tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21138841741936057962024-03-05T18:51:17.939-08:00POSSUM TRACKSJULIET WALDRON,
HISTORICAL NOVELIST,
CAT MOTHER
AND CRONEJuliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.comBlogger183125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-39351346017726248142024-03-05T12:57:00.000-08:002024-03-05T12:57:15.690-08:00The Good Old Days--maybe...<p> </p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmYvesITYWQOYjcY7W0VjZRQX_sTrdSvr56nb_inTuw6WGfGgLDU4Kb6PSXVcm0h5RtIXA6TNQDaAYFIp7bFdNqzzwkUES88CV2YdwDMXpJNZPfVXXtccUZN-lbhxv5MzNaCvENRM6X4oVGqwbNaqHvHQJ8Qc6PTtEHgqqfYvSs4nrwwKLyKW9eSWDDLu-/s300/Roan-Rose-200x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmYvesITYWQOYjcY7W0VjZRQX_sTrdSvr56nb_inTuw6WGfGgLDU4Kb6PSXVcm0h5RtIXA6TNQDaAYFIp7bFdNqzzwkUES88CV2YdwDMXpJNZPfVXXtccUZN-lbhxv5MzNaCvENRM6X4oVGqwbNaqHvHQJ8Qc6PTtEHgqqfYvSs4nrwwKLyKW9eSWDDLu-/s1600/Roan-Rose-200x300.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Available in print and e-book</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">i-tunes, Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords and Barnes & Noble</div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">More memory lane writing for February, a month I get used to skipping, because the obligation only comes around every four years. Recently, I completed my 79th trip around Our Local Star. So it happens that many of my elder friends spend a lot of time wishing they were 50-60 years younger. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Sorry to say, but contrary to a lot of what my same-age friends seem to remember, youth wasn't all Golden Days. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Here's a case in point, a memory I have of a now mostly forgotten blizzard which happened in Massachusetts in February in 1969. This was a year in which my husband had graduated from college but instead of entering the work world, we'd fallen for the siren song of those days and dropped out. He was working in a leather shop for a pittance and I was working a few days a week as a nurse's aide in a small hospital about an hour's commute away. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">We lived in a cabin in the woods near the Quabbin reservoir, which, in those days, was pretty empty of people, although there were a lot of deer, rabbits and raccoons. We had 1930's indoor plumbing, a woodstove and a kerosene heater, which made the house a lot more "modern" than others in the area. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Other college friends had migrated to the big city of Boston (and vicinity) and were working 9-5 jobs. Sometimes we went in to visit them over weekends. On this particular Sunday, we left late, around 12, I think. It was snowing--but in those days that was not unusual or even a subject of much concern. A big storm was said to be coming in, but we knew the drive back to western Massachusetts well. It was two and half hours, give or take, to dirt road that led to our little house. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">We piled into the car. Our son, then 3 years old, was crying at leaving his same age friend and heading back to the no-kids world of the country. My husband took the wheel, I sat beside him, and we all headed out. First, we'd have to travel north on the 128 beltway before intersecting the secondary road which would take us much of the way across the state to our cabin in the woods. At once the wind picked up, blowing mightily. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXaOXYpU2e8aN1AKqVtad5hsB_nSOG6P3DQzT4j-t5QRAMTo_9y_P1MkXf2yIdV866XAvZkWUNH1AGvBsE9cGgqUpuBx0p0Qv8xl49-6lbzuMohWVJWPIUFMvx9aknMs32gmNWIhHXEMBybRi_INutOk-FbcX3A_Z4JzFJZTFXiCWwP1zsxB7uXmHdMQcK/s421/milesjesscooly1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="421" data-original-width="421" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXaOXYpU2e8aN1AKqVtad5hsB_nSOG6P3DQzT4j-t5QRAMTo_9y_P1MkXf2yIdV866XAvZkWUNH1AGvBsE9cGgqUpuBx0p0Qv8xl49-6lbzuMohWVJWPIUFMvx9aknMs32gmNWIhHXEMBybRi_INutOk-FbcX3A_Z4JzFJZTFXiCWwP1zsxB7uXmHdMQcK/s320/milesjesscooly1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">About 4 weeks later, the bump was revealed to be:</div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Snow blasted down. It was crystalline, and began drifting across the road, making it hard to see. If you remember old Beetle windshield wipers, you understand they were having a hard time keeping up, so now and then it was hard to see. The traffic, always heavy on the beltway, began to slow. The big cars nearby began to skid and wobble, struggling to maintain their lanes, lanes which were rapidly becoming little but the tracks of vehicle ahead of you. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">It was quickly becoming apparent that we weren't going to escape Boston. On every side, people were heading for the exits. Trucks fishtailed and then jack-knifed, but, intrepid Beetle drivers that we were, we maneuvered around them. Still, anxiety increased every moment because there we were in the middle of it--Daddy, Mommy and little boy, all within this German eggshell. And, oh, yes, I haven't mentioned it yet, but I was eight months pregnant. We were beginning to get cold too. It was the old VW tale about the single heating vent burning up the driver's left foot, while icicles formed on the passengers. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">The wind was howling, pushing the trucks. The wipers were no longer keeping up. Nothing to see but blowing snow and red tail lights as ahead, people braked for obstacles we couldn't see. Finally, my husband saw a familiar exit, the way to his parent's house in Lexington. This was problematic, as we currently weren't on good terms. Still, it seemed the only choice. We dove into the exit.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Now there was another problem--drifts were clogging the ramp. The plows, always diligent in these populated areas, couldn't keep up. Cars ahead were getting stuckwhile trying to exit the exit! The heavy cars of those days wallowed and skidded. People were getting out of their cars in that whipping wind, hoping to push themselves free. The little V-Dub became bogged down too. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">"Get out and push!" my husband yelled. So there I was, in my full-length dress, high boots and big belly, scarf tightly wrapped around my head, pushing the car. When he found traction and surged ahead, I fell flat on my face into the snow. He managed to maneuver around the stalled cars higher on the ramp, until he encountered the penultimate drift. His forward progress came to a halt.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">I trudged back to the car amid wind and blinding white, shivering from the snow still stuck to my bare legs. When I arrived, he jumped out, cried, "You drive now!" There had been only one car ahead of us, but they were making slow forward progress toward the main road. No waiting there! You just had to merge and pray the crawling cars saw you coming. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">So through that final, high drift, with me on and off the clutch, rocking the car, and with him pushing, we broke free and reached the road. He wore his prized, very cool hat, an old fedora--but this blew off, and was last seen sailing above 128 into a wall of white. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit2zE09RZNqHW7w1ji7lHydA7rv8R61fZiSFKrMsr3pvokwdMRSryEf7WWRRQrm31kHrL0l98EqouRE-VmGrGwOXqXMZEY-PZXOonGmrLo6tIrwC-vbxQ_vSrdGSjDjvDHM0l_f-LvRriwIRvfXny0n0zNSEWhgvzLd1kd6cTAh1hRntLxKtpQFgTNwjsz/s968/scan0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="968" data-original-width="968" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit2zE09RZNqHW7w1ji7lHydA7rv8R61fZiSFKrMsr3pvokwdMRSryEf7WWRRQrm31kHrL0l98EqouRE-VmGrGwOXqXMZEY-PZXOonGmrLo6tIrwC-vbxQ_vSrdGSjDjvDHM0l_f-LvRriwIRvfXny0n0zNSEWhgvzLd1kd6cTAh1hRntLxKtpQFgTNwjsz/s320/scan0001.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Now at the top, we paused, changed drivers, and went the final few miles to safety, starting and stopping and negotiating our way through intersections where the lights were not working, and past many, many disabled, abandoned vehicles.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">No cell phones in those days, so there were, on the steps of the Lexington house, where. blessedly, the door opened to us. Once inside, I had one of those false labor episodes, which are rather painful. I remember my mother-in-law calling a pediatrician who lived close by, who said he would make his way over if this didn't resolve, but, of course, once I was warm and had changed my clothes, it eventually went away. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">We were in that house for three days, because that's how long it took for all the abandoned vehicles to be cleared from the exit/entrances. Our son was happy to be at his grandparents because there were two teen Aunts to play with him, although, naturally, the elders were definitely ready for us to leave by the time we did. Driving around on the second day, hoping to find an opening, we'd passed by " our" exit, and seen the grill of the car that had been behind us, nearly buried under a monster drift that completely had encased it. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">When we reached home, we were delighted that our dirt road had been cleared. My husband forced the car into the drift at our driveway, and then we half-swam half-crawled our way over chest-high snow to the house, towing our little boy and a suitcase. The cats were glad to see us, as their kibble had long since run out and the house was darn cold. The old kerosene "furnace," by itself, kept the place in the vicinity of 45 degrees, so the plumbing hadn't frozen. With a fire started in the wood stove in time we were warm again.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">~Juliet Waldron</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Originally posted at:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">https://bwlauthors.blogspot.com/2024/02/those-were-days-maybe.html</span></p><div><br /></div>Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-67443695616366324342020-05-27T18:24:00.001-07:002020-05-27T18:24:14.370-07:00Why Watch Weather?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Trout Lilies</div>
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I'm a weather junkie. Unfortunately, we're in the streaming world now, and I've lost contact with my favorite zone-out fix, <i>The Weather Channel</i>. I must not be the only one so afflicted, though, because Weather Channel has had a long and successful run on TV and has become a go-to in apps and on the net.<br />
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I had the thought the other day, that while there are a lot of weather watchers today, most folks, most of the time in their American indoor lives, are barely affected by weather conditions at all. They just turn up the heat when they are cold and turn on the a/c when they are hot and don't particularly worry about it. If the apple blossoms are frozen here, they'll just ship our apples in from somewhere else.<br />
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Now, I've lived in hot places without a/c, and that wasn't much fun, especially as the place where I endured this was both <b>noisy</b> and <b>hot</b>. You couldn't open a window to catch a pleasant breeze for fear of being deafened, or, at least, of drowning out the TV you'd turned to full volume in an attempt to ignore the racket outside. During those summers you better believe I paid close attention to the forecast.<br />
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If you consider it, as long as you aren't living in a Third World mud hovel and earning your daily bread by farming, weather doesn't seem much to worry about. Many Americans go from homes to garages to cars to garages and then jobs and never have to brave the elements at all. Despite this, I think a lot of humans remain fascinated by weather, even if the life and death day-to-day consequences have been so smoothed over for many of us.<br />
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Central PA floods</div>
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The caveat is that the weather is changing--the world over. Maybe it's a good thing that no matter how sheltered an American suburbanite's life is, some of us, need to or not, are still paying (nerdy) attention to what's going on out there in the big world.<br />
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After all, Bad weather events--hurricanes, floods, droughts, fires--are Important Clues as to how our Mama is Feeling.<br />
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And we all should know by now that <i>If Mama Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy. </i><br />
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<i>~</i>~Juliet Waldron<br />
<i>Historical Novels</i><br />
<i>https://bookswelove.net/waldron-juliet/</i><br />
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<i><br /></i>Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-65793992466208470292020-05-25T19:23:00.000-07:002020-05-25T19:23:00.656-07:00New Moon, Possum Waddles Forth<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The 1% always makes sure there is a myth surrounding them. Their entitlements and privileges are justifiable--God Given--of course they are!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It used to be the Divine Right of Kings, but here in America our Supine Court (Supreme Court, you say? When was that?) has brought us into an era of The Divine Right of Corporations. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As always, there's well-armed police to enforce the rules upon peasants, like upon people whose property is "in the way" of an oil or gas pipeline. Oh, you say, those are not people, those are Indians and who gives a f**k about some old treaty! </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pipelines and gas wells poison white people, ruin their farms and kill their dairy cattle, too, you know. Just look it up.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Don't think <u>you</u> are a peasant? Check out what Jeff Bezos makes an hour and then feel free to change your mind. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Per hour, he makes a whopping $8,961,187, roughly 315 times Amazon's $28,466 median annual worker pay.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, okay, maybe <u>you</u> don't feel like a peasant. You have an RV and two houses. Okay.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'll grant you are not a peasant, but <u>only</u> if you also have a Yacht moored in Monte Carlo named "Chapter 11" and a bodacious boat babe or two to go with it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">IF you are one of Corporations' Chosen Ones, you are probably not reading this blog. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~~Juliet Waldron</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Random daily thoughts from Possum</span>Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-28494497931532693012019-09-04T13:27:00.000-07:002019-09-04T13:27:55.002-07:00Alexander Hamilton's "Hurricane Letter"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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V<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">iewing clips of Dorian's destruction of the Bahamas, with 48 hours of pounding winds and storm surges, I remembered Alexander Hamilton's experience on St. Croix. He, aged 16-17, survived what must have been an extremely violent hurricane.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Christiansted, September 6, 1772</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From the Royal Danish American Gazette—</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By Alexander Hamilton</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I take up my pen to give you an imperfect account of one of the most dreadful Hurricanes that memory or any records whatever can trace, which happened here on the 31st of August at night. It began about dusk, at North, and raged very violently till ten o’clock. Then ensued a sudden and unexpected interval, which lasted about an hour. Meanwhile the wind was shifting round to the South West point, from whence it returned with redoubled fury and continued so ’till near three o’clock in the morning.</span></i><br />
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<i>Good God! What horror and destruction! It is impossible for me to describe or you to form any idea of it. It seemed as if a total dissolution of nature was taking place. The roaring of the sea and wind, fiery meteors flying about it in the air, the prodigious glare of almost perpetual lightning, the crash of falling houses, and the ear-piercing shrieks of the distressed, were sufficient to strike astonishment into Angels.</i></span><br />
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<i>A great part of the buildings throughout the Island are levelled to the ground, almost all the rest very shattered; several persons killed and numbers utterly ruined; whole families running about the streets, unknowing where to find a place of shelter; the sick exposed to the keenness of water and air without a bed to lie upon, or a dry covering to their bodies; and our harbours entirely bare….”</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is just sample of what was a much longer piece of teen prose, one which may have propelled this young literary up-and-comer out of the West Indies. The remainder of his discourse is as full of allusions to an All-merciful <i>and/or</i> All-punishing God as any 18th Century churchgoer might wish. Sometimes, however, unvarnished truth breaks through the flow of his pious public sentiments:</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"But alas! how different, how deplorable—how gloomy the prospect—death comes rushing on in triumph veiled in a mantle of ten-fold darkness. His unrelenting scythe, pointed and ready for the stroke.—On his right hand sits destruction, hurling the winds and belching forth flames;—calamity on his left threatening famine, disease, distress of all kinds.—And Oh! thou wretch, look</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">still a little further; see the gulf of eternal mystery open—there mayest thou shortly plunge — ...</span></i><br />
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<i>Hark! ruin and confusion on every side.—Tis thy turn next: but one short moment—even now—Oh Lord help—Jesus be merciful! </i></span><br />
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</span><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thus did I reflect, and thus at every gust of the wind did I conclude,—till it pleased the Almighty to allay...</span>"</i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Alexander had been waiting to die; he now thanked God that he'd escaped. At the end of the essay, he went a step further in his Christianity. He wrote an impassioned plea to his wealthy readers to help their less fortunate neighbors, the many who now had lost everything.</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"—Look around thee and shudder at the view.—See desolation and ruin wherever thou turnest thine eye. See thy fellow-creatures pale and lifeless; their bodies mangled—their souls snatched into eternity—</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">...Oh ye, who revel in affluence, see the afflictions of humanity, and bestow your superfluity to ease them.—Say not, we have suffered also, and with-hold your compassion. What are your sufferings compared to these? Ye have still more than enough left.—Act wisely.—Succour the miserable and lay up a treasure in Heaven."</span></i><br />
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Hamilton, I think, truly wanted people to do the right thing, and he wasn't afraid to give men three times his age a lesson in scripture. It's an aspect of his personality that is endearingly boyish.</span><br />
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<i>All I have is words, but for me they shall be a magical buckler and sheathe!</i></span><br />
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<br />Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-18393672193588651042019-02-08T18:54:00.004-08:002019-02-08T18:54:40.671-08:00The Incredible Everywhere-ness of My Gray Hair<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My hair is long and gray and getting scraggly. (Weird to be physically falling apart, in a losing battle with entropy, but that's the way it is for me this year.) Sometimes my long hair still looks cool, but it's really getting tatty at the ends and has to be clipped constantly. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mostly, though, my hair is in the way. I'm losing the energy to put it up, to braid it, to do anything with it. Of course, I'm also in a spell where it's tough to get up the morning, but that probably has to do more with politics than with my actual physical state. Once upon a time I looked like this, a collegiate Mommy in an apartment with a black high gloss floor, a handsome young motor-cycle riding husband,a toddler and a host of neato posters:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and now it's like this, at Dragon Con, trying on a dragon's tail I didn't quite buy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">These days, my gray hair is caught in my vacuum nozzles, wrapped round around the little wheels of the machine, choking the wands, so that once a job (at least) I have to disassemble the thing and peer into the tubes to see if a clog is impacting the once forceful <i>suckage</i> of the my little Mighty Mite sweeper. If it is, then it needs to be poked out with long brushes, the kind used to clean furnaces.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hair is threaded into the weave of my doormats, so that to clean them, I have to not only sweep and shake, but pick them by hand, unwinding and knotting for disposal those long gray strands. Hair is in the brush every day in ever increasing amounts. I even find it--pardon me for going here--in the cat poop that I lift from the boxes. It's distressing to be losing so much of it, really it is, after years of taking the bounty for granted.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Once again, I want to cut it, a process I constantly go through, growing it out and then cutting it off. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Cut it--and look in the mirror and lament--WHY DID I DO THAT? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And begin to grow it out again. If it <u>will</u> grow, in the winding down of my physical form...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Peace--</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Juliet </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">See all my historical novels:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">https://www.julietwaldron.com</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Juliet+Waldron?_requestid=8289443">Barnes & Noble</a></span><br />
<a href="https://books2read.com/Mozarts-Wife">Books We Love</a><br />
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Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-45367193281540194462018-07-05T18:43:00.003-07:002018-07-05T18:43:56.327-07:00How Dystopian S/F became Our Current Reality<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We’re like 18<sup>th</sup> Century aristocrats, all of us in the West. We
sit and lounge while communicating with one another at lightning speed, like
insects twittering to one another inside some over-burdened global hive. Perhaps
the trip to a Matrix destiny, that proposed end game of our “civilization,” is a lot closer than we think.<o:p></o:p></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">I'm sitting at an old CPU, practically a dinosaur, typing on a
miraculous late 1980's IBM keyboard. It's indicative of my age, annual income
and education that I treasure this antique. It has a marvelous decisive finger
touch that this old style typist appreciates. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">However, the world has passed me by. Now babies clutch tiny
devices in their fat dimpled fists. Their little faces, which used to shine while
they discovered the world, are now are intent and passive. We are being readied
for our place inside Some Thing's great machine, just as s/f writers, our
Cassandras and prophets, from PKD to Silverberg to Octavia Butler--and many
others beside, who I have yet to read.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">The Overlords must need a lot of us, perhaps for the now
well-known flesh-as-battery option. They have set their "sacred" minions to
declare that sex-- one behavior we monkey/people naturally have a gift for--is <b>Evil</b>. Of course, to the monkey mind, these days also bent and shaped by our creation of language as in the <u>Medium is the Message</u>--it is at once inevitable that therefore "evil sex" must
occur as often as possible. Our governments seem to believe that sex occurs only for the procreation, though any self-respecting teen will tell you this is patently ridiculous.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"> All methods to prevent over-population and consequent destruction of our species' range (now this entire planet) -are strictly forbidden by various "religious" authorities. Let's face it--an oversupply of anything in our current Capitalist system leads to low valuation. Therefore this insane directive to increase and multiply is nothing less than a "Majority Church/State Sanctioned"</span><i style="font-size: 18px;"> breeding program for slaves. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Human lives clearly mean less and less and less to the 1%, our corporate masters who have just about successfully concluded their game of Planetary Monopoly. The "excess population" (per Scrooge) is doomed to become either Soylent Green or just old-fashioned cannon fodder--when there are 9 billion of us, who in charge will give a rat's ass when a million give or take are killed in some unnecessary but rah-rah-team-fight church and/or racist final solution? Take a look at how quickly and completely the westernized Middle East collapsed under the weight of sectarian conflict and a few rapacious, murderously inclined dictators!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Mother Kali will be dancing soon, I fear. I just hope she can clear out some of our major demonic evil-doers, along with the inevitable "collateral damage." I can only pray that our beautiful Mother Earth will survive our bad behavior.</span></span><br />
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Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-48991114474566126432018-05-11T12:45:00.005-07:002018-05-11T12:51:18.363-07:00The "Summer Collection"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDWCsU_yfvfIQ2fZg3P1AWGK4Pu7VNifQUhZaSsUIQyVWEeR7CHR_HEthW7XITdz0oPf2W2R3fSost70n6tdEEMxcYNeRQHEguh5qNbKZaduIU4CHs2kEduORW_7E1XUXsvcRnZEZanaCV/s1600/thumbnail_CanadianBrides-NorthwestTerr+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="853" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDWCsU_yfvfIQ2fZg3P1AWGK4Pu7VNifQUhZaSsUIQyVWEeR7CHR_HEthW7XITdz0oPf2W2R3fSost70n6tdEEMxcYNeRQHEguh5qNbKZaduIU4CHs2kEduORW_7E1XUXsvcRnZEZanaCV/s320/thumbnail_CanadianBrides-NorthwestTerr+%25281%2529.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A 1950's Canadian Indian Residential School story: </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.bookswelove.com/authors/waldron-juliet-historical-romance/" target="_blank">Books We Love Links to all Buy Sites</a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFyAfMIWrkLBuRUze9-AnQgKtqmF478bNsEcemmWhj-VXazoiiV9Pf5CRAPEIHlhJsCNn2KBPbdj41U4CRUcjl2_io3NLJFuVk96-NTU_agZidawabB2hhxABuRbIhvEOdPn48rfJ8gwan/s1600/stanzidaffs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFyAfMIWrkLBuRUze9-AnQgKtqmF478bNsEcemmWhj-VXazoiiV9Pf5CRAPEIHlhJsCNn2KBPbdj41U4CRUcjl2_io3NLJFuVk96-NTU_agZidawabB2hhxABuRbIhvEOdPn48rfJ8gwan/s320/stanzidaffs.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now it’s May again, and the possum has fully awakened. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, it doesn’t just gradually become
spring these days—no! That would be old fashioned; it would be what we've grown to expect after the last 70 years.
Instead, we have had a long dry chill here where I live in the literal rump of the
NE, followed by 90 degree weather for a few breathless days, causing the everyone, including the cat, to suffer from pollen allergies. Next, it falls
back into something like the kind of May oldsters like myself remember: a bit
gray, a bit sunny, puffy cumuli that might turn into a sullen deck over the
apple blossoms , and a distinct pleasant chill whenever the wind blows.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.bookswelove.com/authors/waldron-juliet-historical-romance/" target="_blank">Books We Love Links to Everywhere!</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The result is that I have to start changing my winter
clothes collection for my “summer collection.” We’re not talking Turner Classic
movies or million bucks athletic garb at this house; I’m speaking with
tongue firmly-in-cheek. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What that graceful word “collection” actually means to
me is putting my light colored t-shirts,
capris and shorts in the drawers in place of the heavier, darker heavier tees and
turtlenecks which have occupied them all winter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It
involves lifting heavy plastic tubs full of shirts in/out of tiny spaces in badly
aligned closets, maneuvers that require me to bend and lift and twist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Either that or getting down on the floor to
retrieve a low flat box from under the bed. And we all know the fun of getting up on two legs after we've had to get down on all fours, we who are now in their "Golden Years."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Willy-Yum watches the human bang, crash and clamber from a safe distance--the hall rug. Here, he settles in, big front
paws tucked inward against his chest. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After wiping the dust from the lids, I open the tubs.
Inside, there they are, the tees I put away at the end of October last year. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It’s an ever growing collection, I fear, because I have become attached to each
and every one, carefully chosen as they were from catalogs or from artsy websites.
There are dinosaur tees, one with Eco-slogans, Wheels of the Year, C<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">alaveras</i>, cats, famous movies, and other famous types, from Alex and Eliza Hamilton and Wolf Mozart and his Stanzi as well as
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> the many faces of </span>Dr. Who. It’s my down-market version of sartorial
elegance, suitable either for bike riding, grocery store, yard work or the gym.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When the task is completed, we’ve got the Possum Perfect summer wardrobe
(or is it weird-robe?) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>packed into the chest
of drawers. I’m all ready now for all the heat and humidity now relentlessly on its way. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">~Juliet Waldron</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Click on the links for:</span><br />
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Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-25347281573059112612018-03-11T18:47:00.002-07:002018-03-11T18:47:16.497-07:00REVIEW OF FLY AWAY, SNOW GOOSE (five stars) By Ann Birch<br />
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<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have read many books about the Indian
residential schools, but this one is undoubtedly one of the best. Its main
character is a spirited young girl named Yaot’l Snow Goose who lives a happy
life in the forests and lakes of the Canadian North West until, on a visit with
her family to Yellowknife to trade furs, she is seized by force and taken far away
to Fort Providence to the Sacred Heart Residential School. At the same time,
her boyfriend Sascho Lynx is also captured. The novel depicts their journey
from innocence to despair to hope and happiness as they manage to escape from
the horrors of the school and find their way back to their families and
freedom.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Though the plot may sound familiar to
readers, this one contains a number of surprises. Its authors, Juliet Waldron
and John Wisdomkeeper, present their extensive research within vivid scenes
that will linger forever in readers’ minds. For example, I cannot think of any
other book that shows the cruelty of these schools better than the writers’ depiction
of the hair-cutting that takes place as soon as the Indian children enter the
institution. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yaot’l waits, watching the
youngsters’ hair being ruthlessly chopped off and knowing that when her turn
comes, she must stand up to the enemy. When she bites one of the nuns, she is
put into solitary confinement for weeks, a punishment that Waldron and
Wisdomkeeper describe in harrowing detail. As Yaot’l looks out of the tiny
window of her prison she sees a flock of snow geese flying south. “My own
feathered family,” she thinks, “strong and free.” And then she collapses, thinking
that she may never again be part of this happy band.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Her ensuing life at the school contains
other horrors as well. But along with their description of the usual physical
and sexual abuses, the writers offer some surprises. Many of the Indians from
warring bands learn to forget their battles as they confront the priests and
nuns. Not everyone associated with the institution is a monster—in fact it’s a
Métis trader who uses his affiliation with the school to help Yaot’l and Sascho
escape—and some of the worst bullying that Yaot’l endures comes not from the
nuns but from a small coterie of Indian girls who seek praise for their cruelty
from the Catholic hierarchy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The most memorable scenes in the novel are
perhaps those describing the escape of Yaot’l, Sascho, and two younger children
and the suspenseful events of their long trek back to their families. As she
huddles under tarpaulin in the escape boat, Yaot’l, whose name translates to
Warrior, acknowledges her terror and wonders if she is no longer a warrior but
merely a rabbit. Gradually, however, she regains her courage. The trader who
helps the children escape returns to Yaot’l the precious knife on which her
brother Charlie has carved a snow goose. At about the same time, she sees a
flock of snow geese returning to their northern habitat and she knows for
certain then that she will succeed in her struggles. The trader tells her and
her friends, “You four are Indians again.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s a lovely book from start to finish. I
learned so much about the culture of these North-Western First Nation bands:
their religion, their stories, their connection with the land. Most of all, I
travelled with Yaot’l and Sascho on their metaphysical journey through the
conflicts of life. It’s the very archetype of the journey that many of us must take
in order to survive in a difficult world.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many thanks to Ann Birch for her wonderful review of <b>Fly Away Snow Goose</b>!</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~~Juliet Waldron</span></span></div>
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Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-74627857763514491832018-02-26T13:12:00.004-08:002020-11-28T12:02:00.345-08:00Possum Views Vultures<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Happy sunshine a week or so ago...and who should I see, sitting in an otherwise empty field, but three enormous turkey buzzards standing on the ground, backs to the sun, wings stretched out so big, so long, the pinfeathers all poking out with its pale trim! They were apparently catching some back-warming rays after a long cold spell, all peacefully facing north, unconcerned about the highway beyond.</span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Cars racing about, as they do every day, none of the occupants paying any attention at all to the sight of these huge birds who are, for once, at rest, not performing their endless spirals on updrafts, not searching for the smell of death, the scent that signifies a nearby vulture meal.</span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="text-align: center;"> "</span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="text-align: center;">Glorious</span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="text-align: center;"> B</span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="text-align: center;">attle"</span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">We have a lot of turkey vultures in this valley, more than anywhere else I've ever lived. When we went to Gettysburg, many years ago, the guide the crowd on the walking tour spun quite a tale. It was about the hoards of vultures who came after the battle, crowding in huge, never-before seen flocks to feast upon the dead, both animals and men. Believable, as vultures have amazing olfactory abilities. I'd imagine they also communicate, group to group, in some way.</span><br />
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<i><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">"Hey Eddie! I hear there's big doin's down the valley. A reg'lar banquet! Folks flyin' in from everywhere! <b>'Nuff for ever'body!</b>*"</span></i><br />
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<i><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">"Thought I smelt somethin' tasty on that hot wind blowin' up from the south. Let's spiral up this here thermal and go check 'er out!"</span></i><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Our guide, after allowing us to savor that creepy fact for a few minutes, then went on to add that this was the reason why there were still so many turkey vultures in the area, even now, 150+ years after the mad-house convulsion of slaughter that was the Battle of Gettysburg. </span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">This left me metaphorically scratching my head. What do these still persistent armies of scavengers live on during the long generations since the marvelous three days of the legendary banquet? Do the vultures hang out with their young, telling and retelling their nestlings about the "thrilling days of yesteryear," as they dream of another episode of The <i>Big Kill</i>? </span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i>Cathartes Aura</i> is their (poetic, I think) Latin designation, which means <i>Cleansing Wind.</i> You might be interested to learn that a group of vultures on the ground are called a "committee" and as I ponder some committees I've watched in action--especially lately in our Senate--I think the name is apt. In flight, a group of vultures is called a "kettle." On the ground, at supper with a host of family and friends, they are--<i>wait for it!</i>--called a "wake." </span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"> </span><br />
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">~~Juliet Waldron</span><br />
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Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-50964893049357614402018-02-03T08:31:00.001-08:002018-02-03T08:31:23.839-08:00Ground Hog Day Mea Culpa<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy0zGefPK-rfzmgi1ljIDUO1enZQzHrZWWcPOb_x_qE0sTRwCc9AG7Vjmom5eywaXqoyo6_P7wlX6qWYj8QB7GNYERCgbnQ322ywZblGYjxgFIERKmnCJQI3G1J1iGTjP185xLcSwuV2A3/s1600/handtree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="378" data-original-width="504" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy0zGefPK-rfzmgi1ljIDUO1enZQzHrZWWcPOb_x_qE0sTRwCc9AG7Vjmom5eywaXqoyo6_P7wlX6qWYj8QB7GNYERCgbnQ322ywZblGYjxgFIERKmnCJQI3G1J1iGTjP185xLcSwuV2A3/s320/handtree.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The lambs are born now in the cold and snow. The days begin to lengthen. Light candles for Her, Mother Earth is tilting us in the northern hemisphere toward the sun once again. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgofPrHEDTJy5n4ZSErbxFbwa1qsn9cIc6RHFEKzjaVxZYOzE6iJCng9x9kr73OcShymRaJ_Q4ea9i2s_ULe_XdN6rYxe5P_J0DKcGzq5cXG_LD_JU8ycQc3im4x2CRLozulI4KaEv66WO2/s1600/groundhog1.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="199" data-original-width="153" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgofPrHEDTJy5n4ZSErbxFbwa1qsn9cIc6RHFEKzjaVxZYOzE6iJCng9x9kr73OcShymRaJ_Q4ea9i2s_ULe_XdN6rYxe5P_J0DKcGzq5cXG_LD_JU8ycQc3im4x2CRLozulI4KaEv66WO2/s1600/groundhog1.gif" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It's cold as hell today--not so much the temperature, but the wind chill, a howl out of the west. The birds motor through my offerings of black oil sunflower seed and I had to go outside with wet hair to refill their feeders and scatter more on the ground. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The squirrels are (mostly) in hiding today, but another tree is being taken down in the neighborhood, and that's not good for the local wildlife. I'm still guilty as hell about the big silver maple we cut in autumn, as the wreckage of furry and feathered lives was visible (and audible, with squirrel on squirrel violence) all around. Precious housing units were abruptly gone and there were bloody fights over what remained. Humans don't realize what we do when we cut a tree--all that food, all that shelter, all that flood control--is instantly lost.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We worried that the dead branches that this kind of tree produces continually--silver maples of any age seem to be constantly in a state of semi-decay, with debris-filled holes and marching ants--would land on our roof or solar panels. It's the second tree we've cut in the 30+ years we've lived here, but still it felt as if a giant hole had been punched in the canopy of green life with which we've surrounded ourselves. We love the trees and all that co-exists in their sheltering arms, so this removal was a tough decision.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvxLP798vcz4tOIvmBA9NtmPwIEy59pBlm-EifdgwBlxOZr1AUaQlYJOT3mQ4yExpdBzgiz86l5wkRFCE4RXKqBmSGX5o8TUnYMNpHIYxBN7ntoe-RkDjZeLd3ySHZ8w2NXTyaQxfOe514/s1600/1280px-Opossum_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1051" data-original-width="1280" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvxLP798vcz4tOIvmBA9NtmPwIEy59pBlm-EifdgwBlxOZr1AUaQlYJOT3mQ4yExpdBzgiz86l5wkRFCE4RXKqBmSGX5o8TUnYMNpHIYxBN7ntoe-RkDjZeLd3ySHZ8w2NXTyaQxfOe514/s320/1280px-Opossum_2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Juliet Waldron</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiauIJBy848e2FSahmoG3VWhRgl68dvFKlMNi_qqBEcBAdkgz3KkLsU4ssKgXs_RP23pI3fFdyhsmVcPTNCIKS2j_VjKc5ooZDuqDTn6CRc7Pr-zd5A12gshXAcI1Qp5yn8XTFKV2Fy9dpT/s1600/trackpossum.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="102" data-original-width="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiauIJBy848e2FSahmoG3VWhRgl68dvFKlMNi_qqBEcBAdkgz3KkLsU4ssKgXs_RP23pI3fFdyhsmVcPTNCIKS2j_VjKc5ooZDuqDTn6CRc7Pr-zd5A12gshXAcI1Qp5yn8XTFKV2Fy9dpT/s1600/trackpossum.gif" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">See all my historical novels here:</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.bookswelove.net/authors/waldron-juliet/">http://www.books</a></span><a href="http://www.bookswelove.net/authors/waldron-juliet/">welove.net/authors/waldron-juliet/</a></div>
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Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-91049790877756725192017-10-14T18:55:00.001-07:002017-10-14T18:55:26.033-07:00Two Old Wimmen go to see NORMA<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHLT1MsGjiz0M4PU-uGK9oH6x182qkxCmvZLA9zc5lRC9ol0iSMt-e2ovtnAQxjjAtk1EvjVGQZvK1P-dGV9Y72nZYVRCJnmcP_aOAWJI7rHUM5cNynKYo78-4GWk0bfjKi0Qim5kdnsNM/s1600/norma-861067++NOrma.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="590" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHLT1MsGjiz0M4PU-uGK9oH6x182qkxCmvZLA9zc5lRC9ol0iSMt-e2ovtnAQxjjAtk1EvjVGQZvK1P-dGV9Y72nZYVRCJnmcP_aOAWJI7rHUM5cNynKYo78-4GWk0bfjKi0Qim5kdnsNM/s320/norma-861067++NOrma.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "comic sans ms";">My friend and I went to the movies to see Met @ The Movies first offering of the season NORMA by Bellini. My friend went to NYC sixty years ago to be an actress. She was an actress, too, and has terrific stories about performers like and then taught in city schools, because that's often the way "careers" in the Arts go--your chosen professional becomes a hobby, or you starve. She's verbal, sophisticated, and she Got Experience, as we were all instructed to do we young adults of the '60's. She is, in the language of grand opera Tesoro mio (think that's right--except maybe in the feminine). She's got first hand stories from those days, a few about actors of the calibre of Albert Finney, who she met back when he'd just played Tom Jones (!!!) I'm just chuffed to know her, a lovely person in my town who also shares a love of opera. When she returned home to finish up her days--NYC is no place for the old unless they are also, very much, The Very Rich--there was mutual celebration when we discovered one another. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "comic sans ms";">Neither of us had ever seen NORMA before and were unfamiliar with the story, although we vaguely knew it was Druids v. Romans. We both love the
operatic style "Bel Canto," which was brought back to the stage by great divas like Ponselle, Sutherland, and Callas. Bel Canto means "beautiful singing" which really doesn't give you much information when the subject is opera. Lots of "too many notes" if you're like the Emperor in Amadeus, but let's face it, that's basically so clueless that only an Emperor could get away with saying such a thing and go blithely unchallenged.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtjM0fdHxzCrejEgEYX25zt2GlNdJB0FdPaVzo9QLp2EzwNNojN__jpcuQHxxBTR0-FTJGDXG5e1yKnNzaWjvTjzLOaocfOEntgdwDv80NauMAucyl_ykF4C8y5ngTROc44BmawmlUTGZI/s1600/image-Bellini-opera-norma.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="689" data-original-width="497" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtjM0fdHxzCrejEgEYX25zt2GlNdJB0FdPaVzo9QLp2EzwNNojN__jpcuQHxxBTR0-FTJGDXG5e1yKnNzaWjvTjzLOaocfOEntgdwDv80NauMAucyl_ykF4C8y5ngTROc44BmawmlUTGZI/s320/image-Bellini-opera-norma.jpg" width="230" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "comic sans ms";">If you know any Rossini, you get the drift of how Norma sounds, although I think Bellini is far more entrancing, with his long lyrical lines. My friend and I were just knocked over by both the singing and the production by Sir David McVicar, whose Druids looked like--well, Druids--in a dark forest with the monster stub of an dying oak decked in skulls and swords and shields as the lurking focal point. The singers were stellar, as we Met @ the Movies folk have come to expect. Joyce DiDonato and Sonya Radvanovsky sang with balance, craft, and beauty. Both women can act and handled their closeups well. The tenor who played the point of the love triangle, the super-male Roman commander who thinks he can discard wife#1 without consequence, was played by a charming--in his actual self--Joseph Calleja. We noted that while he played the villain, he seemed determined, in his interview, to express his personal dislike for the behavior of male Chauvanist pig he played. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo0yI7LKvxDVs8GYuL6v2ee3Bj3YDnzQ_Vv-0CLC1oszNMrIT2TCNEamgiiL4XMK7qU7x6QAmR0de1ZUMsr575jQhPJVqb3U3dkSZKJktb4zQrSoqQBA5gQVGko0yCZkxlqmzs9icx37AP/s1600/images+DiDonato.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="147" data-original-width="343" height="137" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo0yI7LKvxDVs8GYuL6v2ee3Bj3YDnzQ_Vv-0CLC1oszNMrIT2TCNEamgiiL4XMK7qU7x6QAmR0de1ZUMsr575jQhPJVqb3U3dkSZKJktb4zQrSoqQBA5gQVGko0yCZkxlqmzs9icx37AP/s320/images+DiDonato.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "comic sans ms";">For a libretto crafted in 1831 in Italy, the story came amazingly close to being a feminist shout out. When the two women, one older and one younger and both priestesses, discover that they are both in love with the same man, they draw together instead of fighting one another. Of course, the older woman has to sacrifice herself for the "greater good" in the end, so we can't give it full marks on liberation, however, my friend was sufficiently amazed to burst out "that's how women should treat one another." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "comic sans ms";">We could barely get back on our feet when it was over, because we'd stayed where we were during the intermission, which was filled with another fascinating look backstage at workers and machinery at this grandest of all grand opera venues. All those hours
later, I was bent like 97 years and grasping the handrail all the way down the stairs from our seating. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "comic sans ms";">~~Juliet Waldron</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "comic sans ms";">P.S. And is it obligatory that all </span><span style="font-family: "comic sans ms";">movie theaters (and Casinos) have those "Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas" carpets? </span><br />
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<a href="http://amzn.to/24EUxiC"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif; line-height: 115%;">http://amzn.to/24EUxiC</span></a><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif; line-height: 115%;"> Nightingale ISBN: B00D8MEL8E<span style="font-size: 8pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-17129873540803542612017-09-15T14:27:00.004-07:002017-09-15T14:27:56.941-07:00The Fuller Brush Saga<div class="MsoNormal">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGSJ0eZrO2L4E0L_Mrl0sIX-TvBMxl1wZ6hR53ViwKSdjefEhWQHvkwLnaWGPwgLuQf4ADlGoOcgk53E3oJQ2fyamD4Mdu-AOdm_ef1SfZmjPfyIsfe8vi9hObE3syXojHDT0nGYrMUmkv/s1600/bighair70s0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1234" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGSJ0eZrO2L4E0L_Mrl0sIX-TvBMxl1wZ6hR53ViwKSdjefEhWQHvkwLnaWGPwgLuQf4ADlGoOcgk53E3oJQ2fyamD4Mdu-AOdm_ef1SfZmjPfyIsfe8vi9hObE3syXojHDT0nGYrMUmkv/s320/bighair70s0001.jpg" width="246" /></a></div>
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Those Were The Days, 1970</div>
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I’ve brushed my hair with this model -nylon handle, hard
nylon bristles—since the 50’s. Over the years, I’ve bought replacements
from Fuller local distributors--in Connecticut, in Tennessee and later, in Pennsylvania. The last Old Reliable came from The Vermont Country
Store catalog. This, however, should have given me a clue that the unthinkable
which was about to happen. </div>
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A few weeks ago, when I went to order a new brush from Vermont folks, I found that they
were no longer pictured in the personal care section of their catalog. I called them—no dice. They had my old 520
Half Round Brush, but when I inquired further, I learned that this 520 ain't the same as the old one. Now the only available "Model 520" has a wooden handle and soft boar
bristles. That sort of thing won’t even
go through my hair. I may be old, but I still have hair. <o:p></o:p></div>
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To clean a hair brush it must be soaked in a
hot soapy solution and then combed out, rinsed and sun dried. The old time boar bristles could stand up to such treatment, but the
new cheap-o ones go from soft to softer—my balding husband has one of the wood + bristle versions, so I know. Moreover, you shouldn't soak wood. If you do,
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So now the search begins--either for Old Faithful--which may be waiting for me in a dusty warehouse somewhere, or in the remainder stock of some disgruntled Fuller Brush distributor I've yet to locate. I hope to get lucky and find one, but the chances, even with the 'net, are slim.<br />
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I've learned in my searches that Fuller has been sold, or more like "sold out." The industrious distributors, some of whom spent their whole lives working for the company, have been shucked off without the recompense they were originally offered. Now they are just another set of victims of our steal your way to the top culture.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikouy5QQmgdLCx6QDIyd0x5LJzTBRx8MC7iPjvv5Mr9Wp8xrdPrC0z1z1laN2CyWR7KvfecRs_ai8yGuRbHZZJgUwL_6UoDKPanoN8pakpysFWAWWb2vZfrCSPYhRO4SJy8ypRuX9XlNv0/s1600/17097765_10158294458480405_4507676442090309888_o+GMA+Braid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikouy5QQmgdLCx6QDIyd0x5LJzTBRx8MC7iPjvv5Mr9Wp8xrdPrC0z1z1laN2CyWR7KvfecRs_ai8yGuRbHZZJgUwL_6UoDKPanoN8pakpysFWAWWb2vZfrCSPYhRO4SJy8ypRuX9XlNv0/s320/17097765_10158294458480405_4507676442090309888_o+GMA+Braid.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Sorry to digress into an oldster's gloom-and-doom rant about nowadays, but, damn, I'll sure miss having a good hairbrush. The current one is now beginning to lose bristles, and I dread the day when it finally has to be retired for good and all. <br />
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~Juliet Waldron<br />
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All my novels, all available publishers & formats: <br />
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<a href="http://bit.ly/2gzOvgS"><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%;">http://bit.ly/2gzOvgS</span></a><span style="color: #a3aaae; font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Mozart's Wife<br />
A Master Passion<br />
Genesee<br />
Roan Rose<br />
Black Magic<br />
and many others<br />
<br />
Fly Away Snow Goose, a story set partly in the Canadian Residential Indian Schools, is a December 2017 release from Books We Love, Canadian Brides </div>
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Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-68793155292673273852017-06-09T14:34:00.003-07:002017-06-09T14:34:57.165-07:00Untrainable <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The old people stand in the kitchen, arms around one
another, side by side, and regard the tiger cat. He sits erect, tail neatly curled
around his tiger legs. They stand on the yellow linoleum beside the fridge. The
cat is at rest now, but he has been swirling. and, </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">with a nasal meow, </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">asking for something which remains undefined. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The old people are stymied.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The cat’s lamp eyes have exclamation points standing at
attention in the center of each round green pupil. His eyes are a laser,
lightly glazed with disdain for the poor mental capacity
of the old people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The woman addresses him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> “We, your
self-assigned caretakers and healthcare providers, continue, every day, to strive
to serve you better. How may we help you today?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“Yeah, cat. What do you want?” The man, annoyed because both treats
and a lick of cream have been rejected, gets straight to the point.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The cat continues to stare. He’s unimpressed by monkey
noises, all those different vocalizations they make. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He would like to see some action. As usual, <i>Meow #24</i>, though clearly enunciated, means <u>nothing</u> to them. Even after all these years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sourly, the cat thinks that the human species is, very nearly,
untrainable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Juliet Waldron</div>
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http://www.julietwaldron.com</div>
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Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-76918707064919596922017-06-01T14:16:00.003-07:002017-06-01T14:21:09.693-07:00Enter the Smartphone <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Okay! Here I am, like Constanze Mozart, making an embarassing confession. I must be one among the last people
in the US to switch to a smartphone. On a trip to Atlanta to see a stellar
grand-girl graduate High School, I was overwhelmed by family, both kids and
grandkids, demanding that I get a "better" phone. So—I caved at last, regaled
with all the storied delights that awaited me once I owned such a device.<br />
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I
returned home with said smartphone tucked inside a pair of socks. We had been too
busy with visiting back and forth from one side of Atlanta to the other and hanging out, or attending various
graduation festivities to go searching for a case through the always mind-boggling traffic. I'd figured this would be a good
time to make the big change, as there I’d have two sons, two DILs and a grand girl to
instruct me in at least some of the Major Arcana.<br />
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I was once considered a tech savvy person, but those days
are l<i>oooong gone</i>. There’s a certain
Luddite pride in still using a genuine IBM keyboard from the 80’s, hitched
to 2004's computer. It is, however, getting to be more difficult to
lag behind than to “get with the program,” as software (and hardware too) endlessly
morph. IMHO, (as I learned to say on AIM) I suspect that all the “updating” is
simply an excuse to wring more $$ from us hapless consumers. </div>
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One of my friends has a terrific notion about a kind heart software firm (!) who would build MS65, a program guaranteed to run without chronic
episodes of illogic/insanity (could I perhaps be alluding to MS 10??) and not
to change or alter in any way for a decade. That’s about the right amount of
time for many of us less sophisticated cotton-tops to learn new software.</div>
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I’m under no illusions, though, I’ll soon be scrapped and
dissembled for the metal value of my components, along with my beloved Wang PC which still crouches sadly in the back of a closet. Stability is not what software developers are
into these days—the more things fail to work properly, I guess, the better it
is for IT, or something. Anyway, while I’m griping, what’s with the penchant
for hiding the most commonly used operations three or four—or five--pull downs deep?
Is it so we have to humiliate ourselves and buy the latest copy of “…For
Dummies”? And what’s with that “Search” that leads you into Alice in Wonderland
conversations with "Cortana." (And, hell, I'm not fooled. It's just that g-d paperclip tarted up and back in our faces again. Couldn’t "search" have just <u>searched</u>, as the word indicates that it does?<o:p></o:p></div>
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This morning, I awoke to the sound of chimes—my new phone,
of course. I’d set the alarm, hitched it to the wall socket and left it wakeful.
Now, I leapt out of bed, and attempted to turn the alarm off without first
putting on my glasses. Next thing I knew, I’d taken four blurry pictures of
myself--nothing you want to keep, especially those taken first thing in the morning. It took a few minutes before I managed to figure out how to put the
camera back to sleep and delete the alarm. <o:p></o:p><br />
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How did I, whose first and foremost mental image of “phone”
remains the graceful black candlestick apparatus in my grandparent’s living room, enter
a world where a small slim box in my hand can deposit checks, take pictures,
tell time, and connect me to the internet and thence conduct me into untold wonders of
consumption? <o:p></o:p></div>
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~~Juliet Waldron, who just keeps getting older...</div>
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Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-15835893127344122972017-03-20T09:09:00.002-07:002017-03-20T09:09:21.475-07:00Husband in Kitchen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2113884174193605796" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2113884174193605796" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Possum sez: <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTywE49XAvs6TWtIX_QXVBlmHiTKCYK6p3df9q0uAPqLlh4Wpmf9HQIGWN236lIXwMZRKHRvIYndqNdeDFp_HLIztCca7OC47D2fAHom8uFFAkw1WrAsVaFUr1kRPmY4t79C7iYAdQDdz0/s1600/1280px-Opossum_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTywE49XAvs6TWtIX_QXVBlmHiTKCYK6p3df9q0uAPqLlh4Wpmf9HQIGWN236lIXwMZRKHRvIYndqNdeDFp_HLIztCca7OC47D2fAHom8uFFAkw1WrAsVaFUr1kRPmY4t79C7iYAdQDdz0/s320/1280px-Opossum_2.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every wife/working woman knows that after years of having
her husband at work all day, when he retires, things change around the house. Mine retired and flopped around aimlessly for several
years before hitting on something to do with all this time on his hands. I
suggested that there were things he could do around here which would be helpful—instead
of just micro-managing me, reading The Economist, and playing solitaire. Eventually, he
took something up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Typically—at least, I think it’s typical—the tasks he
decided he’d like to take over were also the ones I most enjoyed—shopping and cooking. Somehow, women are always left with the
scrubbing, mopping, vacuuming, and cleaning of bathrooms, the least favorite
parts of the routine. We must have it written on our foreheads, or on some
stone tablet s somewhere: “Woman, Thou
Shalt Clean Toilets and Vacuum Cat Hair off the furniture to the End of thy Days.”
<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyhow, at last he took up doing something, so these are now
mostly off my to-do list. I need to mention that he’s not much of a yardwork or
DIY guy either. Not likely to launch into painting, or even mowing when it’s the
season for that. I do half the mowing and at least half of the snow shoveling,
so I’m standing by my man on those fronts, but I sometimes wish he had more of
a bent for DIY. We’ve got a carpet in the unfinished basement that could
probably qualify as a superfund site, but, I digress.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He’s been “learning shopping.” This entails frequent calls
from the supermarket to ask me <b><i>what</i></b> the hell my handwriting <b><i>says</i></b>,
or what the hell is <b><i>that</i></b> and where the hell can <b><i>that</i></b> weird-ass ingredient
be <b><i>found</i></b>?
There’s a smallish local supermarket that we’ve patronized for the last 30
years, so I pretty much have the place memorized. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are pitfalls, however. The other day he returned with
two sacks of yellow onions because they were a to-fer. He’s begun cooking
Indian food—and in all fairness making delicious dinners, tasty, spicy vindaloos
and curries -- so we do use a lot of onions in the course of making masalas of
various flavors, but I didn’t see how we were ever going to use two sacks. After
all, there are only two of us! So they sat on the counter, withering, until
this snowy weekend I thought of a frugal solution: onion soup. Hating to throw
anything away like a good Yankee, I suggested he chop them up. He, chef-like, has
been working on his knife handling skills.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He chopped meticulously and produced an entire mixing bowl filled
to the top with onions. Then with butter, salt, the same technique I’m learning
as we do that “Indian Cooking” together, I slowly stirred them over medium/high
for a very long time, while they cooked down and down and down and finally changed
color. Next came the chicken stock, added a little at a time, all the while
cooking and cooking, reducing and reducing, and at the end, a LOT of Parmesan,
quickly whisked in. It took us amateur
cooks about three hours, but eventually we’d produced about six bowls of very
tasty onion soup. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don’t think either of us are going to be ready for <b>Chopped</b> any time soon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> ~~Juliet Waldron<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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A Master Passion ISBN:
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Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-35500797409368009912017-03-11T14:06:00.000-08:002017-03-12T18:40:02.375-07:00Sleeping with a Cat (When you’re stiffer than you should be at your age, for goodness sake!)<br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One of the great blisses of old age is the nap—the bumper
sticker with sleeping cat which says “There’s a nap for that” just about sums things
up for me. Even when I was small, I don’t think I ever did too much fussing
about the approach of naptime. For me,
tucked away on a smooth sheet in a room with a tree outside the window was as
good as it got, in this strange new world into which I’d so recently been
dropped. Naps were a time of quiet
rumination, of drifting away into Asperger’s heaven, without facing unsettling
and unpredictable human interactions. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Today, after an illuminating session of senior yoga with
Kate, I arrived home relaxed, despite having had a spat with sig other before
I’d gone to the class. Those spats are a feature of married life, or maybe
just, this married life, but I am always left feeling as distressed as sig
other is. Anyway, when I arrive in such a state
for Yoga, I think the best thing I can do is put it all behind me and
JUST DO THE POSES. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“I love Yoga” our instructor announces with a blissed out
smile. It’s an invitation to join in her
game. I-- and the other attendees--we’re no longer “seniors” in any of our gym classes. We are
all treated by the instructors as a crowd of very stiff, worn-out, yet tight-wrapped
of kindergarten kids. This shiny faced instructor thinks that besides
stretching, we also need to remember how to play again. We also need practice
at smiling at the others with whom we share our circle. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Even after years of life, it’s hard to look others in the
face and remember their names. I
continue to fall down at the task, even while calling myself “lazy” and “rude” and
other worse things. It’s either “old” or “woman” that causes this “memory”
failure—if that’s really what it is, and not some egregious character flaw. I
am now working on the association thing: “Amy with the great sneakers” is also pretty and short, definitely a Little Woman.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I can do the smiling
part. Most people in this Yoga class are like me, so that’s easy, and a nice first step toward sociability.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Then, having stretched sufficiently--and sometimes, yes even in senior yoga it can happen, over stretched--you’re home, lunched on too much curry, rice and
Brussels’ sprouts. Next, you are
weary, heading upstairs for that retired folks’ mid-day lie down. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Outside the window, breezy clouds flip the
switch on and off as they pass. You reach your sleeping spot, but there atop the bed, head comfortably upon your pillow, is a twelve (at least) pound cat. You are going
to have to readjust your plans for collapse, but you are ready because sometimes the cat switches things up like this—you have developed a strategy. The knee pillow goes under the head, while you
lie flat on your back with a prop in the “small”, catawampus, so you’ll fit, all
because, after all, there has to be a good-sized sleeping rectangle for the cat.</span><o:p></o:p><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">~~Juliet Waldron</span><br />
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<a href="http://amzn.to/1UDoLAi"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif";">http://amzn.to/1UDoLAi</span></a><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif";">
Books by JW at Amazon<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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A Master Passion ISBN:
1771456744<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-89079745243125754322017-03-02T00:00:00.000-08:002017-03-12T18:42:23.356-07:00A Quilt, An Heiress, and A Spy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://amzn.to/1sUSjOH">http://amzn.to/1sUSjOH</a> Angel’s Flight ISBN: B0098CSH5Q</span><span style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Set in the
Hudson Valley during the Revolutionary War, it's roughly 100 years since New
Amsterdam became New York, but the life styles and folkways of the original
Dutch settlers still lingered in the little valleys upstate. In the early
19th Century, Washington Irving would make famous his quaint,
winking tales of the Hudson Valley Dutch, such as <b>The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow<em><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"> and </span></em><strong><i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Rip Van Winkle. </span></i></strong><br />
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</b><em><span style="font-style: normal;">Where
he saw humor, I saw a marvelous starting place for a historical romance, among
these hard-working Americans With a Difference, people who did not live
entirely in accordance with the more familiar English tradition--some, my
ancestors. </span></em><i><br />
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</i><em><span style="font-style: normal;">"Angel's
Flight" tells a story with many threads, the mingling by marriage of the
Dutch and English and the terrors and hardships of our first Civil War, where
friends and families found themselves violently thrust onto opposite
sides. There is also romance--Jack, with his multiple personas, is
soon unmasked as a spy and a formidable soldier. His world, however, will
be "turned upside down" by passion for a fair rebel. </span></em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;"><em><span style="font-style: normal;">The Blue Bird
Quilt is a hymn to quilters everywhere. Angelica, the heroine, hunted
by men and events through the ruins of her own once comfortable, New
York world, tries to keep her sanity by collecting pieces while even
escaping one peril after another on the road up the
river. She will, with only her needle, return a world ripped
apart by hatred to a new, harmonious and beautiful whole.</span></em></span><i><o:p></o:p></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: x-small; font-style: normal;"> See this talented quilter at: </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: x-small; font-style: normal;"> http://juliekquilts.blogspot.com/</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Angelica hated it when Tories made fun of General
Washington, a gentleman whom she’d been honored to meet. George Washington was
the noblest—<i>and absolutely the tallest</i>—person she’d ever met. He had
looked invincible seated on his steel gray stallion. With grave civility, he’d
doffed his hat to her as he’d ridden past, accompanied by two smartly uniformed
aides de camp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I did not intend to mock your general, miss. I think he is
doing the best a leader can, without supplies or any trained soldiers. There
are famous precedents in military history for his strategy, you know. Fabius
was a Roman general who saved the lives of his men and finally wore his enemies
out by running away. However, while your modern Fabius runs, the civilians of
America are in terrible danger.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I know all about Fabius,” Angelica replied haughtily.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jack’s response was to chuckle and shake his fair head,
apparently amused by the dogged way she kept up her argument.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“You should read <i>The Farmer Refuted.</i>” She cited a
patriotic pamphlet that had impressed her Uncle Jacob. “The author had a wonderful grasp of both Judge Blackstone’s
work and the famous economic philosopher, Mr. Postlethwayte—”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Good Lord, miss!” Jack burst out laughing. “By God,
Armistead is right about one thing. This is a most amazing country! I’ve never, ever, had the names—much less the
virtues—of either dry-as-dust scholar brought up to me by a beautiful woman
before.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Angelica pulled her arm away from the pleasant resting place
it had been enjoying in the warm crook of his. “And why shouldn’t a woman take interest in the fate of her country?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I would never say that,”
Jack replied, cheerfully capturing her hand again. He attempted to bow an apology over it, but she pulled away. “Peace, however, is the proper preoccupation of all
womankind, for peace is necessary for the nurturing of children.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“And, therefore, war is the proper interest of mankind? The
cruel and pointless sacrifice of our sons as—as a sort of blood sport?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“By God! You are indeed a philosopher!” Swiftly, he captured her hand once <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">more. “I thought Dutch women were like their German
cousins—interested in little but babies, church, and cooking, and here you
stand, arguing like a lawyer--a good one.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Angel's Flight--adventure and romance in the American Revolution, Hudson Valley theater</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPWh5IYWdd6Izjl4yQY2MF8Kl0uuizSkzYjL7FLCxQ5VSSvPLYoipKOmhyphenhyphenmdKTGaQ2hZipxu1kalbNkwcHLTGO7RBOWpwOjJsROiGsQ-JynCuayK2L5E69p8cinl7p3-x_y2CX4WkN0TQC/s1600/thumbnail_P9120128+palamino+bare.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPWh5IYWdd6Izjl4yQY2MF8Kl0uuizSkzYjL7FLCxQ5VSSvPLYoipKOmhyphenhyphenmdKTGaQ2hZipxu1kalbNkwcHLTGO7RBOWpwOjJsROiGsQ-JynCuayK2L5E69p8cinl7p3-x_y2CX4WkN0TQC/s320/thumbnail_P9120128+palamino+bare.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><em><span style="font-style: normal;">~Juliet Waldron</span></em></span><br />
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<a href="http://amzn.to/1UDoLAi"><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , "serif";">http://amzn.to/1UDoLAi</span></a><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , "serif";">
Books by JW at Amazon<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://amzn.to/1YQziX0"><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , "serif";">http://amzn.to/1YQziX0</span></a><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , "serif";">
A Master Passion ISBN:
1771456744<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-33658301942556449302017-02-12T09:04:00.000-08:002017-02-12T09:04:00.526-08:00The Meek Shall Inherit...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Ov2tSQpmH5GRnloJRXBWg9UZo2iwnKLMQw2pYiWiSwHLt3Uj4z9U6QF2CN-f-7D1cmZZYv93FR1wX2mPfTH2643SdcFiM84PZFXvx8x0JdH9LOQZtGooTIrseReXMQtLk3JC8HzmDYjt/s1600/cute-possums-251__700.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Ov2tSQpmH5GRnloJRXBWg9UZo2iwnKLMQw2pYiWiSwHLt3Uj4z9U6QF2CN-f-7D1cmZZYv93FR1wX2mPfTH2643SdcFiM84PZFXvx8x0JdH9LOQZtGooTIrseReXMQtLk3JC8HzmDYjt/s320/cute-possums-251__700.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So, I looked into the natural history of my marsupial buddies today, and here’s what I found.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Once upon a time, 70 million years ago or thereabouts, these little guys emerged from the Cretaceous North American underbrush. The proto-possums are called Peradectids, at least, that’s the latest research from the University of Florida and those sooooooutherners should know a thing or two about possums, after all. They were sharing their territory with the dinosaurs, so things were probably pretty tough, but then, just 5 million years or so later—the mere blink of an eye in geologic time—that famous or infamous asteroid struck, putting a sudden, dramatic end to the long reign of dino domination. Possums somehow survived.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What is more, they used the new space they’d acquired, after emerging from various fallout shelters—probably the gigantic ribcages of their now deceased neighbors—and, in a fit of exuberance, split into several families. Eating insects, fruit and eggs and other people’s leftovers, they trudged down Mexico way and over the land bridge into South America, where they continued to evolve. At this time, South America, Antarctica and Australia were still cuddled up together on a big comfy couch of floating basalt, and so from here, the proto-marsupials marched on to find new homes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The three continents finally parted company and drifted away from one another. Eventually isolated in Australia, the marsupial line would proliferate into many strange and wonderful shapes. Sadly, most of these exotic critters, are now extinct or on their way out, like the legendary Tasmanian Devil, who is really—cartoon aside—quite a fetching little beast. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ODQf_dEfHf7budR28p8R9S6XAOMzjUyrNrB-yfSZWZrtvOF_ONY4YvIqO_DLlIijMKADBfWwfLdHBHJ4_aPOX0wxyuGYW-0RS-YbUUq0yo9CvrAreNQMOP-mTSbyV0m7etbyKjCd-oBD/s1600/TD-stare-threat-spec-web620+tasmanian.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ODQf_dEfHf7budR28p8R9S6XAOMzjUyrNrB-yfSZWZrtvOF_ONY4YvIqO_DLlIijMKADBfWwfLdHBHJ4_aPOX0wxyuGYW-0RS-YbUUq0yo9CvrAreNQMOP-mTSbyV0m7etbyKjCd-oBD/s320/TD-stare-threat-spec-web620+tasmanian.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Meanwhile, in North America, all the possums went extinct during a time when North and South America were no longer connected. Therefore, for an epoch or two, North America was deprived of this a vital member of Nature’s clean-up crew. Fortunately, for fans, like me, a short three million years ago, the land bridge between North and South America rose again—or the ocean receded, locked up in the polar ice caps or whatever—and possums returned to their ancient point of origin once again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now, while you are laughing at possum—squashed by the side of road—no doubt intentionally driven over by some bully of an ape with delusions of grandeur because he sits in a machine with an internal combustion engine—well, think again! The “dawn of man” --<i>and guess what, guys? There wouldn’t have been any “dawn” at all without woman, too</i>—this “dawn” began a mere 3 million years ago, about the time possum was returning from his very successful South American road trip.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit—true proto-primates came on the scene some 55 million years ago—but essentially, a possum is, was and has been, a possum. You’d recognize a Peradectid as a possum, but you sure as heck wouldn’t recognize that little shrew thing with the forward facing eyes hanging in a tree as a member of <b>your </b>high-falutin' family.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There’s something to be said for plain and simple, for humility, for not making a fuss and aggrandizing oneself--that, and for a body plan which allowed possum to survive 70 million years -- plus that legendary asteroid that took down the grandest, over-the-top animal family our planet has ever given birth to. It has been said that "the meek shall inherit the earth" and perhaps they will--which is one of the reasons why I admire this mundane, gentle creature. </span><br />
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Cute as a boxful of possums</div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">--Juliet Waldron</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.julietwaldron.com/">http://www.julietwaldron.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A restrained country romance about Post Civil War Pennsylvania--a young, too pretty German girl comes to America to the house of her well-married big sister and learns a few things about love, life and religion.</span></div>
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Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-28567715676369776442017-01-30T12:19:00.001-08:002017-01-30T12:28:47.251-08:00George Washington<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://amzn.to/1YQziX0">http://amzn.to/1YQziX0</a>
A Master Passion ISBN:
1771456744<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The story of Alexander Hamilton & of his wife, Elizabeth Schuyler</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I happened into the world on
George Washington’s birthday. For many years I took some pride from sharing the
day with the great man. After all, back in the ‘50’s it was still celebrated on
the day on which it fell, which meant that I always had my birthday off from
school. Pretty sweet—even if February in upstate NY meant we were buried in
snow. </span></div>
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Washington and Blue Skin</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It was fun to have a party on a school holiday. Friends came to sledding
parties and for snow-fort-buildings, but, by the time I was eight or nine,
costume parties were my favorite. To
have a costume party in the dead of winter was a little <i>outre—</i>remember, this is the ‘50’s in farm country—but everyone got
into the spirit, even if it just meant digging out last autumn’s Halloween
costume again. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">Father of Our Country.</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"> Think about what it means. It’s
pretty heavy stuff to lay on anybody who used to put his pants on one leg at a
time just like the rest of us. Still, when you take a look at his track record
here’s what you find: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2b0303; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“<i>Washington was
Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army upon whose victory the thirteen
colonies depended to secure their separate and equal station among the powers
of the earth. In the summer of 1787, he presided over America's Constitutional
Convention. His presence lent decisive significance to the document drafted
there, which continues in force in the twenty-first century as the oldest
written constitution in the world. From 1789-1796, he held the highest office
in the land as the first president of the United States of America under this
constitution.”</i> </span></div>
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<span style="color: #2b0303; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> * The Claremont
Institute via PBS website<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2b0303; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">More than that, Washington was <b>“the man who would not be King.”
</b>Unlike every other Revolution since, our military hero didn’t become a dictator
imperfectly hidden beneath a variety of pious designations as did so many
others: Augustus Caesar, Hitler, Napoleon,
Kim Il-sung, Stalin, Oliver Cromwell and Mao Zedong. After our American Revolutionary
War was over, he quietly went home, to tend to his plantation. Later, when his two terms as
president were completed, he went home once again. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #2b0303; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">George Washington was truly the
“Cincinnatus” his contemporaries named him. Like that legendary Roman farmer,
he left plowing his fields to assume leadership of his country in a time of
war; afterward, he went home again. Like the title of historian James Flexner’s
biography, George Washington was <b>The
Indispensable Man, </b>a popular figure who did not use his overwhelming personal popularity
to grab the reins of the new nation and declare himself Emperor, or whatever.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="color: #2b0303; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Moreover, Washington did not use his office to enrich himself. As one who'd sat through a sweltering summer in Philadelphia while the Constitution itself had been hammered out, he not only knew what it said, no doubt line by line, but he respected it, too, and intended that it should continue into the future, to serve the cause of liberty and justice for all mankind.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #2b0303; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'll close with two powerful, pertinent quotes by America's great founding father: </span><br />
<span style="color: #2b0303; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #2b0303; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>"Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>"If the freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led like sheep to the slaughter." </i></span><br />
<span style="color: #2b0303; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #2b0303; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">~~Juliet Waldron</span><br />
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Historical Novels by JW at Amazon</span><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-90000314213046166162017-01-18T15:38:00.006-08:002017-01-18T15:38:48.761-08:00The Rat and I
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">Mom and her rescue dogs, Barbados, 1962</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Another memory, this one from the West Indies, back in the
early sixties. Mom and I lived in an apartment in Bridgetown, Barbados, one
that was near the race track. Who knows what it’s like now? In those days, this
was a quiet pleasant residential area. We shared the house with the owners, a
pair of elderly British ladies who lived beneath us on the first floor. All
sorts of stories could be told about events that took place in this house, but one of the third-world
variety recently came back to me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Our kitchen was down a flight of stairs, an add-on affair at
the back of the house. Outside the door, as was common, was a step over a gutter.
Gutters ran along the sides of the streets everywhere and were to be avoided. When
someone drained gray water, from a sink or whatever, it went down the gutter,
right out in the open. You saw whether someone had washed their dishes, or
their hair, or whatever and bits and pieces traveled along the gutter as well—bits
of food etc. It was a common sight—and smell--here, but of a kind that I, as a
middle class American kid, was not accustomed to. </span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There
were chickens—they belonged to someone who lived along the street—wandering
wherever they wished, looking for bugs and odds and ends, like the bits of
garbage that ended in the dish water. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ0OJoVraUybzuPPaSr41_OewRd47RYT0FLkAOUNF5n9yOmTEPCN1QoGE6N2a1yRPMoDyhvmJQquM6mtkejZLJOXtkzrLRP99aioYMEl7gQPa3OlQp8SdCHzDSBxS1LjRfcQGC31HDtvAW/s1600/scan0025IslandInn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ0OJoVraUybzuPPaSr41_OewRd47RYT0FLkAOUNF5n9yOmTEPCN1QoGE6N2a1yRPMoDyhvmJQquM6mtkejZLJOXtkzrLRP99aioYMEl7gQPa3OlQp8SdCHzDSBxS1LjRfcQGC31HDtvAW/s320/scan0025IslandInn.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Island Inn, Barbados, 1959</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Other critters found food there as well. Rats were common,
especially outside at night, but I didn’t expect to see them inside the kitchen, which
was where I met this one. I’m going to assign a sex and call it he, though I
don’t know. He was quite tall and large, and seemed especially so because he
was standing on his hind-legs, getting ready to leap up onto the table just as I
came down the stairs. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The rat spun around and stared at me. I stood on the last
step and stared back. </span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It was
one of those frozen moments, a perfect picture left behind. He was rather pretty, actually, athletic, sinewy,
and glossy brown. His beady eyes were bright, and not particularly anxious. </span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He’d apparently come in through a broken
screen on the kitchen door; his home was probably beneath the gutter step just
outside. We were neighbors, it seemed, although uneasy ones. Who knew how many times he'd come in that way? Fortunately, we kept all our dry goods and things like bread shut away in a cupboard.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I could almost hear him thinking about what to do next; I certainly was. When I reached around the corner to grab a broom—the only weapon within
reach—he shot away through the ragged screen and vanished beneath the
step. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">~~Juliet Waldron</span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
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1771456744</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; margin: 0px;"><u>The story of Alexander & Elizabeth Hamilton</u></span></div>
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She served Anne Neville and loved her husband, Richard.</div>
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-31145181923587227232017-01-08T15:03:00.003-08:002017-01-08T15:03:18.249-08:00The Moon and I<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s hard to recreate a time when there were no words, only
feelings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Moon~~Tree~~Clouds</i>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These are the first things I remember.
Crib slats casting black shadows on a summer smooth sheet. White face through
spreading branches. Next, a perfect silver disc lending its sheen to arching branches.
The sugar maple that grew behind Grandparents house was enormous. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perhaps, long ago, it had been brought west to Ohio by a homesick Yankee. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course, I knew nothing of that. All I knew was that the
spreading maple was good to see, the harmony of black and white, the leafy
patterns, a vision which sounded in my head like a clear note. I was here, entirely secure.
Outside the broad leaves with their sharpened edges were barely moving against
a velvet sky. Moon face gazed down serene; a cloud edged in rainbow and silver
passes. </span><br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No wonder I am who I am.</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Ghosts of Abbott Road, Ellington, CT</span><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the next room, women’s voices. They were the ones who cared
for me, two young, one old, getting ready for bed next door in the spacious
bathroom, big enough to accommodate one woman at the dressing table mirror, a bather
in the claw foot tub, one at the sink running water--or perhaps even seated --the
“watercloset” was one of the first improvements my Grandfather had made after
purchasing this house. He had called his home “a girl’s dorm” for years, and
now here I came, the newest addition, another little female--the one now wondering in the
room full of moonlight. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Two Juliets, 1945</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sleep was impossible bathed in silver, danced over by mutable leaf shadow. There was nothing frustrating or lonely about it. I didn’t need to cry and call them to me, even though I knew they would come. After all, the
women were happy. I was fed and dry and comfortable. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Besides, outside my window was the venerable breathing tree and a full moon.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~~</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Juliet Waldron</span><br />
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<a href="http://amzn.to/1UDoLAi"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: blue;">http://amzn.to/1UDoLAi</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Historical Novels by JW at Amazon</span></div>
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<a href="http://amzn.to/1YQziX0"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: blue;">http://amzn.to/1YQziX0</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>A Master Passion<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>ISBN:
1771456744</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Happy Birthday, Alexander Hamilton!</span></span></div>
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-37580156858769829292016-12-25T08:21:00.006-08:002021-02-25T18:00:06.065-08:00Carol's Coat~~<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Hoag Family reunion, 1971</div><div style="text-align: center;">L. to R., Abby, Carol and Deborah Waldron</div>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">My mother-in-law, Carol, was a strong New England woman, one who was born and died in her home state of Massachusetts. She was taller and broader than me, had a powerful presence, softened by short brown curls and a ready smile. Back in the early 1970's, in between a full time job and starting the first NOW chapter in Lexington, she bought a fine Woolrich(c) coat, teal colored twill with a tan-and-white wool lining. </span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">A few years passed. Carol grew wider as folks tend to do in these United States, and the coat was handed to her youngest daughter, Abby, now married and a timber framer. That's her on the left. It probably never really fit Abby, except perhaps across the shoulders. Still, it was serviceable for a rough New Hampshire winter. The good twill broke the wind and the liner created an Indian blanket warmth. Like all coats of this period, it was unwieldy. After putting it on, you felt lumbering and bear-like. </span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">There was a hood, too, but by the time I inherited the coat, the string was gone. In deep cold or high wind, however, the big hood could still be pulled over a scarf for a second line of defense. You might look like the Abominable Snowman, but in my now senior world, so what?</span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">The coat is a keeper. It's worn weekly all through winter. Like any article of clothing that has been in use for so long, it shows it's age. For one thing, there's a dab of yellow house paint on one pocket, now hopelessly sunk into the twill. That, and a little hole on that same pocket, might suggest a thrift store source when viewed in cold, unforgiving daylight. </span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">At Christmas time, an old coat probably seems like a weird topic, but there's a part of me that, though descended from a long line of upstate New York farmers, is pure Yankee at heart. In the midst of so much consumption--<i>and so much compulsion to consume, pounding on the psyche from every side</i>--there's a part of me that's stubbornly resistant. I remember my much loved and frugal Grandfather, and the rhyme he recited to me long ago. </span><br />
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<i><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">"Use it up,</span></i></div>
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<i><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Wear it out,</span></i></div>
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<i><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Make Do </span></i></div>
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<i><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">Or do without."</span></i></div>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">In later years, I'd hear it again, now repeated among my husband's New England relatives. </span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">There is another narrative though, beyond the </span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">warts-and-all-virtue, but a memory of the two other bodies who have sheltered inside this old coat. One is a sister-in-law who has become a sister, and my formidable mother-in-law, now departed to the other side. </span></div>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">This wool and twill bears memories. It's not just "an old coat."</span></div>
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Carol, Springfield, MA HS Graduation, 1943<br />
Valedictorian</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">~~Juliet Waldron</span></div>
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Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-49045289133751068392016-12-18T15:59:00.003-08:002016-12-18T16:03:50.237-08:00The Rosemary Tree<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Well, here it is--the event no one was waiting for--a sprawling rosemary used as Christmas tree, Hanukkah Bush, or whatever. When autumn came, it seemed a shame to leave it outside to die. I can't just stick it in the garden and wait to see if it will winter over or not because after several years, I'm emotionally invested. We go back with one other for some years, this rosemary plant and I. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It would look nicer if I'd just keep it trimmed back into a sensible cone or something, but I'm from Yellow Springs, the land where the bushes and shrubberies and trees grow with perfect, radical self-expression.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Our weather where I now live might allow it to survive winter, but I haven't had a lot of luck with that strategy in this unforgiving clay soil, so I've been cosseting this one and bringing it in for the cold months. Now here it sits, taking up inordinate amounts of space on the round table between the printer, scanner and the two CPUs, so I decided to put it to seasonal use. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I put on a few store bought decorations, but the little handmade ornaments have the most meaning. My Grandmother Liddle made a few of them for church bazaars--the little sewn hearts, nutcracker men, and clothespin soldiers. Friend Joy baked a couple, the pink pig lower left, made from cornstarch and then painted. She made a Christmas tree too, all trimmed with bows and ribbons. The cornhusk angels came from GMA L too, handmade at Ohio craft stores. There are also a pair of long dangling "icicle" blown glass ornaments made long ago by Chris's Uncle John.</span> <br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The rosemary is too supple to support much weight, so I couldn't use the bird for a topper. Set in the pot is a Navaho granny, holding grandbabies in her arms. I bought this ornament when I didn't get to hug my own grandkids enough because they lived too far away. The little clay granny makes happy whenever I looked at her. Her presence always helps me to send an imaginary hug to my dear grand-girls.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">~~Juliet Waldron</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><a href="http://amzn.to/1UDoLAi"><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , "serif"; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: blue;">http://amzn.to/1UDoLAi</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , "serif"; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Historical Novels by JW at Amazon</span></span></div>
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Traditional sweet romances: </span>
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<a href="http://amzn.to/1Nn8iOw"><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , "serif"; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: blue;">http://amzn.to/1Nn8iOw</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , "serif"; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Hand-me-Down Bride<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>B00G8OYFG</span></div>
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<a href="http://amzn.to/2gvXVxl"><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , "serif"; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: blue;">http://amzn.to/2gvXVxl</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "book antiqua" , "serif"; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Butterfly Bride<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>B01MEENIRA</span></div>
Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-11994651059341659282016-12-11T08:41:00.003-08:002016-12-11T08:41:50.506-08:00God Speed, John Glenn<br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The Right Stuff</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It was on February 20, 1962 that John Glenn, a Marine pilot who'd flown 149 missions during World War Two and the Korean War, completed his historic three trips around Planet Earth--as "spam in a can." It took a heck of a lot more nerve and balls out skill to survive those earlier military assignments, I'm sure, but it was for the orbital flight of the tiny Friendship 7 that he attained fame and a ticker tape parade. Such are the ways of popular culture, but he </span><u><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">was</span></u><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> the first American to orbit the Earth and the third American in space. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Spam in a Can</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">John Glenn went on to serve his country in the Senate for many terms, as a Democrat from Ohio 1974-1999. No "come here" politician, Ohio was his home state. He'd been born in Cambridge, Ohio in 1921 and attended Muskingham College, where he studied mathematics. When the attack on Pearl Harbor brought the US into World War II, he dropped out of college and enlisted, first in the army and then, after not being called up, as a Navy aviation cadet. He was an old style gentleman, married to his childhood sweetheart for 70+ years, a staunch supporter of the social safety nets for aged and less fortunate Americans, as well as a lifelong advocate of NASA and of first class science education in the kind of well-funded public schools that kick-started his own career. (Contrast this with the politicians we elect nowadays -- lying, self-dealing confidence artists -- and feel sorry for yourselves.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was in boarding school in England when all this happened, so wasn't stateside for the hoopla, although I soon learned about it, from the teachers (mistresses) at tea time when we all sat down together. (Don't get any big ideas about "tea" at 1960's boarding schools. In those days it was brown bread and a single pat of butter, and several cups of hot tea--and that, dear readers, was all there was to eat until morning, where we received the same tea and bread all over again.) At any rate, the news made me happy. It was about time our power house country caught up with those "Ruskies!" </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the '60's, kids like me were called "children of broken homes," and mine certainly had been, with violence and betrayal, via a divorce granted by some southern state which deemed child support unnecessary. Nevertheless, I remained proud of my nation, though my classmates, whose parents remembered the great days of the British Empire, often scoffed. When I heard the news about that orbital flight--me, the solitary "Yank" walking the 45 degree halls of the grand old buildings where we boarders housed--I experienced a chest puffing moment of national pride! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One evening soon after, I stood, wrapped in my robe, in the top floor hall where three flights of stairs ended. I sang "America the Beautiful" as perfectly as I was able. My voice, of which I was proud, reverberated nicely inside the space. Though I was far away from home, alone, with no support on any side, I was, on that long ago day, proud to be an American and not afraid for anyone to know it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So, with the passing of John Glenn, another chapter in my own old memory "copybook" closes, one of a more hopeful time. As Scott Carpenter -- now the sole survivor of the Mercury Missions -- radioed on that day in 1962 -- </span><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"God Speed, John Glenn."</span></i> <br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Oldest man to fly in space, John Glenn, October 29, 1998</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~ Juliet Waldron</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All my historical novels are </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<a href="http://amzn.to/1UDoLAi"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://amzn.to/1UDoLAi</span></span></a><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">at Amazon</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><u>Alexander Hamilton and his Betsy</u>--their story at:</span><br />
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<a href="http://amzn.to/1YQziX0"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: blue;">http://amzn.to/1YQziX0</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>A Master Passion<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>ISBN:
1771456744 </span><br />
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2113884174193605796.post-82708338160896007072016-11-26T17:26:00.002-08:002016-11-26T17:26:44.643-08:00Doctor Strange -- and me<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>A headline that remains topical</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I wasn't allowed to read comics when I was a kid. I could read the newspaper funny pages, where I predictably followed "Prince Valiant." And because these were parental favorites, I also read "Pogo" and "Lil Abner." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When I was sent to camp for most of several summers (scorched-earth divorce in the works at home), I met NYC kids who refused to leave the bunkhouse and just lay around and read the zillions of comics--DC, mostly--that they'd brought in boxes from home. I've always wondered why, if their parents sent them to camp to get some sunlight and air, they allowed for the transport of all those comics. Maybe they only wanted the kids to read this stuff elsewhere. Anyway, no one could forbid my reading here, so, among this motherlode of graphic fiction,* I soon found a superhero to fit my (then) off-beat personal taste for history and myth, this time "The Mighty Thor." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It wasn't until college, as a young married student, that I met up with comics once more. This time the forbidden fruit was found in the rooms of Boston friends, many of whom were early psychonauts. It was in such rooms, hung with black light posters and India print bedspreads, that I was introduced to Doctor Strange and the rest of the </span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Marvel© World. It was "</span><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Make Mine Marvel</span></i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">" from then on. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-small;">As does this one</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I had kids young. My husband I used to read all kinds of things while seated on the floor or on the bed before lights out. As the little ones passed beyond the "Wild Things" and "When We Were Very Young," they were naturally attracted to the vivid panels of our stash of old comics. Cheap, bright, colorful, and full of drama, those old books found new readers. Eventually, every one</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, (which, if preserved in a plastic sleeve might be worth something 40 years later), was all read to rags. The coolest psychedelic drawings were silly-puttied to death.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The kids got older and so did their parents. Comics disappeared, only to return with Hollywood's decision to make lots of blockbuster teen/YA movies--a natural home for such stories of derring-do. For years, as CG progressed towards the astonishing flowering that marked Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, I've muttered, "Why don't they resurrect Doctor Strange? At last they've got the tech to really do him up proper." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Then came 2016 Dragon Con. I'd heard about the upcoming Doctor Strange movie with real excitement, especially as I'd heard about the talented cast. On the first day of Dragon Con, we were bumbling through the crowd, admiring the amazing costumes dreamed up by attendees of this yearly blow-out festival of cosplay. I had just been grousing "So, where's Doctor Strange?" when he walked through the door of the hotel. I rushed the guy, crying "Why, it's Doctor Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts and Wearer of the Eye of Agomoto! Can we get a picture???"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And there, bumped and blurry with excitement, we are! This was just the first of the excellent versions of Doctor Strange that I met over the next three days. They were all pretty great, all dressed in costumes that were copies of one or another of the character's long and varied sartorial existence. (Different artists favored different get-ups.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Next, the movie came out. I went with a contemporary who uses a cane because she needs a knee operation. We two old girls helped each other to seats in the already darkened theater, then showing the first of 10,000 DC/Marvel trailers. We'd snuck in apple slices and water bottles and settled down, after a quick glance up at a bunch of teens hiding out in the back, wondering if they wondered about why the heck we were there. We hoped for the best. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Long story short, I really enjoyed the heck out of this movie. Although there was a little too much 21st Century snark, those classy actors gave their all to such dialogue as they were offered. The knock-out visuals accomplished the rest. Suddenly, I was back in that long-ago black light lit room.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Someone in authority, I believe, really studied the originals of those old graphics, the ones I remember so well, and they were sufficiently respectful to elder fans like us to make sure these vignettes were included. At the end, I was rewarded by a vision of the same sorcerer I remember so well, gazing from the window of his Greenwich Village <i>Sanctum Sanctorum</i>!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgnuCa8WttNwgGu0itJJ6AniAg_9CH5BDyhBo2Kibxq1tVVhGm3ntovvW1hMNL8D-kxGiCTzkeG-m8uLBou43cyQ7JtvjRNReh6dh0eVpJbDjun7g1Z79LpCRfYp4gzULkqeCr2mIyIizK/s1600/benedict-cumberbatch-600-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgnuCa8WttNwgGu0itJJ6AniAg_9CH5BDyhBo2Kibxq1tVVhGm3ntovvW1hMNL8D-kxGiCTzkeG-m8uLBou43cyQ7JtvjRNReh6dh0eVpJbDjun7g1Z79LpCRfYp4gzULkqeCr2mIyIizK/s320/benedict-cumberbatch-600-5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS; font-size: x-small;">Some fantastically lucky fan took this at a NYC Comic book store...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And who could be more perfect for the character than Benedict Cumberbatch who has been giving us his BBC Sherlock Holmes with such panache--Star Trek villains, etc.? The few changes--such as making the Ancient One's gender ambiguous by casting the chameleon actress Tilda Swinton--or giving Chiwetel Ejiofor, as a strong Baron Mordo, a backstory, seemed an improvement, even to such a grumpy traditionalist as me. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I hope the residuals from some Marvel jobs will enable these talented actors to get some meatier, and far less lucrative, roles later on. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">~~Juliet Waldron</span><br />
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<a href="http://amzn.to/1UDoLAi"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">http://amzn.to/1UDoLAi</span></span></a><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Books by JW at Amazon</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Some of these are fantasy historicals...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">https://www.facebook.com/jwhistfic/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel</span></u></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">*As currently styled</span>Juliet Waldronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03636134924133019654noreply@blogger.com2