Posting for Travel with Intent’s One Word Sunday photo challenge.
That look says it all.
Category: Relatives
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Here she is last night, at the post-rehearsal reception, in one of San Francisco’s premiere Tiki Bars, Pagan Idol on Bush.
It seems only yesterday when she wrote me a note: “Tita, I’m accepting Stanford because of you.”
Posting for Debbie Smyth’s Six-Word Saturday Challenge.
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Travel with Intent hosts the Six-Word Saturday Challenge as well as the One Word Sunday Challenge.
This week’s One Word Sunday Challenge is GLASS.
On her last trip to England, self stayed in an Airbnb that was directly across the street from Haggiston Park. Hackney Road was a five-minute walk.
The location was prime! Self made a habit of dropping by one particular store:
Wall & Jones, Hackney Road, East London
The owner was a former actress turned clothes designer. Aside from clothes, she sold unique, handcrafted jewelry and interesting items like this fox wearing a lady’s gown, under a glass dome.
The woman who worked there was really warm and welcoming. She let self rummage as much as she liked. Self ended up with two dresses. She would have loved to bring the fox under the dome, too.
Stay tuned.
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Today’s post is a blast from the past: 20 years ago, son and his two cousins visiting from New York, looking out at San Francisco Bay and the urban sprawl from the hills behind Redwood City, off Farm Hill Boulevard.
Posting for Travel with Intent’s One Word Sunday Challenge.
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Cee Neuner: This week our topic is celebrating Metal of any type.
Since it is such a beautiful day, more like summer, self went around her backyard, taking pictures of metal garden ornaments. Without further ado:
Her newest garden ornament: Tibetan wind chimes, purchased last summer from Growing Grounds in downtown San Luis Obispo, right across from the San Luis Obispo mission.
Her oldest: the pig watering can, which has seen better days.
In her hanging planter, a bird built a nest.
The metal crocodile on the wall of the shed reminds her of Bacolod, Dear Departed Dad’s hometown. Her grandfather opened the first zoo in the Visayas, and one of the zoo animals was a crocodile that lived to a very great age. When it finally died, her cousins had it stuffed. Don’t know which cousin kept the stuffed crocodile. She should find out.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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This book came highly recommended by her relatives in Bacolod. The author is/was a Harvard prof, the publisher is Penguin, and it’s been out quite a long time (Copyright: 1998).
She hasn’t read it cover to cover, she just picks it up at random moments. Tonight, the law she is reading about is Law # 19: KNOW WHO YOU ARE DEALING WITH. DO NOT OFFEND THE WRONG PERSON.
Interpretation of the Law:
- Never assume that the person you are dealing with is weaker or less important than you are. Some men are slow to take offense, which may make you misjudge the thickness of their skin, and fail to worry about insulting them. But should you offend their honor or their pride, they will overwhelm you with a violence that seems sudden and extreme given their slowness to anger. If you want to turn people down, it is best to do so politely and respectfully, even if you feel their request is impudent or their offer ridiculous. Never reject them with an insult unless you know them better; you may be dealing with a GENGHIS KHAN.
DUN DUN DUN
Stay tuned.
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Self has been on three trips with her niece, Irene, each one organized by her niece. Self is so grateful. She’s not the best at organizing. With Irene, self has visited Florence, Paris, and Prague.
Prague was our last trip together, in May 2019. Irene found a guide to take us around Prague Castle. As usual, self was drawn to details such as these small carvings on the gates guarding the entrance to a cathedral: from the super-realistic to the mythic, all on the same gate!
Thank you to Becky at Life of B for hosting SquareOdds! The Squares Challenge is always a lot of fun.
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In July 1756, a Delaware war party abducted John M’Cullough from western Pennsylvania “to replace a dead kinsman.” He was ritually “dunked” in the Allegheny River (he said he was “nearly drowned”) by way of purification, and was told he was “then an Indian.” He was eight.
Seven years later, when his birth father tracked him down, he “wept bitterly.”
M’Cullough’s father tied him atop a horse and headed for Pittsburgh, but that night the boy slipped his cords and escaped back to the Delawares.
Liberty Is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution, p. 48 -
Self is reading three books at the moment: My Heart, by Semzedin Mehmehdinovic (which she is hugely enjoying — it’s her first ever book by a Bosnian writer); Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; and All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days, by Rebecca Donner (about Donner’s great-great-aunt, Mildred Harnack)
She reads according to her mood. This morning, the mood is verse:
The Green Knight:
I’m clothed for peace, not kitted out for conflict.
But if you’re half as honorable as I’ve heard folk say
you’ll gracefully grant me this game which I ask for
by right. -
Beryl Bainbridge chooses to tell the story of Robert Falcon Scott’s doomed expedition to the south pole in first person, and places each chapter in the mind of a different crew member. Self thinks/remembers that the whole lot die, so this is quite a depressing book to be reading right now. She read it for the first time about 20 years ago, and it’s only now that bits and pieces are coming back to her. Such as: the farewell letters written by the men as they were dying on the ice. The diary of Robert Falcon Scott.
Chapter One (June 1910) is narrated by Petty Officer Edgar (Taff) Evans, whose voice has a certain air of stoicism. Evans describes things like how low the boat, the Terra Nova, sits in the water. How the boat was procured (on the cheap). How the expedition received extravagant attention from the press (Oh the irony). How the voyage is projected to take three years. How the Petty Officer knows not all the crew will make it.
The general impression left by Chapter One is that Scott cut corners. Most of Chapter One is engaged with Scott’s fundraising efforts, and how the amount raised didn’t seem to be quite enough. All these details will no doubt have tragic consequences. Scott was charismatic, but he was talking through his arse, the boat was pretty rickety, etc He’d already made one expedition to the Antarctic, which only made him more ambitious.
Chapter Two is related by Dr. Edward (Uncle Bill) Wilson, who is given to detached observation. For example:
- The scenery was magnificent; abrupt precipices, wooded hills and crags, tumbling waters and a paradise of mosses, ferns and pink belladonna lilies. One moment the air was polluted with the odour of the black til (Oreodaphne foetens), so named because of its awful smell, and the next filled with the delicious scent of the beautiful lilly of the valley tree (Clethra arborea).
Kanlaon 