Vicki Lane's Blog, page 65

Josie and Valentine Stuff

                                                                              

There was a Valentine Dance at my school! It was the first dance I have been to. This is me and two of my friends. They do Not have bubbles on their heads, but Meema said she couldn't put their pictures on her blog because their mamas might not like it. So she hid their faces. But you can see their pretty dresses.

                                                    

There were lots of kids at the dance. Can you find me?                                                           Valentina is a pink T Rex that Mama got me for Valentine's Day. On Friday after school, I brought her up to meet the babies.                                                    

                                                            

When I got to Meema and Grumpy's, there was a late Valentine waiting for me. Her name is Trina and she is a fluffy blue triceratops. The babies took turns riding on her.                                                     

There were some lollipops too and I wrote a song for them. I am getting good at writing. It is fun.                                                      

VOTE--While You Still Can

                                                                         

Yeah, just the primaries--but at a time when much of the electorate seems willing to turn our democracy into something akin to a dictatorship, I feel a need to show up and vote on the candidates.

North Carolina's early voting makes it easy. Our county has three locations, and it was a matter of a few minutes to cast my vote. (The lagniappe was that two of the poll workers were acquaintances and fans of my books. They asked if I was writing another and I told them alas, no--that the promotion required was simply not something I wanted to do anymore.)

For me, there's always a warm Norman Rockwell feel to voting in my rural county. One of the poll workers was the mother of Josie's much-loved kindergarten teacher; a nice fella outside showed me a sample ballot and invited me to a precinct meeting. 

It was also really pleasant to be out, cold-free at last, on a day that was pretending to be Spring.

                                                

From Dogfish

                                                                

Sometimes M.O. is so right on I can hardly stand it.

Happy Valentine's Day!

                                                                           

I'm much better though my head continues to feel as it were stuffed with soggy cotton. Could be worse.
No fancy Valentine meal tonight; instead, John will make a run to Bojangles for fried chicken. I've made Greek potato salad and there is bubbly in the refrigerator. Ahhhh!
My Valentine's love and appreciation to all of you folks.

Bad Cold

 A non-post just to say that I have a bad cold and a stuffy head and nothing more to say.

Looking East

                                                                                   

                                                                                             

 

Waiting for the Galactic Bus

 

                                                                                 

  

Once again embarked on cleaning, de-accessioning, and generally bringing order to long-overlooked parts of the house, I've moved on to my workroom. Oh, boy, what a challenge! All my various past enthusiasms have left their clutter--lots of writing, painting, quilting, sewing, and other craft stuff to deal with, including an embarrassing number of unfinished items.
As I began clearing away odds and ends that had accumulated on my cutting table, I came across a book that I didn't remember and premised that perhaps it had been intended as a gift for someone. 
Nope, it was a book Mario and Jayna recommended to me back in 2015. And I bought it and read it and, if my blog post is to be believed, really enjoyed it.
I said:

The premise is that two teenagers from a very long-lived alien race were stranded on Earth at a time when apes were the most advanced form of life. The teens experimented with giving the primates a bit of a push (a la SPACE ODYSSEY 2001.)  

As time passed and the primates evolved, the two aliens came to be regarded as gods  . . . and when, much, much later, an anguished St. Augustine realizes the truth and asks what remains, if his beliefs are based on a mistake, he is told:

 "A great deal remains, you relentless man . . . that splendid mind I gave you. Though it's very like building a magnificent car for someone who obstinately refuses to learn to drive."

Waiting for the Galactic Bus is a wonderful, thought-provoking romp through time, history, theology, and philosophy!

With a glowing review like that, I had to read it (again.) And I'm enjoying it all over again. And finding it fearfully pertinent to 2024. 

Promises...and a Snowdrop!

 

Dramatics with Esther Simon Brown

                                                             

Back when I was a gawky, shy, orthodonture-wearing early teen, my mother did her best to make me into something I wasn't. Ballroom dance lessons--private, unlike the group classes I endured later on, visits to the beauty parlor that left me with hairstyles from the Forties, anything that would make me more attractive and socially acceptable.

I hated most of that but when I was signed up for Dramatics lessons, that was okay. A bunch of my friends were in the same class and it was within walking distance of our junior high.     The walk was always punctuated with a stop at a grocery for snacks--my favorite being a sleeve of three chocolate cupcakes covered with a continuous strip of thick white icing.

Our classes were at the home of our teacher--Esther Simon Brown. A small, dumpy woman with an amazing voice, ESB had been, before she contracted polio, an actress. Now she taught Dramatics.

As beginners, we had little 'pieces' to learn and perform, with the appropriate movements.  Like this:

What’s worse when you’re eating an apple (hands on hips)

Than to find a big fat worm? (hands open outspread)

Noe doesn’t it make you shiver? (Hug self)

And doesn’t it make you squirm? (Squirm)

Well, I’ll tell you something that’s worse than that (Hands onhips)

And I know you (point at audience) will think so too

It’s to find, when you’re eating an apple (Look at pretendapple in hand and make a face)

A worm, bitten in two (big face, toss pretend appleover shoulder.)

(I also remember the ten ballet positions from my brief experience with ballet class in the first or second grade. But I digress.)

So, not great art, but a beginning. We progressed, over the two or three years we 'took,' to monologues and recitals. (I did Vera Cheera's Purple Pills for Pink People--which had its moments as the speaker got increasingly tongue-tied. And I was the 'ghost in the green gown' in a very dull play of that name about a group of girls spending the night in a haunted house.

But my favorite memories of that self-improving time, were when ESB would send me and my best friend Lynn upstairs to 'practice.' (An embarrassing memory: we would slip into the kitchen and filch a couple of dill pickles from the big jar on the counter before heading upstairs.)

Our practice was perfunctory. What we did was to improvise silly skits. All that creativity is lost to memory, alas, except for the finale of one about the courtship of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett:

RB: (passionately) Marry me, Elizabeth, and go to Italy!

EB: (wailing) But, Robert, I want to be with you!

We were very proud of the humor. 

So did dramatics help me be more self-assured? Maybe. A little. I learned I could stand up in front of an audience and nothing terrible would happen. I learned to, as ESB taught us, to 'speak from the diaphragm,' with the result that my voice is sometimes so low I'm mistaken for a man on the phone.

And when I became an author and had to speak to audiences, I found I was pretty good at it. Thank you, Esther Simon Brown. And I apologize about the pickles.

                                                        

Winter Trees and the French Broad River