the rough upholstery, my ears listening to words that transported me. I never forgot the story and rediscovered it again as an adult, hidden perfectly in the chapters of Dandelion Wine. Reading it once more instantly transported me back to my childhood.

Time travel. So appropriate.... And how lucky a kid was I, anyway?, having a mother who read Ray Bradbury to me!?

So many writers have shaped my life, but Mr. Bradbury holds a special place of honor. I think it's because he alone articulated what I can recall feeling in my childhood heart. Things I saw and experienced but had no words for.

It's been a million years since I was a kid. My bookshelves are now teeming with collections of his stories, things I reread often. And when I do, I am instantly connected to the young self that I once was (and still am inside), the deep thinker that felt the passage of Time and the sadness and sweet beauty of every autumn, the child that feared death and wondered about the future....

Such a kindred spirit!

Goodbye, Mr. Bradbury.... Your words will live on and move generations forever. They are carved on my heart and I will never forget you.
...

Happy Spring!

Artwork copyright Patrick McDonnell

It's the wonder-full first day of Spring! And this sweet artwork by artist Patrick McDonnell has it all: birds singing, flowers blooming, butterflies butterflying, puppies and kittens doing the happydance together. Plus, it gives me an opportunity to share with you an artist who inspires the heck out of me. I could study his line work until the cows come home.... (sigh)

Here at Tumbledown, all is in pleasant chaos. Some would say I'm spring cleaning, but I'm not sure that's it. I'm in a state of flux, inside and out.

Since I wrote last I've been knee deep in books. Still. Only this time I'm culling and organizing the herd, making space, rediscovering old faves and unearthing books I didn't know I even had. Hours and days and weeks have passed during this time and I've been happy to let them. This needed doing and it's pleasantly clearing my head.

And anyway, I'll get back to it. But I wanted you to know I'm still here, I haven't forgotten about you, and I hope you're enjoying this fabulous First Day of Spring!

:)
...

PLEASE check out more of Mr. McDonnell's work here and sign up to receive a daily Mutts email that will put his delightful and heartfelt art in your in-box every dang day. What a sweet way to start the day, right? :)

Crazy Book Love!

Books are SO important!!

I can't write two words without one of them being about books, can I? But today I've got a great excuse: Yesterday was World Book Day in the UK and Ireland, and today is NEA's Read Across America. Two very good reasons to write about curling up with an old favorite or a new discovery.

 

In case you hadn't noticed, here at Tumbledown EVERY day is Book Day. And you wouldn't have to get far inside my front door to have that all figured out. Books take center stage here. They cover all horizontal surfaces. They stand two- and sometimes three-deep on the shelves. They're stacked waist high on each available stair step. There's a tower of them tottering within inches of my side of the bed. They concern the heck out of my parents, who I'm sure imagine my body one day being unearthed from beneath a stack of them, squashed completely but with a smile on my face. And, for the record, it's not unusual to find more than one copy here of my personal faves.... It's like I'm saving them from something. Giving them a good home. OK, hoarding maybe, but let's not call it that, 'k? At least not in a paragraph that includes my folks who would love to see me admit it in writing.

 

Do you remember the books from your childhood, the ones that paved the way for a lifetime of book love?

 

An older neighborhood friend of mine took 6-year-old me to a book sale at her school and I used the 30-cents in my pocket to purchase two grade-school readers: The Wishing Well and Three Friends. I read them up, down, and sideways, and studied the watercolor illustrations until my eyes fell out of my head. I still have those books. And rereading them now takes me back a million years....

 

And I can recall a spring weekend in Third Grade spent curled up with Felix Salton's Bambi, gleaned from a shelf in the Monroe Elementary School library that the Librarian there cautioned me I was still too young to read from. A chapter away from the ending I stopped and had a good cry. My mom discovered me and asked about my tears. I said, "Have you ever read a book so good that you didn't want it to end?"

 

And then there was Enid Bagnold's National Velvet, read semi-annually since the day I first discovered horses until the day I first discovered boys (and picked up again almost immediately, as horses were way more interesting -- :->). I learned to draw from its illustrations. I learned to love England from its text. I dreamed of being Velvet Brown and even wrote away to the stewards of the Grand National for race maps and particulars. I learned to like tea with milk and loads of sugar.

 

I didn't make friends with Louisa May Alcott or Lucy Maud Montgomery or discover The Secret Garden until I was a young adult, all married and away from home. They nurtured my soul when my soul desperately needed nurturing, and I think they were put in my hands at just the right time. (And I'm still a little embarrassed recalling the moment a co-worker walked into the office and caught 20-something me at my coffee break, sobbing over Little Women's 'Beth.')

 

*Sigh* 

 

I taught myself to read as a child, then read the days and weeks and months and years away. I do so still, and can think of no other way I'd rather spend my time. It even trumps drawing (but only just). And, in case you haven't already guessed, I could bore you forever with my fond book-related memories. SO -- I'll simply end here and ask: 

 

What were your favorites?

...

Renaissancey Ramblings

Mayfaire in the rain -- :)

Only two weekends of Fest left. I can't say I'm not sorry.... It takes so much out of me to do this for the entire Fest season, and I half wonder if it'd be any easier if I did the Circuit and made every weekend a Fest weekend. The thought gives me the shivers. I'm sure I could do it, but I doubt for very long.

 

Autumn is my favorite season of all, and by the time Fest is over for the year I've pretty much missed its highlights. My gardens have peaked, the leaves have turned, Indian Summer has left the building -- the works. I'm still in a sort of post-Fest recovery when my birthday comes and goes and Halloween appears. But I know if I didn't have Fest to do come August every year I'd miss it in spades. It's just that now that I'm older, it's more difficult for me to Do It All.

 

This year, Fest has been sweet and rather uneventful. And as usual, I've learned a lot. I've learned that framed art is a luxury few can afford in a crappy economy, and that my lifetime customers will purchase from me regardless. Some have even saved money to commission something special. Others have drawn during the year and are eager to show me their work because I've specifically asked them to.... Some new customers are now my friends and have already visited me multiple times. Why someone would pay the admission price just to see me and have a Scotch Egg is unimaginable, but there you have it.... Strangers have stopped in for a smile and a hug. Little kids have stopped by to tell me what books they've read since I asked them last. And some customers have even brought me books(!) because they know how much I love them, bless their hearts.... The people I meet and take the time to get to know -- no matter how difficult that is for me -- are some of the most amazing and heartwarming folks on the planet. But it took stepping out of my cocoon to learn that.

 

The remaining two weekends will be easily the busiest by far unless weather interrupts attendance. Barring that, I expect to be pulled thin and feeling especially apologetic. Friends and family often wait until the last minute to attend, and by then I barely have time to wave and acknowledge them let alone enjoy a proper visit, and I feel bad when I can't give everyone my undivided attention. But it is what it is....

 

And -- believe it or not -- I'm already planning for and looking forward to next season. :)

...

A Most Magical Day

Fairyberries!

Overhearing the mutter and murmur of wren nestlings as I pass the backyard birdhouse that my dad made for me.

Discovering the first fairyberries of the season (and on the Summer Solstice, too!).

Walking up and down the aisles of a local hardware store while outside a thunderstorm rages....

Admiring galvanized wingnuts, copper washers, and lengths of ball chain and imagining how they could all go together to make a dang fun necklace.

Enjoying a phone call from the Grandbug telling me how she'd 'dog paddow'd' at her first-ever 'thwimming lethen.'

Leaning down to pick lettuce leaves from the garden at dusk and spying a most exquisite dragonfly resting there....

Grabbing just any old book from the shelf before making a lap for the cat, and then discovering that it could only have been hand-picked for me by the Universe Itself.*

Sleep full of dreams, dreams that I can still recall and am comforted by.
...

*The Pull of the Moon by Elizabeth Berg. Read it. Read it, read it, read it.