Studio Ghibli gorgefest

A little while ago I got hooked on Hayao Miyazaki's films. And a little while after that I decided I needed the entire collection, several of which arrived recently in one compact box from Disney.


I've seen all but one now and, even though I've watched them out of order without even checking to see what year they were released, it's been possible for me to see the evolution of the stories and the style in which they're told. It interested me yesterday to find that the ones I love best - the ones where the magical themes are explored with the most enjoyment and confidence - are among the most recent.

Is that a reflection of the audience's changing taste I wonder, or of a refinement on the part of the storytelling process?

Whatever the explanation, I do feel that watching all the films a few times is going to be a great way to pursue creative research.

Also: a great way to spend an awful lot of rainy afternoons. Because you know, it's either that or write something myself.

1950s embroidery designs

This week I came across some guest-grade hand towels, some of which were given to my mum as wedding shower presents - gifts stitched by hand from her friends. Others were stitched by my great-aunt Chris.


I have no idea which came from who, which makes me feel rather protective of them all.

The towels have been well-loved and each has stains or holes or both, but even if I'm not able to repair and repurpose them I love looking at the designs their makers chose, and how they pulled them off.



So many French knots! and those aren't easy.


I also love how satin stitch was used to mark off one petal from another - same stitch, and maybe even the same colour, but by starting from a new point, you create the illusion of a separate piece.


I didn't realize you could use the lazy daisy stitch to make such long petals.


Similarly, I didn't know you could use applique for such a tiny, curvy application as these two swans.


Mostly though I'm just amazed that anybody dried their hands on such perfect works of art.

The first chair of summer

Ha!

I got a chair out of the garage.


Had to dig down through (and put away) all the Christmas lights to get to it - you don't want to know how much I had to move to inch it out through the doors - and once I got it into daylight I realized

it can't go one more summer without a fresh coat of stain (I've had these chairs for nearly 14 years so I'm kinda obsessed now with keeping them going as long as possible)

the weather is supposed to turn again on the weekend, right back to subzero (Celcius) temperatures and lots of slushy rainy stuff which means the chair won't even make it to summer if I don't get it back into the garage in the next two days

I can't get anything back into the garage now without a major move of epic proportions because some stuff slipped during the exit and the chair won't go back where it was

probably it won't be convenient to climb over the chair every time I want to take out the garbage

probably it will be even less convenient to pull the garbage bins up and over the chair every time the garbabe is due at the curb

maybe I could just move the chair in and out in emergencies - it's not as heavy as it looks - and


... t's a really, really comfortable chair to sit and knit in, especially when you put it in a sunpatch. Ahhhh, summer - are you really three months away?

They say it's spring

Well, they don't say that actually, but I think it is. It is definitely warm out, and all the snow has melted, and tons of little shoots are sticking up out of the ground and I saw blue flowers too!

Yes it is all happening a month early and yes it could all go again and we could have one last big storm. I don't care.

I want to take the patio furniture out of the garage and be done with it, and not just because I am dying to clean that dump out again and get the Christmas lights back into their storage zone (I am sick of trying not to step on the trailing string all the time ). Though that is definitely a factor.

Another clue: I kinda lost it yesterday with a new approach to clutter management. I took several boxes and swept into them every bit of any non-food or book item sitting out on a horizontal surface and put the boxes into the storage room.

Yes, I was that desperate to feel like I live in a fresh and tidy space.

My plan is to go through the boxes at some later date - hopefully not at 10pm the night before I have to mail the taxes, having suddenly realized that I stored some vital piece of paperwork in them - and either put things neatly away in the spaces that I have made for them in the interim, or put them out of the house entirely.

And that is how I know it is spring. Or else my vacation. (or both?)

Vacation in 3... 2... 1...

The old school habit of March Break dies hard, especially when you've already had a few days of the kind of spring weather you don't normally get till April. I just wanna get out and play!

My ideas about how to do it are as scattered as seeds on the snow, of which we have none (see note re. April weather above) and I am trying to remember every element of last summer's day trips - a bag of essential snacks and books for the car, some pretty mindless knitting, municipal maps pointing to previously researched cool local attractions, a picnic lunch catered by my favourite Belgian bakery, and a camera with a freshly-charged battery.

Of course, today is grey and cold and threatening rain, as you would expect a March day to be, but I don't much care. All you have to do is poke your nose an inch out of the door and you can smell Spring. And that's why I don't mind a bit that my fear of flying puts a stop to any thoughts of a week on a sunny beach. The way the weather has sped up this winter, if I left the country I'd miss the crocuses!

Life goals

My mother dreamed of one day dancing with Fred Astaire - and did nothing whatsoever about it.

I mean, honestly. You don't see me dreaming of one day having a whole book out with just my name on it

(and I do mean my name, and not that of the other Mary Keenan who lives in my town and is also a writer and does have a whole book out with just her name on it)

and then just sitting around knitting or sewing heating pad covers or eating chocolate, do you?

Oh, right.

Well, as long as we're setting goals doomed to be unattained, I will publicly state my dream of one day going shopping with Patricia Marx.

Have you ever read any of her shopping articles for The New Yorker? She is such a good writer, and so witty, and what an eye for cool stuff. Shopping lost its charms for me back when I noticed I was living in an already-full, tiny house, but I would leap at the chance to hear all those quips live and in person, while stocking up on a lifetime's worth of material memories.

Meanwhile, one has the consolation of reading those articles, which may not be as good as the real thing, but aren't as hard on one's feet. Much like watching Fred Astaire dance, rather than actually being his partner.

H'mmm. Think maybe my mum was onto something?

Conveyances

Yesterday I had to leave my home turf for a haircut (two months later than intended) and saw several unexpected things on wheels.

First was the limousine I had to cross in front of to get back to the subway post-lid adjustment. By which I mean:

a real limousine.

Not rented for a wedding, not heading to the airport. A black stretch limousine a lady had called to deliver her to her hair appointment just as though it were a taxi, and, in that moment, was telling the driver she had called to come back and collect her in two hours. I had no idea such things existed in this city. As the light changed, the driver was graciously helping the lady out of her seat, and I recalled my friend and her hopefully temporary walker because they are in much the same state. I hope she had fun at the salon.

Next: a wheelchair on the bus!

I have been riding on wheelchair-friendly buses and elevators and subways on public transit for years now and have never actually seen a wheelchair-operating person using any of them, so that was pretty exciting. The woman whose wheelchair it was couldn't have been a lot younger than the lady in the limo, but she was a lot hipper, with seriously spiky heels on her metal-studded boots. It was very cool to watch her casually hook the chair into the space created when the driver folded up three seats.

And then -

back home again, I had time to kill, which always means a pit stop at the coffee shop for a hot chocolate. Sitting in a deep armchair pondering life (not really; I was pondering where on earth I could have dropped a stitch in my knitting) I suddenly looked up and the entire window of the shop had turned bright yellow, as though the sun had abruptly dropped into the road out front. After a few awestruck moments I saw black letters slowly moving into the frame from the left and as traffic picked up again I read the name of a large grocery chain's off-brand label in giant letters. Transport truck. Not as tall as a cruise ship parked in the harbour in Hamilton, in Bermuda, but big enough.

You know what wasn't on wheels?

Me.

I wonder whether I should get my little scooter out of the garage, now that we're getting some Spring?