The Little Woman's Fur Coat

I didn't stay in bed watching movies this morning.  I stayed in bed solving a double-crostic. 

 As you may be able to see, this one was number 82, in a book that reprints 182 double-crostics from the Sunday New York Times.  When the answer to a clue is Spiro Agnew, you know these are old puzzles.  Period pieces. 
I didn't have much trouble with the first four clues --Rough out, Intertwine, Network, Gandhi (which I misspelled) so I knew the author's first name was RING.  Cinch after that -- the next words down obviously started with LARDNE and R.  My age and that of the puzzle matched nicely.  I suspect there are lots of literate young people who never heard of Ring Lardner.  And then the remaining clues started with the excerpt's title:  WORLD SERIOUS.
You may not be able to read the quotation:
IT LOOKS TO ME LIKE AS IF THE SERIOUS SHOULD OUGHT TO BE WELL OVER BY SUNDAY NIGHT AND THE LITTLE WOMAN'S NEW FUR COAT DELIVERED TO OUR LITTLE HOME SOME TIME MONDAY AND MAYBE WE WILL GET INVITED OUT SOMEWHERES THAT NIGHT AND THEY WILL BE A BLIZZARD.
Ring Lardner specialized in giving his protagonists nifty grammar, but that last "THEY" strikes me as  a bit excessive.
None of which is what I started out to tell you.  What I noticed is "the little woman."  When's the last time you heard it?  the last time anyone said it?  are there literate young people who wouldn't know what it means?
And if it comes to that, what's become of fur coats?  When I was young, fur coats were everywhere, and all of us could interpret the wearer's status:  the inexpensive bunny shrug; the fox stole complete with head, tail and sometimes legs; the college man's raccoon -- that last pretty much gone after World War Two.  
We recognized immediately the young woman's sheared beaver, the matron's Persian lamb, the factory worker's stiff  "mouton." 
  I doubt if we knew much about nutria, but when mink appeared, people nearby would nudge each other and gape.  Stylish models wore trench coats lined with it.  In Montreal my mother-in-law's women friends (none of whom knew how to drive, btw) had one fur for waiting at bus stops and a fancier one for evenings. 
I found hundreds of illustrations for fur coats, but when I tried for The Little Woman, nothing came up but book covers and movie posters for Little Women. 
You can't beat that 1933 b&w version, the one that had Katharine Hepburn as Jo and -- of course -- Edna Mae Oliver as Aunt March. 

Journal Entry, no Illustrations

Monday, June 15, 2015
I woke up at 5 o’clock, which is remarkable.  Can’t remember when I’ve slept through without waking at 2 or 3.  But yes, I didn’t have any hot water bottle – which I usually fill around 4 am to help get back to sleep, so yes, I evidently slept right through.    That doesn't even happen once a year, and it felt good.
Got up and went out to turn off  security but evidently I’d forgotten to turn it on Sunday night, must have been pretty tired, that happens lately.  Checked the doors, all locked so that was good.  Checked the decoy wallet in the utility room where that burglar used to go.  $5 bill still in it but the 20 is gone.  No panic, it might have been anyone, might well have been myself in a hurry out the door, given what my memory is these days.
The morning paper wasn’t in the box—evidently a substitute carrier, looked a bit in the bushes.  Must have already taken it in.  Checked discarded newspapers in the bedroom but they all were from Sunday so I hadn't read it yet.  Checked out in the office, all the way back to the bedroom, couldn't find it.
Hip hurt a lot so I took a hot bath, read in the tub, took morning pills, healthy breakfast (egg, toast, pear, oj), back in bed with no paper so clicked on TV, but the news channels evidently repeat the previous night’s news that early in the morning.
Then I began to feel seriously disoriented and finally it struck me – as you’ve probably wondered -- that it just might still be Sunday evening.  Most uncomfortable sensation.  No use checking watches or the bedroom clock, surfed the news channels but none happened to be showing the time. 
Finally I thought of the computer and came out to the office.  Pulled up a clock and there it was in black and white – well, grey and blue on a sort of off-white.  Yes.  The screen said  6:30 PM. 
That's POST MERIDIEN (MEREDIAN?) – anyhow, still Sunday evening.  

Here’s the worst part:  it was hard to accept.  Even when things started getting dark outside I hardly  felt oriented. Altogether upsetting experience. 

 

Don’t anyone bother to tell me it could happen to anyone.  The only redeeming aspect is that it’s always interesting to have a first -- there aren't many new happenings left after more than 89 years.

p. s.  Just after I posted this, received an email from a woman who asks if I'll be home if she comes over tomorrow to discuss selling my (remaindered) little book at the national Austen conference.  I started to reply I'd be home all day Monday, thought twice, had to study the calendar and check again with the computer.  Today is definitely Monday.  It is Monday now. She'll be over tomorrow.  That will be Tuesday.
Got that? 
I'm outa here.  Going to Trader Joe's to buy frozen onion soup.  I've been meaning to tell you -- their frozen onion soup is terrific.  A bit salty for a heart patient, but so is everything else.  It's great onion soup. 

 

 

Name that Bird !

And that's all the illustration you're going to get for THAT.

Daughter IMs from work  "that would make a good post" after I IM a few funny experiences I had, to cheer her up about an unpleasant medical examination she's scheduled for.  I  IM back that the topic is not suitable for general discussion.  She counters that the blog is supposed to be about getting old and I should post more about that.
    So here's a big Getting Old irritation -- the way nouns escape you.  It's always nouns one can't think of -- the name of the person you're talking about, the great dish at the restaurant, the title of that movie.  Never mind telling me it's bothering you even at your age -- trust me, that's nothing like what will happen in your later years. 
    I don't notice it on days when I'm home alone, no problem.  I know what I'm thinking about.  But when I try to write -- yesterday I noted in my journal that the catbird is still skulking at the suet feeder, and also at the feeder, which is unusual, is  a ....well, I kept typing in a sort of stream of consciousness, and here's what the journal entry looks like:
Particularly good birds at the feeder today. Catbird still out here.  Also -- other bird I think it's rare to see at a feeder, don't remember seeing that before in all these years, but if course I forget things these days.  Very common black bird – yellow bill, speckles,  damn it can’t find its name. 
Couldn't remember words a lot in conversations with Amy yesterday.  Don’t notice at all when I’m alone of course, because I know what the bird is.  Common as sparrows.

  See them lined up on telephone wires. Latin name sternus vulgaris.  Easy to remember because they have so little tail, can’t think of English name.   Related to robins, sometimes see in flocks of migrants with them. 
 Big swarms, Norm and I once parked to watch a swarm near St. Catherines in Ontario. I think it begins with  S.  Introduced, not native.  Very common.  European farmers prize their song.
I could write a whole dissertation on this bird but what is its name? 
And so on for several paragraphs, and then out of nowhere:
Starling. 
Big sigh of relief.

And by the way -- while Google offered me hundreds of pictures of starlings, not one of them was shown at a feeder.  That at least was reassuring.

Feel Sad, Feel Happy

Still feeling bad about that mouse.  It was, after all, merely trying to make a living like anyone else.  I’d like to think Rex released it, but I don’t want to ask.   Hate this kind of thing.  When I find a spider in my morning bathtub and automatically squash it, that means  the day has started with a small death.  Easy to sound remorseful, but of course that doesn’t keep me from squashing. 

So on a more cheerful note:

As a real estate writer I’m on too many public relations mailing list s, and hit “unsubscribe” regularly, but I must share with you the pr release that came in this morning:

Hi Edith,
I noticed you report on real estate so I wanted to introduce myself.
My name is Derek Peterson and I am the CEO of Terra Tech -- an urban agricultural company that's purchasing greenhouse space across the country in anticipation of the full legalization of marijuana.
If you're ever working on a story about the marijuana business real estate market, please let me know and I would be happy to provide you with some insight. You can reply to his email or contact my publicist Brian Sonenstein at brian@nisonco.com.
Take care,
Derek Peterson
Terra Tech CEO

Derek Peterson is the founder and CEO of Terra Tech, a publicly traded urban agriculture  company focused on local farming and medical cannabis. The company began in 2010 and has been featured by National Geographic, Fox News, CNBC, Bloomberg, The Huffington Post, CNN and more. After a decade of working in investment banking, Peterson learned in late 2009 that a friend's marijuana dispensary was clearing $18 million a year, dwarfing Peterson's $300,000 to $400,000 annual salary at Morgan Stanley. Rather than joining another Wall Street firm, Peterson decided to get serious about weed and took the company public in early 2012. The company has grown significantly since then and is currently developing acres of hydroponic greenhouses throughout the country, positioning itself to become a primary player in the commercial cultivation of cannabis in the US. Currently, the company is valued in excess of $100 million and is leveraging its size to aggressively acquire other companies in the cannabis space.

If you would rather not receive future communications from Evan Nison Consulting, let us know by clicking here.
Evan Nison Consulting, 18101 Von Karmen Ave, Irvine, CA 92612 United States

Harrowing Tail

Warning, right off the bat.  Only you know if you're strong enough to take this story.  Not suitable for chidren under the age of 10.

So for starters, there’s this old Empire chest in the hall.  Yes, I know, my mother’s so-called craftsman once restored it by sticking on inappropriate Colonial hardware.  And the  veneer is chipping off. 

But it’s stood in the hall here for more than 60 years.  I’m not much given to setting up interior décor still lifes, but for some reason it’s pleasing to walk down the hall and pass this slab of mahogany with its not-really-Tiffany lamp, bit of old Oriental saddle bag and the oil lamp left there after an electric failure.

For decades the chest has been a catchall for gift-wrap supplies and old newspapers.  The messy big drawer holds purses I no longer carry, plastic supermarket bags, and…candy. That’s where I tuck candy to keep it out of sight and make sure I have to get up and walk over to get to it. 

So last week I ventured over, pulled out the big drawer, and – Hey!  Come On! –those chocolates were nibbled right down to the raspberry creme. Sorry,   I was too shook up to get a good picture.

This house does not have mice.  Or does it?  Mice don’t venture into Empire chests.  Or do they?

Well, I cleaned out the whole chest, for the first time in 60 years.  Amy came over -- no way I could have managed the bottom drawers.  We found  a beautifully embroidered linen pillowcase I swear I never saw before in my life. Norm’s original social security card with a very old address on it.  Lots of gift wrap.  An issue of LIFE magazine about John Kennedy’s funeral.

And in the newly cleared Big Drawer I set a mousetrap.  Did not bait it with chocolate – just a bit of cheese and some peanut butter.  Felt pretty efficient.  Forgot to worry about what I’d do if I caught a mouse.

So this morning, yes!  Victory!  Mouse in the trap!  I found the grabber (remember, I told you recently how handy grabbers are?) and set off for the hall, only to be stopped abruptly by  some loud thumps. 

That mouse was just resting.  It was not an ex-mouse.  It was a very much alive one, jumping around that newly emptied drawer trying hard to get free.

I tried to think of some painless way to kill the creature -- maybe spray it with something?  And I’m not sure I want to tell you the rest of the story, which involved phoning my brother-in-law, opening the front door to let him in, and not asking what he did with that mouse. 

I don’t know why I had to post all this. 

It won't particularly enlighten or amuse you. 

I just had to write about it.  Sorry about that.  I'm sorry abou the whole thing.   

Live Long and Prosper!

Full disclosure -- I stayed in bed till noon yesterday.  I'm sure you'll understand when you hear that cable was showing Zefferelli's Romeo and Juliet.  I may have reported before -- my friend Dottie's review after she saw that movie in 1968:  "The theatre was full of 14-year-old girls, they were all crying, and I sat there wishing that for once those kids wouldn't die."
Turns out that in the 18th century, the play was indeed turned into an opera with a happy ending.  
        At any rate, this time around I suddenly noticed a line I'd overlooked before -- Romeo's admonition  to Balthasar -- "Live and be prosperous!" 
 I'd always known that Leonard Nemoy was thinking of the traditional priestly blessing when he suggested the Vulcan salute.  
Never thought to wonder, though, about the source of the phrase that went with it.  Shakespearean!  Classy!
     For that matter, King Lear was often played, for the first few  centuries, in a happier version cobbled together by a guy named Nahum Tate.  He kept many of  Shakespeare's lines, but put together a satisfying denoument, in which poor Cordelia gets to marry Edgar and King Lear is restored to his throne. 

Astronaut's salute when Nimoy died. 
Thumb points to Cape Cod, btw.
 

Skulker!

No real excuse for posting this, as I don't suppose it's of much general interest and has nothing to do with being old -- except that it did involve something I  hadn't done before, which is  always noteworthy after more than 89 years. Yesterday I photographed a catbird.
Catbirds are not rare, but you don't see them often.  They skulk.  There's another first -- never typed that word before, probably never even said it aloud. No other word for it, though -- catbirds skulk.

 But wait -- there's more! 
Just now as I sat typing this, darned if the bird didn't appear again, and it's not even scared off by my reaching for the camera.  I didn't take the time to get the light right, but perhaps you can see it has its beak half open in begging feed-me! mode.  Clearly a baby that hasn't yet learned it's supposed to skulk. 
- - - - -
And just as I finished posting this, I find I must amend it to inform you it's back once more, and this time it's after the cake of suet, the one that's usually frequented by woodpeckers.  Definitely a mixed-up catbird. 
That sparrow over on the niger feeder seems bemused also.

At Ease

Reading the obits as usual -- last Sunday it appeared the Greatest Generation is leaving the room in formation.  These obits mentioned the Battle of the Bulge, the beaches of Normandy and Iwojima ...  these are, after all, the ones who came home.

That Phrase

Yesterday I heard a phrase that took me back at least 80 years -- that's how long it must have been since I'd heard it.  My cousin's daughter, missing her mother, in a manic phase again and evidently forgetting to take the pills, phoned from Boston.  When that happens I settle down with a game of solitaire on the computer and just let her talk.  Every 20 minutes or so she pauses for breath and I say "uh-hm", which seems to work just fine. 
      When I was a child we lived in Boston, and what I want to know is -- was That Phrase she startled me with a local thing, or was it used all over?  Have you ever heard it?  Is it still used today?  Maybe it is--I had no trouble googling "Images" to fit it.
So yesterday my caller spent a lot of time on the subject of her sons.  One has just bought a condo with his girlfriend, she says, the young woman is charming, they love her, and

                       She Has The Map of Ireland on Her Face.

M'aidez !!

Look what turned up on the front door handle this May Day morning!

 

I suspect I know who left it -- her Mother hung a May Basket in the same spot maybe 40 years ago.  And my daughter may have had something to do with it also.

Was (is?) this just a New England custom?  When I was in grade school, back in Boston, we were each allowed to choose a single sheet of construction paper (this was during the Depression after all ) and make a May Basket to take home.  (Remember construction paper?)

In Louisa May Alcott's book Jack and Jill, a whole chapter is devoted to the girls in the village (certainly Concord), excited about making May baskets.  They find only a pitiful few early flowers -- if I remember right, the kindly grumpy old neighbor rescues them by sending over lots from his conservatory.

And when I taught at a college in Maine, in the 1940s, there was plenty of excitement about May Day.  With no garden flowers out yet (it was a late spring) students went into the woods and picked early-blooming snow trillium to hang on each others' doorknobs. We can only hope there wasn't any worry, back then, about endangered species -- and that they weren't breaking too many laws!

Maida Revisited

It had been eighty years – at least – since I last read “Maida’s Little Shop.”  Invalid child wishes she owned the penny candy shop she sees near the school, in a quiet neighborhood of Boston.  Famous, fabulously wealthy father buys it for her, sets her up in disguise to run the shop and live in an apartment above it.
     A friend lent me her copy recently.  The copyright date was listed as 1909.  In the early 1930s I had probably read a later edition, maybe this one.
     Back then, the story was full of things that were so much like my own neighborhood  I could lose myself in the story.  At eight or nine I took for granted, hardly noticed, that the children picked up horse chestnuts to play with, that the basement under Maida’s shop included a coal cellar, that the little girls played the singing game “In and Out the Window” at recess.  And went home every day for lunch.  And bought little china dolls for a penny.  And hung May baskets on each others’ doors. 
     A sloping street near the shop was blocked from traffic so the children could coast  – I remember that. Crepe hung on a door announcing a death – I remember that.  A child died from diphtheria – I remember that also.  
     The book was written before World War One, and the kindly doctor who cures cripples comes from Germany.  I would have remembered Jo March’s Professor – back then Germany was a cliché for wisdom and learning.  And -- how come it never struck me in the 1930s, when all the kids were afraid of the Truant Officer – that no one thought it odd Maida wasn’t in school, or that her crippled young neighbor, who stayed home to care for his baby sister, hadn’t ever learned to read?
     But it was gratifying, these days when so many things are hard to remember, to find that at least eighty years on, I had no trouble understanding the children’s secret language.  Maybe you remember it too?
     ig-Pay atin-Lay.

Power of the Press

A blog comment from Anonymous (CMS) questions whether the proprietor of that funky Lamp Repair shop looks old enough to have been there when I accompanied my husband to pick up a repair 25 years ago.  He is indeed, Con, and here's how I know.  When I stepped through his front door, he came out from the back workshop and stopped me in my tracks with two words:  "Edith Lank".
And as further proof of how old his is -- he still reads the newspaper.  Not only does he  remember when I came in with Norm, he said he sees my picture at the head of the column every week.
That picture is about two centimeters high -- a bit more than half an inch.  But it's evidently more powerful than I ever realized.  Last week's mail brought a letter from jail.
That happens a couple of times a year -- the address is in a lot of newspapers and prisoners are lonely.  This one tells me that he is bored and lonely and with one look at my picture he was "instantly turned on (smiley-face icon)".  Not bad for a two-centimeter head-and-shoulders of a woman in her 90th year, actually. 
He's looking at the picture as he writes and "all I see is beauty and wisdom.  I'm very attracted to women of your era and age." 
He quotes the column's promise to answer all letters* -- tells me he's getting out in 10 months.  And he's incarcerated, as it happens, in my state.   
The kids recommend I get a post office box immediately.  But that seems silly -- the address has been in newspapers ever since 1975, and anyhow, it'd be locking the barn door after this particular horse has already been stolen.

*will not answer this one.

Very bad news.

These days the doctor spends a lot of your visit typing away, and when you check out you're presented with a stapled bunch of papers.  The secretary highlights your next appointment, because who's going to read all the rest of that stuff?  At least, that's the way it goes at my doctor's these days.  But yesterday I figured I'd see what all the rest of the printout said. 
I wish I hadn't.
Very bad news on page 4.
My vitals are listed -- blood pressure actually good for a change.  Weight where I knew it was.
But height -- ay, there's the rub.
For lack of 16/100th of an inch, I'm now less than five feet tall.
Reading that is the kind of moment you don't forget. 
It's now official. 
Less than five feet tall.

It's amazing, what a difference losing an inch or two makes.   You learn to make adaptations -- I rearranged the refrigerator shelves with the big stuff on middle shelves instead of top ones -- and then found exactly that change in a list of Aging in Place suggestions.  (And by the way -- when you come right down to it, everyone on this planet, this minute, is Aging in Place.  No big deal.)
But anyhow -- if you're looking for a thoughtful inexpensive gift for your Grandmother, let me recommend The Grabber.   I wasn't sure how to google for illustrations.  Grabber is the term we've always used in this house, but that didn't seem very technical.  We can't have been the only ones to call it that, though -- Dozens of  "images" came up immediately.
You don't need to wait till you're old.  You don't even need to have a grandmother.  Get one today and you'll thank me when the sweater falls behind the couch, or the boy throws the newspaper far into the bushes.
Assuming you still get the newspaper.    

I Wish You Could See

Two days ago I realized I needed a pair of brass candlesticks, preferably old, and I needed them in a hurry.  For some reason I didn't even think of the Internet -- probably because of the hurry part.   And for some reason what came into my head was an odd shop on the other side of town I'd seen once, maybe 25 years ago, when Norm needed to pick up something metal that needed fixing.

What was I thinking?  That the metal guy  would tell me where to look?  Was the shop still there? Could I even find it? 

Well, it was and I did.  And I wish I could show you that place -- turns out its name is Lamp Repair.  I should have taken a picture of the show window -- at any rate, here's what that window looks like from inside.


The showroom has two counters.  This one, complete with properietor,  shows his back workroom.











And here's the front counter.  I'll give you another shot of that, so you can find the cash register (look hard in the middle of the picture.)
















And what did I come away with, out of all that?  Can you believe?

When I got home, 15 minutes on the Internet identified the pair as inverted-beehive- and-diamond pattern, 1800s Victorian, made in England. 

Today Only

You may want to take a look at Google Maps today -- try an address in the city.