This one's for you, Mrs. Micawber

Mrs Micawber is Captain of the local Grammar Police.

From Dave Blazek's Loose Parts Comics.

Downton Abbey and more

Well, another wonderful hour of Downton Abbey last night!

After reading some of the interviews with Julian Fellowes and Gareth Neame on the PBS website a week or so ago, I decided to watch Gosford Park (written by Fellowes) as well as The Buccaneers (an old Masterpiece series). The Buccaneers, based on the book by Edith Wharton, is about the time period after the Civil War when young American heiresses went to England in search of titles, and impoverished English title-holders sought monied brides to allow them to hold on to their estates. This was Fellowes' inspiration for the character of Cora, who, we learned in the first season, brought her American money to her marriage to Lord Grantham, which was then irrevocably tied into the estate.

Gosford Park was wonderful. I had to repeat the first 30 minutes to get the characters straight - whose valet is whose? Which ones are the sisters, and which men are their husbands? It wasn't obvious from their behavior - quite the contrary.

The Buccaneers, made in 1995, was awful - and as I watched, I remembered just how bad it was when it was first broadcast. The dialog and acting was dismal. And then to contrast it with Downton Abbey made it even worse. So after about an hour and a quarter (why did I even watch that much?), I gave up.

In one of the interviews with Fellowes about creating Downton Abbey, he talks about pulling characters from people or situations he knew of in his own life, including the story of the dead diplomat being carried across the house in the middle of the night. Start at 5:30 to hear that part - really fascinating.

Oh, drat. I've embedded this twice, changed the dimensions, and still it shows too large to view. So never mind the embed: here's the link.

For your viewing pleasure

A Rube Goldberg-like machine. Less than 2 minutes. Very clever.



My neighbor sent it along with a link on the background on the production, which involves St. Olaf where her youngest is at university.

It may not look like much yet...

...but there are going to be lily of the valley blooms --

this morning I saw flower buds!

What do you mean you can't see anything?

Here - put on your readers.

There!

And there!

*big smiles*

Started here, next was here.

Reasons to be Cheerful

I've got some easy ones this week:

A nearby park in which I have never before seen a pond.
The combination of 6 or more inches of snow on Friday,
a downpour Sunday night, and frozen ground
produced a nice temporary spot for geese.

There was a big rainstorm Sunday night, accompanied by thunder and lightning (not our usual fare for January), which cleared the sidewalks (and lawns) of most of the snow and ice. So walking Oscar this week has been a pleasure.

We had my city cousin and her husband of 15 months over for a Sunday afternoon late lunch, which was their bridal shower gift - it took this long for our calendars to align. My parents came, too, and G enjoyed all the conversation, which really pleased me. And was pretty wiped out by the time they all left.



And last, I received a check from a class action suit that I had heard nothing about for more than three years, so this was a nice little surprise. Not that $40 will make or break us, but a friend of mine told me of waiting several years for a class action settlement and finally getting her check -- for $2. That makes the $40 seem positively lavish.

Hop over to Penny's for more winter cheerfulness.

Coaxing Winter

Keeping the candles burning, too

As my contribution to the January Making Winter Bloghop, dreamed up by Silverpebble and Thrifty Household and hosted this month by Emma at Silverpebble, I'll continue my efforts to make winter days cozy by bringing spring a bit early. This requires more patience than effort.

I talked about forcing - er, coaxing lilies of the valley a few weeks ago by digging pips from the garden during a thaw and bringing them into the house...

January 6

...and this is how the two pots look now:

January 24

January 24

See what I mean about patience? It will probably take another 3 or 4 weeks for them to flower - assuming some of these shoots do produce flowers. They don't all in nature, so I've tried to improve my odds by putting lots of pips in the pots.

I've just cut some forsythia branches from our yard, making sure to choose ones with a lot of buds...

See how much our snow has melted?
Sunday night's rainstorm washed a lot away.

...and have put the branches in an old pitcher. Their feet are in water that's had a tiny bit of sugar, citric acid, and bleach added to it to encourage flowering and reduce bacterial growth in the water over the weeks it will take for the forsythia to bloom. I've not amended the water in the past, but I thought I'd try the same concoction I use for flower arrangements.

Even before they flower, I like the look of the branches - kind of wild. I'll keep you posted on progress.

There are some delectable things going on this month in the making winter category; hop over to Emma's and see what's cooking - and what's knitting, sewing, and appreciating.

Update January 27: tiny lily of the valley flower buds!

Update February 4th: forsythia in full flower!

Update February 9th: lilies of the valley blooming and fragrant...mmm.

Geraldine Brooks

I may be the only person who had not heard of this author. In the fall, my cousin told me about one of her books, Year of Wonders, and then loaned it to me. Then loaned me Caleb's Crossing. The library provided the rest of her works: March (for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction); People of the Book; Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pal's Journey from Down Under to All Over.

Without intending to, I've been reading her books in almost reverse order, and am now on her first book, Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women, a non-fiction account based on her work in the Middle East as a reporter. Interesting and disturbing, it's not my favorite of her books but is still fascinating.

Her four most recent works are all fiction, based on some historical fact. She explains at the end of the novels what inspired her and more about the factual event that launched her fiction. She's a remarkable writer and researcher. These are books I could read again.