I took a little walk around the gardens yesterday in between massive thunderstorms. We had two days of big, prolonged, and loud thunderstorms. Huge cracks of thunder which shook the house, torrential rain that seemed to go on and on – what I think of as summer storms.
Anyway, sometimes I wander around just to see if I can spy some insect life on the flowers.
Look at this guy! Miniscule!
I looked for the yellow garden spider. The web was still there, but no spider. When they leave, they usually dismantle the web, so I figured he was still around somewhere. Then I noticed him on top of one of the nearby coneflowers.
He was expanding his web. You can see part of it on the left. This guy is like a major property developer. If you could only see how large this three-sided complex is, you’d be astounded! By the way, one of my former students commented on IG that I should name him Edward.
So Edward it is.
I was chatting on Instagram with a former student, Brian Hutchison, who is currently out in Los Angeles filming The Boys in the Band, along with another former student, Jim Parsons. They were part of the cast of the Tony Award-winning Broadway production about a year ago and now it’s being recorded on film. Anyway, apparently Jim and Brian were talking about me the other day and that made me smile. I’m so proud of both of them – truly nice guys who have done well. Brian sent me a picture of the two of them on set. We’re all still friends and I’m so grateful for that.
It’s always nice to hear from former students – both from the Old Globe/USD and Boston University. My extended family, I suppose. Thankfully, most of them keep in touch via Facebook or Instagram or email. I can follow their careers, their marriages, babies – quite frankly, that’s the only reason I remain on Facebook. It connects me to hundreds of former students.
I finished the Kate Atkinson yesterday and dropped it off at the library. I’ve started The Overstory by Richard Powers, which won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It’s rather extraordinary, unlike anything I’ve read before. I don’t have the words to describe it yet, so I’ll use the words from the publisher’s blurb on the back of the book.
“National Book Award winner Richard Powers’s twelfth novel is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of – and paean to – the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, The Overstory unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours – vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.”
So far, I’m completely enthralled and I expect to feel even more so as I delve further into the novel. He is a beautiful writer. I’ve had my eye on it for a while, but it just came out in paperback and that clinched the deal.
My back is getting much better. It’s still sore when I first wake up and begin to move around, but on the whole, I’ve turned a corner.
Happy Thursday.
Glad your back is feeling better. Here in Central Florida it’s hard to remember a day lately without thunderstorms. We saw Don on an old Law and Order this morning. He was in a scene early in the show as part of a unit investigating a murder. Felt like seeing an old friend on the tv screen. Hope you have a great day!
I think that’s the one with Jerry Orbach, right? Don loved working with him. And after the scenes were finished, Jerry looked at Don and said “Solid as a brick.” That’s high praise. Huge fan of Jerry Orbach, a man who had an incredible career in theater as well. Don knows Jerry’s son, Chris, as well.
I believe it was. I’ve always admired Mr. Orbach’s work too. Our next door neighbors daughter whom I once babysat and is like a daughter to us is pursuing an acting career in Atlanta and has been doing a lot of auditions in the past few months. We have seen her in one episode of a show on tv a year or so ago. It’s A surreal thing to see her on tv.
xoxo
So nice to hear your back is improving Claudia☆
Thank you, Grace! I’m still babying it a bit, but I get real tired of just doing NOTHING!
I LOVED “The Overstory”. Read it last year and recommend it to everyone. The only problem with it is I could not put it down!
Enjoy!
High praise! I’m just about to settle down and read some more, Betsy. Thanks!
Claudia, thankfully, your back is improving. I started getting more active and more serious about healthy food choices about a month ago. I’m super-chuffed about my progress in walking (I walk at least 3 miles 5-6 times a week, at a 14-15 minute per mile pace) and in weight training. Crunches every day. I can feel my back is no longer achy in the morning when I get up, so my core I still getting stronger.
Good for you, Wendy! I don’t think crunches are for me, but walking sure is!
So happy that your back is better. Take it easy and do not overdo it.
Marilyn
I will, Marilyn. Thank you!
hurray for turning a corner (feeling better)! keep going that way!
glad you have those good things … don, friends, reading good books …!
lots of political talk around here … the state fair started today. i’ll pass on it all right now.
kathy in iowa
ps: i cannot relate to your bug hunt at all!
Oh, they’re fascinating. You should take a walk and observe them. I never cared much about them until I moved here. Concentrating on what is in the world just outside our door has been so rewarding!
we do live in a beautiful, fascinating world, but bugs freak me out! on my walks i look at flowers and other plants (not so close as to see or bug any bugs … or the property owners), architecture, clouds …
anyway, thanks for the encouragement! :)
kathy in iowa
xo
can’t wait to read, “The Overstory”, myself! let us know how you like it.
I will. Thanks, Nancy!
Claudia is good to know that you are feeling better, I also have neck and back pain, I have body posture issues that affect the cervical spine that my reading habits in bed together with too much crochet do not help my recovery, my doctor recommended me to do Pilates.
Pilates are great, though I haven’t done them for years! Thanks, Edis.
I find bugs fascinating and appreciate when they stay in the environment–outside!! I have no tolerance for mosquitoes, tho, and don’t like flies for the diseases they spread. I appreciate the industry of ants but we get big carpenter ants that bite the you know what out of us and they are not welcome here. However, this being said, your photos of insects elevate them to an art form which all creation is and it’s a beautiful part of you that sees and shows that. There’s a great bio on On Demand PBS here about Ursula K. LeGuin–I used a couple of her works in my Master’s Thesis, but I knew next to nothing about her. Even if you don’t read her adult fiction, she’s quite the literary scion and a fascinating woman to boot. I think you and Don would enjoy it. Very interesting things to say about art, women’s role in art, feminism, the future of literature, story telling. Quite rich. I’m going to watch it again. Wish I’d known more about her 20 years ago, I would probably have chosen to focus on her rather than on Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale which is still one of my all-time favorite feminist dystopian novels. As you can tell, the bio really got the little gray cells stimulated. We survived another round of strong storms just missing us last night, but saw they went thru the Hudson Valley. Hope you’re all still standing. Have a wonderful late summer weekend. (I think that was an alternate title for Shakespeare’s play.). XOXO
I’ve never had an issue with flies except the need to free them – both Don and I do our best to rescue them and put them back outside. They have such short lives that the least I can do is try to get them out of the house and into their natural environment.
Thanks for the recommendation! I’ll look for that program, Nora!
Here one rainy day (yesterday), one sunny day (today), one rainy day (tomorrow). This has been going on for the whole summer. However, the meadows and trees are green, which is a blessing after last year. We’ve had thunderstorms (and no power afterwards). All the best to you and your sore back! Regula
Green is good. I bet it’s lovely to see all that green in the countryside, Regula!