Holiday Weekend. Maybe.

 So this is the current weather. Third day. 

And indoors I've been attending to the downstairs plants a bit since the ficus went out.

This spider plant used to hang in the kitchen until it grew till  I wasn't able to lift it up and down for watering. Its growth pattern was not evident when it was up high, just looked luxuriant.

But at floor level the bald center looked obvious. Soooooo here's the after picture when it gets a botanical equivalent of a hairpiece.

It looks a ton better from across the room now.  And the philodendron likes the company.

The very last little ghosts of the white iris before she went out to feed the earth. Still beautiful, that architecture.

Outside everyone's happy despite being heavily rained on.  Bottom left the peppermint appearing from apparently dead cuttings.  Middle, the chives booming, and top the yellow potatoes leaping up. These are from just peelings, never had to give up a potato. Potatoes usually hate being waterlogged, but these are rising above it.

Then the Great Indoors, and I found a new thing to learn. Turns out you can do Mitered Squares in Tunisian crochet, too. Two obsessions meet! This is going to happen.

Speaking of Mitered Squares, when will she ever stop, make her stop 

here are the pockets finished, placed, yet to be stitched on. Little turnover tops, very sharp detail :)

But cold rainy weather demands comfort food. Spaghetti and meatballs. I had the sauce in the freezer from the last outing, so this was easy. Good parmigian cheese, hot pepper flakes, bit of Colby Longhorn added to thicken the sauce.

And there it is. Enough for tomorrow, too.

And a matinee is planned today, with tea and fig cake

We're all set. 

Have a good day and a good weekend and, blogistas in the US, remember to thank the troops we're honoring for Memorial Day.

Movie for grown up kids, and other pursuits

After the excitement and stress lately I thought I'd catch a nice unstressful movie so here it is

It was lovely, funny, you knew nobody would come out traumatized, and the voice of Paddington was just right. Diffident, polite, a bit of a Bertie Wooster, very appealing. Maybe I'll watch more kid stuff. Not Disney though, they're sadistic, deliberately upsetting and off-putting. 

I know too many people my age who first saw Snow White at about age 6 and were terrorized by it. Well meaning parents taking them to see it as a treat, after said children had experienced bombing, war terror, rationing which was close to starvation. 

To this day I can't eat a red apple because of the poisoned one. And the wicked queen coming after the little girl, like our imagined enemy invaders. Nooooo.  

And don't get me started on the Wizard of Oz, with the writing in the sky, which meant death coming from the sky to my mind. I can't sit through it. 

And the witch under the house like a bomb casualty, I can't bear to think of that scene, or the melting. It took three tries to type that last word. That's about Hiroshima. Never assume young children are unaware of world events.

Moving on from the inferno of my childhood trauma, I'm reading Emma with my Tiny Email Book group. We started Mansfield park, but the other member said nah, not into it, let's do Emma instead. The beauty of a tiny group! Emma it is.

I usually look for an illustration of what I'm reading, more interesting for you and might be a lure to reading or rereading yourself. 

I don't write about books I don't like or respect, of which I start a lot, somebody went to a lot of trouble to write them, after all.  But some books I do love are not always well served by marketing.

Here's a bodice ripper version of Emma, created I guess to present it as an olde worlde romance novel.

And here's an inadvertently comic one just asking for a caption. Please offer one in your comments.

And here's what looks like Emma taking a rest while dragging a bag of laundry to the washer's house.

This one plays it safe with historically authentic silhouettes and maybe wallpaper, but still thinks it's all about coupling, rather than the brilliant comedy of manners it is.

 

It's still a rattling good novel, great set up for how it unfolds. And whatever cover it comes in, highly recommended.