Mindful Monday
Author: Becky
Sunday Sundries
The plan for today is to keep working on Book 7 of the Neverending Saga. For some reason, I’m in the mood to listen to Holland, a classic Beach Boys album among Beach Boys fans and collectors.
Thinking of Holland in general, I decided to show this assortment of items from the dresser in the master bedroom. From left to right, that’s a ginger jar that belonged to my mother and still has potpourri that she put in it. (I don’t think it has a lot of scent anymore.) On the bottom, she wrote “Lola, 2001,” so possibly it was a gift to her from Aunt Lola. Next to that is a blue and white candle bowl which may have come from Bombay Company. If so, it was likely a gift from my mother to me (she liked to shop there for me, and I liked their merchandise). The three in the middle: a small ashtray, a windmill, and two Dutch boys sharing a kiss, were all gifts from our friend Steve C after he went to The Netherlands one year. On the far right is a vintage vase that Tom’s parents gave us from his grandmother’s house after she died. She was the only one of his grandparents that I got to meet, and I just adored her mischievous humor.
Behind these items is the Holland doll from the Arco Gasoline Dolls of the World collection. I had several of those when I was a child, and somehow they were donated or discarded. A few years ago, I replaced the ones I’d had thanks to the magic of eBay!
I rewatched 1998’s Hope Floats this morning. It’s categorized as a RomCom, and I do really like it, but I’d forgotten how sad it is, too. I’d also forgotten how uncomfortable the beginning is, because it hits a little too close to home related to an incident from my past. Thankfully, my humiliation wasn’t televised in every time zone. That part will go well with what I’m currently writing.
The main reason I picked the film was to honor the late Gena Rowlands, who plays Sandra Bullock’s mother and is a longtime favorite of mine. In mid-August, I edited a post from July 25 to note that Gena Rowlands had died on August 14. I’ve appreciated seeing so many tributes to her on Instagram. She truly was a gifted actor with a long career.
ETA: Couldn’t resist some of these photos that have shown up on Instagram of John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands. Their longevity as a couple seems like an uncommon thing in their business.
Low Key Saturday
Today I didn’t color anything or reread anyone’s novels or rewatch any movies. I only reread the Book 7 manuscript of the Neverending Saga and resumed working on the chapter I’ve been stalled on for a while. There are no photos to illustrate that, or the dinner I cooked, which is noteworthy only because I cook so few meals these days. We’re eating light or picking up from restaurants (not fast food, which is even rarer than homecooked) this summer.
Maybe things are stalled at Houndstooth Hall because a few things are waiting for Mercury to go direct. I don’t mess around with Mercury. =)
I uploaded the cartoon below early in July but don’t think I ever shared it. Conventional wisdom has it that we don’t particularly enjoy hearing accounts of other people’s dreams. My own dreams have been busy, with very large casts, and I’ve kept them to myself. But imagine if you were a therapist…or went to a therapist, and… 🤣
Photo Friday, No. 923
Current Photo Friday theme: Museum
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1996
Shot on film with Canon AE-1
This is one of the places Amy, Tom, and I visited when we volunteered at the NAMES Project’s AIDS Quilt display. Founded in 1869, the Corcoran Gallery of Art was the first institution in the United States created specifically as an art museum. The Beaux Arts building that housed it was designed by Ernest Flagg and opened in 1897.
When the museum closed in 2014, the National Gallery acquired approximately half of the Corcoran Collection, and the remaining objects were distributed to other museums in the Washington, D.C., area. The building is now home to the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, part of George Washington University. Located at 500 17th Street, NW, Washington, D.C. the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Movies, a TV show, a book
Since I was definitely in the mood for something more lighthearted than the previous movie I watched, last night, Tom and I streamed 1999’s Dick, a fun comedy with Michelle Williams and Kirsten Dunst as two teens who stumble into encounters at the Watergate facility on a fateful night. This happenstance later repeats on a class trip to the White House, when they encounter Nixon, his dog, and major players in the Watergate scandal. The timeline was compressed a bit, and it was a fun watch for me. I was an avid Watergate follower (and kept making little asides to Tom about how true facts were bent to involve the girls). It was also nostalgic to remember being a teen in that era, having fun and cutting up magazine pictures of our teen idols with a best friend. (Note to Lynne: Can you believe they love Bobby Sherman? Like Susan B.)
The dog Brunswick played the movie’s version of another Checkers (Nixon’s original dog Checkers, who died at the age of 13 in 1964, never lived in the White House, as Nixon was elected president in 1968).
There were three dogs in the Nixon White House: King Timahoe, Nixon’s Irish setter, Vicky, Julie’s French poodle, and Pasha, Tricia’s Yorkshire terrier. All three dogs wore flowers and participated in Tricia’s wedding.
I don’t remember if there’s a dog in my last RomCom DVD with a president to rewatch during DNC week, 1995’s The American President. I haven’t seen it for quite a while, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it again.
Directed and produced by Rob Reiner and written by Aaron Sorkin, Sorkin has said that the film influenced his later TV series, “West Wing,” which aired from 1999 to 2006. Websites attest that Sorkin says much of the first season was actually taken from material he edited out of the first draft of The American President’s script. Though it was highly recommended by Denece and Tom, I didn’t watch “West Wing” when it aired, but watched it in full a few years after it ended. Marika simultaneously watched it late at night (she from either New Orleans or Arkansas; I from The Compound). We Google-messaged each other with commentary while we watched each episode. Some of you may remember I joked that from November 2016 to January 2020, I chose to keep my head in an alternate universe wherein WW’s Josiah “Jed” Bartlet (Martin Sheen) was my president. =)
As predicted, I started reading this last night and finished it today. Once again, enough time has passed that things seemed fresh and new to me, and it was nice to read it without an inner critic. Some things are dated, of course; it was written over the years 2006-2008. But I no longer think the beginning is problematic. It may take a little effort for some readers: We’re being dropped into someone’s life as she deals with an automotive crisis and has time to think briefly of how she got to that point, plus she tells us about two encounters with the person who’s going to help her resolve said automotive crisis. Basically, we’re getting her backstory as she mentally processes it in three parts before the action begins.
Hump Day
Here’s another shot of the Super Full Moon. Wish I could have captured how it looks to the human eye, but my camera or camera skills just weren’t up to it.
As predicted, I did watch Moonstruck yesterday, and it was as entertaining as always. However, I’d said I thought the movie was quoted by members of the Revere family in my novel A Coventry Christmas. As the DVD played, I grabbed the novel from the library and started flipping through it to look for the quotes when my brain suddenly went, “D’oh! The Revere family isn’t in this book, they’re in A Coventry Wedding, and you are a moron who can’t remember your own novels.” I mean, it’s been a decade and a half since I wrote them, and they’re all set in my fictitious small town of Coventry, Texas, but still… I corrected yesterday’s post.
That little bit of page flipping lured me in, and after the movie was over, I began rereading A Coventry Christmas. It turns out that even though the Neverending Saga is not the same style or narrative (it’s not chick lit or contemporary romance or lighthearted), my characters were storytellers back then (as are my current characters) and there were a lot of them (that’s still true, too…bound to happen when you’re writing a series spanning decades).
The novel made me laugh, it gave me tears, and I read it all the way through. Afterward, I talked about it with Tim, Jim, and Tom and wondered if my satisfaction with it was vanity. The consensus was, NOPE. To paraphrase Tim, isn’t it the goal for a writer to be happy with what s/he creates? Of course, now I’m going to end up rereading A Coventry Wedding, which I remember as having a beginning that challenged some reviewers. Can’t please everyone…
I’m glad I watched my co-favorite RomCom movie and enjoyed reading A Coventry Christmas, because the movie I watched in recognition of DNC week was an emotional and mental about-face. It did have some comedy and even had some romance (I think this is the first time I’ve seen a movie with Timothée Chalamet, and his character was one of the movie’s redeeming features for me–really, it’s full of good actors), but mostly 2021’s Don’t Look Up just made me sad.
Tiny Tuesday!
This is a link to NASA’s information on this month’s Super Blue Moon. I started trying to get good photos of the moon on Sunday, and last night Tom drove me around chasing it with my camera. I’m using the wrong camera–I have at least one better–so what looked huge to us in the sky looks a bit tiny and poorly defined in the photos I shot. Still, we got to see the beauty, especially from points where it would have been physically dangerous to stop and shoot photos. It may also be impressive tonight into Wednesday.
My second DNC-inspired RomCom rewatch was 1993’s Dave, with such a great cast in Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Frank Langella, Ben Kingsley, Laura Linney, Charles Grodin, Kevin Dunne, a quick and fun glimpse of Bonnie Hunt (“We’re walking; we’re walking.”), and who may be my favorite movie Secret Service agent, Duane, played by Ving Rhames. Even though I’ve seen this movie several times, it still makes me laugh.
I have two potential DVD rewatches today, starting with 1987’s Moonstruck, to honor the Super Blue Moon. I never stop quoting this film that ties with Notting Hill as my favorite RomCom. I’m trying to remember if this is the movie the Revere family quotes in my contemporary romance A Coventry Christmas Wedding. ETA: Corrected to name the right novel.
Mindful Monday
In yesterday’s post, I shared some political buttons to note this is the week of the Democratic National Convention. Here are stickers I spotted in my sticker folder recently.
Sticking with RomCom Summer, last night, thanks to Debby’s Kindle streaming a movie for me, 2023’s Red, White & Royal Blue, on Prime, I got to hear Uma Thurman don a lovely accent as a U.S. president from Texas, and see a funny, sweet romance develop between the president’s son and a member of the British royal family.
The political buttons or stickers I’ve shared might not indicate this, but the late Eighties threw me into advocacy for the dignity, fair treatment, and push for equal rights for those with HIV/AIDS and for members of the LGBTQ+ community. I will never waver when it comes to justice and fairness. To those people in my life who’ve looked sideways at me for these things, I advocate for your sister. Your nephew. Your child. Your brother. Your cousin. Your mother. Your grandpa. Your grandchild. Your friend. Your neighbor.
Sunday Sundries
The Democratic National Convention this week is contributing to my website posts each day in some way or another. I’m posting this late, but for this date, I decided to show political buttons from my own collection. Buttons do not indicate how I voted in any of these elections–they indicate that I was given buttons by people I knew or at events I went to. Some of them pre-date when I reached voting age. I don’t hesitate for a moment to identify as a Democrat, never have, but though it’s been a long–very long–time (more often in local or state races), I’ve been known to vote across party lines.
Happiness…
If you like short stories, before I changed my sidebar links to various merchants, Houston-based and otherwise, I always had a link to Jeffrey Ricker’s website. ← If you visit that link and sign up for his newsletter (trust me, you won’t be inundated with e-mail from him, and what you do get will be informative, thoughtful, and often humorous, because that’s basically the man I know), you’ll get the opportunity to download a pdf file with five of his short stories.
There’s a reason why Timothy and I included Jeffrey in the anthologies we edited, and why I’ll always read him, even when he writes outside the genres I usually read. Good writing is good writing.
Yesterday, brace yourself, I didn’t watch any RomComs or any movie at all. I did other things, mainly working on my manuscript. Slowly, but progress is progress. I also took a break to glance through the pages of Keri Smith’s Wreck This Journal. I followed the direction on a double page to create a nonstop line. Then I realized it looked like “The Long and Winding Road,” so I paged through my sticker books and sheets and turned it into a journey with roadsigns (the “roadsigns” come from Adam J. Kurtz’s sticker book).
Today, along with mending Eva’s favorite dog bed, I watched one romantic comedy, my beloved Notting Hill from 1999 (twenty-five years old, geez). I was reminded again of one of my favorite lines, when Anna and William discuss Russian-French artist Marc Chagall’s painting La Mariée:
“Happiness isn’t happiness without a violin-playing goat,” Anna Scott, Notting Hill.
Damn right.
Speaking of violinists, in the Neverending Saga chapter in progress, I reference a character who plays violin. Seems like a nudge to get back to my manuscript. Maybe before bedtime, I’ll watch 1989’s Cousins with Ted Danson, Isabella Rossellini, Sean Young, and William Petersen.
Oh, yeah, bonus: In Notting Hill, Hugh Grant’s character owns a bookstore.