{"id":2608,"date":"2021-02-24T11:35:01","date_gmt":"2021-02-24T18:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/?p=2608"},"modified":"2021-02-24T11:51:51","modified_gmt":"2021-02-24T18:51:51","slug":"covid-tidiings-contd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/?p=2608","title":{"rendered":"COVID TIDIINGS, CONT’D"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEATTLE HAD SNOW<\/strong>, 6 inches of snow.\u00a0 That was Saturday and Sunday.\u00a0 Charlie and I frolicked in the snow.\u00a0 See picture below.<\/p>\n

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Mom runs into snowbank. Son takes picture, then unsticks mom. Latte time.<\/p><\/div>\n

Today is Tuesday.\u00a0 SEATTLE HAS SLUSH and, maybe 50 degrees.\u00a0 Pray for a drying wind. But snow is in the air and frequently on my mind.\u00a0 It’s a pandemic luxury.<\/p>\n

A SENSE OF SNOW<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a 4th generation North Dakotan who has lived the last 50 years in Minneapolis, I\u00a0have some sense of snow, which in my experience, is so much more than a builder of character and reason for nostalgia, though it is those things, too. Remember the excellent book, Smilla’s Sense of Snow<\/em> by Peter Hoeg<\/strong>?\u00a0 I loved the book and the “snow art” paintings in a recent NYT<\/strong> article mostly about \u00a0snowy day memories.<\/a><\/p>\n

I sent it to Kathy, who liked it, especially the snowing Doig and replied with snowy, likeable,\u00a0Claude Monet’s “Sandvika, Norway<\/em><\/strong><\/a>“<\/strong> from an\u00a0issue of The Norwegian American<\/strong>(!).\u00a0 \u00a0 This shamed me both for her breadth of search and it’s Norwegian pertinence.\u00a0 Charlie my #1, favorite, and only son, you may recall, is half almost pure Norwegian.\u00a0 My mother said I was a “duke’s mixture”, more likely a “prairie mix”, but surely not a “Irish mongrel”, as some ding dongs would have it.\u00a0 My dad only acknowledged the Irish, and I am my father’s daughter.\u00a0 But I digress.<\/p>\n

So, looking at\u00a0 Peter Doig’s “Cobourg 3 plus 1”<\/em><\/strong> probably painted from Canadian memories, and the Monet from his time in Norway, I concluded that Kathy liked “blurry air” paintings, but not, it turned out, falling snow jigsaw puzzles, and that to continue this pandemic lifelong learning conversation, I should think about what I liked and why.\u00a0 This is fun, I have the time, I wasn’t going anywhere, and the baa-ing “Sheep in the Shafer Vineyard”<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0on YouTub<\/strong>e were good company.<\/p>\n

In the NYT<\/strong> article, I liked Kandinsky’s “Winter Landscape”<\/em><\/strong> for the exuberant colors which made me think of hooked rugs, fiendish jigsaw puzzles, and the many colors in and of snow, and Monet’s ‘The Magpie,”<\/strong><\/em> for it’s stillness and prospects, and\/or maybe because a “Wyeth sense” (the Spidey sense gone amok?) had osmosed in me\u00a0 during my 35 summers in Wyeth country.<\/p>\n

\u00a0AN ASIDE<\/strong><\/p>\n

I love Jamie Wyeth’s snow art.\u00a0 His “A Murder of Crows”<\/em><\/strong> sits on my desk reminding me of Tenants Harbor’s Southern Island with snow fallen and illustrating his use of blues in snow shadows, apparently in the spirit of Rockwell Kent, but I don’t understand Jamie’s yellow shadows.\u00a0 One day in Maine I was\u00a0 standing next to him in front of his newly finished\u00a0 painting of a glorious window filled with sunlight on a snow- topped rock with some yellow, which, now I think, was probably kelp.\u00a0 The window was framed by the dark innards of a rustic wall.\u00a0 I liked it a lot.\u00a0 He asked what I thought.\u00a0 \u00a0“Well,” I said, repeating an art critique of fifty years earlier “I know something of snow.”\u00a0 I know; I am an idiot.\u00a0 But Jamie was my neighbor and a really good guy, so we talked of snow.\u00a0 Now I consider thusly repeating myself a sure sign of diminishing returns.\u00a0 AARRGGHH!<\/p>\n

My earlier\u00a0 “snow art” critique was in a do-over essay, assigned\u00a0 by my college writing professor, who did not think my childhood memory of Edna Peschel’s hand-painted mural on her family’s garage door was sufficiently artful for an art review assignment, though he did admit he’d like to see it.\u00a0 He told me to find something else.\u00a0 So, in the Boston Store’s Framing Department, with it’s sale table piled high with reprints, I found\u00a0\u00a0Utrillo’s “Winter in Montmarte”<\/em><\/strong><\/a> which I chose because “I knew something of snow.”\u00a0 I passed the course, the teacher probably SIGHED and good times followed.<\/p>\n

\u00a0AND SO….<\/strong><\/p>\n

All these years later, I still know only what I do like and nothing of what I should like, but who cares?\u00a0 \u00a0I have great fun deciding.\u00a0 I think it’s a pandemic gift to lighten up.\u00a0 Right now I’m making and putting together snowy jigsaw puzzles.\u00a0 Falling snowflakes are\u00a0 a pain.\u00a0 I turned Scott’s picture of whites with Roseledge bushes into a ho-hummer puzzle of “many shades of gray”. Tee-hee.<\/p>\n

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Scott’s glory of whites —\u00a0 snow, clouds, house and hall —<\/p><\/div>\n

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becomes a dreary of grays.<\/p><\/div>\n

No eyes of Kandinsky lurking in that snow.\u00a0 But with that frolic of thought, let me welcome you to the good-time world of the ever curious, enjoying a long, learning life made more “interesting”, as we say in Minnesota,” by living through a pandemic.\u00a0 Good friends,\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0ZOOM, and a sometimes obliging son help.<\/p>\n

PANDMIC AND OTHR DAY BRIGHTENERS:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read only those things that continue to be engaging, switch when they stop, and, later, maybe wonder what it’s all about, Alfie.\u00a0 So I put down Val McDiarmid’s latest, Still Life<\/em><\/strong>,<\/em> in Scotland with Karen Pirie, always engaging, but this time not so much, and started\u00a0Jane Harper’s latest, The Survivors<\/em><\/strong>, in Australia with Aaron Faulk.<\/p>\n

—————————————————<\/p>\n

Figure out how to get Charlie more excited about my caddying for him.\u00a0 My poker threat is no longer enough.\u00a0 I could haul both clubs and drinks.\u00a0 What a deal, I say.\u00a0 I might need “monster truck” tires for my wheelchair to save the fairways.<\/p>\n

——————————————————————-<\/p>\n

I am totally vaccinated!\u00a0 \u00a0This calls for a celebratory haiku.<\/p>\n

Life’s a game of tag and I’m in “free”,\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0well, almost free.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0COVID begone!<\/p>\n

For a celebration of haikus and a million other reasons, watch “The Hunt for the Wilder People”<\/em> on Netflix<\/strong>\u00a0 I love this movie.<\/p>\n

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The daffodil sprang up.\u00a0 “Free at last.\u00a0 It’s spring.”\u00a0 Then it snowed.\u00a0 “I’ll be back.”<\/p><\/div>\n

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A ZOOM quote for the ages<\/strong>: “I am not a cat, Judge,<\/a>” said the cat-filtered lawyer on a Zoomed legal proceeding.\u00a0 But who knew?\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I laughed so hard that Charlie, sleeping on the sofa, woke up thinking I was choking to death.\u00a0 Then I played it again and laughed until my stomach hurt.\u00a0 Self harming?<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SEATTLE HAD SNOW, 6 inches of snow.\u00a0 That was Saturday and Sunday.\u00a0 Charlie and I frolicked in the snow.\u00a0 See picture below. Today is Tuesday.\u00a0 SEATTLE HAS SLUSH and, maybe 50 degrees.\u00a0 Pray for a drying wind. But snow is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2608"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2608"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2638,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2608\/revisions\/2638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}