July, July

Yes, I still live. Living normally, boringly. Well, not boring so much as quiet. I haven't been writing much of anything lately... Even my work e-mails have grown excessively to the point. I fear people will start thinking of me as that snippy bitch. I might be okay with that.

I don't remember when or what I last posted... why don't I go look? Okay. Done.

Since my last posting I:
* saw one of the best concerts ever - The Decemberists supported by Blind Pilot (fantastic engery in the bands and the crowd)
* have thrice experienced the wonder that are Taqueria del Sol's nutty shrimp tacos (in the same week! no, it's not an addiction, I don't need any help)
* had my hair cut and colored (I'll post a picture another day)
*have begun to enjoy Portrait of a Lady
* spent a week in a very hot place called "Texas"
* have not been reading Shakespeare (but have seen Midsummer's Night Dream and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at Georgia Shakespeare)
* have seen my nephew go from alien to baby almost overnight

Not in that order. June was a good month. Funny how it doesn't always feel that way when you're in it...

As for my enjoying Portrait of a Lady, at the start, James' prose made me tired and I could read only three or four pages before needing a rest. Now I'm up to 15 at a stretch! That man did love to use as many words as possible. It took my sadly atrophied brain a while to be able to process so many words used to convey a simple point. Here's an example:

"He was not a great walker, but he strolled about the grounds with his cousin - a past time for which the weather remained favourable with a persistency not allowed for in Isabel's prevision of the climate; and in the long afternoons, of which the length was but the measure of her gratified eagerness, they took a boat on the river, the dear little river as Isabel called it, where the opposite shore still seemed a part of the foreground of the landscape; or drove over the country in a phaeton - a low, capacious, thick-wheeled phaeton formerly much used by Mr. Touchett, but which he had now ceased to enjoy."

I wonder if the typesetter charged by the sentence rather than the word. Now that I've adjusted to James' style, I find the images and sense of mood and lighting conveyed by all the many words are beautiful and interesting and wonderful.

Here is my niece:

















Here is her family unit... Not the best picture of J, but they were all laughing and I like it, so I figure he'll forgive me.














I have again fallen in love with the MINI Cooper. Now I want a MINI Cooper Clubman in British Racing Green with carbon fiber mirror casings, rather than the red MINI Cooper that called my name a few years ago. From what I have read, MINIs are wonderfully well-running or they are a notch above lemon. No immediate plans to purchase, but the saving has begun.

Here's a picture of the car I will one day own (but in British Racing Green, of course):