Emma

Emma, her wispies, and Mr Knightley.

Does anyone else find it funny that, despite the name of our blog, I have only made passing references to Jane Austen?

I feel like I will turn this post into a novel if I put in a preface as prefacy as I want. Here’s the short of it: I love Jane Austen, I do. But I also hate liking what’s popular. And lately, Jane Austen’s been popular…really popular. So I have sort of kept my love quiet. I don’t want to be a “fangirl.” My love goes deeper than the recent fad.

I’m not here to review every Austen adaptation ever done. I have my favorites, my in-betweens, and my “I won’t come near that one with a ten-foot pole”s. In many ways, I feel like I’ve been burned. Some of the new releases I had no interest in even watching (but I did), some I was interested in seeing and ended up very disappointed for various reasons: bad acting, choppy scripts, modern hair, and the most egregious crime: complete misunderstanding of the source material. (Or just plain having Keira Knightley involved.) Now, in most of these versions I’ve found things to like, so no, Mom, I’m not a total snob, but I had accepted that the next new Jane Austen movie I liked would be when pigs flew.

Molten Chocolate Cake

Yes, those raspberries are frozen, and yes, that's steam rising from the top. I said "serve hot!"

Tonight, wanting something fluffy, I watched Kate and Leopold. I’ve seen it many times and my opinion remains the same: I have never been able to understand why Leopold likes Kate and her stringy, choppy haircut. Leopold on the other hand…Well, I find him remarkably handsome, and all around wonderful. I’d go back to 1876 for Leopold any day.

Before I swooned over Hugh Jackman with a British accent, however, I made some snow day dessert: molten chocolate cake. I know it’s a dessert that’s apparently so 1999, but I love it nevertheless.

Melancholy February

For years we have been waiting, you and I,

While our still-grieving hearts have wondered

At the mystery of swirling snow, and sighed

For how the weary hours have blundered

Into ages. 

Narcissus poetica

While it was drizzling and sleeting outside this afternoon, I painted these and dreamt about spring.

And speaking of dreams and of spring, here is a sneak look at my new house.

Lost in translation, Part II

I was 17 or 18, perhaps, babysitting a group of rambunctious bilingual children. They spoke French in their home and English everywhere else. They always spoke English with me. The four year old was throwing a fit. His tiny body was rigid with rage, fists tight, face red. He was silent, but looked perpetually trying to speak and finally he spit out, “I don’t know the words!”

Snow Day

Today it snowed. I tried to go out and play, but it was bitterly cold and my toes were frozen in a few moments. So, I snapped a few photos and…went inside.

I have finally mastered oven french fries, so I can eat them in golden brown perfection. A wonderful snow day snack!

A short rant on the need for common decency

Each person has inside a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal of what it is the world needs most. It is not complicated but it takes courage. It takes courage for a person to listen to his own goodness and act on it.  –Pablo Casals

Decency is indecency’s conspiracy of silence. –George Bernard Shaw

Decency: Compliance with recognized notions of modesty or delicacy; freedom from impropriety.–The Oxford English Dictionary

In the past few months, I’ve been wanting to quit Facebook every day. But to do it, I’d have to give up my ability to keep in touch with people I want to keep in touch with without keeping in touch with them. It’s a golden chain.

I’ve found that most people reveal who they really are on Facebook, and I don’t particularly like what I see. Don’t people realize that other people, you know, READ Facebook? Do they not care?

Demure Lady

I focused on botanical illustration today, but this portrait, my last effort of the afternoon, pleased me most.

P.S. My camera died and I’m relying on my cell phone camera. Clearly I’m not the photographer on this blog.

Historical Watercolors

My first attempt, after an exquisite original by Madame Fragonard

Today while I was browsing in the library, I stumbled upon an idea.  I’ve mentioned before that I work at a museum, and as an interpreter of the late 1700s, I’m always looking for ways to “bring the past to life,” and if I can do it while pursuing an activity I enjoy in the present, so much the better.

I enjoy sketching in watercolor, and it just so happens that watercolor really began to come into its own in the 18th century.  Consider J.M.W. Turner, arguably Britain’s greatest landscape painter, whose career began at the end of the century and whose primary early medium was watercolor.  So I began to investigate, and the news only gets better.

Moral of the day

Our stairs are treacherous. A previous run-in with them over a year ago left my knees permanently damaged. Last night, I was innocently going downstairs for a glass of water before bed when snap I was falling down the stairs, bouncing and thudding on my wrists, heels and back. When I finally came to a stop one or two steps from the bottom, I sat and cried. The pain was bad, but the shock was worse.

It goes to show, dear readers: life can change in an instant. I was very lucky I didn’t break my back or my neck. I could be paralyzed or dead, or at least temporarily crippled, and all I was doing was getting some water.

Here’s the moral: make every moment count. Maybe life isn’t great for you right now, but you’re alive. You’re alive and reading the narcissistic ramblings of a frankly clumsy person who should have known better than to wear socks on hardwood stairs.

Go out and hug someone you love, compliment a friend, do something nice for your neighbor, carpe diem and all that rot. I’m still here and you’re still there and life is beautiful, even if it’s sometimes only apparent in snatches. Find the beauty in what you’ve got now and pass it along.

One more thing: be careful on stairs.