Catchall Catchup

[pameladean]

The lawn mower -- David and I went out yesterday in the pouring rain, and after ascertaining that Menard's didn't have the mower I really wanted, we went over to Home Depot and found exactly the one I wanted, for about thirty dollars less than the online prices I'd found. I've put it together. (Dear Black and Decker -- "Assemble clip to frame as shown in Figure 3" is not an adequate set of instructions when what you mean is, "Half sprain thumbs in the process of forcing semi-soft rubber tunnels far enough open to cram a metal frame into them."). I haven't used it yet, but it's certainly lighter than the old one.

Finances -- We couldn't afford it, but in a different sense we really couldn't afford to let the grass grow much more. Which leads me to finances. We have not heard back yet on our application for refinancing and a home equity loan, despite the cheerful assertion of the mortgage counsellor that we might be able to close this week. I don't have my check yet. David's primary employer still owes him thousands of dollars and is still very whiny. HCMC, which is the soul of patience, really, is getting very shirty about my medical bills.

Writing -- I'm still creeping along on Going North. The Liavek novel is being pesky, like a mosquito, and so I'll probably do something with it next time GN gets sticky.

Phenology -- The back yard, unmown for about three weeks now, is really beautiful. In the unmown grass are Shasta daisies, tradescantia, and black-eyed Susans, in addition to the previously mentioned yellow and white clover, yellow sorrel, and daisy fleabane. In the also-overgrown garden beds all the orange daylilies are flaming away, with the red and pink lilies still going at it happily, and a few late fresh blooms on the Henry Kelsey rosebush. I saw a Red Admiral butterfly sunning itself on the sidewalk today, the first butterfly I've seen in my own yard. We also have a widow skimmer and a selection of damselflies, as well as a serious oversupply of mosquitoes. The baby birds are making a ceaseless crooning almost like crickets or cicadas, seeeee, seeeee, eeeee, peeeeep, feeeeed meeeee, while their parents fly madly around grasping at mulberries and random insects. At the side of the house the coreopsis and the yellow-flowered yarrow are making a nice contrast to the orange daylilies and the vast hordes of hairy bellflower. I must say that for a weed it is very floriferous. The fancier daylilies have grudgingly put up flower stalks and might bloom if coaxed and cossetted. In front the gigantic hosta and the pink-and-white lilies and the sundrops and the threadleaf coreopsis are blooming, along with more hordes of hairy bellflower.

Emma says that she always liked the hairy bellflower because it made neglected spots look as if she had planted something there.

Books --- Having reread my very motley set of Georgette Heyer, I suddenly find myself in the midst of rereading my equally motley set of Diana Wynne Jones. Well, all right. I think, though I am not perfectly certain, that the last new (to me) book that I read was Henry James's The Bostonians. Good heavens. The reading was much enlivened by the utter cluelessness of the critical apparatus. The person doing this bit of scholarship solemnly informs us that we cannot, of course, hope for Olive to win out. The person who lent me the book had scribbled, in the margin, "The hell you say!" and that is certainly my reaction as well.

Pamela

Comments

Possibly helpful

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

If Going North is the one I think it is, you could try threatening to write "Ruth woke up. It had all been a dream."

On the other hand: In Ira Levin's Son of Rosemary, Rosemary does wake up and realize it's all been a dream -- right from the beginning of the previous book. And he continued on from there, with a clever twist at the end.

Oddly enough, it doesn't seem to have sold nearly as well as Rosemary's Baby. Which probably means it's not a good model to follow.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Is the hairy bellflower by any chance the tall skinny plant with light purple flowers? I have a bunch of volunteers in my shabby backyard.

[pameladean]

If the flowers are bell-shaped and the opening of the bell faces downwards, very probably. There's also a wild phlox that has very pale pink or purple flowers, but those are clusters of small five-petalled single flowers, not bells growing along the stem.

Pamela

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Good, now I know what something in my backyard is!

[pameladean]

I can nip out and look at the rest of it tomorrow, if you like, and make you a list. It is nice to have things named.

Pamela

"Wild phlox"

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Your "wild phlox" sounds to me like bouncing bet, aka soapwort, aka Saponaria officinalis.

I saw a double-blossomed sport of this on the Blue Ridge Parkway some years ago. I wish that I'd committed plant larceny and grubbed some up, but I hadn't brought a trowel.

Re: "Wild phlox"

[pameladean]

I think you are right, having Googled for photographs. Especially since another name it has is "Wild Sweet William." It really does look like phlox, but as I already knew, Wild Blue Phlox is, well, blue, and it blooms earlier in the year. Thank you!

Pamela

Re: "Wild phlox"

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

I have a load of it blooming in a tree pit on Christian Street. The price was right (*grin*), but it's a freely self-sowing, invasive thug.

Re: "Wild phlox"

[pameladean]

Around here it's confined mostly to cracks between buildings and alley, or in those bits of back and side yard that nobody can quite keep tidy somehow. It's very pleasant and softening. I'll think twice about actually putting it in the yard, though, given what you say.

My invasive thing at the moment is goldenrod.

Pamela

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Lawnmower aside, don't you sometimes wish you could just let your yard keep growing until it reverts to something like a prairie? I know I do, mine. But, alas, the neighbors would complain and City Officials would label it a fire hazard or some such thing, so I make do with my eco-lawn mix and its intentional English daisies, clover, chamomile and yarrow, plus whatever volunteer violets turn up each year.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

My neighbor got tired of the length of my lawn and mowed the side yard for me earlier this week. (We share a patch of green; the property line goes down the middle. It's not a huge area, it's where the houses are closest together.)

Anyway, she took my bluebonnets with all their seedpods when she mowed around the bay laurel.

It's been several days now, and I think maybe tomorrow I can thank her.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Ah. It's the patch of lawn in my picture. Forgot about that.

[pameladean]

Agh! I'm so sorry about your bluebonnets.

My neighbor periodically mows part of my lawn in resignation, but he's very very wary of anything that might be a garden plant, and has spared many a fine upright weed in consequence.

Pat, yes, the only thing that stops me, really, from turning parts that the inspectors can't see into meadow is that I know it would be a meadow for about ten minutes and then it would be a mulberry grove.

Pamela

[wiredferret.livejournal.com]

I have some redundant Heyers, depending on how motley your collection is.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I love knowing that there are other Heyer fans here.:)

[pameladean]

Oh indeed, probably dozens.

I can't find my copy of The Unknown Ajax.

Pamela

[pameladean]

Ooo! I don't know, should you list what you have or should I list what I have?

I don't like the mysteries at all, incidentally.

Pamela

[wiredferret.livejournal.com]

I pretend the mysteries don't exist.

In a day or two, I'll post my extras. They should go to loving homes, since most are older than I am.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Ok, I have never read Georgette Heyer. Could you recommend a starting book for me?

(I just bought The Da Vinci Code. I'm always a bit behind on these things.)

[pameladean]

Hmmmm, tell me a few of your favorite books and I'll try to zero in. Heyer is somewhat variable.

Pamela

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Pamela, my sweet, my dear, this is probably a Rude Personal Question, but have you tried to sell any of your phenological writing? Or would that make it not fun? I LOVE reading your stuff, I can't imagine everyone wouldn't.

[pameladean]

I think you get to ask me rude personal questions if you feel you need to, but that doesn't really qualify, I don't think.

I haven't tried. I'd have to research markets and send out dozens of envelopes if I wanted to sell short bits, and if I wanted to sell a book I'd have to do a lot of work making it coherent and then I'd have to find another agent who handles non-fiction. I love writing the stuff as it happens, but I feel very daunted at the notion of organizing it somehow, and a lot of the energy that I'd have to use is the same energy I need for writing fiction.

I'll keep it in mind in case something changes somewhere, though.

[clindau.livejournal.com]

There's a book you might like, Karen and Pamela--and Laura and Pat--called "The Urban Gardener" by Elspeth Thompson. It's a collection of her Urban Gardener columns from London's Sunday Telegraph. She chronicles her gardening adventures and mis-adventures in tending her newly purchased allotment, as well as her backyard and/or balcony gardens (depending on which flat whe was living in at the time).

It was hard, though, to read sentences on the order of "It was December, and I had just picked the last of the tomatoes." ;-)

I found my copy in a used bookstore.


Cindy

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

It was hard, though, to read sentences on the order of "It was December, and I had just picked the last of the tomatoes." ;-)

Not for me.:)

[pameladean]

Pphhhhtttbbbbbtttt.

Pamela

[clindau.livejournal.com]

What Pamela said.
;-)

Cindy

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I haven't tried. I'd have to research markets and send out dozens of envelopes if I wanted to sell short bits, and if I wanted to sell a book I'd have to do a lot of work making it coherent and then I'd have to find another agent who handles non-fiction. I love writing the stuff as it happens, but I feel very daunted at the notion of organizing it somehow, and a lot of the energy that I'd have to use is the same energy I need for writing fiction.

I want you to know that I understand that there are two things of paramount importance:
1) this can't interefere with the fiction writing and
2) it needs to remain enjoyable.

I wasn't thinking of a book, but selling short pieces. I don't know that it would require that much research--too much research and it's not fun. But I'm thinking of local tourist publications or alternative newspapers, maybe even statewide ones. I really think it would be an easy sell. You give vivid local color without even intending to.

[pameladean]

The publications that I know pretty much have that niche covered with long-time writers, but I'm sure there are some I don't know. I'll poke around and see what there is.

Pamela

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

You know that Harlequin is reprinting three Georgette Heyers per month, right?

[kate_nepveu]

I didn't! Thanks.

*checks papersky's list and then runs off to Amazon*

[lalouve.livejournal.com]

Sympathising strongly with the financial situation, here. We're trying to raise a loan to buy the other half of the house my partner owns, and getting the run-around because my partner is temporarily living in Germany, not Sweden. What happened to the EU common market?

As for The Bostonians - I rather feel that James wishes that Olive had won out, especially since it had been so much better for her partner than the rather dreary marriage she'll make.

[pameladean]

Just in case anybody actually reads James with bated breath (I do, actually, and The Bostonians/i> is more suspenseful than much of his stuff, more so than anything I can think of except The Turn of the Screw and The Wings of the Dove/i> -- as I was saying, below are SPOILERS.

James is a diabolical old ditherer, with malice aforethought. But the thing is, he shows us a huge amount of both Olive's interior workings and of Basil Ransom's, and there's just no difficulty at all about which one to choose. Well, not for me, anyway. I don't think the marriage will be dreary, she should be so lucky. I think it would be a living hell. Ransom's a classic sexist of the "I love you so much that I will completely destroy everything that makes you yourself rather than a cardboard cutout of a stereotypical female." He's a monster in a courtesy suit. Excuse me, I have to go wash out my mouth now.

I also feel that, since Ransom is in favor of slavery, he just cannot be the hero, and while I think the basic slant of the book goes that way, I don't really know James's opinions on the subject.

Pamela

[pameladean]

Meh. Sorry about the italics. If there's a way to edit comments, I don't know what it is.

Pamela

One more thing about Ransom

[pameladean]

Again, I've only read the book once, the critical apparatus was nonsensical, and I don't know much about James himself. However, it seems to me that, because the older suffragists were abolitionists, you really have to draw the obvious parallel, and that also makes Ransom into a complete villain, whereas the worst you can say about Olive is that she's a little neurotic, and good grief, how surprising is that under the circumstances?

Pamela

Re: One more thing about Ransom

[lalouve.livejournal.com]

It's been ages since I read it, I should do so again. James isn't generally my cup of tea. I think you're rigth about dreary being too much to hope for - and I find it significant that Olive draws out the best in her partner and makes her grow, whereas Ransom diminshes and destroys her. Wonderfully ironic name, isn't it?
There's a very good, although brief, discussion of the book in Lilian Faderman's Surpassing the Love of Men. She points out that James's sister was in a Boston marriage which was strongly supported by the entire family.
I've noticed that the critical apparatus is often nonsensical. I remember the introduction to a Wharton text (Age of Innocence?) which mostly dwelled on what a bad book it was. Very scholarly.

Re: One more thing about Ransom

[pameladean]

Basil Ransom, yet. Yes.

James is such a sneaky bastard. The early bits from Ransom's viewpoint are sympathetic, and he satirizes the hell out of the suffragist movement. Then he does a bunch of twists and turns and suddenly Ransom is so awful he can't even be satirized and the elderly woman who came in for the satire at the beginning is revealed as practically a saint.

I've got the Faderman but I have only read bits. I'll have to look that bit up -- thanks!

I've got that Wharton edition, I know I have! Either that or nobody given the job has ever liked that book.

I meant to say earlier, best of luck with your loan. It's so maddening to be at the mercy of bankers.

Pamela

Re: One more thing about Ransom

[lalouve.livejournal.com]

James is indeed sneaky. I think I shall have to re-read The Bostonians from a more mature viewpoint.
I think liking Wharton isn't currently the done thing in scholarly circles. How come so many academic poeple feel they should comment on books they dislike? I don't discuss Hemingway because I just end up being scathing, and while I think he deserves it, I don't think it's very useful to my readers (disclaimer: if I have to teach Hemingway there'll be no holds barred). It's like some papers: if they want an interview, they send the reporter who knows nothing about the subject, thinking this means impartiality.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I have a spare old UK Pan edition of Venetia, which I replaced with a new UK Arrow edition. You're welcome to it if it's any use.

I also have a matching spare True Colours.

I thought I had a spare ex-library The Quiet Gentleman as well, but if so I can't see it this morning.

[pameladean]

I have my copy of Venetia/ safe. I don't think I've even heard of True Colours. Is it one of the odd historicals?

Pamela

[papersky.livejournal.com]

That would be because it's called False Colours.

Sorry.

[pameladean]

That's okay, I still haven't. It must not be much discussed in my circles, I guess.

Pamela

[kate_nepveu]

Oooh! If I don't find a _Venetia_ before Worldcon can I have it?

[papersky.livejournal.com]

No problem.

[sadstrangevoice.livejournal.com]

Count me among the many who enjoy your nature writing. I found your journal through a search on "phenology", and I've added you as a friend, if that's okay.

-SSV, who also gets warnings from the city about the "unacceptable" weeds in her yard.

[pameladean]

It's absolutely okay. I feel a complete fake doing nature writing, but if people like it, perhaps I'm not.

Minneapolis has a limited tolerance for native-plant yards, but their throat knows a raisin from a lump of cream of wheat -- eee, sorry, channelling Bill Cosby -- I mean, they are quite rigid about how it can all look.

Pamela

[wickdzoot.livejournal.com]

I popped in once before, but I just wanted to say how very much I've enjoyed reading your journal, and if Going North is what I think it is, I'm all a-shiver with delight for the future. And yes, Randolph and Ruth would, I can well imagine, talk for pages and pages.....

[pameladean]

It's a joint sequel to The Dubious Hills and The Whim of the Dragon. Because, after all, why should things be too easy?

I'm about to ruthlessly -- oh dear -- separate them, but I doubt the general vociferousness of the characters will drop.

I'm glad you're looking forward to it.

Pamela

[wickdzoot.livejournal.com]

Oh, best of all, both tales. I shall try to be patient.

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

We decided to leave a large patch of our lawn unmown this summer so that we could enjoy the meadow. I know we have black-eyed susans and some kind of small white daisy-looking flowers; also mad patches of wild thyme, which it turns out flower purple if you leave them uncut long enough. Delightful, though I expect it will be a royal pain to mow at summer's end...

I wish I knew all the names of the things in our lawnmeadow, as you seem to. :-)