Listing

I’m a lister.

One of the things I used to do in my “dark time” was to make lists. I’m a natural list maker anyway, and not much of a journal writer (except for this blog), so the lists were my way of both documenting AND looking forward to better days.

I had a list of books I read during that time, a list of books I wanted to read (I still do that one), a list of business ideas, a list of marketing ideas, and a list of catchphrases from my living environment. I listed websites to visit, movies to watch, and music to listen to. Today in addition to my list of books to read, my list of movies to watch is my Netflix queue, and my most important lists are work to do and food to cook.

But most important during that previous time was a list of goals for the future. Some were crazy (learn to speak Farsi!), some were ordinary (eat dinner at the table with my family), some were practical (sell car, French cooking), and some were aspirational (meditate, build a house). I had lists of places to travel (not that I will EVER get to all those places) and places to live (so hard to decide!). I just pulled out an old notebook this week and read through one of my lists of goals. Surprisingly, I had actually accomplished some of them.

Although some no longer appeal to me, or they fit a different life, I decided to revisit this idea, but change it up somehow. I’m not sure yet what that entails. Maybe a list in priorities: These are things I MUST do in the next several years; these are for this year; these are crazy daydreams.

I’m also fascinated by other people’s lists (am I missing a good list item?).

Who else does lists, and what are they? Inquiring minds!

Louise

Ten years ago this month, Mr. NightSky and I purchased a small hotel in Palm Springs. We had lofty goals, crashes of reality, and everything in between. One other thing we had, which we could not have predicted, was Louise.

It was the end of that first summer, the slow season, and we had taken the opportunity to run out for a quick dinner. Returning, we pulled into the hotel’s small parking lot, and saw a small dog loitering around. She was happy to come to us; in fact, she acted like she expected us. “Oh, good, you’re back!” She was cheerful, but looked a bit the worse for wear. We brought her into the office, gave her food and water, and made a bed for her there for the night.

The next day we took her photo and made flyers to post around the neighborhood. She had a small collar, but no tags. The little dog appeared to be part Pomeranian and part Shetland Sheepdog. Her nails were very overgrown, and she definitely needed dental work. But she was a cheery little thing. A couple of days went by with no response to flyers, newspaper ads, Craigslist, shelter inquiries, or wandering the neighborhood.

Finally a couple from the condo complex next door stopped by the office. They had seen the posters, but wanted to check to make sure it was the dog they were thinking of, and to talk to us about her. She was, and they did. It seems that their neighbor was probably her owner, and would keep her leashed on the balcony for a day or two or longer at a time. The couple who visited us had already been concerned about her welfare, and now begged us not to return her to her owners. We talked a lot about it, and finally said that if the owners didn’t come forward to us, we would keep her.

We named her Louise.

We took her to the vet, got a complete check-up, had some teeth removed, nails clipped, and groomed. The vet estimated her age to be 12 at that time. We thought with all that, we would probably only have her a couple of years. But she stayed with us for another seven! Already with some blindness, her eyesight continued to fail, but that never stopped her.

She was the official hotel mascot, by her own decision. The guest loved her, and would pack treats for her in their luggage, from as far away as Canada. She wasn’t pushy, but she would quietly join select people while they sunbathed by the pool, or while they read in the chair just outside their room. Often I would look out from the office, and there she’d be, lying on the ground next to a guest on a chaise.

Some guests even went the extra mile, like Uncle Bacon. Uncle Bacon was a summer visitor from England, and each morning would fry a few pieces of turkey bacon for Louise. She barely left Uncle Bacon’s front door the whole length of his stay. Of course, I warned him that her digestive system was hardly used to a steady diet of bacon, but he pooh-poohed me, and he suffered the consequences. Louise was crushed when he left. She would continue waiting outside his door, though other people–people who had no bacon–came to stay.

Kids loved her, especially when she had a puppy haircut during the summer–she actually looked like a puppy. Or a fox. Or a fox puppy.

Of course, anyone eating at one of the patio tables sparked her interest, but again, she wasn’t intrusive. She’d just casually stroll over, sit or lie down, and wait. They caved each and every time.

Louise loved her little adventures, too. I think that her prior escape had given her a taste for wandering, and we had to chase her down on more than one occasion. One evening we got a call from a hotel several hundred feet down the street (our hotel was on the main drag, a four-lane, 50-mile-an-hour highway).

“Do you have a dog named Louise?” the person at the hotel asked. “Because she’s here, in our bar.”

Now this hotel was down the road, and on the other side of the four-lane highway. And Louise was half-blind. And it was close to dark out. How on earth had she made it over there alive? She must have decided to celebrate by partying once she made it across.

Mr. NightSky drove over to pick her up. He walked into the bar, and there was Louise, up on a table, surrounded by admirers. “Oh, don’t be mad at her,” they chorused.

That Louise. We miss her still.

Art & Illustration: Evelyn Dunbar

Another artist new to me (thank you Pinterest!), and again mostly known for work portraying aspects of WWII. Just a coincidence…really!

Evelyn Dunbar was the only woman artist to be employed full-time by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee. She covered the UK home front, especially women’s contribution to the war effort, from 1940 through the end of the war. Although primarily famous for this work, before and after the war she also did book illustrations, landscapes, and murals.

Aside: It seems as though if one was an artist in the 20th century in England, at some point one painted a mural. An excellent process, I think, and one which I wish was emulated here in the States.

I love the detailed look at scenes from what was ordinary life during the war, and the contributions women were making to not only support the soldiers, but also to feed the country, take over men’s traditional jobs, and generally keep the entire country going forward.

Land Army Girls Going to Bed, 1943, Imperial War Museums

Convalescent Nurses Making Camouflage Nets, 1941, Imperial War Museums

A Land Girl and the Bail Bull, 1945, Tate Museum (for us Americans, the “bail” is that moveable shed in the background)

The Land Girls, or the Women’s Land Army, was a British civilian organisation created during WWI and reborn in WWII. With so many men away at war, someone needed to work in agriculture and ensure the nation’s food supply. Thus, the Land Girls.

Delve into the life and work of Evelyn Dunbar with Christopher Campbell-Howes excellent and fascinating blog about her here.

There’s also a collection of her paintings on the BBC site Your Paintings.

Biography: Evelyn Dunbar: War and Country

Interested in finding out more about the Land Girls?

Film: The Land Girls
Books: Land Girls, Angela Huth (fiction); Land Girls, Joan Mant (history); A Presumption of Death, Dorothy L. Sayers (mystery)
Television: Land Girls; episode They Fought in the Fields of Foyles’s War (fabulous show, by the way!)

Putting on Anti-Gas Protective Clothing, 1940, Imperial War Museums

The Queue at the Fish Shop, 1944, Imperial War Museums

Reading and Watching

Reading Report

Last weekend I finished reading an Elizabeth Berg book, Tapestry of Fortunes. It’s a bit of a “woman’s book” but she’s such a great and easy writer, her work is always enjoyable. Four women come together at a transition point in their lives, and have to decide what direction each will take. I always enjoy a domestic type of book: I love to read about the details of life. What food do they fix, and how do they fix it and why? If they run a business, what are their products and why? What is their house like? Do they have a garden? How do they do laundry and shop? I’m curious, and I like that window on the daily lives of people so different than me.

Reading Tapestry of Fortunes made me want to bake a pie, go on a road trip, volunteer in a hospice, and strip down my belongings to the bare essentials.

Tapestry of Fortunes, Elizabeth Berg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Watching Report

One of my favorites, Longmire started its third season this last week. I love the setting (Wyoming), the cinematography, the actors (Katee Sackhoff! Robert Taylor! Lou Diamond Phillips!), the human mysteries, and the interplay between modern and historic Native American culture and white culture. I also like how everyone’s trucks are filthy dirty, and that sometimes it’s easier to just ride a horse to your destination.

Longmire, A&E

 

Art & Illustration, First in a Series (quite possibly)

One of the things I thought I might do with this blog is periodically (meaning, it’s impossible to schedule myself) take a look at an artist I’ve “discovered,” and with whom I was previously unfamiliar. The artist might very well be a common name to many people, but hey, it’s my blog and they are new to me. I’d be curious to know if anyone else knows these artists’ work, too.

First up….

Eric Ravilious

Thank you Pinterest! That was where I came across some of Mr. Ravilious’s war paintings.

Dangerous Work at Low Tide–Defusing a German magnetic mine, Whitstable, Kent, 1940, Copyright The Estate of Eric Ravilious

Mr. Ravilious worked primarily in watercolors, but he also had quite the eclectic selection of other pursuits: Murals (destroyed during the Blitz), printmaking, engraving, product design for Wedgwood, furniture design, and advertising design. He spent much of his life in the Sussex area, and some his most famous paintings are set there.

Tea at Furlongs, 1939, Copyright The Estate of Eric Ravilious

During WWII he enlisted as a full-time salaried artist by the War Artists Advisory Committee. No easy gig, mind. He travelled all over the European Theatre, and painted during many hazardous situations. He was killed during the war. While in Iceland, he volunteered to crew on one of three airplanes searching for another missing plane. Mr. Ravilious’s plane never returned from that mission.

No. 1 Map Corridor, 1940, Copyright The Estate of Eric Ravilious

I find his paintings to be so fascinating: lightly done, but detailed; modern yet charmingly British; dramatic and still whimsical on occasion. His war paintings certainly capture scenes and situations we otherwise would never have seen. His rural paintings are slightly mysterious and haunting, evocative, and still charming. I love all of them!

1939; photo by Serge Chermayeff

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What else is great? His wife, Eileen Lucy Garwood, was nicknamed Tirzah. I think I missed my era.

For more of Mr. Ravilious’s paintings, visit the site from which I drew these images: Art & Artists, by Poul Webb.  There’s also an interesting site in the U.K. devoted to Mr. Ravilious that is super interesting: Eric Ravilious.

June

June, already? What happened to April?

June means moving into summer, appreciating the shade under a tree, fresh spring and summer fruit, strawberries, road trips, hearing the sound of neighborhood kids playing during the day, dining al fresco, windows open, vegetables growing, feeling the breeze.

This month: Walk beneath the redwoods. Enjoy late spring food. And, a new David Tennant show on Masterpiece Mystery!

Life in the Pacific Northwest

Just about a year ago we moved from the California desert to the lower Pacific Northwest–Southern Oregon. It’s been an adjustment, for sure! Winter, snow, rain. Green, green, green. Agriculture, ranches, and farms. Not having access to any store I want, driving out of town in about a minute, surrounded by trees and lush nature. Moss. Farmer’s markets. Did I mention green?

 

Spring was incredible–everything was blooming, even the trees!–and now I know the meaning of spring green. We’re just moving into the beginnings of summer now. It’s a little warmer, the sun a little brighter and more intense, afternoon winds have picked up. There’s actually some dried brown grass on some of the foothills (drought). It’s time to think about sun and heat management.