My morning with Rudder

Rudder and I spent the morning together.  First I fed him:

This may look just like a baggie with a label.  But, in a household where we all want to take care of Rudder, it avoids his getting fed three times (and getting 3 doses of meds).  He does have that orphan doggie look down pat!!!!!

Then he went for a walk.

After his walk, he gets

These may seem like little things to you, but they are his entire raison d'etre!

Then we practiced...that is, I practiced while Rudder rested from the walk and the eating.

Then we had to go out...

Only we forget a lot why it is we go out....

So we...

come in again.

Then I make lunch, which is his favorite thing because he can do his vacuum cleaner routine on the floor...very motivating!

And then because this was all so exhausting, we

Isn't he the best?!!?!?!?!!

Springtime in the Rockies, ooops, no: in Kentucky

The flowers and the Miso-roasted Salmon with asparagus and (suppposed to be) cippolini onions.  People come to our house and almost always ask:  Do you eat like this every night?

And the answer is YES!!!!

Part of the richness of our lives.


Right now we're enjoying Green Bean Delivery!  So fresh, so healthy.  D has even decided he likes carrots.

My cuz

My cuz Katherine came by last week and brought her friend Pat with her.  They were on their way to an artists' workshop at Kanuga in North Carolina.  I'm surprised the house didn't go up in smoke!  Those girls are live wires and they know how to talk and listen and have a good time!  Maybe it's because of their artwork.


Here's the painting I own of Katherine's:

I had to take this picture at an angle because of the glare from the window behind my desk.  She says she's evolved from this; M owns a more recent painting of hers with a patterned background that is stunningly orange behind foliage.


Pat's work is very different.  I only have some of her note cards and I picked out 4:

I especially love the upper left one.  The colors are more vibrant than here.


So, Pat and Katherine, thank you for stopping by and blowing fresh wind through our place!  Hope your own spirits were refreshed at Kanuga!  


Here's the linkage for both of them:  Sisters of the Brush

Domesticity and Antigone

A few weeks ago, I was feeling kind of blue so I went to one of my favorite websites, One Kings Lane.  They always have bright cheery things to look at.  There was a book advertised there, The Gentle Art of Domesticity, and it looked like something that would bring me from blue to pink again, so I ordered it.

It took weeks to arrive from Great Britain.

One of the things the author talks about is reading.  And she has directed me to some Victorian reading that I never knew about.  

What does this have to do with Antigone, of all people?

In my profile I talk about the richness of our lives here and last night was a good example. 

D has been invited to a discussion of Antigone, coming up in the next week or so.  So I decided, with all my reading, to read Antigone again.  Like most of us, I guess, I'd read it in High School.  But a few things have happened in my life since then, and I thought it'd be important to have another look.

Last night, I was listening to the slow movement of the Bizet Symphony in C Major (yum!) while waiting for the chicken stuffed with meyer lemons to be done (yum!) and I read Antigone's farewell speech.  Talk about richness.  The whole play is amazing, but her farewell ranks way up there, not so much in what she says, which is highly situational, but in the poetry of it all.  YUM!

Requiem

I had wanted to insert a picture over the purple of my hair dryer.  But I couldn't figure it out.  So imagine my hair dryer there.

I bought my hair dryer in Rolla, Missouri many years ago.  Rolla is a good place to buy a hair dryer because it is on the edge of the Bible Belt and everyone knows the correlation between Bible Belt and Big Hair.  

The reason I feel sad for losing my hair dryer (who died a sudden and loud death three days ago) is that it saw me through so many bad hair styles with absolutely no complaining.  

There was this lovely do:

And then this one even shorter:

What was I thinking!


And my long long hair from Rolla:

That's me on the left.  A let his hair dry naturally.


And then, the other day, as I was getting ready to go have lunch with my friend Judy at the Taft Museum, for pete's sake, my hair dryer made one loud popping noise and died.  My left side looked great and Judy was very sweet about the right one.


Rest in peace, hair dryer.

 So D and I had the bright idea of recovering the dining room chairs with our needlework projects.  There are 8 chairs.  I got them in Italy years ago (probably 30 years ago)!  So, one chair is done.  

This is a pattern on the floor of the Melk Abbey in Austria.  It was in front of a Benedictine sarcophagus and D thought it would be a perfect memorial to Jeff.  The original plan of making it a rug changed fortuitously into a chair seat!  Much less work!


Then, there's Klimt (are you sensing a pattern here?)..

It's not done yet.  Got some embroidery around the edges to put in.

Then there's the firmament one for good measure...

It's way far from being done, as you can see.

And we have 

PUFFINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So that's 4 of the 8 chairs...and we're in our 60's.  It just proves you can always dream.

Today we're finishing up our back yard.  Ryan and John have done a fantastic job of edging, mulching, laying in a beautifully natural stone walkway, planting, etc.  The three of us who live here have each had ideas for how things should look, and funny enough it all works!  David's funny solar cactus looks great with my birdbath and Millard's plantings.  None of us can pass a nursery without bringing home some new plant-child for the yard.  Yesterday alone, we planted Lambs Ears, and Begonias, and Bee Balms, and Louisiana Blue Phlox, and Heuchera (the kind with the yellow leaves) and wild Geraniums.  

My lettuces and radishes are up and looking good.  But the Oregano and Chives are being very shy.  We've kept the center of the lawn open for croquet.  Of course.  I hope to post a shot of Peanut (the cat) drinking out of the birdbath.  Koestlich!  


Tonight we have our first rehearsal for the World Choir Games.  I have no idea what we're getting into, but it'll be wonderful to sing with Musica Sacra again.   Singing is so good for the soul.