Old Home Week

Hello World, Happy Autumn! The fall season is officially ushered in on September 23, and about as welcome as, well, a breath of spring, I guess - if only six months later and on the flip side of the equinox, that is. There's certainly no complaints about the weather around here, that's for sure, and each day seems to be more picture-perfect than the one before. The leaves have yet to start changing here, and most of the summer blooms have long since lost their luster, with just a few holdouts like late roses, straggly petunias and pansies, and of course, Bill's exquisite dahlias. Adding fresh color to the landscape, now we have fall crocus, also known as saffron, and my giant funkia, which is a type of hosta that has been a remarkable stalwart in the garden, in spite of numerous obstacles to its success. (Not the least of which was some of our new neighbors a while back, whose gardeners inadvertently dug it up and replanted it elsewhere in their yard by mistake, so that I had to traipse over there and ask for it to be returned to its rightful spot, thanks not.) It won't be long before the frost is on the pumpkin, as they say, so we should all be sure to get out there and enjoy the bounty of the season while it lasts, by golly. And speaking of nature's bounty, we have the following from Bill, after I cast aspersions on the whole idea of "house" mosquitoes: ==================================== I thought you came down a little hard on the house mosquitos, though. It occurred to me that maybe the article was talking about the mosquitos' houses, not ours. They might be right at home someplace and our environs could be just a vacation bungalow. (I wouldn't be surprised if they had little stickers on the windows next to their doors that said "I undonated blood".) ==================================== Come to think of it, he might very well be on to something there. In other wildlife news, we have this curious entry from a day last week on our Cat-a-Day calendar: =================================== People anthropomorphize their cats, even when it comes down to musical preferences. But while numerous people swear that their cats like listening to the same kind of music they enjoy, others have had the turntables turned. One cat owner who regularly left her radio set to an easy listening station claimed that her Siamese cat changed it to hard rock every time she went out. Another woman, who owned a Russian Blue, said her cat would run out of the room unless she was listening to Mahler. =================================== Our cats seem oblivious to music for the most part, although we did once have one who would bat at the puck whenever we watched hockey on television. Nowadays, I think ours are too intent on their diabolical schemes for world domination, to be concerned with such mundane matters as music and sports. And while we're on the topic of popular entertainment, I am reminded of this amusing tidbit from the Golden Age of Hollywood: ================================ A MOVIE DIRECTOR'S MOST DIFFICULT ASSIGNMENT One of the great American movie directors was the late John Huston, whose films included The Maltese Falcon, Moby Dick, Annie and the one he described as the toughest assignment of all, The Bible. He said that he found the Creation scene and the Noah's Ark Flood scene especially difficult. "I had a terrible time doing them," he said. "I really don't know how God managed it." With thanks to The Preacher's Illustration Service ================================ Ya gotta love it! Speaking of God, here's a classic cautionary tale about legendary playwright Moss Hart, who rose from humble beginnings to the loftiest heights of the Great White Way, which supposedly prompted this observation from his long-time collaborator, George S. Kaufman: ================================== After his first Broadway smash, Hart’s life morphed from the grim black-and-white of poverty to Technicolor. Vowing that he would never take the subway again or get up before noon, Hart splurged in out-of-control fashion. As Look magazine noted in a 1940 spread, “The play’s the thing that has brought prolific Moss Hart a big bank account, two museum-like houses and radiant smiles from every antique dealer in Manhattan.” His prodigious spending provided fodder for his friends. After visiting Hart’s manicured 87-acre country estate, one of Hart’s pals quipped, “It shows you what God would have done if He'd had the money.” ================================== Indeed! And finally, we have this wonderfully restorative commentary from The Plague and I by Betty MacDonald, who somehow managed to put a cheerful slant on her harrowing treatment for tuberculosis, as endured in a grim sanitarium way out in the isolated wilderness and far away from any pleasures of civilization: =================================== I roomed with Sigrid for a month and she was the perfect roommate. Always pleasant, always courteous, never emotional. I was all jagged peaks of ecstasy, deep chasms of depression. She could have been graphed with one straight line. As I read a great deal and seemed contented doing it, she asked to borrow my books as soon as I finished them. But after reading a few pages, she tossed them all aside as "too fanciful." For anyone who thought The Grapes of Wrath "too fanciful," I didn't know what to suggest. =================================== Well, that certainly hits home in more ways than one, I dare say, and homeward bound is exactly where we should all probably be wending our weary way at this point. That is, unless your home is the residence for all of the local house mosquitoes, and then all bets are off. Elle