Mrs. Minerva - The English Home magazine

 August 31, 2020 – Mrs. Minerva - The English Home magazine

 

         On reflection, one good thing came out of having a broken foot and being laid up twiddling my fingers last year.  The first week I was in bed with my foot propped up on countless pillows last summer, I pulled all of the magazine subscriptions solicitations and I selected several magazines I’d never had before.- Veranda, The English Gardens, The English Home, Cats, etc.

          I let a few expire, but The English Home I simply adore because of the column – usually on the last page starting with Mrs. Minerva writes . . . then there is a photograph of an elegant lady’s back in a black dress and black hat.

         First, you want to know what she looks like, you want her to turn around, but she doesn’t. You are forced to imagine her. Her column has a strong “voice”.  It is like being invited to tea by the lady of the manor, the one behind wrought iron gates surrounded by lush gardens and with perhaps the best view in the county.

         I simply adore her column.

          Each title starts with “The art of” followed by the topic, for example:

         The art of Spring Cleaning

         The art of Celebrations

         The art of Owning a Dog

         The art of Country Living in Lockdown

          I have searched the internet and came up without finding out who the author actually is to see if she [I presume a she] has written anything else.  If any of my readers to this blog can identify her or anything else she has written, please clue me in.  Just reply to my comments or email listed in this blog.

         As I prowled around the internet this weekend I found a quote attributed to her way of thinking on the The English Home website put out for the world. 

“American women expect to find in their

husbands a perfection that English women

only hope to find in their butlers.” 

William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) 

         Made me smile, laugh, and then ponder it.  You know me, I love a good quote and a good laugh.  

         An additional quote this week comes from a girlfriend who told her mate, “My car is messy, I haven’t picked up lately . . .” as he is opening the door and looked at the passenger’s floor boards and commented. 

         “You know what these look like - used condom wrappers.” 

         It was a good laugh for the pair of them, but I laughed because I use the same hand sanitizer wipes that come in small silver foil packets. I, too, toss them on the floorboard in my car, and don’t pick them up for few days at a time. 

         I have immediately stopped doing that and now sequester them in an oversized straw carry bag that has extra masks, my cell phone, my small purse, and a canister of antiseptic wipes I use on door handles and my steering wheel. I save the nicely scented wipes in the foil packets for my hands only. 

         Another quip from this friend was a couple of weeks ago when she was house sitting her brother’s place, taking advantage of his amenities.  It was sort of a vacation from constant togetherness due to lockdown with her significant other. 

         On one phone call to her other-half he said to her, 

         “I think you need to come on home so you stop missing me.” 

         What a sweet sentiment. I hope everyone remembers and shares it next time you are parted from a loved one who misses you. 

         Another quote I noticed either in a magazine, or on a t-shirt – I got a smile out of: 

I am not everyone’s favorite

but, cheers to those who appreciate me.

 

         And lastly, for some bittersweet.  I used to love the following quote by Audrey Hepburn, as Regina Lampert, in the movie Charade, (1963).  It used to tickle me, now it has a completely different meaning as we have all these Covid19 deaths. 

         Cary Grant is meeting Audrey Hepburn for the first time in a ski resort in the Alps and she is eating at an open-air restaurant. The view is gorgeous. 

         Cary Grant uses that lame pickup line, “Do I know you?”. 

         Audrey replies, “I already know an awful lot of people and until one of them dies I couldn’t possibly meet anyone else.” 

         That sarcastic and amusing line has lost all of its charm now when you color it with today’s Covid19. 

         Now I feel that life, as we know it, will never be the same, when one of my favorite quotes is no longer charming. 

         I lift up my prayers to all those battling Covid19 this minute.  Join me in sending up prayers for your family, friends and neighbors who are in throes of this horrible virus.

 

        

 

        

 

        

Writer's group assignment for August

 August 20, 2020 – My writer’s group assignment for August.

 Story with an unexpected twist.

I have a re-occurring dream . . . let me share it with you. 

     

         The occasion is a surprise birthday party given in my honor at an elegant home.  I am sitting at the formal dining table, that was adorned with flowers and crystal, having just finished a sumptuous meal.

          The host, Teddy, leaned in close to whisper to me with twinkling eyes and a mischievous smile playing on his lips.

          “Are you a good sport?”

          Not knowing him well enough, I am not sure what he is asking of me.  I bite my lip and hesitate.

          Teddy grins and tips his head to one side waiting for my answer.

          “I – I guess so.”

          “Good,” he claps his hands and rises from his chair, pulling me by my hand.  A dozen or more guests, male and female, both young and old silently trail behind us. 

          A moment later, we are standing in the marble-floored hall at the foot of a wide, sweeping staircase that rises toward a second story ceiling of carved swirls and roses. The space is bright and open and every noise causes a soft rippling echo.

          The glowing wood banister is wide and smooth sweeping outward at the bottom in a curled circle. Midway up the staircase is Godfrey, the butler, who beckons to me.

          “Go on,” my host says and I hesitantly walk up the staircase, my fingertips lightly skimming the shiny banister.  As I join the butler, he climbs higher and I follow him.  Near the top of the staircase, we stop and I glance back over my shoulder, the dinner guests are scattered in a semi-circle below with smiling, expectant faces.

          What have I gotten myself into?

          “We have a birthday tradition here at Vandervere, the honoree slides down the bannister into her next year,” says Godfrey who turns to me with a warm smile.

          I lean over the bannister and assess the distance of the drop to the shiny, hard marble floor letting out a soft, “Ah,” thinking, I’d like to see my next year, not die with a splat today.

          I prudently step down several steps, Godfrey follows.  A stifled chuckle comes from the gallery below.

          In quiet tones, Godfrey shows me how to perch on one haunch on the railing with a bent knee, the other leg standing on the stair tread.

          “Use your arms for balance. When you are ready, tuck back your standing foot. Teddy will catch you and set you safely on your feet.”  He rose and added, “Here, try it before I put the wool throw around you.”

          I raised half my buttocks onto the railing, putting my arms out for balance and keeping one foot solidly on the tread as Godfrey leaned against the bannister in front of me checking any downward movement.  My adrenaline kicked in making me almost breathless.

          I nodded satisfaction and whispered, “The objective is to not pitch myself over the edge to my certain death?” 

          He chuckled, “Let me wrap this around you.”

          I stood and he wrapped the large plaid square of black and navy wool around my waist and tied the ends into a knot.  He leaned on the bannister below me again as I settled myself into a sidesaddle position.

          Godfrey whispered one last caution, “Keep your foot tucked back until he catches you.”

          With my arms circled up and out for balance, I looked down at the faces waiting and noticed the gents were spaced all along the bannister as a human safety net.

          I pressed on a wide smile. When Godfrey asked, “Ready,” I merely nodded and he stepped back.  In a flash of seconds, my arms were about Teddy’s neck who caught me, twirled me around, and set me down safely.

          “Bravo,” and “Well done,” instantly followed by applause and an ear-piercing whistle.

          I stood laughing as Teddy knelt struggling to untie the knot. The haunting sensation of flying through the air made my knees weak. 

          Rising up with the bunched up wool throw Teddy asked,

          “Ready to go again?”

          “Maybe next year, from the top.”

          I heard someone ask, “Did you catch it on video?”

          “Yeah, I got it,” - “I got it too.”

          I shouted, “I want to see it,” as we all returned boisterously to the dining room.

          A huge cake arrived, the lights dimmed, and candles were lighted, one by one.

          Teddy leaned in with me to watch the video, “Perfect, look at your smile, such ballerina grace.”

          He called out to the guests loudly, “She scored a perfect ten, didn’t she?”

          “Thump, thump, thump,” resounded from the guests’ knuckles in unison on the dining room table.

          “Make a wish,” Teddy urged.

          I could hardly catch a deep enough breath.  I exhaled to blow out the candles starting at one side, then the other, the last candle dies out. Small swirling streams of smoke rise from the wicks.

          Oh, I’d forgotten to wish, will it count if I make it now?

          Tasting the rich buttery frosting - utter perfection - my thoughts drift to gravity and velocity, or is it speed and gravity makes velocity . . . I’ve forgotten how that works . . .

 

        

 

 

        

Fish Pillows

 

August 12, 2020 – Fish pillows

 

         I find the lack of finances is the mother of invention.

         Let me take you back a few years to 2012.

           It was during a downturn in my business, I was beating the bushes for new clients, trying to widen my network. I was exhausted trying to scrape enough work together to make a living and in one of my Mom’s weekly letters she sent a quarter page of a catalog that had fish pillows, with the notation, “These are cute.”

          One thing about my Mom, she decorated the house for all the holidays – not over the top, but still in recognition of the major holidays. She’d start with Valentine’s Day hearts, followed by St. Patrick Day shamrocks, then moving on to Easter, she would put out her egg collection. The next holiday she celebrated was the Fourth of July, decked things with American flags, during August she would drag out a bunch of sea shells, followed by Autumn squirrels, nuts, and leaves and then into the traditional Christmas Decorations.

          Mom rarely sent gift ideas for herself and this was in a letter about three weeks before her birthday in June. 

          If you are like me, you run out of ideas over the years and I welcome them.  But, this time, when I started to look for fish pillows the price tags gagged me.  The first one I found was $49.99 for one pillow.  I don’t think so.

          Due to my pride, she was the last person I wanted to know that I was in a financial down turn. I was in a quandary – how to afford the usual Birthday gift on hardly any extra money.

          I had time on my hands at the same time as lack of money. In the past, I had been creative enough to paint decoys, paint a pair of mallards on the bottom of crab basket driftwood and, paint Egyptian lilies on a fabric room divider. Why not get out my brushes and paint my Mom some fish pillows.  Sure, why not, I can do that.

          I dug out the brushes and paints, I found large remnants of rubber backed fabric that was used as sun block on kitchen slider drapes and I visited Walmart to pick up pillow forms and some of that interesting liquid paint that stays like a ridge once dry.

          Next, I hunted the internet for interesting fish pictures in order to get fish ideas.  That was actually the hardest part.  I wanted something tropical and colorful and realized I’d have to dream up imaginary fish.

          Having a photocopier that enlarged, I could play with the pictures and increase or decrease them to come up with six imaginary fish designs with bright colors.

         At my office work desk, having been used only for St. John Title, I sketched and painted samples with water colors to make a sample to work from.  That is where I toyed with different colors for my make believe fish.

          When I painted the fabric squares. I stalled a bit between the painting of the watercolors on the sample pattern, and switching to the acrylics for the fabric.  Two different mediums and I had to re-learn the “shading bit” – but it was a work of love and inspiration solved the problem.

          Each pillow has two sides, one of each design.  The final touch was the fishing line with a hook holding a heart wherein I signed them “Tess 2012”.

         Like mother, like daughter, I too decorate my home as the seasons click  by. 

          We are in what I call high summer and that requires my sandpiper decoy standing in a platter of shells on the sofa table, the mantel lined with shells and coral, and a rock crab climbing over a platter of shells on the kitchen table.  On my to-do list for a couple of days was fetch the fish pillows out of the closet.

          Today I added the fish pillows I captured when we cleaned out my Mom’s home a week before her death.  They had given her much pleasure, and it gives me pleasure to know she enjoyed them, enjoyed my creative artwork, my original designs. Now I get to enjoy them.

          We may be in shut-in with this Covid19 situation, but I can easily imagine we are vacationing at a condominium down in Myrtle Beach when I glance at the fish pillows.

 

A two-fer: Two book reviews

 August 10, 2020 – A two-fer:  Two book reviews

 

         The first one I started reading:  The Plus, self-help for people who hate self-help by Greg Gutfeld, who is a member of The Five on Fox news.

 

         I have always loved Gutfeld’s monologues. But, when he mentioned he was finishing a book in this “lock-down Covid19” situation, it piqued my interest.  He had plenty of seclusion time to re-think it all as he was going through the final process of getting ready to publish it.  Having not read any of his prior books, I said to myself – sure, let’s see what this one is about.

 

         I ordered it and I inhaled it. It is a self-help guide getting through the current political situation which is the divide in this country.  What to do in the cancel culture, during mob rule, and how to defeat the unbending mind.

 

         I have been there and done that, several times – shelfing politics – in an attempt to retain a friendship.  I failed at it with one person; the next person the friendship is now lukewarm, and the last person I tried it on, a complete understanding.  Maybe I am getting better at it, or maybe it has to do who they are as a person and who I am as a person. 

 

         I highly recommend this book for a couple of reasons. Two chapters:

 

The Prison of Two Ideas.

and

Why you matters.

 

         I highly recommend this book with the idea you should ponder it as you read it, talk back to it in the margins with a pencil, that is note, Huh? Agree or disagree or question in a pondering way OR simple say, Right on.

 

         It will give you a chance to dissect and solve the current issues of the day, which are actually issues of who you are and why you matter.

 

         Again, this book recently came out and on page 5 of the first chapter Greg mentioned a book by Jonathan Rauch called, The Happiness Curve.

 

         Greg said,

 

“If you aren’t getting happier as you’re getting older, you’re doing it wrong.”

 

         That piqued my interest and I immediately put down The Plus for five minutes and ordered Rauch’s book.

 

         This morning I finished Rauch’s book, The Happiness Curve – Why Life gets Better After 50.  It was a different type of read for me – more research than I expected, but research I could actually understand – possibly due to Rauch’s skills as a wordsmith.

 

         From Rauch’s book I will share only one item from page 180, giving you a reason to read the book - a basic equation:

 

         H = S + C + V + T

 

         H is enduring level of happiness

         S is emotional set point

         C is circumstances of your life

         V is factors under your voluntary control

         T is time’s influence on life satisfaction

 

         That should be enough for you to obtain a copy of the 2018 published book, The Happiness Curve and give it a thorough read.

    Now that I have had my reading break, out to the gardens to get them whipped into shape before fall.

The humble No. 2 Pencil

August 8, 2020 – The humble No. 2 Pencil

 

         I have an affinity for Paper Mate’s Sharpwriter #2 USA, mechanical pencils, as I use them exclusively to work my Sudoku puzzles that keep my mind agile.

          But, we are in the Covid19 supply chain nightmare and I’ve dug in all my chests and drawers and I am down to my last two.

         Added to the shopping list I have discovered that they are now, as the Yankee saying goes, as scarce as hen’s teeth.  Over the years I have purchased them at countless stores, but now that I need some, and want some, I am left empty handed.

          So, next, let’s improvise, let us try another brand.  $3.72 for another brand?  Are they crazy?  I never paid that price before.  Now you say – GEE is she cheap.  Not only am I cheap, but they are multi-colored, I have an affection for the yellow Paper Mate noted above, with the soft eraser that works.  I have found that the other brands have this white, waxy eraser that smears rather than erases the graphite.

          What are my humble options?  Well, there are old fashioned, ubiquitous, yellow pencils made out of 100% wood, that give me the No. 2 graphite, but better still, the soft eraser, much needed for my Sudoku worksheets.  Yes, I have to erase occasionally.  In fact, my usual routine is printing off eight sheets, in the large print format, from Websudoku and work them until I get them all accomplished.

          On a good mental health day, I can get eight perfect.  Other, more stressful days, I get about six and two just won’t come together.  I set those to the side, and erase what I have attempted before and start again.  Yes, the eraser, for me is a necessary part of the No. 2 graphite experience.

          In the last of three stores on my circle tour of buying groceries among other things, I have a choice of Ticonderoga Dixon Wooden Pencils, made with sustainable wood sources, [https://weareticonderoga.com/our-story/]  made in the USA.  On their website they say, “Sharpen your mind and ideas with an iconic Ticonderoga.”  That is fine advertising, but this day I found the packet of pencils too pricey as they comment here in the South.

          I opted for the cheap two packs for $1 that were on the School Supply special, I fingered the packages and made certain they were not manufactured in China – made in Vietnam – that was interesting in itself.  I also made sure they had those lovely erasers I like and that the enamel was smooth.  As a side note, I was impressed with the perfect stamping “GRAPHITE No.2 HB” on each as I fingered the package, running my finger tip over the stamping looking for imperfections and found none.

         My theory, if the stamping was quality, then the pencils will be quality and I snapped up two packages and had no choice but to purchase a small battery operated pencil sharpener.  My choice on that item was purple or purple or purple. 

          Why purple of all colors?  I detest purple, I can count the purple items in my home on one hand: a scarf given to me as a joke indicating that I was now old enough to where purple, a bracelet I got in one of those Santa gift exchanges I kept only to wear with the purple scarf, and a purple blouse that is polyester and refuses to wear out which I wear under a neutral sweater so that it is not noticeable.  I highlight the outfit with the above scarf and bracelet and for some unknown reason I am always complimented on my outfit and I usually toss them an eye-roll.  Let me get back to yellow pencils.

          Once I bought the batteries to go in the small pencil sharpener I shook my head and said, self – you saved money on the pencils, but then you outlay money for batteries and sharpener – you are insane, you’ve spent more.

          Okay, but I wanted pencil lead with the erasers.

          Later in the evening, I put the batteries in the small sharpener – the battery door does not latch – I have it taped shut as I am not going back to exchange it, and I sharpened a box of pencils.  Eight pencils, I felt short changed, I thought they always came by the dozen.

          Life sure has changed over the years, 8 in a box instead of 12, hand held battery operated sharpeners that need tape across the bottom to hold the batteries in, but I got the erasers.  I guess the trade off was okay, I guess this is the new normal.

          Then, I started to wonder how pencils are made as I was sharpening eight of them, one at a time.  I could smell the familiar cedar shavings as I emptied the sharpener – ooh, that latch works, things are looking up.

          How do they get the graphite in the pencil?  Possibly the rest of you know this, but I didn’t, pencils are made of two halves of wood that are glued together over the graphite mixed with clay inserts.

          And, lastly, I was reminded of a Toast Master’s meeting where a college professor challenged me with an impromptu question.

          “You are a No. 2 Pencil, tell me about yourself.”

          Trust me, I mentally started with “Um . .” yet spoke for one minute without shaming myself too much.

          Below are a couple of links -

 WebSudoku – has three levels

 https://www.websudoku.com/?level=2

 A curiously interesting video about someone making pencils from wooden pallets as an advertising stunt for Carolina boots.

 https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=how+are+No.+2+pencils+made&qpvt=how+are+No.+2+pencils+made&view=detail&mid=06C5541C5EC2A846029706C5541C5EC2A8460297&&FORM=VRDGAR

 Then, the standard Wikipedia know how.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pencil#Grading_and_classification