Where in the Hell Have I Been?

I couldn't tell you. I've been around. I've had things to say. I've been reading my normal blogs. I just haven't posted. I didn't feel like it, and, you know, producing great art such as this is all about being in the mood.

Anyway. I'm knitting.



This thing is going to need a ton of blocking, but if it actually works out it will be the top of a cover for my old ottoman. The poor thing doesn't go with my new(-ish, now) living room furniture. First, it was too short. I solved that problem by putting casters on the bottom, and now it's the right height AND roly-poly. It's still to purple, though. This cover will help a lot. I hope.

I've also been reading Mrs. Miniver, which I hadn't even realized was a novel until I read The Gentle Art of Domesticity (which I will get back to in a minute). Mrs. Miniver was written in 1939, but I promise you that if the author, Jan Struther, were writing now, she'd totally have a blog. Each chapter of the book is a wonderful, wonderful blog entry--only written in the third person. In fact, if Suse of Pea Soup were British and wrote in the the third person, she would be the Modern Day Miniver. In style and outlook, that is. That might change when I've finished the book, but I can't help but think of her as I'm reading.

Okay, now for The Gentle Art of Domesticity: I liked some of this book, but I was put off by a lot more of it. The photos are wonderful, but awfully self-congratulatory. The author is So Very Pleased with Her Wonderful Life--not that she shouldn't be, but . . . I don't know. I didn't feel inspired as much as I did pitied, and that's not comfortable. But I did like the way she referred to books and movies that she felt inspired domesticity, and that's where I found Mrs. Miniver, for which I will be eternally grateful.

She also recommended the 1954 Frank Sinatra/Doris Day vehicle Young at Heart, which I didn't like all that much. Sinatra was SO handsome then, but Doris Day was a terrible match for him. Plus, she reminds me of the squinchy Renee Zellweger, whom I only ever liked in Bridget Jones.

Here are pics for comparison (I had a terrible time finding one of RZ smiling or looking at all happy, by the way):




Can you see it, or is it just me?

I also watched Houseboat, based on a recommendation from TGAoD, and I liked that one MUCH better. First of all, Cary Grant. Second, Sophia Loren! She's so hot that her acting and her stupid Bing, Bang, Bong song don't matter at all. Plus, unlike Day/Sinatra, Loren is a great match for Grant--and they're fun to watch despite the gap in their ages.

That's about it for me, though. We're in a pledge drive at work (support your public radio station), and The Boy is out of town for a school trip to Wallops Island, VA, to visit the NASA Flight Facility (where they get to participate in a mock launch) and a wildlife preserve where they'll wade waist-deep into marshes and go out of boats to do water studies. He's most excited about getting to stay in a hotel room with his friends, of course. He'll be back tomorrow night, and I can't wait to hear all about it. I sent him with a water-proof disposable camera, but god knows if it will ever leave his bag.

And now . . . I'm off for a nap.