Musings

Reading “South Riding” (by Winifred Holtby, 1936), a novel of its time (as many of them are). The clever (?) twist of the name is there is no South Riding in the real UK, although Britain has an East, West, and North version; also the word riding derives from the Viking term for thirds, so…still clever: no fourth version. Still, “South Riding” works as a novelized anthropological study of the people, places, and political machinations of eastern Yorkshire, north of Hull, after WWI and before WWII.

So distinctive, the heart-shaped leaves of Cercis canadensis, the eastern redbud.

Posted at 10:16 PM | Comments Off on Machinations

I did a bit of digging, and on this day in 2017, that is six years ago, we were roaming on foot around Dublin.

Here, we had a windy afternoon (sigh: again). And a shooting in Midtown ATL; cops say they’ve got the perp, although local stations are still covering it as breaking news. Really.

Posted at 9:10 PM | Comments Off on News (of a sort)

This is day three of windy windy windy afternoons. Not enjoying the tension engendered….

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Breeziness squared

Tonight: bison burgers. His: with cheese. Mine: not.

Both of us: very happy (in the dining realm).

Posted at 7:19 PM | Comments Off on Bye-sohn

Clearly an iris, although I think of an iris as having a purple-blue color. Generalizations…for better or worse.

Posted at 10:00 PM | Comments Off on Mindset…drifting drifting drifting

We actually socialized with friends we havent seen in years. Seemed rather strange in these covid times.

Posted at 10:30 PM | 1 Comment »

Gentle Readers, today I finished the book version of “Daisy Jones & The Six“. Mixed reaction. I felt that the author, Taylor Jenkins Reid, got two of the lead female characters, and not-so-much Daisy, the headliner. Or, perhaps, the whole piece was…thin.

You could say: well, you did spend the time to read the entire book. True. And, overall, I’m thinking, it wasn’t worth my time. Not a poor or bad book, merely one that was less than I thought it could have been.

Posted at 9:28 PM | Comments Off on Mixed rxn

I’m trying to expand my horizons. It’s a new year’s resolution-level intention.

Still, I have a hard time with this, Cornus kousa. I can easily accept that it’s a dogwood, yet it still looks off to me. I’m attuned to the rounded bracts of Cornus florida.

I’m working on being more accepting of “new” things and ideas.

Posted at 9:37 PM | Comments Off on I’m trying

I believe I have posted photos of blooms from this plant at least twice before…and it could be five or six times….

Posted at 8:08 PM | Comments Off on On repeat

Today, I finished the second of two back-to-back novels: Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield (1850), and Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead (2022) crafted as Dickens’s story in a modern setting.

Dickens’s autobiographical tale highlights child poverty in the England of his childhood, and Kingsolver addresses both poverty and drug-addiction, using Purdue Pharma opiate-saturated Appalachia as her setting. Despite humorous conversations and observations, both portray underlying situations that are rather grim.

I’m glad I read both books, although I tend to dislike obviously derivative works, often without a real reason to do so…one of my quirks—I may have to rethink that bias. I give Kingsolver huge points for reframing David Copperfield so cleverly and successfully. She uses some fabulous turns of phrase and imagery; I am in awe of such skill.

Weakly, the photo is a form of reframing. I took it two years ago today. Yay, 25 April.

Posted at 9:32 PM | Comments Off on Reframing