Midnight Maven

Oh, how lovely are the lilacs, are the lilacs….oh, that’s another song, isn’t it?  But today, bright, sunny and cool, and the lilacs are opening, bud by bud…….I can verify that because I just buried my face in them!     Daffodils are about finished, as are the tulips.  Come on, lilies and iris!!

Did anyone miss Betty White on SNL a week or so ago?  Outstanding!

For those of you who are book-hungry there’s a nice current coupon for Better World Books.  Just insert “THANKS844″ at the coupon line and receive 15% off when you buy 2 or more books.  Not sure when it expires – in a few weeks, I’d think.  And don’t forget – most of the books are $3.87 postpaid.  I’ve about written off ALibris and Amazon, even for textbooks …..now pricing the Anishinaabe workbook for next fall.

Here’s the finished first of a tricky pair of socks – it was a KAL last winter, with over 600 other knitters, on a favorite yarn site.  This pattern is called Girls’ Night Out, or Dancing Girls.  Can you see them?  Oddly, only the first sock is finished.  SSS taking over, but soon it will be on the needles.  There’s another KAL starting at any time here – a gorgeous pattern that will partially benefit the SGK Breast Cancer fund. Not released at this very (1 p.m. CST) moment, but it begins 5/25, per Wendy’s schedule, so she’s under the gun!

Last week I watched again – on a no-commercial channel, thank goodness – my all-time favorite movie…..”Lion in Winter” – lost count of the times.  Took 2 or 3 viewings in the theaters years ago before I understood every one of the snide, British comments.  Yes, that’s Peter O’Toole and the great Katherine Hepburn.  And imagine – a young Anthony Hopkins, too!

Fresh rhubarb from Sherry the other day.  Haven’t figured out yet why she has rhubarb and we don’t.  She DOES live about 17 miles south of us, though.  Now we have sauce and a luscious pie!  DS tasted the pie yesterday after hamburgers at the local cafe, and pronounced it too tart for him.  Fantastic!  More for me!!  8^)  Oh, my – I’m suddenly hungry!  It’s snack time!  (The baker assures me that no real sugar was destroyed creating this product……) 

We’d hired DS for the day in his handyman guise.  He works pretty cheaply, although he kept telling us that since he’s been “edumacated” (= degree received last week) his rate would be going up!!  I have a UFO for him with an H-D logo that’s creeping out of the knitting basket….which I’m ignoring for the present.  Well, it’s all wool, and it’s summer now…..(whine).

Oh, that is so-o-o-o-o-o-o-o Good!  Have to give that baker a longer contract – - – - - 

You know you knit too much when you know you would take knitting with you in an ambulance.   -   Stephanie Pearl McPhee

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Yes, it might seem like it.  Fishing opener yesterday, and the nicest in years.  In fact the whole weekend has been simply picture-perfect.  Of course not a thing I like to do.  But I just hope everyone catches tons of walleyes so I have some good eatin!

Special graduation last week, as Mike moves on up…….

from this in 1970,

to this on Wednesday. AA-AS…….

Seems like only yesterday…….What a great journey for this guy.  And now on to bigger and better days, with lots of love from all of us.

When you follow your bliss, doors will open where you would not have thought there would be doors; and where there wouldn’t be a door for anyone else.    ……..Joseph Campbell

Oh boy.  A few things are pretty evident.  I’m not called the Maven for nothing.

1. Haven’t posted for a couple of months.

2. Yes, it’s 7 May and we may get up to 4 inches of snow by the morning..

3. Spring came and went without a whimper.  I could swear the tulips were ready to bloom.

4. The lovely hyacinths and daffodils and violets are tucking themselves back into the ground.

5. There’s a lake out there, under the total whiteout.

6. The pontoon is taking on snow……

7. Tomorrow is DS’s graduation party – outdoors, in a park.

8. I wore cutoffs and sandals to school already, a few weeks ago.

9. School is over until fall, for me.  Then maybe Indian Philosophy.

10. Aced exams, so exempt from the final.

11. Still lots of UFOs in my knitting baskets.  But making progress….

12. Reading UK & Scandinavian police procedurals as much as possible.

13. In particular – Larsson, Indridason, Edwardson, Airth……try ‘em!

14. Uncle Sam is tapping his toes at me….

15. Road trips for birthdays and graduations.

16. Thanksgiving and Christmas will be on us before we know it.

17. Bombs in Times Square, robots to stop the oil creeping up on the Gulf Coast, ash clouds from Iceland to Europe, floods in Nashville……sounds like somebody’s silly science fiction story.

18. It’s really true that if someone makes something for you to wear, you think of that person each time you touch it.  I have a bright and lacy crocheted cinnamon scarf that puts warm caring thoughts around me when I wear it.

19. Is anyone NOT entranced by Howard Hanson’s 2nd Symphony?

20. Who really wins the little lotteries, anyway?

21. Is Betty White really 88?

22. Had one of those frozen gyro kits for supper last night – sure didn’t taste like the real thing.  I have lovely memories of so many little snack delis tucked under apartment buildings in Thessaloniki a few years ago.  I bet it doesn’t snow THERE in May.

23. All I want to do is take a long nap.  Finally have a cozy sofa big enough for it.  Promise to write sooner.  Really.

“The cure for boredom is curiosity; there is no cure for curiosity” – Ellen Parr

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