From our morning walk, which, even though early, was pretty humid.
Literally just down the road from us. The same river that is also just across the street from us.
We live in a beautiful place.
88 degrees and humid today. And tomorrow. And Saturday. Yikes. I do my best to refrain from turning on the air conditioner until it becomes unbearable. It’s nice to get some fresh air in the house before we have to close it up.
I guess we went right from rainy spring to hot and humid.
We watched a foreign movie last night on Netflix: Todos lo saben – or Everyone Knows. It stars Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, two extremely talented actors who happen to be married to each other in real life. I won’t give away the plot. It’s terrific – beautifully filmed and a gripping story line. It was so powerful for us that we talked about it for an hour this morning over our second cup of coffee and we’re going to watch it again tonight. The cast, most of whom I’m unfamiliar with, is uniformly excellent. There’s something about watching a foreign film, where most of the actors are unknown to you, that allows you to sink into the plot. Not that American actors aren’t talented, they are, but there’s so much ‘image’ and ‘celebrity’ larger-than-life stuff that you already know about them and you can’t help but be aware that it’s Julia Roberts, say, or George Clooney, playing a role. It’s not fair to them, of course. It’s just the way it is.
Anyway, it’s quite well done. Excellent.
I’m about midway through The Diary of a Bookseller and I’m really enjoying it. The author is slightly irascible in a wonderful way and his observations about the book trade, customers and the looming threat of Amazon are edifying. I find myself chuckling out loud frequently.
Happy Thursday.
I love that river. You are so fortunate to have that so close by. Not being near water is the one thing I miss about living in Atlanta. I am going to be on the search for some rivers. xo Laura
Being near water is lovely. I grew up in Michigan, surrounded by the Great Lakes, and our family had a cottage at a lake.
We live by a lot of water, too – a lake and creeks that run off of it right in our neighborhood, more lakes in the State Park just right down the road, and a major river a couple of miles away.
And, as usual lately, having the same weather as you. High 80’s – low 90’s now and humid. Brian has the day off and was outside all morning, mowing, watering and cleaning out gutters. I made sure he kept hydrated. He came in just awhile ago literally dripping with sweat. His clothes were soaked. He’s taking a cool shower now.
Good weather to stay indoors and read or watch a movie. That’s what we’ll be doing this afternoon after we run to Aldi in a few min. Tim’s coming for dinner tonight after he gets off work and we’ll be grilling, so back outside.
xoxo
Yes, the lakes and rivers around here have the mountains as a backdrop and it’s pretty darned gorgeous. The only thing better would be to live on a lake. That would be a dream come true.
I did some weed pulling for a half hour or so and I had to come in and take my second shower for the day. Like Brian, I was dripping!
Thanks for the recommendation, Claudia.
Oh, and thanks also for alerting me to Crystal. I bought another on last week’s sale!
Oh good! I missed that one, but I didn’t plan on bidding anyway.
I love the pot that’s holding the beautiful flowers. Does it have a story? I admire it every time it shows up on your blog. I am keeping my eye out for one in this shape—no luck!
I got it at a nursery last year – I know it was made in Italy. I have another one in a different shape near the birdbath. When I was at the same nursery this year, I didn’t see any of them in stock. I’m glad I bought them when I did!
Claudia, I used to visit my grandparents in the Ottawa area every July/August. So, I know I don’t like hot and humid! I love living near water. I’m only a few blocks from the San Francisco Bay and I can’t imagine living far from water.
Even more so here because we’re quite a bit south of Ottawa. I wouldn’t want to live far from water, either. My dream is to live on a lake.
wow … what a beautiful view!!! i am so happy for you to have that close by to enjoy!
glad you’re liking a book-ish book. it sounds good; so does the movie. thanks for sharing them.
only a couple human-made lakes around here. all of them are either north of town or on the southern edge, except one pretty little (less than two miles to walk around) lake … and unfortunately the road it’s on floods nearly every spring. been off-limits for a couple months while the damage is repaired. :( having lived for many years in minneapolis meant easy access to lots and lots of lakes (there are three connected in town less than a mile from where i lived) … but wouldn’t trade living here with my family for any lake or ocean! several of us are heading north, though, next month and chartering a boat on lake superior … looking forward to that! here at home, i have lots of “water” art, books and blue furnishings, “ocean waves” and “thunderstorm” cds … there’s just something about moving water!
kathy in iowa
I’ve spent time on all the Great Lakes – and we often sailed on Lake Erie when I was a kid. Growing up in Michigan I had access to water pretty much everywhere! And my parents lived on Lake Huron in their early years of retirement.
recently you posted (on the right side of your blog) the image of a book you read, “paris in winter” by david coggins, right? i kept looking at it because i love the watercolor-y cover. well, hey, if you’re curious … there is a house tour of the home he shares with his wife and pup on the very lovely “cup of jo” blog. it was posted in march of this year with the title “this cozy minnesota home will make you want a candlelabra”. and their son’s nyc apartment is toured there today (“a book-filled manhattan apartment where everything tells a story”). interesting to see the similarities (among them, the son is also a writer).
have a good night!
kathy in iowa
Yes, I know all about that. That post is how I learned of David Coggins. And why I bought the book!
You DO live in a beautiful area. So lucky to have such nice woods nearby. We also went from cold, wet spring to hot, humid summer. I held off on the air conditioning until early evening tonight. Some pretty violent thunderstorms rolled through late afternoon and yet it didn’t cool off like it has. Have to admit it feels pretty sweet.
I’m a big fan of air conditioning! Especially in this kind of humid weather!
There’s definitely some sweet little indy or foreign films out there; I usually only find them by happenstance and then some become my faves. I do worry when films get too much hype with our usual slew of box office draws (the bigger stars). Like I guess I could get egged for this but I watched the remake of ‘A Star Is Born’ (just in parts, I’ve got to watch it beginning to end); and, so far, I’m feeling let down although I enjoy so much of Bradley Cooper’s acting and I’m glad he got a lot of accolades for his first time out directing, not to mention good numbers at the box office.
Claudia, do you know from the history of your area and your house, if those rivers in your vicinity have ever flooded? You’re kind of up on a knoll, so you’d probably always stay dry? I have this sort of thing on my mind because of FEMA hammering us to their decision that my backyard is NOT in a flood plain but my front yard IS, due to the proximity of our river, which is across a freeway, a boulevard, industry, housing (for Pete’s sake). The flood insurance costs us anywhere from $800-$1000 per year and that’s completely separate from our homeowner’s insurance. If we deny it, nobody will insure us. What I mean by that is that if you go against FEMA and say you’re not getting flood insurance, you then can’t get homeowner’s insurance. It’s been really hard for a lot of long-time homeowners who are elderly, when their homes were paid for a long time ago and it’s enough for them to just make sure their property taxes get paid each year when on fixed income/low income, but then they get hit with this big flood insurance bill; some just can’t pay it, according to my insurance guy.
The larger river here sometimes floods in certain flat areas. We are not subject to floods where we live and I have no idea if some of those rare flood prone sections require flood insurance for those who live or have businesses nearby.
Oh, you’re lucky then! Beautiful river, not a threat. You probably don’t even get mosquitoes because it’s moving, not like a quite-still-placid lake or pond. You picked a great place to live. It’s so pretty, the local scene.
Oh we get mosquitoes and we’re going to have a hell of a lot of them later in the summer because of all the rain we’ve had.
The Colorado River in Texas runs in a 270-degree arc around where we live, always about half a mile away. (We’re on the high side.) We live within walking distance of a wildlife refuge, and I used to walk my golden retrievers there along the paths several times a week before they passed over that rainbow bridge. We’ve held our breath in recent floods because so many areas that never flooded are being flooded, but we were safe. Our security cameras wake us up recently several times a night as deer, rabbits and the most delightfully playful skunks! come play in our yard. The deer are partial to the blue mist which was our butterfly plant and to our rosemary. The skunks hang out beneath the nest of barn swallows that come to our house each year, I guess hopeful that an egg or hatchling will topple out. Skunks can carry rabies, so as soon as this set of fledglings leaves, that nest comes down permanently, although we have loved watching mom and pop raise two sets of fledglings each summer.
Thanks for the recommendation. Can’t wait to watch it!
We’ve never had flooding here, either. I suppose there’s always a first time, but even my neighbor across the street (who is right next to the river, lives about 20 feet above the banks of the river.