Auld Lang This!

I'm not sure why, but I've never liked  New Year's Day. It could be the football games. It could be that the end of the holiday season  is nigh. It could be that there'll be at least 5 months (at least in Northeastern Ohio) of gray skies, dun- colored grounds and skeletal trees. It's just a dull and uncertain time, uncertain because of capricious weather. Planning ahead for anything that involves travel, for instance, can be tricky because of heavy snow and icy roads. Even though I no longer drive, I don't even like to be in a car when it's snowing.
New Year's Eve used to be enjoyable time when I was younger. Lots of parties, lots of putting on my prettiest clothes, high heeled shoes and glitter. Most of my closest friends are gone off to green pastures, and those of us left are too old to drink in the New Year. And the thought of high heels, just the thought of high heels, makes my feet hurt. How did I ever wear those things, to say nothing of dancing in them. Oy!
 I went to get my hair cut this morning. The place I go is one of those chain salons which doesn't take appointments. I expected it to be packed, but I got right in with my favorite stylist. I asked her where the crowds were, assuming all the ladies would be in, getting all glossed up for the big night. She told me that people just don't do that any more, and haven't for some time, preferring to have informal gatherings. Poor things.
But New Year's Day is so un-joyous to me. When I was working, or in school, it  meant going back the next day, but  that's no longer the case. It's a good time to see a movie, at least. And in the Catholic church it's called The Feast of the Circumcision. That's something the nuns never explained.
The Boar's Head Festival was terrific, as usual. We had to sit in the west  transept for a change and found it even better than the usual place we have sat for years. The shepherds entered right in front of us with two small goats, one of which sang aling with them all around the cathedral and right up to the manger. We also went to a different Vietnamese restaurant, this time on the near West side of Cleveland.
Dessert was ice cream at Sweet Moses, a trendy creamery in an emerging neighborhood in that part of town. Wonder if it's open on New Year's Day?  

'Tis the Season

I'm not sure what exactly impels our family toward the bleaker side of entertainment, but this Christmas season is one example of the penchant for the dark side. One evening at dinner, the subject of film noir came up. I mentioned one favorite of that genre, "The Kiss of Death,"  which I saw back in the late 40s. It featured Richard Widmark as a psychopathic hood named Tommy Udo,  with a chilling giggle, which he displayed copiously as he  pushed an old woman in a wheelchair (played by Mildred Dunnock, who had played Willie Loman's saintly wife , for God'sake !)  down a very, very, steep staircase. As soon as my progeny heard about it, the title was looked up on YouTube, and after the dishes were stashed into the dishwasher, Sally's laptop was connected to the big TV and the movie was enjoyed by all. This was on Christmas Eve eve.
We made up for it the next night by watching that first of the Walton's saga, "The Homecoming." I fell asleep.
We have gone to two noir films this past week: " American Hustle," and "The Wolf of Wall Street," both quite enjoyable, and both about pretty rotten cheaters who use gutter language, very noir- ish, only in technicolor. Tomorrow we are going to see the new Coen brothers movie, which is about a folk singing loser and promises to be quite depressing.
Tonight we are joining the normal holiday revelers at the Boar's Head Feast at the beautiful Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland.
By the way, those of you old enough to remember Frank Gorshin, the brilliant impersonator, who also  played the Riddler on the TV Batman, one of his greatest impressions was of Widmark's character in "The Kiss of Death." He even looked like him.

And a Merry Christmas To Y'all

This poor blog is being neglected these days. Blame it on Facebook, Netflix and general laziness. Thanks to Netflix I developed a meth-like addiction to "Breaking Bad," a modern day "Crime and Punishment"-like episodic television series. It is one of the best-written, best acted television presentations ever. I became a zombie-like watcher,  determined to watch just one episode at a time, but finding myself binge watching three more. I kept wondering to myself why an 86 year old, non-violent, non-druggy woman was so fascinated by this tale of a good man turned evil was driving me into an obsessed  IPad voyeur. As I said, it was just so good, and I was, I found out, not alone. Netflix has still not shown the last 8 episode, so I have yet to know how it all turned out.
Well, that's not so Christmassy, but it does account for my neglect of this poor blog.

I did this illustration weeks ago with the intention of making Christmas cards, but have not done so. Not being a driver can be constraining when it comes to more frivolous tasks, like going to places which handle blank cards. I prefer to use my ride mooching for things like doctor and dentist appointments or grocery shopping. So I am using this post and Facebook to send greetings out to friends (the actual kind) and family. This is Sixto's second appearance on one of my cards, succeeding the late card star Dupree. Sixto is an extraordinary cat, very people oriented and a very warm and comforting lap cat.

I am feeling quite well after my summer of discontent. I am back to water aerobics, even though rising from a warm bed at 6 a.m. seems a cruel thing to do to myself during the cold, dark days of the next 4 months.

It's the time of good movies, because the rush to get them into theaters before the new year is now on. Saw "American Hustle" the other day and found it delightful, with stellar performances. Going to see the new Coen brothers film about the folk singer later this week. Polly's here and Emily checks in periodically with Face Time, so we have a together family which is lovely
If Netflix finally gets those last 8 episodes I shall probably binge watch for a few days. No calls, please.

 

The Colors Have Arrived

Almost overnight, the trees have finally decided to flash their colors, just like that! Last Tuesday, the trees around here were still bright green. Thursday morning, after a windy, rainy night, when my friend Frances and I were driving back from our early morning aerobics class, Brady Lake Road was edged with the brilliant golds, oranges and coral reds we'd been waiting for. They are still that way, in spite of several quite windy days. I've never seen such stubborn leaves. I wonder if they'll be reluctant to come out next spring.
We are back to Eastern Standard Time as of this morning. It's good to have that hour back, even though it's very dark by 5p.m. It could be worse, of course. The first time I was in London it was December. My friend Susan and I  went into  Fortnum and Mason's to gawk at their wonderful Christmas goodies around 2 in the afternoon. We spent about an hour, buying a few very British things, visiting Father Christmas (there were no children around and he looked lonesome)  and when we came out of the store it was pitch black.  I looked at my watch, and it was 3 o'clock. Since this was our second day in England, we had gone to bed early the previous day and hadn't't noticed the early darkness. It was very disorienting at first, but we got used to it. So at least in this part of the world we don't have to experience that in the winter.
Right now the sun is shining on the beautiful orange gold trees across the street in Dix's Woods and my front yard golden maple is also glowing through the window.
My real fall is here at last.

Green Fall

Dix's woods is as green as June. The maple tree in the front yard is still mostly green, with a few touches of yellow, but not its usual brilliant gold. One of the reasons our recent visitor from Germany chose to come to Ohio in  October was to enjoy the glorious burst of autumn color. We even went down to Holmes County,hoping to see the annual display. Well, not only was it pouring torrents of rain, but the trees were still green, with an occasional dull brown here and there and several bright spots.
Normally by this late in October, the trees are bare, with trick or treaters shuffling through deep  piles of dead leaves. Now the trees oare resisting their fall fate, refusing to change color and hanging on for dear life. What does this mean? Climate change? Arboral rebellion, a cry of "Hell no, we won't go?" Will Christmas decorations be competing with trees finally bearing red, orange and golden leaves?
We did have a lot of rain this summer, which meant that everything was greener than usual for a longer time, which was nice, but I do miss the October colorfast.

Foiling the Fantods

The Lake District of England is a wild and wonderful place. The fells rise up precipitously from bowl-like valleys. You can see for miles from ridges and hillsides. Mortarless stone walls snake up from dells straight up the steep sides of fells to the very top. Everything in summer is brilliant green , like Day-Glo paint, with lovely blue lakes reflecting everything.
My friend Susan and I were invited to meet and stay with the Martins in Ambleside, a lovely town in Wordsworth country. Tony, now retired, was a professor at Lancaster University, specializing in literacy. He had written a book about struggling readers and teaching technique to assist their learning. Susan, whose field is also literacy, had written him a fan letter, and he, in turn, told her that if she was ever in England, to please visit him and his wife in the Lake District.  Susan, not one to let an opportunity pass, took him up on the invitation. We were invited to stay in their home, which was rather brave of him and his wife , Nancy. She was the education coordinator at Dove Cottage, the Wordsworth Home in the nearby little village of Grasmere.
Nancy took us to Dove Cottage and gave us a tour of the cottage, where the poet and his sister Dorothy had lived, and told us about their life there, and talked about the remarkable journal which Dorothy had kept in which she described her day to day activities, her long walks, her garden and her devotion to the Great Poet. I became more interested in her than in the poet, and bought a copy of the journal and found it wonderful to read over and over. She was a memorable woman.
In the museum connected to the cottage there were many artifacts from the period ( early 19th century) among them the Claude Glass. When the early railroad provided access to the Lake District, it became a favorite vacation  and tourist spot for city folk from other parts of the U.K. Among these tourists were young ladies of a delicate makeup, whose contact with nature consisted mainly of Austenian walks about the shrubbery of country estates. Unfortunately, these young ladies found the wild scenery of the Lake District so overwhelming that they were won't to swoon from a surfeit of natural beauty.
Enter the Claude Glass. This device was held up, facing the scenery, while one's back was to the dangerous view. The Claude Glass was convex, thus taming the wildness into a more concentrated, more easily tolerated compact view. The young ladies could thus enjoy the full Lake District experience while retaining full consciousness.
The next evening, the Matins took us out to Wrynose Pass for a hike. It is a vast valley, surrounded by the Langdale Pikes, enormous green fells reaching  up to the sky.
I turned to Nancy.
"Oh, my God! Did you bring a Claude Glass?"
She had not, but somehow I managed to stave off the vapors. I understood those young ladies of old.
(I am quite sure that Dorothy Wordsworth never needed such a thing. She walked over the fells for miles almost very day and wrote in her journal of a host of golden daffodils before the Great Poet ever thought of that image himself. )

Moving Right Along

My last post about what to carry when traveling reminded me of another aspect of moving about the planet with baggage; that is, how we do it by train.

When I first came to Kent State University back in 1947, the main means of getting here involved a rather long session with trains. I left Springfield, Ohio, in the south central part of the state via the New York Central line. In a little town in the middle of nowhere, I got off that train and had to wait for two hours in an old wooden train station for the Erie line, from Chicago. It pretty much took all day. Car transportation wasn’t much better, even if I were lucky enough to catch a ride. I think  I was the only person from Springfield going to Kent State at the time. This was before Eisenhower and General Motors took over the country and replaced all the two lane highways with the super highway system we know today. I tried the bus once, but it was full of Appalachians headed for the tire factories in Akron, complete with whiskey bottles in brown paper bags. So the long train trip became my transport modus operandi for four years, by which time I was thoroughly sick of trains.

It wasn’t until I began traveling abroad that I fell in love with trains. I love the Victorian architecture of stations in England, places with names like Victoria, King’s Cross and the venerable Paddington. It was at Paddington where I met a man who had been a clock keeper there, who talked about the thousands of children being evaluated to the country during WWll, and how heart-breaking it had been to watch the parents saying goodbye to those children. The train station at Windsor is fit for a queen, one of the most elegant looking depots I’ve ever seen. I’ve been to the little station used in the Harry Potter films, when I took a steam-train through the moors in Yorkshire, years before those films were made.

When my friend Susan and I took the train from Munich to Florence, we passed through the Alps, covered with snow. We shared our compartment with a Greek businessman, who, of course, had relatives in Cleveland. He talked about the traffic rules in Athens, where one is allowed to use a car only every other day. He got around that by having two cars so he could alternate each day. The issue around this was the pollution’s effect on the antiquities of the city, so he wasn’t exactly doing his part.

Speaking of a compartment, that’s another thing I enjoy. It’s like.  being in one of those great thriller films, where the person across from you may be a spy or an escaped murderer.

On long trips, there’s the dining car, where you can enjoy a meal with constantly changing scenery, from snowy Alps to palm trees at Lake Como. From open country to the sooty backs of old faded brick buildings as you come into a city. I think it is a more active from of transportation. You’re not driving a car, but you are absorbing all sorts of sights, sounds, smells, atmospheres. You’re grounded, not aloft, attached to the earth and moving along it.

After a flurry of traveling abroad for over ten years or so, I have not been thee for a while and I do miss it. It’s a combination of age and hip replacements, I don’t have the stamina I once had for al the walking (once you get off the train), but I am so glad I have had the chance to enjoy and appreciate the fun and excitement of train travel.