Wind in the trees

I have at one time or another read all of Georgette Heyer's period novels, but not the modern ones. I owned all the Regencies, but some were lost over time through moves.

So today, I was looking for False Colors in the bookshelf where it customarily resides.

It wasn't there.

Royal Escape was there.

I have never owned a copy of Royal Escape. I honestly don't like Bonnie Prince Charlie enough to buy it. Yet there it is.

All I can think is that the House Critter (which moves things around, plays with socks and underwear in the dryer, etc) must have swapped it in.

oh well. I think it's time for me to rearrange bookshelves again...

ETA: This liquidation thing is apparently a year old, thanks Tumblr. But the new site and the archive are new to me.

If you use a sewing machine to make clothes, pay attention: the big 4 pattern companies, McCall's, Vogue, Butterick and Simplicity, have one corporate owner, and that corporate owner is being sold to a liquidator. Do not throw out your patterns.

Folkwear patterns are separate from this and are not affected. There may be some other small compaies also not affected.

There is also the Commercial Pattern Archive, at the University of Rhode Island, which has 200 years of patterns. However, the search function is a bear and not the friendly variety of bear. I have just spent 15 minutes trying to search for a Vogue four-gore skirt pattern from the very early 1970s and not finding it; the archive showed me a fluffy one from the 1950s, instead of the sleek one that my mother, who could make anything with a sewing machine, used to make me several skirts, both short and long, that I wore for years. It would be nice to be able to make one for my current size, which is no longer size 10 (I was very thin in college). I have no access to the pattern, which was at my parents' house, which was sold 20 years ago.

ETA: Just found this: Simplicity patterns relaunces under employee-owned model. And here is their website. But I still can't find that simple four-gore skirt pattern.

All my nominations were approved! I nominate based on the idea that these particular stories/universes really should have more fanfic about them, whether I write it or not. I nominated:

Georgette Heyer -- The Corinthian
Dana Stabenow -- Kate Shugak series
Nancy Springer -- Plumage
Emma Bull -- War for the Oaks

I wasn't sure if Plumage would make the cut -- two of the nominated characters are birds -- but that might make for interesting storytelling.

In other matters, I am now up to doing an hour of deepwater running at one of the county pools twice a week, and starting to feel stronger because of it. I hope eventually it will help me lose a pound or two while getting in shape, but at this point that's not happening because muscle weighs more than fat. The pool is well run and maintained, and oddly enough I'm one of the younger people doing deepwater running (or else some of them appear to be in far worse shape than me, both male and female.) I wear a float belt to stay at the top of the 11 feet of water, but some sit on one or more pool noodles. Apparently sitting astride a pool noodle is something to be ignored, though at times when a man is getting out of the pool with a long blue cylindrical thing protruding from between his legs it's a bit hard not to laugh.

I've watched all of the Fast and the Furious movies I can find (haven't gotten to 8 yet but enjoyed the first 7). Part of the enjoyment, along with the pretty boys and the found family and acceptance of everyone without racial slurs, is watching people who actually know how to shift gears competently on muscle cars. I learned to drive on a '66 Impala 4-on-the-floor with the sweetest gearshift I've ever encountered, and for the last nearly 35 years I have been living where I hear truckers on the Beltway a quarter mile away grinding their gears and mistreating their brakes going around curves. So the movies hit my competence kink straight on.

As it turned out, the nor'easter became an unexpected guest this weekend, so I didn't get to either of the festivals I had thought of going to. I really would have liked to get to the music festival today, but sitting on wet grass in colder weather does not enhance my appreciation of music, no matter how good it is.
grrr argh.

This is a prayer for the Witches’ Thanksgiving. This is a prayer for Resistance.

This is a prayer for mead and cider, for cornbread and collards. This is a prayer for Resistance.

This is a prayer for visits, for gratitude, for families. This is a prayer for Resistance.

Mabon is an act of Resistance, the deliberate decision to establish connections, to reach out, to take joy in watching others eat. This is a prayer for Mabon.

This is a prayer for wheat sheaves and pumpkins, for turkey and turnips. This is a prayer for Resistance.

This is a prayer for taking stock, for settling in, for facing the dark. This is a prayer for Resistance.

Mabon is an act of Resistance, the courage to say, “There is a place set for you at our table,” (a line from The Fifth Sacred Thing), the fire to fight for what we love, the refusal to allow hunger to win. This is a prayer for Mabon.

This is a prayer for cheeses and ale, for cherries and chestnuts. This is a prayer for Resistance.

This is a prayer for re-establishing balance, for reaching out, for doing more. This is a prayer for Resistance.

Mabon is an act of Resistance, the belief that bounty should be shared, that people should be fed, that “only justice can undo a curse.” (A quote from Byron Ballard.) This is a prayer for Mabon.

This is a prayer for squashes and pies, for and rhubarb and roasts. This is a prayer for Resistance.

This is a prayer for the act of sharing, for sitting with guests, for stories by the fire. This is a prayer for Resistance.

May your Mabon be blessed. May you continue to Resist. This is my prayer for you.

-- by Hekate Demeter

I never met Tim Curry, but back in the 1980s I saw him in a production of Shakespeare's "Pericles, Prince of Tyre", at Chautauqua Institution. Chautauqua has probably half a dozen stages here and there on its grounds; this performance was at an outdoor stage, not under cover, and we did keep checking the clouds to make sure the rain that was predicted wouldn't stop the show.

It was a small production; I suspect the audience may have been 200 at most. We were all fairly close to the stage.

What I remember most of all was the shipwreck. Shakespeare's plays have plenty of shipwrecks -- they're a standard plot bit in Twelfth Night, The Tempest and quite a few others. But here the wreck didn't happen offstage, it was front and center.

To portray the shipwreck, the entire cast became the ship. Tim was at the front as the figurehead, with his arms back around the shoulders of two people whose arms were on his shoulders and on two more behind them and so on. Their upper bodies stayed fairly still, but their legs *writhed* and so the whole assembled ship pitched and yawed on the invisible waves. And the cast is all still talking during this, describing what is happening until the ship breaks, and they all fall to the groumd.

It was spectacular. I still can see in my mind Tim Curry being a figurehead, saying his lines sardonically. I wish I'd had the chance to meet him, but the sidestage area was crowded when it ended and I didn't want to have to deal with that.

For some reason I'm not getting enough internet signal here to watch a reel on FB, let alone load pages without waiting or go into Second Life. It's like the 300 baud days are back, but worse. If you don't see me, that's why.