The Flowers That Bloom

Things are looking beautiful around here. The picture above is in our front yard. Cindy doesn't think these hyacinth are giving there all, but I think they are very pretty. And the daffodils are in drifts throughout the yard. They bow down when it rains. "The Ladies" lift up their faces when the sun shines. Lovely.

It is cherry blossom time in DC. And it is spring break for some schools. On Wednesday Eric and I drove around the tidal basin to see the trees and their blossoms. And the buses of people. And the traffic. The trees are beautiful and in full blossom. No cherries will come of all this. That's too bad.

Then we went to the arboretum. I'd read that they have cherry trees, too. They do. Not nearly as many as the tidal basin, but enough. What I thought was special was the tulip magnolias. They have so many varieties. All the trees above are of that genus. Stunning. I understand that the azaleas at the arboretum should not be missed.  Okay, I won't miss them.

Eric is standing by one of the magnolias. He would have loved to have rambled over the grounds. He wanted to dump me out of the car at the tidal basin so I could see the cherry trees close up. But my knee has been very painful lately. I would have loved to make him get out of the car so he could walk off some of that energy, but he had to be content with driving.  

The Civil War at Ford's Theater

We are going to plays at every theater in D.C. this year. Saturday was Ford's Theater. This is the same theater in which Lincoln was shot as the Civil War ended.  They have refurbished it and it is quite lovely. Our choice of plays was one with Lincoln or Civil War, the Musical. Who could resist such an amusing name? We have been looking at other shows, like (and I kid you not) Call of the Wild, the Musical.  No, we're not seeing that.  The great north country doesn't speak to me as the Civil War has lately.

 
Look how intimate this theater is. We were in the second row of the balcony. And this was our view. The stage is behind the band. The stairs lead down to a lower stage with a portion of the stage that rotates around the band stand. So there could be a bit of action amongst all the songs. This was more opera than musical. Lincoln's words were often shown on the scrim on the upper stage. There were also pictures of slaves at work and soldiers, alive and dead.

We all had our favorite characters. Eric liked the woman we called Sally the Slut. I'm sure the front of her blouse would have closed if she tried. Instead, we got to watch her bra and a mass of skin whenever she came on the stage. I liked watching the cute little Union soldier above. He is singing about a letter to his father just before he went off to die. I'm wondering if I would have liked it better if they had compiled songs from the era. Instead, this is all new songs in that vein. The singers were all very good, even Ms. Sally. Huge focus on slavery as opposed to state's rights. But, I guess, state's rights was always code for slavery anyway.

This is us by Lincoln's box. I am on the stair above. Anything to be taller than Cindy. As I said, this is a small theater. You can see how Booth jumped to the stage after the deed was done. 

Across the street is the house where Lincoln died. They moved him from Ford Theater, but I suppose that is obvious. These are beautiful old houses. Next door is a cute little Bistro. We have three other events on the calendar for April and May. And we will be going out to see the Cherry Blossoms any day, probably tomorrow. They should be at their peak then.  

So much to do, so much time. I am off this week and then will begin three weeks work for a variety of Garys - Mather and Cubbage. That will all end in a nick of time as Adrian arrives the next day. What a delight. All that and Spring is busting out all over.

Do you know it was two years ago almost exactly that I arrived in India. Two years. Time flies. I'd say that in Latin if I was sure I could spell it correctly. I still remember fondly that time and all the people I met. Namaste to you all.

Recent Books

I have been reading too many brutal mysteries lately. I don't know if this was affecting my better nature, but it couldn't be good. So I am in the middle of cleansing my soul with Victorian melodramas. Two were written at that time. I'm in the middle of both of them, so I can't tell you how they end. Sure. What is Wikipedia for if not to find out the end of books? They are a lot of fun, even if you know the ending. The Small House at Allington was written by Anthony Trollope in 1864. Yes, that 1864. The Civil War was just drawing to a close. It is so interesting to read what was going on in the more settled England at the same time. What was going on was that people were deciding who to marry based on what money the other had. Lily is loved by two men, one without potential (who eventually made lots of money. I'm reading on to find out how.) and one with a little more potential and a smarmy charm. This is one of the Barchester Chronicle books, so if I really find that I care about these people, there are more folks to get wrapped up in. I might just put them on my "palate cleansing" list. Imagine cleaning up with shallow people after reading too much about brutal people.

Portrait of a Lady was written in 1880. The Los Angeles Times was first published the next year in that rough and tumble town on the West Coast. Things were now much more civilized on the East Coast, but we still had many dirt roads and orange groves. This book is about an American, but takes place primarily in England and the continent. Foolish woman with money marrying the wrong man and facing sorrow and despair. Lovely. I'm in the middle of this one, too. I think it will have to wait for me to finish The Small House, because I'm starting to get these silly ladies mixed up. Oh, there are silly men, too; but, who cares?

Rounding out the trio of Victorian books is one written by Ken Follet, A Dangerous Fortune. This is one of the books I got for Eric and me to listen to on our trip to Philadelphia. Follet wrote The Eye of the Needle, at one time one of my favorite books. That one is full of spies and intrigue and the source for two good movies. This one is more like the two books mentioned above! Oh crikey, I just realized that he also wrote the insipid Words Without End and Pillars of Dearth. Or something like that. Actually, this wasn't bad, especially if you are already reading two books with almost exactly the same theme. This is more from the man's point of view; lots more fumbling for women's breasts. Can't imagine Trollope or James mentioning that. It is an interesting addition to this trilogy of marriage in the time when money and class was everything. It was written in 1993 and includes a bank failure and a good banker who tries to pay off all his creditors. Must be fiction.

So what murderous tripe was it that I was trying to escape? Well, Reacher, of course. The Hard Way wasn't as misogynist as some of this others of his that I've read recently. The bad guys are just psychopaths. Nice. Eric and I started this on our trip. I had to finish it so I could tell him all about it. Maybe I didn't have to finish it, but I did need to know how it ended and what lead up to that end.

The other silly mystery was A Letter of Mary. This is a series about a young woman who married a much older Sherlock Holmes and solves mysteries with him. Oh dear, I know; such a silly premise. And such a silly book and story. Please smack my hand if I think I might read another of these books, ok?

Art

Eric and I drove to Philly for the last three days of the week. We went to see the "Cezanne and Beyond" exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. We stayed at a really crappy hotel. Its sole claim to fame is that it is within walking distance of the museum. We found another good thing when we walked across the street to the Rodin Museum. It is modeled after the Musee Rodin in Paris.  Eric had told me about that museum before I visited there the first time in 1989.  Both museums are worth visiting. The two things I remember most about the Paris museum was the wonderful grounds with rows of plane trees and families wandering the grounds. The second thing was that I didn't have the French hand numbering system down. How do you say that? In America we hold up the pointy finger to mean one, as in "I would like one ticket."  Un is still hard for me to say right.  Of course, those of you who have been to France know that the thumb indicates one.  The pointy finger is two. I gave my extra ticket to the woman in line behind me. Un, Duex por moi. See, I still don't speak French. By the way, Mahler's bust is at the top of the page and Zola is to the left. Don't know if he was pleased with this.

The Cezanne exhibit was great. We spent some time in the Expressionist part of the museum before we got in line. Man, the line was long but fast moving. The people inside moved more rarely. The idea is to have a Cezanne picture surrounded by picture that it inspired. You see the bathers on the right. There was an installation of several pieces that reminded you of the bathers that was inspired by the painting. And there was a red painting with darker red lines running through it. That was the outlines of the figures in Cezanne's painting. Picasso, Matisse, Jasper Johns and many others were included. I thought it was fascinating.

When we got home, I worked a bit more on the side yard. It is almost clean. Today I got my hair done. Cindy worked in the yard as I slaved in the chair with the slowest hair dresser in nine counties. Still, Cindy is the fastest, hardest worker around. She had bags filled with leaves and debris from the vegetable garden and this little planting area between our driveway and our neighbor's drive. When I was raking yesterday, a woman stopped and told me that she loves to see what my garden will do next, it is always so beautiful. I told her that I just rake here. My sister-in-law is the woman with the vision. And the muscles.
We started Doctored Evidence on our drive north to Philadelphia. I soon realized that this wasn't something that would catch Eric's imagination. We moved on to a Reacher book. Doctored Evidence is a mystery that takes place in Venice. It moves slowly and ends quietly. I enjoyed it. The detective is happily married to a woman who loves to cook huge meals for lunch and, sometimes, dinner. He describes them in mouth-watering detail. She also loves to read and makes connections between her books and life. Love this woman. So does he. How rare to have a happily married police officer. 

Somewhere along the line I also read Cracking the Code. The code being cracked is the code spoken by Republicans that have Americans in such a trance. The author is an Air America talk show host. So he leans to the left and is observing the right. But in a nice way. This is all old information about how people receive data in different ways (different senses - feeling, hearing, seeing, etc.) and how you need to address these different senses to get people to receive what you are saying. He talks about framing the message and future talking. Future talking is about putting people into the future and then bringing them to it through your message. I was wanting to think this was going to be all bullshit when I started reading, but I've heard these thoughts enough in my career to give it all some validity. In those cases we were talking about getting your point across in business. Same thing. I hope Dems read this and understand how to manipulate as well as the princes of manipulation.  
Finally, I am preparing for Adrian's visit at the end of April. Don't you love this picture of him? It was taken at my birthday celebration 1.5 years ago. Anyway, Cindy mentioned going to a National's game sometime this year. I thought that this was a great opportunity to go, so I got tickets to see them play the Cardinals. And then I had been thinking about visiting the other close ballparks, so I got tickets to see the Angels at Baltimore and the Nationals at Philly.  It was supposed to be the Mets at Philly, but those games were sold out. This should be fun. It was always going to be good to see Adrian, but he doesn't care to travel around that much. Baseball gives a reason. Dean and Fred would say that it is the best reason.