Thrilling

I have been stitching my lady's skirt this past week. It was so easy to ignore it and work around her. The green stuff is done mostly in half cross-stitches. I call those slashes (/) which are half the work of cross-stitches (x). But milady's skirt is filled with little x's. This series of photos shows the progress. The picture in the middle shows what the canvas looks like in the late afternoon, which happens earlier every day. It is impossible to see where I'm stitching at that time of day, but the shadows are pretty.

It looks like I'm just about half way through the skirt. What a pleasure it will be to see all it's subtle shading. Three of the different colors I'm using are combos. Pale purple blue with pale peach; pale purple blue with pale pink, and pale purple blue with white. You can barely tell the difference when you look at them in the needle. It isn't until they all clump together that the picture becomes apparent.

I've just finished the new Camel Club book, Hell's Corner. The hero has assumed the name of Oliver Stone, as you would know if you'd read any of these books. He has a kinship with another of my favorite "reads", Jack Reacher. They are both incredibly capable men. Oliver, however, must be 70 or close to it. He gives hope of eternal virility to aging baby-boomers. Jack is younger and has few to no close friends. He is eternally on the move. Oliver lives in a cemetery. Now that is firmly planted. And he has great friends. Both men right horrible wrongs. Jack usually straightens up towns as he wends his way across the US. Oliver saves our government from doing stupid things. I was going to say that I don't know why they don't just put him in charge of the CIA or some other alphabetic agency. But we all know the answer. He's a doer, not a bureaucrat.

Bless the doers, who make my stitching fly.

That Damned Elusive Cosham

Did I tell you how much Karen and I love to listen to Louise Penny's mysteries? It's part Ms. Penny and part Ralph Cosham, the reader. After much discussion about him, we looked up books he had read in the past. I had to listen to him read The Scarlet Pimpernel. I've link this to the search page for the book because the book is so out of date, reading the reviews isn't much fun. What is fun is all the movies made of the book. I liked the Anthony Andrews one, but Jane Seymour could never act. The Leslie Howard one is pretty good. And there are more.

It's a great swashbuckler, romance, historical drama. No wonder they made so many movies from it. And a musical. Cosham reads it very well. Sir Percey, the Pimpernel, is a very mannered British fop at the time of the French Revolution. Fun to listen to. My favorite memory of the book has always been the poem Sir Percey recites to his guests:

We seek him here, we seek him there,

Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.

Is he in heaven? — Is he in hell?

That damned, elusive Pimpernel

Here is how my garden is growing. Can you see the dandelions I mentioned the other day? The bottom part is just flying getting done. It's so easy when you aren't counting and moving all over the picture to put a drop of red or yellow in a flower.

Growth

Our lady of the garden is getting more of a garden to stand in. As I was working the other day, I set my instructions on top of my work. It's wonderful to see how the little codes on the paper can turn into a beautiful garden. It's hard to keep up with my progress. I am way past this. In fact, I've found the bottom right corner. Now I know that the stitching on the bottom right of this picture is a little edging shrub. Just below that, the lawn begins. I had to make sure to remember to stitch 8 little cross stitches of the color represented by a musical note. It wasn't until I got to the bottom that I saw I'd put two dandelions in the garden! I almost felt like ripping out the stitches in honor of my gardening sister, but I guess they just would have grown back some how.
As I was stitching I listened to two things. First was the newest John le Carre book called Our Kind of Traitor. You must read the bad reviews. Some people just hated this book. I can't believe that people don't know that these days le Carre writes slow, detailed books. It's just what he does. I love listening to them because they sound so British. So kinda bored and matter-of-fact. That's what people were complaining about. I guess you have to have a predisposition for this sort of book. If not, better leave it alone.

The other thing I've been listening to is old Dragnet radio shows, about 5 of them a day. I've almost caught up with the podcasts. They are published weekly by this guy from Boise, Idaho who sound like he is from the mountains of Tennessee. The fun thing about the Dragnet shows is that a lot of the action takes place around Spring Street (on which dwells The Times building) and City Hall (across the street from The Times.) It's from the early 50's, so crime solving was very different. Just listening reminds me of how happy I am that we have (until recently) been made more scrupulous about the rights of suspects. Joe Friday never water boarded anyone, or even slammed them against a wall. He did do a bit of illegal search and seizure among other things. Still, these are entertaining.

My discussion groups go on, although we have finished with To Kill a Mockingbird. Interesting facts: The book was written in 1960 about events that took place in the 30's. The movie was made in 1962. We watched the movie this last meeting on Friday. Some of us are also reading The Help, about black maids in Mississippi in 1962. Yes, that's right. Same-ole-same-ole was still happening in the South even as we were reading and watching this story. So, we have this group of old white folks wondering if any of this goes on today. I will not be surprised when the book is written 40 years from now about life as a minority in today's society. I won't be here to read it, but I still won't be surprised.

As for my What are Conservative Thinking group, I can only wonder. I suppose that's another reason why I'm enjoying old time radio. People are too freaky today. Too hostile. Best laugh of the week was the signs from the Rally to Restore Sanity. This may have been too little too late, I'm not sure that we can ever be civil again; but I sure did like those signs.